re
:
think
Winter 2014
10
The subject of the book ties in to
one of Professor Barton’s current research
projects on the ownership of minerals
found in geothermal fluids. It also fits
in well also with a pending report on
fracking
from
the
Parliamentary
Commissioner for the Environment, and
recently-issued guidelines on petroleum
operations from the Ministry for the
Environment, he says.
In the book, Professor Barton
contributes a chapter on property rights
of underground resources and says his
research found that the underlying
common law is more in favour of the
WHY RECYCLE?:
Professor Nick
Hanley says there
are many reasons
people recycle
household waste.
STRANGE as it may seem, many people are
persuaded to recycle because their neighbours do it.
Research by environmental economist Professor Nick
Hanley finds that people are motivated to recycle
their household waste for three reasons: for personal
reasons – they don’t like the idea of waste and the
pollution it causes, they want to be seen as good
citizens and therefore respond to the social pressure to
recycle, and they feel they have a moral duty to do it.
Professor Hanley, from Stirling University in
Scotland, is Distinguished Visiting Academic at
the University of Waikato Management School this
semester. With colleagues from Warsaw in Poland
and Oslo in Norway, he carried out two recycling
surveys in Polish towns.
“The whole of Europe is under huge pressure
to reduce waste and there are numerous different
recycling schemes,” says Professor Hanley. “We found
that within the communities we studied in Poland
there were three types of recyclers – the greens, who
do it for selfish, social or moral reasons; then there are
people, usually on lower incomes, who can see ways
to save money by recycling, and the third group is
the reluctant recyclers who only do it if they have to.”
The researchers also found communities with
stronger ties tended to have better recycling rates. “It
seems people have a natural inclination to behave how
others would like them to behave, to show compliance
within a group,” says Professor Hanley. “They worry
about what their neighbours might think about them,
including their recycling behaviour.”
What surprised the researchers was how willing
people were to sort their recycling material. Given a
choice of not sorting at all, or splitting their waste into
two or five categories, the majority of respondents
chose five. “It seems the more you think you have
a moral responsibility to recycle, the higher your
preference for more sorting categories, and people
put more effort in,” says Professor Hanley. “People
were keen to sort even when they knew their local
authority would do it if they didn’t.”
He says it could be that local authorities need to
develop recycling polices that focus less on the cost
savings to individuals and compulsion, and more on
“nudge” factors which seem effective in changing how
people behave.
Putting out
the recycling
From Raglan to the world
NEW AND emerging technologies have an
extraordinary ability to stir the public imagination.
Mention nanotechnology, synthetic biology, or
assisted reproductive technologies at a gathering
and you’ll either hear euphoric pronouncements of
the possibilities of life enhancement and economic
prosperity or despairing gasps of environmental
destruction and the
loss of all that makes
us human.
So
if
views
are so polarised
on whether these
technologies are a
boon or a bane, how
can we ever design
policies on which of
these technologies
should be used and
how and in what
context? How do
we formulate policies that consider even more
fundamental questions such as who should
control new technologies, for what purpose, and to
what effect?
A search for answers to these questions led
us to a journey across New Zealand where we
interviewed scientists, environmentalists, farmers,
doctors, policy analysts, indigenous leaders, political
activists, entrepreneurs, and business people with
views on new technologies. Some were excited by
the possibilities of new technologies, others critical
about them, but they nearly all had firm views.
Sifting through the interview transcripts, we
found that the huge range of opinions could not
simply be classified as pro-technology or anti-
technology.There was, surprisingly, a lot in between.
It is the realm of the ‘in-between’ that attracted our
attention and we set about running Q-sort surveys
among those who represented certain beliefs, values,
and ideologies on new and emerging technologies. In
these innovative surveys, respondents were asked to
comparatively rank and prioritise some positions over
other positions instead of choosing one response.
Being forced to rank their preferences, respondents
had to spread their views over a continuum instead
of bunching up on the ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ ends of
the scale.
Almost like ultra-violet light showing up
messages written in invisible ink, the process
illuminated a lot of the common ground that the
diverse groups shared. And this is the common
ground over which policies can be negotiated.
We organised an international symposium
on controversial science and technologies at the
University of Waikato in February 2014 and are
currently analysing the insights from the two days
of deliberations as well as data from the Q-sort
surveys, which will feed into research publications.
The research, funded by a Marsden grant of the
Royal Society of New Zealand, uses a theoretical
frame of Sustainable Citizenship developed by us
(forthcoming in the journal Citizenship Studies).This
framework mixes the blacks and whites of issues
and gets groups with conflicting views to work with
many shades of grey.
An overview of our ongoing research is
available on:
sustainable-citizenship-project/home
Communicating
technology
PROFESSOR
DEBASHISH MUNSHI
AND ASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR
PRIYA KURIAN
A NEW book by international experts on
developments in the area of underground
energy law had its genesis in Raglan.
The book, The Law of Energy
Underground:
Understanding
New
Developments in Subsurface Production,
Transmission, and Storage, was put together
by the Academic Advisory Group (AAG) of
the International Bar Association’s Section
on Energy, Environment, Natural Resources
and Infrastructure Law (SEERIL).
It contains a comprehensive and
interdisciplinary study into the law
applicable to the rapidly developing field of
the production, transmission, and storage
of energy underground and investigates
the challenges posed to the existing
legal framework by new developments
such as fracking, geothermal energy,
underground electrical activity, and carbon
capture and storage.
Professor Barry Barton – from the
University of Waikato’s Te Piringa-Faculty
of Law – hosted the AAG in Raglan last
year. They were welcomed to the west
coast town by former Faculty of Arts
& Social Sciences Lecturer Angeline
Greensill at the Whaingaroa Kohanga Reo.
It was in Raglan the group
“developed our thinking in the area and
that led to the book”, Professor Barton says.
landowner, rather than the owner of the
mineral rights.
Contributors to the book represent a
range of international experts from several
countries and Professor Barton says that
had been a good experience in itself.
“We all learn about different cultures,
different approaches and that leads to
adjustments in our own thinking,” he says.
Professor Barton presented the book
and the group’s research findings to the IBA
Biennial Conference of SEERIL in Berlin
in April and another conference at Oxford
University in May.
Jubilee Scholarships
THE UNIVERSITY of Waikato is celebrating
50 years and to mark the milestone is
offering 10 Golden Jubilee Scholarships
valued at $10,000 a year for up to
four years.
The scholarships will be awarded to
school leavers intending to study at the
University of Waikato in 2015, and will
be awarded on the basis of academic
excellence, leadership potential and
community citizenship.
Eligible applicants will need to be
enrolled in a New Zealand secondary
school in 2014. They must also have
achieved NCEA Level 2 Certificate
with Merit or Excellence or the equivalent
through examinations such as the
Cambridge International Examinations
(CIE) or the International Baccalaureate
(IB) examination.
Applications are open from 1 May to
1 September 2014 and more information
can be found on the University of Waikato’s
50th website.
COMMENT
BY PROFESSOR DEBASHISH MUNSHI AND
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR PRIYA KURIAN
WARMWELCOME: International law experts were welcomed at theWhaingaroa
Kohanga Reo in Raglan.
