population policy
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Hunter-gatherer populations were much less dense than later agriculturalists. The variety of their food supply protected them from crop failures and their sparseness reduced the spread of infectious diseases. Hunter-gatherers were healthier and worked less than early agriculturalists. Why didn't their numbers increase up to the same level of Malthusian misery? Their numbers may have been limited by violence between groups. Agriculture is m...more
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Environmental Politics and Law (EVST 255) The military's use of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as a training site is discussed to highlight the challenges involved in identifying and restoring hazardous sites. Political opposition is faced while attempting to get a site recognized as hazardous, deciding how to compensate those affected, and determining an appropriate level of environmental restoration. The recurring theme of governm...more
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The main focus of today's discussion is Rawls's third and most problematic principle, the difference principle, which states that income and wealth is to be distributed "to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged individual." This stems from the logic that what is good for the least advantaged individual will be good for the second-least advantaged, and the third, and so on. But what if slightly benefiting the least advantaged person ...more
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Prior to the Demographic Transition, fertility in northwestern Europe was controlled by limiting marriage. Marriage was regulated by landowners and the churches, and was not allowed unless a man had accumulated the resources necessary to support a family. Long periods of being landless, a servant, or an apprentice, precluded marriage. Once married, there was no control of fertility. But, only about half of adults were married at any given ...more
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Environmental Politics and Law (EVST 255) To illustrate the linkages among national security, secrecy, and environmental quality, Professor Wargo describes the Atomic Energy Commission's nuclear tests in the 1950s. The Atomic Energy Commission collected data on the spread of radionuclides from the nuclear tests, and discovered that the radionuclides were circulating around the world. This process of discovery raised issues regarding way...more
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In addition to cultural controls acting to maximize fertility, there are important, and often competing, interests of individual families to limit fertility. Unwanted births are dealt with by infanticide in many cultures. Additionally, fertility is regularly controlled by limiting marriage within a culture. Another very important factor in population growth, especially in the tropics, is food availability. Heavy rains in the tropics wash n...more
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Environmental Politics and Law (EVST 255) This lecture covers site restoration law by looking at the US Navy's use of the island of Vieques as weapons testing ground. Vieques residents are filing a civil suit against the US government, which raises issues of burden of proof, scientific certainty with respect to exposure amounts and health impacts, and how the government protects citizens from environmental hazards. Professor Wargo trace...more
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Environmental Politics and Law (EVST 255) The lecture discusses developments in air quality monitoring and regulation in the United States, with an emphasis on regulating vehicle emissions. Monitoring takes place at fixed points with results being averaged over three years, and this data informs air quality standard setting. Studies have found that this form of monitoring underreports the amount of pollution that children and other susc...more
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Professor Freeman lays out the logic of American resistance to British imperial policy during the 1770s. Prime Minister Lord North imposed the Intolerable Acts on Massachusetts to punish the radicals for the Boston Tea Party, and hoped that the act would divide the colonies. Instead, the colonies rallied around Massachusetts because they were worried that the Intolerable Acts set a new threatening precedent in the imperial relationship. In...more
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Professor Summers, former U. S. Treasury Secretary and former President of Harvard University, in this the first of two lectures in honor of former Yale Professor and Council of Economic Advisors chairman Arthur Okun, offers thoughts on the role of monetary policy in economic fluctuations, past and present. In the "Okun period," ending about when Okun died in 1980, the monetary authorities were very much involved in actually creating econo...more
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Professor Kleiner features the tumultuous year of 68-69 when Rome had four competing emperors. Vespasian emerged the victor, founded the Flavian dynasty, and was succeeded by his sons, Titus and Domitian. The Flavians were especially adept at using architecture to shape public policy. Professor Kleiner demonstrates that Vespasian linked himself with the divine Claudius by completing the Claudianum and distanced himself from Nero by razing ...more
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Part 1 - Hired Guns?: During the Civil War, men drafted into war had the option of hiring substitutes to fight in their place. Many students say they find that policy unjust, arguing that it is unfair to allow the affluent to avoid serving and risking their lives by paying less privileged citizens to fight in their place. This leads to a classroom debate about war and conscription. Is today’s voluntary army open to the same objection? ...more
