SOCECOL E8 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Hanford Site

• School: UC-Irvine
• Department: Social Ecology
• Course: SOCECOL E8
• Professor: John M.Whiteley

Document Summary

Failure to anticipate a problem before it arrived. Perceiving or failing to perceive a problem that has actually arrived: diamond offers a number of reasons for such situations. For example, the origins of some problems are imperceptible. The problem maybe in the form of a slow trend hidden by wide up-and-down fluctuations. A second reason is landscape amnesia where people forget how things use to be because change is so gradual: a classic example is environmental surprise. This is called rational because it employs correct reasoning even though it maybe morally reprehensible. Another source of irrational bad behavior is trying to solve clashes between short- term and long-term motives. Disastrous values: people often cling to values when they no longer make sense. The problem may be beyond the capacity of a society to solve it. The reasons may be lack of the necessary technology, knowledge, or financial resources.