Associate Professor of Government Peter Cannavò was a member of a panel that explored ways to discuss environmental issues without the conversation becoming polarized. The session, “Depolarizing the Environment: Thinking Broadly about Science Policy and Politics,” was Feb. 13 at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) in Syracuse. It was part of the SUNY Conversations in the Discipline program.
Among other things, the group discussed constructive engagement across political divides on topics such as hydrofracking and climate change and ways academics can promote constructive discussion at the difficult interface of environment, politics, culture and science.
Also on the panel were Steven F. Hayward, author, scholar and a professor of public policy at Pepperdine University’s Graduate School of Public Policy; Sarah Pralie, associate professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University; and Quentin Wheeler, ESF president.
Cannavò is the author of The Working Landscape: Founding, Preservation, and the Politics of Place (MIT Press, 2007), which examined the conflict between development and preservation as a major factor behind our contemporary crisis of place. His work and teaching are in areas of political theory; environmental theory, politics and history; the politics of place; and ethics and public policy.
