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SUMMARY:The spread of environmental cost-benefit analysis in UK government
 \, c.1966-1995: representing the public in the Anthropocene - Charles Trou
 p (Yale)
DTSTART:20260526T160000Z
DTEND:20260526T170000Z
UID:TALK246418@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr AM Price
DESCRIPTION:Between 1948-1971\, UK public officials across government came
  to practise cost-benefit analysis routinely as a means of justifying inve
 stment and regulatory decisions. From 1966\, a small number of these analy
 ses 'took nature into account' by quantifying as money the value 'to the c
 ommunity' of beautiful\, leisure-ready environments. Only from around 1986
 \, however\, do we find civil servants beginning to monetize the value of 
 environmental costs and benefits widely and on a regular basis in policy a
 nalysis. They still do so — calculating the contribution of biodiverse e
 cosystems\, raw materials\, and non-toxic atmospheres to human wealth\, he
 alth\, and happiness — making environmental CBA one prominent component 
 of our ongoing response to the contemporary ecological crisis. How should 
 we explain and interpret this process: of public officials bringing 'the e
 nvironment' more routinely into cost-benefit analysis\, and cost-benefit a
 nalysis more prominently into environmental governance? I argue that the m
 ost important developments in this story took place at the transnational l
 evel\, as UN and EC agencies turned to environmental CBA as a means to giv
 e everyday administrative expression to the abstract goal of 'sustainable 
 development'. By doing so\, these transnational authorities essentially sc
 aled up and adapted practices that national governments and nationalized e
 nterprises had developed for the management of public goods in the mid-twe
 ntieth century. This project\, I conclude\, was heavily influenced by the 
 novel problems of political representation created by the twin processes o
 f global environmental degradation and European integration. In bureaucrac
 ies' attempts to monetize the value 'to the community' of natural environm
 ents in public decision-making\, we find a deeply flawed attempt to fashio
 n and represent a collective agent on a scale equal to the ecological cris
 is\, distinctively non-national in its dimensions. 
LOCATION:Seminar Room 3\, Cripps Court\, Magdalene College
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