George Busenberg, PhD
Associate Professor of Environmental Management and Policy Soka University
Media
Biography
Areas of Expertise
Accomplishments
Excellence in Teaching Award, School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver
2005
Education
Rice University
B. A.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Ph. D.
Articles
Wildfire Management in the United States: The Evolution of a Policy Failure
Review of Policy ResearchGeorge J Busenberg
2004
Wildland fires constitute a major crisis in American environmental policy, a crisis created by a longstanding policy failure. This article explores the political processes that generated and reinforced this policy failure over time. The concepts of bounded rationality, punctuated equilibria, and self- reinforcing mechanisms are applied to study the evolution of American wildfire policy between 1905 and the present. This study finds that a self-defeating wildfire suppression policy was established in the period 1905 through 1911, and subsequently reinforced for more than five decades. This policy did not include a complementary program to counteract the gradual accumulation of flammable organic materials (fuels) that occurred in many ecosystems when fires were suppressed. The resulting fuel accumulations have greatly increased the risk of damaging, high-intensity wildfires in a range of American wildlands. A combination of fire suppression and fuel reduction programs will be needed to manage this risk in the future.
Adaptive Policy Design for the Management of Wildfire Hazards
American Behavioral ScientistGeorge J Busenberg
2004
Wildfire disasters threaten numerous communities and ecosystems in America today. An effective policy strategy to counteract the threat of wildfire disasters would entail the reduction of accumulated fuels (flammable organic materials) found across large areas in many American ecosystems. Major uncertainties surround this policy endeavor because fuel reduction has never been attempted on such large scales before. This study outlines an adaptive policy strategy designed to resolve these uncertainties through a systematic process of learning. An adaptive wildfire policy would employ fuel reduction experiments on large scales, with the goal of generating new knowledge to progressively improve the effectiveness of fuel reduction strategies over time.
Citizen Participation and Collaborative Environmental Management in the Marine Oil Trade of Coastal Alaska
Coastal ManagementGeorge J Busenberg
2007
This study compares the contributions to policy change made by two Regional Citizens’ Advisory Councils that participate in the environmental management of the marine oil trade in coastal regions of Alaska. Both councils are remarkably well-funded and long-enduring examples of citizen participation in environmental policy. This study finds that both councils have applied their substantial funding resources to make significant contributions to policy change (policy contributions) in the marine oil trade of coastal Alaska...
Managing the Hazard of Marine Oil Pollution in Alaska
Review of Policy ResearchGeorge J Busenberg
2008
This study examines the development of safeguards against marine oil pollution in Alaska since the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, in which oil spilled from the tanker Exxon Valdez polluted more than 2,000 kilometers of Alaskan coastline. Since 1989, a series of enduring institutional reforms have contributed to major enhancements in the safeguards against the continuing hazard of marine oil pollution in Alaska. This study is the first to comprehensively examine these new institutions and safeguards in two regions of Alaska with marine oil transportation systems...
The Policy Dynamics of the Trans‐Alaska Pipeline System
Review of Policy ResearchGeorge J Busenberg
2011
Since 1977, oil produced in northern Alaska has posed a major environmental threat across large areas of Alaska while simultaneously playing a dominant role in the economy of Alaska. This enduring dilemma was created by the building of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System to transport oil produced on the North Slope of Alaska, a region containing the largest oil field ever developed in North America. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System transports oil through an 800-mile pipeline and ocean-going oil tankers...
