Reports from the Mid-Career Workshop
Jed Horne
Hotel Vista Hermosa, Tequesquitengo, Mexico.
August in Tequesquitengo can be a scorcher, and the clear blue of
the swimming pool at this Conquista-era resort looked mighty inviting.
Despite a few furtive glances, however, the participants at the
second workshop for mid-career professionals, organized jointly
by the Comisión Metropolitana del Medioambiente (CAM) and
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), resisted temptation
and quickly got down to brass tacks. The students, coming from universities,
government, environmental NGOs, and industry, were here to learn.
The Hotel Vista Hermosa’s ample and luxurious amenities were
of secondary importance.
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Opening plenary session of the Integrated
Program’s second mid-career workshop. |
The week’s schedule was divided into two three-day workshops,
given by world-class educators in their respective fields. Dr. John
Evans, of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, began the week with
a discussion of risk analysis – a tool for communicating scientific
investigations to concerned stakeholders. Dr. Larry Susskind, from
the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT, emceed a highly
interactive forum on negotiation and conflict resolution –
a key component of environmental decision-making, and an area that
often draws on risk assessment analysis.
Bleary eyed and still stuffed from the welcome dinner on Sunday
night, the participants filed into the hotel’s majestic conference
room at 8:30 on Monday morning, eager and prepared for the week
ahead.
Introduction to Risk Assessment (August 12-14)
![](../../../newsletter/nwsltr_2/jpgs/workshop_2.jpg)
Workshop participants learned negotiation
techniques at several simulation exercises. |
After brief introductory remarks, Dr. Mario Molina introduced Professor
Evans, who began his presentation by asking three focal questions:
What is risk? Can it be studied? And, if it can, how do we use existing
evidence to evaluate it?
Noting the diverse background of the workshop’s 60-odd participants,
Dr. Evans asked them how they would define the “ideal”
background for risk assessment. Everyone quickly realized that risk
assessment, like the broader problem of air pollution, is truly
a multidisciplinary endeavor, one that requires the expertise of
chemists, doctors, statisticians, and epidemiologists – fortunately,
groups well represented in this extraordinary gathering of people.
Risk assessment, Dr. Evans argued, is an important tool for communicating
between these disciplines, streamlining research goals, and facilitating
decision making among concerned parties. Of particular relevance
to the organizations represented in the room, risk assessment can
aid decision making in air-pollution management, adding credibility
and breadth to cost-benefit analyses that otherwise might lack political
backing. Risk assessment also provides a framework to evaluate what
assumptions were made behind a particular decision. It is often
these assumptions, rather than hard science, that guide policymaking.
There are four stages of risk assessment in public health: hazard
identification, exposure assessment, dose-response assessment, and
risk characterization. Again, it is often how hazards are labeled,
rather than the actual risk they represent, that guides much of
the public reaction to that hazard, and, in turn, the policy responses
to it.
Dr. Evans continued the workshop by describing the differences
between cancer and non-cancer risk assessment. Cancer risk assessment
generally assumes a linear relationship between dose and risk. Non-cancer
assessment uses a threshold-type dose response curve. Non-cancer
risk assessors compute what is known as the NOAEL (no observed adverse
effect level) or the LOAEL (lowest observed adverse effect level).
These numbers give an indication of a minimum threshold exposure
to certain pollutants or toxins, and are used to computer the reference
dose (RfD), a value used in policy making to denote maximum accepted
values of that chemical. The workshop continued with a thorough
and technical discussion of both cancer and non-caner assessment,
including methods for low-dose and inter-species extrapolation for
bioassays. Epidemiological evidence was also analyzed, and participants
learned about the famous “six cities” study showing
a relationship between mortality and air pollution in the United
States.
![](../../../newsletter/nwsltr_2/jpgs/workshop_3.jpg)
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Following Dr. Evans’ introduction to the topic, Paulina Serrano,
a doctoral student under his supervision, presented her research
on volatile organic compound (VOC) risk assessment in Mexico City.
During the course of her research, she collected data from twelve
different sites around the city. Her presentation generated considerable
interest, and a little controversy – not surprising given
the expertise of the workshop’s participants and the immediacy
of Mrs. Serrano’s research to the problem at hand.
Mrs. Serrano also discussed her research on exposure assessment
in the city, again, an area of controversy. The possibility that
indoor air pollution is a primary source of exposure to VOCs was
raised, questioning some of the assumptions of air pollution control
and challenging decision makers to look at microenvironment pollution
controls
Roberto Muñoz, a researcher in Mexico, also presented the
work he had done in the area of public health and estimation of
health impacts. The relevance of his specific topic and the controversial
nature of his area of research generated methodological and theoretical
discussions about valuation, costing, and social perception of control
strategies.
Dr. Evans concluded his course by presenting his work in value
of information analysis. While it is always true that better information
will lead to better decision making, it is often the case that the
cost of obtaining that information and the requisite delay in decision
making may outweigh any benefits to acquiring it. Depending on the
discount rate, for example, a delay in enacting restrictions on
fine particle emissions, created by overly-cautious environmental
policy, may hurt society rather than help it. Value of information
analysis is an important tool for establishing research priorities.
Negotiation and Conflict Resolution (August 15-17)
![](../../../newsletter/nwsltr_2/jpgs/workshop_duo.jpg)
Drs. Basilio Verduzco Chávez (left)
and Lawrence Susskind. |
On Thursday, Professor Mario Molina was called upon again for an
introduction. Dr. Susskind, the Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental
Planning at MIT and president of the multi-national consulting firm
Consensus Building Inc., was joined by Dr. Basilio Verduzco Chávez,
a Professor in the Department of Regional Studies at the University
of Guadalajara.
Professor Susskind began by emphasizing the increasing importance
of negotiation and conflict resolution, particularly in contentious
disputes where the courts can become involved in the absence of
an amicable solution.
Dr. Verduzco drew on his immediate experience in Mexico, and commented
on the rapidly changing political climate in the country. With the
emergence of a three-party democratic system, it is now almost impossible
to impose a decision without conflict, and negotiation is an increasingly
important tool used by policy makers and politicians to iron out
their differences.
The main emphasis of the next three days was three negotiation
games, simulating environmental disputes and introducing important
concepts in conflict resolution.
In the first simulation, two fictitious countries, Alba and Batia,
competed by selling oil to a third, richer country, Capita. Participants
were divided into twelve groups, split evenly between Alba and Batia.
The groups were paired, and each pair of two countries set prices
for what they thought would be maximum benefit given imperfect information
about how the other group was making the same decision. After a
few rounds, the warring parties were allowed to meet and to negotiate
fixed prices for maximum benefit.
Of course, many of the agreements were not perfect. Miscommunication,
betrayal, and cutthroat decision-making tainted a few of the negotiation
groups, often dragging down the gains of both parties involved.
The conclusion was reached that the three most important characteristics
of a successful negotiator in the first game were provocability,
forgiveness, and clarity. It is important to punish betrayal or
departure from agreements, but it is equally important to forgive
sincere retractions of mistakes. A muddled or ambiguous strategy
simply leaves the other team at a loss, making agreement nearly
impossible.
Dr. Susskind then described a “mutual gains” approach
to decision making – a four step process. The first, and perhaps
most important step, is preparation. The second step is to create
value by, before the division of benefits has even been discussed,
creating a “larger pie” to compete for. The third step
is to distribute the value generated during the second step. The
final step, often ignored by decision makers, is follow through
and enforcement.
Competing parties are looking at the bottom line – what is
their best alternative to no negotiation (BATNA)? Here the most
important question to ask is “what if?” – with
a little imagination, the players will often realize they have more
to offer each other than they first realized, probably considerably
more than their respective BATNA’s. The three aspects of good
negotiation – forgiveness, clarity, and provocability, still
apply. It is also necessary to be prepared for any unexpected events
or surprises that may occur during the negotiation itself or during
the final implementation.
To build up to the most important game of the workshop, participants
were then divided into groups of three to compete in a small three-party
negotiation where not all three players had equal bargaining power.
The key to success in the second game was coalition building –
an important skill during the third, and much more complex, multi-party
negotiation game known as Pablo Burford.
In the Pablo Burford simulation, participants were divided into
groups of ten. Players were assigned roles as representatives of
different government agencies, NGOs, and lobby groups. Together,
they were charged with ironing out environmental disputes between
a developing country, Pablo, and its developed neighbor, Burford.
Participants reported favorable reactions to the game, and appeared
to have learned quite a bit by the earlier games and theoretical
discussions.
Dong-Young Kim, a Ph.D. candidate under Dr. Susskind’s supervision,
was pleased with the results. "Because I was in charge of filming
the workshop, I kept a close eye on the participants. Even with
the sizzling heat and long schedules, I didn’t catch anybody
napping. People took the Pablo-Burford game so seriously they didn’t
even talk over the enchiladas at lunch," he noted.
Dr. Susskind was equally impressed. He commented afterward, “The
participants seemed totally dedicated to the work at hand. They
committed themselves to often unfamiliar assigned roles and played
their parts with skill and passion. I think the skills of negotiation
taught in the seminar will be of great importance to many of the
participants in their professional roles.”
On Sunday, August 18th, the participants had to leave their role
as students and return to their real jobs as engineers, lawyers,
scientists, and government officials. The conference had been an
overwhelming success, and everyone seemed in a good mood on the
way out. Maybe it was everything they had learned, but it could
have been that a few of the participants had done more than glance
at the pool – only in the evenings, of course. Armed with
new tools, everyone involved left the serenity of Vista Hermosa
better prepared for the considerable challenges ahead.
Special thanks to Professor Gerardo Mejia for ITESM, Professor
Larry Susskind of MIT, and Dong-Young Kim for providing information
for this article.
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