构建人类命运共同体、应对气候变化与生态文明建设

全球气候变化给人类社会文明带来严峻挑战,需要人类社会采取共同措施和行动积极应对。应对全球气候变化是当今世界最能体现人类共同命运的领域,深度参与并积极推动全球气候治理体系改革和建设是中国推动构建人类命运共同体的重要实践,也是生态文明理论和实践的重要方面。应对气候变化是我国生态文明建设的重要内容和内在要求;以共同价值理念构建人类命运共同体,凝聚各国力量携手合作应对全球气候变化,是全球生态文明建设和构建人类命运共同体的具体实践,也为应对全球气候变化提供了良好载体和国际平台。文章通过分析可知,应对气候变化、生态文明建设与构建人类命运共同体三者之间,呈现出相互促进、和谐共生的"三位一体"特征;人与自然共生的生命共同体是前提条件,人类的任何实践活动都要以自然生态系统为基础和前提;人类命运共同体在整合各国力量方面,为生态文明建设提供了社会基础;生态文明包容各国文明,凝聚价值共识,成为生命共同体和人类命运共同体的价值导向。中国倡导人类命运共同体理念,是全球生态文明和人类命运共同体的积极倡导者、推动者和践行者,既为应对全球气候变化提供了价值基础,也提供了强有力的实践支撑;应对气候变化是全球生态文明建设和人类命运共同体构建的生动实践。因此,加强生态文明建设和构建人类命运共同体,为全球应对气候变化提供了理论基础和国际平台,也将为全球可持续发展贡献中国智慧和中国案例。     

Sustainable Development and Strategic Thinking

From an economic point of view, the industrial economy is efficient to overcome situations of a scarcity of goods. From a technological point of view, the resource efficiency of the manufacturing processes of the industrial economy has been permanently improved during the last 200 years. In addition, cleaner processes have been developed. However, from an ecologic point of view, an increasing world population with increasing consumption has produced a ＂global footprint＂ which approaches the carrying capacity of the planet. A circular economy and its high-value spin-offs-a lake economy and a performance or functional service economy-can fulfil customers＇ needs with considerably less resource consumption, less environmental impairment in production and considerably less end-of-life product waste, especially in situations of affluence, when a considerable stock of physical goods and infrastructures exists. Also, in situations of a scarcity of natural resources, both energy and materials, often characterised by rapidly rising resource prices, the economic actors of a circular economy have a high competitive advantage over the actors of the industrial economy, due to much lower procurement costs for materials and energy. From a social point of view, a circular economy increases the number of skilled jobs in regional enterprises. However, the shift from a linear manufacturing economy to a circular or service economy means a change in economic thinking from flow （throughput） management to stock （asset） management： in a manufacturing economy with largely unsaturated markets, total wealth increases through accumulation as resource throughput （flow） is transformed into a higher stock of goods of better quality （but in a manufacturing economy with largely saturated markets, wealth represented by the stock of goods will no longer increase）; in a circular or service economy, total wealth increases through a smart management of existing physical assets （stock） that are adapted to changes in both technology and customer demand. This second approach not only applies to physical capital but equally to social capital, such as health and education and green GDP. To measure the social wealth of a population, it is not the amount of money spent on schools and hospitals that matters, butif this expenditure has led to a better education of the students, and a better health of the people.     

内蒙古乌拉特后旗新兴矿业城市循环经济发展模式研究

内蒙古乌拉特后旗2001年之前一直是国家级贫困县,2003年以来,该旗将矿产资源优势转变为资产优势,通过发展矿业产业经济,一跃成为人均GDP超上海的富裕县,从农牧业为主县转变为工业为主县。这一转变是对草原及生态环境的巨大威胁。通过实地考察,调查研究齐华矿业公司经济发展经验,提出资源综合开发利用与生态平衡发展模式,该模式达到了工业发展起点高、污染破坏最小化的目标,同时经济得到了可持续发展。     

Knowledge for sustainable development: a worldviews perspective

A huge tension exists between recognizing sustainable development (SD) as a meta-discourse and accepting a limitless interpretational width. We analyse the impacts of diversity of worldviews on the interpretation of SD—as a knowledge-based concept—through a critical literature review, resulting in recommendations on the topic. We apply a social-constructionist approach, appreciating the complex socio-ecological interactions at the heart of SD. Only recently worldviews are recognized as constitutive elements of SD. Little attention has been given to the impacts on generated knowledge for SD. Variety of worldviews induces a variety of knowledge claims and needs. To retain SD’s ‘universal’ appeal as practical decision-guiding strategy for policy and action, we propose an integrative approach towards knowledge for SD—entailing an explicit pluralization of knowledge. SD should be re-interpreted as a joint worldviews construct, embracing a diversity of views in collaborative research and co-production of knowledge. Interpreting SD as a joint endeavour is necessary to overcome historical obstacles like cultural hegemony and a hierarchy of knowledge systems. We identified the following requirements for an inclusive knowledge for SD paradigm: re-interpretation of SD as a worldview constructs in progress; interpretative flexibility; co-production of knowledge; subjectivity awareness and self-reflexivity; respect for a diversity of worldviews/knowledges; identifying shared goals; collaborative research; a systems approach; transdisciplinarity; and recognition of contextuality. Further research—concerning potential methodologies and typologies—to reconcile variety of worldviews and knowledge systems in a joint SD worldviews construct is urgently needed.     

Stand-alone wind power system with battery/supercapacitor hybrid energy storage

This paper presents a stand-alone wind power system with battery/supercapacitor hybrid energy storage. A stand-alone wind power system mainly consists of a wind turbine, a permanent magnet synchronous generator, hybrid energy storage devices based on a vanadium redox flow battery and a supercapacitor, an AC/DC converter, two bidirectional DC/DC converters, a DC/AC converter and a variable load. Several control strategies for the stand-alone wind power system are involved such as a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control, a vanadium redox flow battery charge/discharge control and a supercapacitor charge/discharge control. The proposed MPPT control combines a sliding mode control with an extreme search control to capture maximum wind energy. This strategy avoids the necessity of measuring wind velocity, obtaining models or parameters of the wind turbine and calculating the differentials of the power generated from the wind power system and from the speed of the generator. The battery charge/discharge control maintains a constant DC bus voltage. When the battery charging/discharging current reaches the setting threshold, the charge/discharge control of the supercapacitor is triggered to limit the charging/discharging current of the battery. The simulation results show that the proposed method can rapidly respond to variations in wind velocity and load power.     

Induction of EROD activity in European eel (Anguilla anguilla) experimentally exposed to benzo[a]pyrene and beta-naphthoflavone

The induction of liver ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase (EROD) activity was investigated in the European eel, Anguilla anguilla, collected from a Mediterranean brackish environment and experimentally exposed to benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) and beta-naphthoflavone (BNF). Eels were injected intraperitoneally at increasing doses (0.1, 1, 10, and 50 mg/kg wet body weight) using corn oil as a carrier and sacrificed after 7 days. The main objectives of the present study are: (1). to assess of the sensitivity of EROD induction as a biomarker to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) exposure; (2). to determine an EROD dose-response relationship of the contaminants used; and (3). to compare the efficiency of B[a]P and BNF as inducers of EROD activity. Results showed that both chemicals resulted in a dose-dependent EROD induction, but increases were not linear. EROD activity seemed to reach a plateau at the exposure of 10 mg/kg in both treatment groups; B[a]P was a more potent inducer than BNF was at the higher doses (10 and 50 mg/kg), while the opposite result was observed at the lower ones (0.1 and 1 mg/kg). The greatest induction occurred in eels treated with 10 mg/kg B[a]P, in which a 261-fold increase in EROD activity was observed. Results showed that EROD activity in A. anguilla is significantly induced by B[a]P and BNF exposure, responding to a wide range of concentrations of these contaminants. We infer that this tool may be suited as a diagnostic biomarker for biomonitoring PAHs pollution in Mediterranean brackish environments and further field research is suggested.     

Hierarchical priority setting for restoration in a watershed in NE Spain, based on assessments of soil erosion and ecosystem services

Maintaining and enhancing ecosystem services through the restoration of degraded ecosystems have become an important biodiversity conservation strategy. Deciding where to restore ecosystems for the attainment of multiple services is a key issue for future planning, management, and human well-being. Most restoration projects usually entail a small number of actions in a local area and do not consider the potential benefits of planning restoration at broad regional scales. We developed a hierarchical priority setting approach to evaluate the performance of restoration measures in a semiarid basin in NE Spain (the Martín River Basin, 2,112 km²). Our analysis utilized a combination of erosion (a key driver of degradation in this Mediterranean region) and six spatially explicit ecosystem services data layers (five of these maps plotted surrogates for soil retention and accumulation, water supply and regulation, and carbon storage, and one plotted a cultural service, ecotourism). Hierarchical maps were generated using a geographic information system that combined areas important for providing a bundle of ecosystem services, as state variables, with erosion maps, as the disturbance or regulatory variable. This was performed for multiple scales, thereby identifying the most adequate scale of analysis and establishing a spatial hierarchy of restoration actions based on the combination of the evaluation of erosion rates and the provision of ecosystem services. Our approach provides managers with a straightforward method for determining the spatial distribution of values for a set of ecosystem services in relation to ecological degradation thresholds and for allocating efforts and resources for restoration projects in complex landscapes.     

The Essence of a Recycling Economy:Circular Utilization of Resources

By analyzing the relationship between a recycling economy and sustainable development theory, this article puts forward the basic concept of a recycling economy as a dynamic economic operational model, and explains the four basic characteristics. It is stressed that the essential element of a recycling economy is the use of resources circularly. In the end, this article analyzes the phenomena of utilizing the recycling economy concept incorrectly, and sets forth a number of problems that should be noted during the process of developing a recycling economy in China.     

Willingness to pay for environmental quality: Evidence from survey data

The environmental movement evidenced a period of extremely rapid growth during the 1960's and early 1970's. Some recent studies have indicated a decline in general public concern with environmental problems. In this paper we attempt to provide some new evidence which might be of assistance in ascertaining the relative status of concern for the economy, concern for the environment, and willingness to pay for environmental quality. The study focuses upon a major city in a large energy producing state with a large ethnic (Mexican-American) minority. Our data indicate that concern for the environment is not a highly salient issue for our respondents. Economic concerns far outweigh enviromental issues. Additionally, willingness to pay for environmental quality is not a unidimensional trait. Perception of who is responsible for pollution rather than perception of a deteriorating environment is a significant indicator of willingness to pay for environmental quality.     

Full-spectrum analysis of natural gamma-ray spectra

In this paper, a new system to measure natural gamma-radiation in situ will be presented. This system combines a high-efficiency BGO scintillation detector with full-spectrum data analysis (FSA). This technique uses the (nearly) full spectral shape and the so-called 'standard spectra' to calculate the activity concentrations of 40K, 232Th and 238U present in a geological matrix (sediment, rock, etc.). We describe the FSA and the determination of the standard spectra. Standard spectra are constructed for various geometries and a comparison in intensity and shape will be made. The performance of such a system has been compared to a more traditional system, consisting of a NaI detector in combination with the 'windows' analysis. For count rates typically encountered in field experiments, the same accuracy is obtained 10-20 times faster using the new system. This allows for shorter integration times and hence shorter measurements or a better spatial resolution. The applicability of such a system will be illustrated via an example of an airborne experiment in which the new system produced results comparable to those of much larger traditional systems. This paper will conclude with a discussion of the current status of the system and an outlook for future research.     

The Polluter-Pays Principle and its Environmental Consequences for Industrial Waste Management

The paper maintains that, as a means toward achieving the ideal of a sustainable development, industrial waste should best be regarded in business-economic terms as having the same basic status as regular products. It is shown how an approach to proportioning industrial costs to waste that is described can be applied to the Polluter-Pays Principle in a way incorporating this principle into a company's internal estimation system. In two case studies presented, use of this approach is found to generate a waste-reducing incentive through showing waste to have a negative impact on estimates of profit.     

Probabilistic risk assessment's use of trees and distributions to reflect uncertainty and variability and to overcome the limitations of default assumptions

Probabilistic risk assessment is an emerging approach to exposure assessment and quantitative cancer and non-cancer risk characterizations. The approach is easily extended to other types of risks and outcomes. A tree, like a decision tree or probability tree, encourages the evaluation of not only the default assumptions but also alternatives to those defaults, and reflects the uncertainty in the current state of knowledge. Trees are used in both the characterization of the dose received by individuals in a potential exposure situation and the characterization of the dose-response relationship for a specified response of concern. Probability distributions are used to reflect the variability in exposure, dose, and dose-response relationships among individuals and over time within individuals. Distributions incorporating variabilities, uncertainties, subjective probabilities, and expert judgments are used to characterize the probabilities of observing an individual in a population with a specified dose from exposure, with a specified probability of a certain adverse health effect for a designated dose, and with a specified probability of a certain adverse health effect (i.e., a specified risk). Some suggestions are given on how a risk manager can incorporate a distributional risk characterization into decision making. Some discussion is included concerning sensitivity analyses and path analyses. The major finding is methodology to explicitly incorporate variability, uncertainty, and alternatives to defaults into exposure, dose-response, and risk characterizations.     

三峡水库水位涨落带土地资源的初步研究

三峡大坝建成后,将在库区两岸形成永久性的水位涨落带。涨落带冬半年为水域,丰半年出露水面成陆,是一种具有多功能的土地资源类型,在夏半年,涨落带成陆面积大,成陆期较长,与同期丰富的光热水资源构成优势组合,使涨落带土地具有较高的生产潜力。对三峡库区水位落带土地资源的质量、数量和分布特点进行分析,在此基础上提出了合理利用的设想。     

A new approach for calculating the relative risk level of pesticides

The following paper describes a new, easier to use approach to the calculation of relative risk levels of alternative pesticides. An insect, a plant disease, and a weed were selected for describing the application procedure of a new ranking method that is based on the intrinsic properties of pesticides rather than on the processes that occur both on land and in water after they are applied to soil. The approach is based on the Toxicity-Human health-Persistency (THP) Hazard Rating System, and a consumption factor is added to the method in order to calculate the environmental risk of pesticides. The available substitute pesticides are ranked in terms of their relative risk levels from lowest to highest in order of magnitude difference. Such a ranking method may be used as a practical quantitative tool to generate significant findings aiding in the selection of the most environmentally friendly substitute against a certain pest, especially in developing countries that still face the misuse and/or unconscious use of pesticides.     

A sustainability approach for selecting maintenance strategy

Appropriate maintenance can prolong the life of an asset and prevent costly breakdowns that may result in lost production, failed shipping schedules and a decline in customer satisfaction. The goal of this study was to present a comprehensive framework that utilises sustainability metrics based on social, environmental and economic criteria to select an appropriate maintenance strategy among a variety of maintenance strategy alternatives, such as preventive, failure-based, reliability-centred, condition-based and total productive maintenance strategies, for a manufacturing company. The sustainability-based approach may significantly influence the personnel, energy, material and the overall costs in a company. In the first step of this paper, a sustainability-based decision-making structure is proposed for the maintenance strategy selection problem applying the concept of factor analysis to determine the leading factors in each of the sustainability pillars. In the next step, a fuzzy VIKOR framework is used to select the most appropriate maintenance strategy. The provided approach is illustrated using a manufacturing industry case study.     

A multi-objective design optimisation of eco-friendly aircraft: the impact of noise fees on airplanes sustainable development

The current work deals with multi-objective optimisations including financial merit factors in the multi-disciplinary conceptual design of a commercial aircraft with a specific focus on noise social cost. The results of optimisations using financial and performance-oriented objective functions have been analysed and combined in a multi-objective optimisation problem using a three-dimensional objective vector. The main novelty of the present work is the analysis of social cost noise fees effectiveness integrated in financial models embracing a wider group of stakeholders’ interests. The foundations of this research lie on the air traffic increase envisaged in the next decades and the contextual growth of the urban areas nearby airport facilities. This scenario requires the aeronautical industry to handle the environment challenge taking into account all the social and economic effects. Indeed, the consolidated technology has approached a saturation point, therefore breakthrough concepts and configurations are mandatory. This matter is addressed as a highly multi-disciplinary problem within conceptual design framework. The financial model proposed is shown to highlight the need of appropriate noise fees as instruments to push all stakeholders towards a technology radical renewal and encourage the aeronautical industry towards a shared strategy in the development of an eco-friendly commercial aviation system.     

中国国家资源环境安全问题初探

作为世界上最大的发展中国家 ,中国资源环境的现实基础表现出明显脆弱的特征。更严重的问题是 ,未来人口的增长和生活水平的提高对现已十分脆弱的国家资源环境安全基础产生着巨大的压力。若在此问题上出现认识和发展政策上的失误 ,便会产生巨大负面效应 ,严重影响中国国家现代化的进程。为此 ,建议 2 1世纪中国可持续发展战略的首要任务应是确保国家资源环境安全的稳定性。     

Press Briefings in International Climate Change Negotiations

Press conferences are an important element of a government's communication strategy at climate change summits. From a theoretical perspective, press conferences should serve two main functions: exerting pressure in negotiations and informing the public. These functions correspond to two logics of action: a logic of consequence where governments use press conferences as negotiation tools and a logic of appropriateness where governments organize press conferences to increase transparency. Based on new data from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change archives, we find limited support for these two logics of action. Neither democracies, which, we argue, are more likely to follow a logic of appropriateness, nor vulnerable countries, which are more likely to follow a logic of consequence, organize systematically more press conferences. Other factors, such as capacity and a government's function in the negotiation structure, seem to play a more important role.     

Gold Mining in the Greek “Village of Gaul”: Newspaper Coverage of Conflict and Discursive Positioning of Opposing Coalitions

The present study analysed media discourse on a gold mining controversy in Greece. Social actors shaped a pro-mining and an anti-mining coalition. The “village of Gaul” was a discursive resource used to depict conflict and it could denote either “resistance,” for anti-mining advocates, or “anarchy,” for pro-mining advocates. The same actor could be found to perform both the role of a powerful majority as well as the role of a repressed minority, which engaged varying scales of reference. Discursive positioning allowed for a switching among majority and minority roles. Each camp attempted to transform incalculable hazards into calculable risks and this was accompanied by a discursive appropriation of the past and the future of the study area. Social divide seems to have advanced discursive positioning of coalitions in a spiral-logic of interactionist confrontation at the cost of losing any common ground. Implications for environmental communication and environmental governance are discussed.     

Mapping large areas of radioactively contaminated land with a self adapted, handheld, GPS coupled, scintillation detector

In Belgium, during several decennia, a phosphate plant discharged radium chloride containing waste water into two small rivers. One of those is part of a hydrographically very complex ecosystem with lots of small tributaries and hundreds of hectares of flooding zones. Hence, the river banks and large parts of these flooding zones have become contaminated with radium, heavy metals and chlorides. During a foot campaign, using a home made portable data logging system, consisting of a commercial 2.5 kg NaI detector, a computer mouse sized GPS, and a small pocket PC, the radioactive contamination of about 600 ha of sometimes very rough terrain was measured and mapped. The resulting very detailed radium contamination maps shed a whole new light on the water flow patterns of the ecosystem. The apparatus can also be used for efficiently guiding sampling campaigns for investigating other types of contamination. The ground maps are also compared to existing maps from helicopter measurements, evaluating strengths and weaknesses from both methods.