Partition of iodine (¹²⁹I and ¹²⁷I) isotopes in soils and marine sediments

Natural organic matter, such as humic and fulvic acids and humin, plays a key role in determining the fate and mobility of radioiodine in soil and sediments. The radioisotope ¹²⁹I is continuously produced and released from nuclear fuel reprocessing plants, and as a biophilic element, its environmental mobility is strongly linked to organic matter.Due to its long half-life (15.7 million years), ¹²⁹I builds up in the environment and can be traced since the beginning of the nuclear era in reservoirs such as soils and marine sediments. Nevertheless, partition of the isotope between the different types of organic matter in soil and sediment is rarely explored. Here we present a sequential extraction of ¹²⁹I and ¹²⁷I chemical forms encountered in a Danish soil, a soil reference material (IAEA-375), an anoxic marine sediment from Southern Norway and an oxic sediment from the Barents Sea. The different forms of iodine are related to water soluble, exchangeable, carbonates, oxides as well as iodine bound to humic acid, fulvic acid and to humin and minerals. This is the first study to identify ¹²⁹I in humic and fulvic acid and humin. The results show that 30-56% of the total ¹²⁷I and 42-60% of the total ¹²⁹I are associated with organic matter in soil and sediment samples. At a soil/sediment pH below 5.0-5.5, ¹²⁷I and ¹²⁹I in the organic fraction associate primarily with the humic acid while at soil/sediment pH > 6 ¹²⁹I was mostly found to be bound to fulvic acid. Anoxic conditions seem to increase the mobility and availability of iodine compared to oxic, while subaerial conditions (soils) reduces the availability of water soluble fraction compared to subaqueous (marine) conditions.     

China＇s Green Transformation： Efforts, Practices and Future

正I'm very pleased to be here at this side meeting,China's Green Transformation:Efforts,Practices and Future, co-sponsored by ACCA21 and UNDP.Since the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, people around the world have made numerous     

Green Screen or Smokescreen? Hollywood's Messages about Nature and the Environment

This paper examines ideologies about nature and the environment in popular, animated Hollywood films—including The Lorax, Wall-E, and Ice Age 2—through a symptomatic reading. The primary goal of the analysis is to elucidate key omissions in these texts through an assessment of the problematic—defined in this research as an a-priori answer to perceived audience concerns regarding the role of consumerism and corporate culture in environmental problems. Silences in the films revolve around: how environmental problems are defined; what the consequences are; who the responsible parties are; and what potential solutions exist to mitigate them. The significance of the research is underscored by the formation of an increasingly intimate relationship between children, consumer culture, and commercial media in the USA, as well as the increasingly dire information emerging about global environmental issues. This analysis reveals the dual, often conflicting, messages that commercial film provides for its young audiences about pivotal environmental problems and their potential resolution.     

China’s Grain for Green policy and farm dynamics: simulating household land-use responses

Analyzing the interaction between environmental policies and farmers’ responses to them is an important dimension to understand regional agro-ecosystem sustainability. We examine land-use outcomes of perhaps the largest government-planned rural reforestation program in the history of humankind, China’s “Grain for Green” (GFG) policy from 1999 to 2006. Specifically, we simulate household responses to the GFG policy in Western China’s Shaanxi Province, a region experiencing acute climate and land change-related environmental degradation. We develop a “farmer group decision-making model” to simulate the probability of land-use change. Elevation, slope, and farm household characteristics emerge as key factors influencing farmers’ land-use decisions and subsequent land-use patterns. Land reversion and abandonment in the study area have been significantly affected by the GFG program. Policy recommendations suggest potential avenues to enhance the effectiveness of the GFG program and to improve the efficient use of under-used farmland. Results may help inform the Chinese government as it crafts policy guiding a coupled rural migration and reforestation program of unprecedented scale.     

Neoliberal Style,the American Re-Generation,and Ecological Jeremiad in Thomas Friedman's “Code Green”

Emerging popular literature trumpeting the prospects for Manifest Destiny through a greener capitalism illustrates the re-emergence of American myth to explain chaotic times and uphold America's exceptional character. Today, this character is dominated ideologically by the rhetorical repertoire of neoliberal economics. In this essay, the author dissects neoliberal rhetorical style as articulated through national myth and ecological jeremiad in bestselling author Thomas Friedman's (2008) “Code Green” thesis. In Code Green, an American strategy for confronting the convergence of global warming, new economic competition abroad, and population growth, the author traces a mythic “evolution” in ecological jeremiad toward a sustainable free market frontier. Crafting a muscular yet ostensibly non-political rhetoric of individualist sacrifice and reward, Friedman refigures the dark side of Western-led globalization's past.     

It's Not Easy Being Green … Or Is It? A Content Analysis of Environmental Claims in Magazine Advertisements from the United States and United Kingdom

As corporations seek to appeal to environmentally conscious stakeholders, advertisements containing environmental claims have become increasingly prominent. A corporation's desire for an enhanced corporate reputation, combined with lenient environmental advertising regulation, has created the perfect environment for corporations to use—and misuse—environmental claims, resulting in “greenwashing.” Defined as the act of disseminating disinformation to consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service, greenwashing occurs around the world. This study is a cross-national content analysis of 247 print ads from 84 issues of mainstream magazines from the United States and United Kingdom. Three-fourths (75%) of the ads analyzed contained one or more aspects of greenwashing. Firms advertising in US magazines were significantly more likely to employ misleading/deceptive environmental claims than UK firms and magazines. These findings suggest that without increased environmental advertisement regulation, greenwashing will persist as a disingenuous means for corporate reputation enhancement.     

Green Cities: Plan for the Planet!——World Environment Day 2005

World Environment Day, commemorated each year on 5 June, is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and action. World Environment Day is a project of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). Since its inception in 1972, World Environment Day has given a human face to environmental issues; empower people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development; promote …     

Beyond the money shot; or how framing nature matters? Locating Green at Wildscreen

ABSTRACT

Natural history films use technological mediations to frame aspects of nature so as to communicate information, in part through engendering particular viewer affects. As an entertainment industry embedded in capitalist social relations and concerned with competition for finance and ratings, natural history film-making is also a search for “the money shot” – associated with extremes including rarity, sensational behavior, and otherwise un(fore)seen views. I highlight this sensationalizing impetus through ethnographic fieldwork conducted at the biannual UK Wildscreen film festival in 2010. Here, wildlife films were frequently presented as action dramas with a rhythm of anticipation, climax and satisfaction. I argue that, through stimulating significantly disconnective affects, such framing may work against composition of a caring ecocultural ethics that entwines human with more-than-human natures and futures; and that this tendency parallels the similarly disconnecting effects documented for pornographic film. In contrast, I engage with the differently constructive frames guiding the low budget, open access, activist film Green, which, perhaps paradoxically given the thrust of much of the natural history film industry, won the prestigious WWF Gold Panda Award at Wildscreen 2010. I follow framing theorist George Lakoff to emphasize that since cognition is both embodied and embedded in diverse inter-relationships, affective registers generating mimetic connection are as significant in communicating information regarding “the environment” as the text and words by which nature might be framed. I conclude that attention to affective registers and embodied (dis)connections in natural history film may enhance a turning of capitalist spectacle against itself, so as to work more effectively in service to the composition of abundant socionatural futures.     

Green,blue or black,but washing–What company characteristics determine greenwashing?

Environment, Development and Sustainability - The purpose of this paper is to study what are the characteristics that make firms less or more prone to greenwashing. We collect data from...     

“Hey Friend,Buy Green”: Social Media Use to Influence Eco-Purchasing Involvement

This study addresses the use of message carriers to convey corporate social responsibility information to promote eco-purchasing involvement. The work tests various media formats transmitted via social media. The effects of corporate vs. peer communication in a corporate social responsibility campaign in stimulating self-reported eco-purchasing involvement are indicated. The research varies communication dimensions of a fictional corporate social responsibility campaign sent through social media. Multiple media formats; new release; article; and advertisement were tested, as was the inclusion of social media persuasive sentiment. The analysis of source/format combinations and source/format/sentiment combinations found statistically significant differences for consumer-to-consumer communication in stimulating eco-purchasing involvement in certain circumstances. This research suggests an emerging role for the consumer communicator as a content co-creator and validates the effective use of articles and news releases instead of advertising on social media, yielding managerial and scholarly implications.     

Issues in reverse supply chains,part I: end‐of‐life product recovery and inventory management – an overview

Recovery of used products has become a field of rapidly growing importance in reverse supply chain management. Product recovery includes collection, inspection/separation, disassembly, reconditioning/reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling. In real time situations, the collection of end‐of‐life (EoL) products from the customer and their return to the manufacturer is tedious and time consuming. Reduced product life cycles have increased the rate of product returns and disposals. Owing to shortened product economic life cycles, the recovery of value from EoL products is becoming a necessity. Companies have realised the value that they could recover by remanufacturing or recycling EoL products. Researchers have developed various models for product recovery network design, optimal inventory, production planning and control, remanufacturing, recycling, disposal, etc. The main purpose of this paper is to review the literature on EoL product recovery and inventory management issues in reverse supply chains and to outline some future directions for research on these issues.     

Citric and Oxalic Acids Effect on Pb and Zn Uptake by Maize and Winter Wheat

A pot experiment was conducted to investigate the influence of citric and oxalic acids effect on Pb and Zn uptake by corn and winter wheat. The experiment was employed with citric acid (CA) applied at 3 rates (0, 1.5 and 3.0 mmol kg-1 soil), oxalic acid (OA) at 3 rates (0, 1.5 and 3.0mmol kg-1 soil) and citric acid combined with oxalic acid (1.5 mmol citric acid combined with 1.5 mmol oxalic acid kg-1). Two types of soil were chose in the experiment. One was collected from the agricultural soil near a battery-recycling factory in Anhui province, China (site A) and the other was collected from a Pb-Zn mine residues in Hunan province, China (site B). The results showed that soil pH varied with the different treatment of citric and oxalic acids. However, there were no differences in all the treatments. 3.0mmol CA kg-1 soil addition significantly increased the concentrations of the CaCI2-extractable Pb and Zn and other treatments have no significantly increased. The highest shoot concentrations of Pb and Zn     

Farmers'''' Willingness-to-Pay for Environment and Human Health and Adoption of IPM

Although chemical control of pests increases crop production, it brings a lot of damage to environment and human health. There exist a number of alternative methods that are not so harmful to environment and human health. However, whether and how much in extent these technologies adopted are plausible depends on the comparison of benefit-cost between chemical control and the alternative control methods (such as Integrated Pest Management, IPM) and farmers' willingness-to-pay (WTP) for envirorment and human health. Using contingent valuation method (CVM), the author investigates farmers' WTP for environment and human health, recognizes the factors influencing WTP, and accordingly points out the importance of pest control technology extension and government regulation of pesticides.     

Greenwashed sports and environmental activism: Formula 1 and FIFA†

ABSTRACT

Formula 1 motor sport and the Men's World Cup of association football, two major sporting events on our calendars, are indirectly and directly responsible for environmental despoliation. They serve as advertisements for heavy industry, are designed for elite as much as mass consumption, and provide sponsors with dubious social licenses to operate. This occurs through the very mechanisms of the events themselves (engines in Formula 1, tourism in the World Cup) as well as their promotional externalities. I look at greenwashing claims made about these two sporting events and examine counter-discourses, then investigate economic and ecological citizenship. I suggest that a progressive agenda can be forwarded if Greenpeace, which runs campaigns related to these sports, works with its fellow elites, in the case of Formula 1, and with fans in the case of football. Doing so may be more effective than business-as-usual direct action.     

Holistic well-being and sustainable organisations – A review and argumentative propositions

Abstract

This article discusses holistic well-being in a balanced work system theory framework. Holistic well-being is a combination of well-being in both work and non-work domains. Theories of balanced work systems and balanced organisations are retold in light of holistic well-being to show how different individuals in organisations can contribute to achieving desired outcomes at different process levels. Further, this article provides new insights and research challenges to the balanced organisation theory by including a sustainability aspect and by proposing a new concept of balanced value networks.     

Land-users’ perceptions and adaptations to climate change in Mexico and Spain: commonalities across cultural and geographical contexts

Comparing agricultural management practices across scales and in different cultural settings can reveal shared insights into the capacity to adjust and respond to change and uncertainty. Differences make comparisons in environmental risk perceptions and responses particularly interesting and valuable, with obtained similarities being in many ways more interesting than found differences, which might be readily expected in places with remarkable geographical and demographic differences. People’s perception of climatic risks and hazards appears to be important to understand the context in which adaptation strategies to climate change emerge. Our intention, rather than compare the two case studies at the local scale, one in Mexico and one in Spain, is to identify existing common mechanisms to perceive climate change and to address adaptation among two very different geographical and cultural contexts. The study aims first to explore people’s perceptions of climate change and its outcomes; second to analyse the adaptation measures that they have developed and develop some preliminary ideas about their strategies; and third to consider the capacity of people to cope and adapt endogenously, in terms of the measures that people think that their governments should take to enhance/strengthen them at the local scale.     

Sustainable Development and Health:Recent International Developments,Policies and Projects

Environment and health have been more and more jointly addressed in recent years,thanks to the efforts of several public and private institutions.In this scenario,a leading role has been played by the World Heath Organisation(WHO).A specific attention was devoted to the issue by the European Union(EU)EU institutions and the WHO Office for Europe,which lists 52 countries(including Europe,Eastern European Countries and Turkey, former Yugoslavia and part of the former Soviet Union).The objectives of the present paper are to give an overview of the main developments in this area,and to underline the progress made towards a common understanding of health and environment issues,the advantages and limits of these developments and the challenges for the future,to be tackled at a global level.     

Environmental and health effects of nanomaterials in nanotextiles and façade coatings

Engineered nanomaterials (ENM) are expected to hold considerable potential for products that offer improved or novel functionalities. For example, nanotechnologies could open the way for the use of textile products outside their traditional fields of applications, for example, in the construction, medical, automobile, environmental and safety technology sectors. Consequently, nanotextiles could become ubiquitous in industrial and consumer products in future. Another ubiquitous field of application for ENM is fa?ade coatings. The environment and human health could be affected by unintended release of ENM from these products. The product life cycle and the product design determine the various environmental and health exposure situations. For example, ENM unintentionally released from geotextiles will probably end up in soils, whereas ENM unintentionally released from T-shirts may come into direct contact with humans and end up in wastewater. In this paper we have assessed the state of the art of ENM effects on the environment and human health on the basis of selected environmental and nanotoxicological studies and on our own environmental exposure modeling studies. Here, we focused on ENM that are already applied or may be applied in future to textile products and fa?ade coatings. These ENM's are mainly nanosilver (nano-Ag), nano titanium dioxide (nano-TiO(2)), nano silica (nano-SiO(2)), nano zinc oxide (nano-ZnO), nano alumina (nano-Al(2)O(3)), layered silica (e.g. montmorillonite, Al(2)[(OH)(2)/Si(4)O(10)]nH(2)O), carbon black, and carbon nanotubes (CNT). Knowing full well that innovators have to take decisions today, we have presented some criteria that should be useful in systematically analyzing and interpreting the state of the art on the effects of ENM. For the environment we established the following criteria: (1) the indication for hazardous effects, (2) dissolution in water increases/decreases toxic effects, (3) tendency for agglomeration or sedimentation, (4) fate during waste water treatment, and (5) stability during incineration. For human health the following criteria were defined: (1) acute toxicity, (2) chronic toxicity, (3) impairment of DNA, (4) crossing and damaging of tissue barriers, (5) brain damage and translocation and effects of ENM in the (6) skin, (7) gastrointestinal or (8) respiratory tract. Interestingly, some ENM might affect the environment less severely than they might affect human health, whereas the case for others is vice versa. This is especially true for CNT. The assessment of the environmental risks is highly dependent on the respective product life cycles and on the amounts of ENM produced globally.