Sustainable Everyday Life and Celebrity Environmental Advocacy in Hugh’s War on Waste

ABSTRACT

This study employs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s television program, Hugh’s War on Waste, to explore representations of sustainable everyday life and the functions of celebrity environmental advocacy. The analysis is located within broader understandings of the discursive and contested nature of sustainability and the representative functions of environmental celebrities who act as figures of both distinction and equivalence. It discusses Fearnley-Whittingstall within the context of the stable of celebrity chefs, and it demonstrates how Hugh’s War on Waste is an example of the burgeoning televisual genre based on forms of campaigning about food issues. The analysis specifically explores how Hugh’s War on Waste is informed by: narratives of self-transformation where individuals are marshaled into appropriate practices of waste management and sustainability, presentations of the pleasures associated with such practices, and revelations of the networks of food production, distribution and consumption across the contexts of domestic everyday life, farms, supermarkets, and other corporations.     

Political Participation and Pleasure in Green Lifestyle Journalism

This article examines the reportage of green lifestyle practices across the online sites of major British newspapers. The articulation of “green lifestyle journalism” in the study is suggestive of its complex identity, given its implication in existing orders of consumption while also expressive of emerging everyday practices that potentially and variously challenge those orders of consumption. The study enquires into whether such green lifestyle journalism stories are, in fact, reported across different online sites, and if so, in which publications and how such stories are classified within online menus. It also examines the range of reported environmental lifestyle practices and how they are attributed with meaning, including their engagement with the concept of pleasure and its association with political participation. The study reveals that the pleasures associated with sustainable living are often marginalized, and instead an ethical consumer is commonly posited who is variously cognitively deficient, worried about the environmental consequences of their everyday behavior, or concerned about their inability to realize their desires to engage in sustainable lifestyle practices. The article also examines those instances when the pleasures of a more sustainable lifestyle are represented as deriving from the implementation of environmental practices and technologies in everyday, domestic contexts, and also when they are illustrated as the product of civic and political engagements with issues of sustainability.     

Translocal celebrity activism: shark-protection campaigns in mainland China

ABSTRACT

Shanghai-born Yao Ming, a retired star player with the American National Basketball Association, is the celebrity face of translocal conservation campaigns to stop the consumption of shark-fin soup in Chinese restaurants worldwide. The standard justification for such communication practices is that they will generate media publicity and save shark populations, by encouraging increasingly affluent Chinese consumers to stop eating a luxury food item based on cruel and unsustainable practices. To date, there has been limited research on the nature of shark-protection campaigns in mainland China, the proclaimed major future market for shark fin. This paper fills that gap. It contends that these campaigns have missed their target, being heavily influenced by communication strategies used in international campaigns and providing incoherent local framing. Declining demand for shark fin demonstrates instead that government austerity measures have had a greater impact on luxury consumption practices, inadvertently highlighting the potential of “authoritarian environmentalism.”     

Blogging for Sustainability: The Intermediary Role of Personal Green Blogs in Promoting Sustainability

The rise of social media radically broadens the sources and platforms used for environmental communication. Especially personal green blogs are worthy of study as they are spaces of everyday cultural politics through which people make sense of sustainability issues, and because they entail a radical break from conventional media in terms of legitimacy, form, and content of environmental communication processes. This paper studies the representation of sustainability on personal green blogs, and the communication processes through which these representations are constructed. It does so through a qualitative study of Swedish-language blogs. We study three blogs in-depth: a living experiment blog on sustainable food practices; a lifestyle blog centered around green family life; and a blog about consuming green beauty products. The analysis shows that all three blogs translate the complex landscape of sustainability to individual everyday practices. Yet, what these sustainability practices entail differs considerably between the blogs, ranging from a-political and doable lifestyle choices to an onset to radical redefining of consumption. Also, the communication processes on the blogs differ in quality and quantity. The paper uses these insights to reflect on the debates about how environmental communication is shaped by blogging and social media practices.     

Circular Makerspaces: the founder’s view

Abstract

Makerspaces – open access design and fabrication workshops – provide new contexts for design practice through ‘distributed production’. The global community of makerspaces has evolved quickly and in turn, substantial hype is attributed to its potential for radical sustainable innovation. In this article, we explore this potential in the context of the new ‘circular economy’ agenda. We focus the research on the critical role of makerspace managers/founders who are recognised as gatekeepers to circular practices. The research method is action-led including expert interviews (academics and founders/managers) as well as two generative context-mapping workshops, run at selected makerspaces in collaboration with their founders/managers. We unearth everyday ‘how-to’ guidance to interweave circular practices within makerspaces from the outset by: fostering an enabling culture; building local connections; nurturing individual/community capacities; and stimulating practical know-how. However, while the research reveals immense opportunities to cultivate circular literacy from within makerspaces, the prospects to ask more profound questions about our economy, through makerspace practices, are found to be compromised by day-to-day concerns. The insights from this research can act as a starting point for future work in this emerging research area.     

Climate change/variability and food systems: evidence from the Afram Plains,Ghana

While there are many studies of the impacts of climate change and variability on food production, few studies are devoted to a comprehensive assessment of impacts on food systems. Results of a survey of food systems and household adaptation strategies in three communities in the Afram Plains, Ghana, reveal how extreme climatic events affect rural food production, transportation, processing and storage. Adaptation strategies implemented by the three communities during past droughts serve as a foundation for planning responses to future climate change. Results of this study suggest that food security in this region—where droughts and floods are expected to become more severe due to climate change—could be enhanced by increasing farm-based storage facilities; improving the transportation system, especially feeder roads that link food production areas and major markets; providing farmers with early warning systems; extending credit to farmers; and the use of supplementary irrigation. This study also indicates that some cultural practices, particularly those that prohibit the consumption of certain foods, may reduce the resilience of some individuals and ethnic groups to food system disruptions. Understanding the local context and the responses of households is critical to the development of effective strategies for reducing the potential adverse impacts of climatic change on food security in rural Ghana.     

Mediterranean agriculture under climate change: adaptive capacity, adaptation, and ethics

In the coming decades, the Mediterranean region is expected to experience various climate impacts with negative consequences on agricultural systems and which will cause uneven reductions in agricultural production. By and large, the impacts of climate change on Mediterranean agriculture will be heavier for southern areas of the region. This unbalanced distribution of negative impacts underscores the significance and role of ethics in such a context of analysis. Consequently, the aim of this article is to justify and develop an ethical approach to agricultural adaptation in the Mediterranean and to derive the consequent implications for adaptation policy in the region. In particular, we define an index of adaptive capacity for the agricultural systems of the Mediterranean region on whose basis it is possible to group its different sub-regions, and we provide an overview of the suitable adaptation actions and policies for the sub-regions identified. We then vindicate and put forward an ethical approach to agricultural adaptation, highlighting the implications for the Mediterranean region and the limitations of such an ethical framework. Finally, we emphasize the broader potential of ethics for agricultural adaptation policy.     

Exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals among residents of a rural vegetarian/vegan community

Background & AimsEndocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are increasingly thought to be involved in the rising prevalence of disorders such as obesity, diabetes, and some hormone-dependent cancers. Several lines of evidence have indicated that vegetarian and vegan diets may offer some protection from such diseases. We hypothesized that exposure to selected EDCs among residents of the unique vegetarian/vegan community of Amirim would be lower than what has recently been reported for the omnivorous population in the first Israel Biomonitoring Study (IBMS).MethodsWe studied 42 Amirim residents (29 vegetarians/13 vegans; 24 women/18men, aged 50.7 ± 13.7 y). Subjects answered detailed lifestyle, and multipass, memory-based 24-hr dietary recall questionnaires. Concentrations of bisphenol A (BPA), 11 phthalate metabolites, and the isoflavone phytoestrogens (genistein and daidzein) were determined by GC or LC tandem mass-spectrometry on a spot urine sample. The results were compared to those obtained following the same methodology in the Jewish subgroup of the IBMS (n = 184).ResultsWhile a vegetarian/vegan nutritional pattern had no effect on exposure to BPA, it seemed to confer a modest protection (~ 21%) from exposure to high molecular weight phthalates. Furthermore, the summed metabolites of the high molecular weight phthalate DiNP were 36% lower in vegans compared to vegetarians (P < 0.05). In contrast, Amirim residents exhibited a level of exposure to isoflavone phytoestrogens about an order of magnitude higher than in the IBMS (P < 0.001).ConclusionsIn Israel, a country whose inhabitants demonstrate exposure to EDCs comparable to that of the US and Canada, a voluntary lifestyle of vegetarianism and preference for organic food has a modest, but possibly valuable, impact on exposure to phthalates, while it is associated with a very steep increase in the exposure to phytoestrogens. Major reduction in exposure to EDCs will require regulatory actions.     

生态伦理:可持续发展理论架构的基础

生态伦理作为可持续发展的基础理论构架的根据．主要体现在：从自然内在价值论与自然权利论的角度出发为可持续发展价值观提供了合理性证明：通过对人与自然间伦理关系的确定、道德原则规范的制定及对人类道德境界的全新诠释,为人类可持续发展提供了新的道德观支持;通过对“环境公正”理论的深入阐发．丰富和完善了“公正”这一可持续发展的核心理念。     

Optimum Supportable Global Population: Water Accounting and Dietary Considerations

In this paper we develop a novel, comprehensive method for estimating the global human carrying capacity in reference to food production factors and levels of food consumption. Other important interrelated dimensions of carrying capacity such as energy, non-renewable resources, and ecology are not considered here and offer opportunities for future work. Use of grain production (rain-fed/irrigated), animal product production (grazing/factory farm), diet pattern (grain/animal products), and a novel water accounting method (demand/supply) based on actual water consumption and not on withdrawal, help resolve uncertainties to find better estimates. Current Western European food consumption is used as a goal for the entire world. Then the carrying capacity lies in the range of 4.5–4.7 billion but requiring agricultural water use increase by 450–530% to 4725–5480 km³, the range based on different estimates of available water. The cost of trapping and conveying such water, will run 4.5–13.5 trillion over 50 years requiring an annual spending increase of 150–400%, straining the developing world where most of the population increase is expected. We reconfirm estimates in the literature using a dynamic model. ‘Corner scenarios’ with extreme optimistic assumptions were analyzed using the reasoning support software system GLOBESIGHT. With a hypothetical scenario with a mainly vegetarian diet (grazing only with 5% animal product), the carrying capacity can be as high as 14 billion. Ecological deterioration that surely accompanies such a population increase would negatively impact sustainable population. Using our approach the impact of ecological damage could be studied. Inter- and intra-regional inequities are other considerations that need to be studied.     

中国城乡居民食品消费变化趋势分析

基于能值理论,对比动物性荤食和植物性素食重量形态、能量形态和能值形态的数量关系,定量分析我国城乡居民食品消费的变化趋势及特征。研究表明: 2010年我国城乡居民热量、重量和能值形态的动物性荤食分别占食品消费总量的1190%、911%和7029%,一方面我国城乡居民食品消费中动物性荤食的重量形态和能量形态的数值远低于其植物性素食,说明我国城乡居民食品消费仍然以素食消费为主,另一方面其动物性荤食的能值形态数值已经远超其植物性素食,表明其居民食物消费方式已经向营养均衡多样化方向演替,畜牧业的健康发展是保障居民食品消费和国家粮食安全的重要部分。2010年城镇和农村居民荤食消费能值分别为110 E+15和631 E+14 sej,分别是其素食消费的172和079倍,说明我国城乡居民食品消费整体还表现出二元性特征,按城乡居民荤素食品结构变化演变趋势可推断城乡食品消费品质相差约20 a,并且近年来城乡人均食品消费结构差异程度呈逐年增加的趋势,同时农民且有农产品生产者和消费者的双重身份,因此相对而言农村居民对食品消费的增长趋势更加稳定。又由于相同数量的动物性荤食在生产过程中需要占用更多的农业资源,因此我国城乡居民食品消费变化对其农业生产和粮食安全生产必将产生更大的压力     

Addressing food supply chain and consumption inefficiencies: potential for climate change mitigation

Globally, more than 30 % of all food that is produced is ultimately lost and/or wasted through inefficiencies in the food supply chain. In the developed world this wastage is centred on the last stage in the supply chain; the end-consumer throwing away food that is purchased but not eaten. In contrast, in the developing world the bulk of lost food occurs in the early stages of the supply chain (production, harvesting and distribution). Excess food consumption is a similarly inefficient use of global agricultural production; with almost 1 billion people now classed as obese, 842 million people are suffering from chronic hunger. Given the magnitude of greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector, strategies that reduce food loss and wastage, or address excess caloric consumption, have great potential as effective tools in global climate change mitigation. Here, we examine the challenges of robust quantification of food wastage and consumption inefficiencies, and their associated greenhouse gas emissions, along the supply chain. We find that the quality and quantity of data are highly variable within and between geographical regions, with the greatest range tending to be associated with developing nations. Estimation of production-phase GHG emissions for food wastage and excess consumption is found to be similarly challenging on a global scale, with use of IPCC default (Tier 1) emission factors for food production being required in many regions. Where robust food waste data and production-phase emission factors do exist—such as for the UK—we find that avoiding consumer-phase food waste can deliver significant up-stream reductions in GHG emissions from the agricultural sector. Eliminating consumer milk waste in the UK alone could mitigate up to 200 Gg CO₂e year^?1; scaled up globally, we estimate mitigation potential of over 25,000 Gg CO₂e year^?1.     

Personal Metabolism (PM) coupled with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) model: Danish Case Study

Sustainable and informed resource consumption is the key to make everyday living sustainable for entire populations. An intelligent and strategic way of addressing the challenges related with sustainable development of the everyday living of consumers is to identify consumption-determined hotspots in terms of environmental and health burdens, as well as resource consumptions. Analyzing consumer life styles in terms of consumption patterns in order to identify hotspots is hence the focus of this study. This is achieved by taking into account the entire value chain of the commodities consumed in the context of environmental and human health burdens, as well as resource consumptions. A systematic commodity consumption, commodity disposal, and life style survey of 1281 persons living in urbanized Danish areas was conducted. The findings of the survey showed new impact dimensions in terms of Personal Metabolism (PM) patterns of residents living in urbanized areas of Denmark. Extending the PM analysis with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) provided a clear picture of the per capita environmental and human health burdens, as well as resource consumptions, and the exact origin hereof.A generic PM-LCA Model for all the 1281 persons was set-up in Gabi 6. The assessment results obtained applying the model on all 1281 personal consumption scenarios yielded the 1281 Personal Impact Profiles (PIPs). Consumption of food and energy (electricity and thermal energy) proved to be the primary impact sources of PM, followed by transport. The PIPs further revealed that behavioral factors (e.g. different diets, use of cars, household size) affect the profiles. Hence, behavioral changes are one means out of many that humanity will most likely have to rely on during the sustainable development process. The results of this study will help the Danish and other comparable populations to identify and prioritize the steps towards reducing their environmental, human health, and resource consumption burdens.     

Impacts of climate change on food security and agriculture sector in Malaysia

This study attempts to analyze the short- and long-run impacts of the probable change in rainfall and temperature simultaneously on food availability and access to food issues, as the two dimensions of food security, in Malaysia. It uses an integrated method comprising of a stochastic method and a computable general equilibrium model using the latest (2010) input–output table published in 2015. The stochastic method, which relates to the Monte Carlo simulation, provides the probable changes in rainfall and temperature patterns and their probability of occurrence based on historical data of rainfall and temperature and crop productivity. It was found that, simultaneous variation of rainfall and temperature, in both the short- and long-run, contracts the economic performance of Malaysia. Findings also show the negative impact of rainfall–temperature variability, in both time periods, on food availability and access to food due to a reduction in the supply of agricultural products, a commodity inflation pressure and a reduction in household income. Moreover, results suggest that the climate variability shocks lead to a reduction in the consumption and welfare of all household groups, particularly in rural areas.     

Limits of ecodesign: the case for open source product development

Abstract

In pursuit of coping mechanisms for the challenges of sustainable manufacturing, systematic methods have been developed to allow engineers to improve the ratio between products’ utility and environmental impact. These necessary efforts remain however limited if the surrounding production and consumption practices are not called into question at the same time. This article introduces open source product development as a potential approach for unlocking the limits of existing sustainable product design practices and to lead towards alternative and eco-efficient production and consumption practices termed as participative production. First, it discusses the potential advantages of this emerging practice in terms of environmental sustainability. Second, it provides a screened qualitative environmental analysis of 18 exemplary open source hardware products. Specific sustainable design principles implemented by these products are highlighted and discussed in order to identify challenges for further common research in the field of open source and sustainable product development.     

Spectacles of Labor: Viewing Food Production Through a Television Screen

This paper examines visual and narrative techniques used in representations of food production and processing in contemporary reality television programming. These include normalizing industrial labor, controlling who is given license to speak, the use of humor, baby talk and innuendo, celebrating artifice, presenting numbers without context, and venerating mechanical precision and scale. The paper argues that together these strategies help to convert productive (wage) labor into televisual free labor. Additionally, viewer feedback on these episodes (available through on-line discussion sites and constituting yet another form of free labor) provides some evidence of the ways in which readers interpret these texts, acknowledge the conditions of industrialized labor, and begin to reflect on their own food consumption practices.     

Land use and cover change in Japan and Tokyo’s appetite for meat

Urban consumption of ecosystems services such as food generates environmental impacts at different geographical scales. In the last few decades Tokyoites have shown an increasing appetite for meat. This study examines the environmental implications of Tokyo’s increasing meat consumption by analyzing how this trend has affected land use and cover change in areas near and far away. Historical databases (1970–2005) are employed in order to explore meat consumption patterns in Tokyo and to relate it with beef and pork production in areas within the country and abroad. It also integrates the historical analysis of production and consumption patterns with a discussion of the drivers (e.g., wealth, price, policies and seafood availability) behind these trends. We identified that meat production in Japan followed three distinct phases between 1877 and 2005. In the first period it took 50 years for production to increase by 50%, while during the next phase production showed the same growth in just half the time. Major changes in land use/cover change because of domestic meat production occurred mainly during the second phase and, thereafter, when domestic production declined and was substituted to a great extent by imports. Despite the increasing consumption of imported meat, Tokyo relies greatly on domestic meat produced in its neighboring prefectures. The paper concludes that regional planning can be used as an effective instrument to protect the environment and secure protein for the population of mega-urban areas such as Tokyo.     

Species of the Month: Anti-Whaling,Mediated Visibility,and the News

Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and captain of anti-whaling ship the Steve Irwin, has emerged as one of the world's most visible environmental protesters. This essay, based in part on a long interview with Watson in Australia in 2009, analyzes his mediated visibility and thus capacity to participate in public debate by isolating various components of his strategic activities under four themes: mediated protest, symbolic power, media practices, and celebrity. It argues that Watson's visibility involves a complex flow of information and meanings across various “old” and “new” media form, but remains reliant on news media. Thus, despite his generally astute media practices and strategies, Watson's visibility is contingent on a set of professional practices and logics unlikely to provide sustained news access or long-term legitimacy to a political “outsider.”     

Protection of the environment from ionising radiation: ethical issues

The paper identifies some of the main ethical issues concerning the protection of the environment from radiation and suggests ways in which ethics can aid in developing a system of protection. After a presentation of background on ethical theory and environmental ethics, three main issues related to environmental protection are discussed: First, the question of valuing the environment and implications for the definition of harm and monetary valuation of environmental goods; second, difficulties with scientific uncertainty and applications of the precautionary principle; and third, issues concerned with the distribution of risk and its relevance for participation in decision-making. In summary, the paper argues that there are strong ethical grounds to provide for the protection of the environment and that, all other things being equal, there is no reason to treat ionising radiation differently to other environmental stressors.     

Protein futures for Western Europe: potential land use and climate impacts in 2050

Multiple production and demand side measures are needed to improve food system sustainability. This study quantified the theoretical minimum agricultural land requirements to supply Western Europe with food in 2050 from its own land base, together with GHG emissions arising. Assuming that crop yield gaps in agriculture are closed, livestock production efficiencies increased and waste at all stages reduced, a range of food consumption scenarios were modelled each based on different ‘protein futures’. The scenarios were as follows: intensive and efficient livestock production using today’s species mix; intensive efficient poultry–dairy production; intensive efficient aquaculture–dairy; artificial meat and dairy; livestock on ‘ecological leftovers’ (livestock reared only on land unsuited to cropping, agricultural residues and food waste, with consumption capped at that level of availability); and a ‘plant-based eating’ scenario. For each scenario, ‘projected diet’ and ‘healthy diet’ variants were modelled. Finally, we quantified the theoretical maximum carbon sequestration potential from afforestation of spared agricultural land. Results indicate that land use could be cut by 14–86 % and GHG emissions reduced by up to approximately 90 %. The yearly carbon storage potential arising from spared agricultural land ranged from 90 to 700 Mt CO₂ in 2050. The artificial meat and plant-based scenarios achieved the greatest land use and GHG reductions and the greatest carbon sequestration potential. The ‘ecological leftover’ scenario required the least cropland as compared with the other meat-containing scenarios, but all available pasture was used, and GHG emissions were higher if meat consumption was not capped at healthy levels.