面向生态文明的可持续生活方式培养与行动

<正>可持续生活方式遵循自然规律,是以可持续发展为目标,建立一种既能满足人类良性生活需求,又能维护生态平衡的生活方式。生态文明是人类遵循人、自然、社会和谐发展这一客观规律而取得的物质与精神成果的总和;是指人与自然、人与人、人与社会和谐共生、良性循环、全面发展、持续繁荣为基本宗旨的文化伦理形态。生态文明建设的实质是建设     

大学与理性生态人的培养

具有生态理性的高级专门人才是社会实施可持续发展战略的关键因素。理性生态人是针对理性经济人的存在而提出的,是一种有利于人类持续发展的新人形象。大学应以培养具有综合素质和生态理性的人才为己任,以纠正专业教育对个体和人类的全面发展所造成的不利影响。     

平衡——生态健康之本——平衡与生态健康之关系

"平衡"是世间万物之本,而生态健康却与自然、社会、政治以及人体平衡等有着千丝万缕的联系。随着人类社会经济的不断发展和人们生活水平的不断提高,生态健康已成为现代化生活的一个重要标志,它直接关系到人们的健康生活。本文提出了"平衡"是生态健康之本,从一个新颖的视角-"平衡",简明地论述了平衡在人类的生存发展过程中的重要性,以及它与生态健康之间的密切关系。文章中阐述的观值得思考,对如何理解和审视"生态健康"有着重要的启示作用。     

加强生态道德教育 促进生态文明建设

胡锦涛同志在十七大报告中首次把“生态文明”写入了党代会的政治报告。生态文明,是指人类遵循人、自然、社会和谐发展这一客观规律而取得的物质与精神成果的 总和；是指以人与自然、人与人、人与社会和谐共生、良性循环、     

以生态保护工作的实际行动积极推动生态文明建设

生态文明是人类遵循人、自然与社会和谐发展的客观规律，在改造客观世界和主观世界的过程中取得的物质精神和精神成果的总和，是人与自然、人与人、人与社会和谐发展的文化伦理形态。     

中国的生态觉醒:文学的新启蒙

不管物质如何进步,经济如何发展,人类必须要有灵魂的信仰,有自己的精神家园。在这个一切图"快"的时代,我们遭遇了物质与精神发展的不平衡,自然生态被破坏,人的精神生态面临真情缺失、道德滑坡等危机。在危机面前,文学应该发挥它关怀人的灵魂和情感的作用,承担唤起我们整个民族对于生态问题的觉醒的任务,为解决生态危机提供精神资源。     

课程“五进阶”,生态文明行

正从儿童视角构建课程、整合主题,融合学科;结合日常校园生活组织活动践行环保,引导学生形成生态文明的意识和价值取向;开展社会实践与服务,实现生态课程与德育实践的对接。生态文明是人与自然、人与人、人与社会和谐共生、良性循环、全面发展、持续繁荣为基本宗旨的社会形态。生态文明,它能够超越狭隘的个体、家庭、国家和民族的界限,成为引领人类社会进步发展,与自然生态环境和谐一致的精神力量,是一种优秀的人类核心道德。     

基于生态足迹的山东省可持续发展研究

运用生态足迹模型计算了山东省2000—2016年人均生态足迹、人均生态承载力和生态赤字等指标。研究发现:(1)2000—2016年,山东省人均生态足迹从2.41 hm~2增加到5.00 hm~2,人均生态承载力从0.65 hm~2下降到0.62 hm~2,生态赤字大于1 hm~2,说明山东省经济发展已经呈现出不可持续状态。(2)通过测算单位万元GDP生态足迹等相关指标,发现山东省自然资源效率逐渐提高,但生态环境压力较大,生态环境破环严重。并提出控制人口规模、提倡理性消费、合理划分土地利用类型等提高山东省可持续发展的建议。     

如何开展大学生生态文明思想政治教育

大学生对生态文明建设与可持续发展的理解和认识,很大程度上,将决定我国生态文明建设的广度、深度和历史进程。随着现代工业文明的发展,人类改造自然的能力逐步增强,全球环境遭受到了严重的影响,人类开始面临着严峻的考验。党的十七大提出,"建设生态文明,基本形成节约能源资源和保护生态环境的产业结构、增长方式、消费模式。循环经济形成较大规     

生态道德教育融入高校思政课的主要路径探析——基于贵州绿色发展的视角

正高校既要提高生态道德教育在思政课堂中的授课比重;又要紧密联系时政,寓生态道德教育于思政课堂,从而提升大学生生态道德教育的实效性,让贵州的绿色发展更顺畅持久。生态道德也被称之为环境道德,是从道德的层面来定义人类应该如何看待并处理与大自然之间的关系。它要求人类要平等对待大自然,平等地对待当前发展与未来可持续发展之间的关系。高校生态道德教育就是要通过各种渠道,帮助大学生们了解     

Sustainable development: Scientific and ethical assessments

The problem of assessing the sustainability of human development is discussed in theoretical and practical terms.In Part I, two theoretical tools for describing the challenge of assessing sustainable development are introduced and briefly discussed: (i) the use of an energetic model to describe the dynamic interaction between the human and the biophysical compartment; (ii) basic concepts derived from the hierarchy theory applied to the development of human society. Sustainable and ethical development of human society requires the consideration of three hierarchical levels: the biosphere, the societal and the individual level. Such a holistic assessment can be obtained by integrating scientific and ethical considerations.In Part II, data illustrating the current terms of the dilemma of human development are presented and discussed within the theoretical frame provided in Part I. It is argued that even if we had a better understanding of the consequeces of human activity on the biosphere, current modes of organization of human society and its economic activity do not readily enable adequate planning for the sustainable development of mankind. Ideologies that can bias the discussion and the assessment of sustainable and ethical development are discussed. No solution is at hand; therefore, when we consider human development today, we are facing a high level of uncertainty.     

Numerical and experimental investigation of state of health of Li-ion battery

ABSTRACT

Estimation of State of Health (SoH) of Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery is essential to predict the lifespan of batteries of an electric vehicle (EV). The efficient prediction of battery health indicates to the effective and safe operation of EV. However, delivering an effective and accurate method for the estimation of SoH in the real condition is truly a challenging task. The present study proposed a holistic procedure of combining both experimental and numerical investigations to conduct the fundamental study on coupled mechanical-electrochemical behavior of Li-ion battery. The proposed investigation highlighted the effect of stress on the capacity of the battery, considering capacity fade as an equivalent parameter to its health for real-time estimation of SoH. Finally, a simple model of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is provided, which shows the linear dependency of stress with the SoH. The results obtained from the ANN model are validated with a Linear Regression (LR) model for a better understanding of the inspection. The predicted value of mean Square Error (MSE) and R square error in the ANN training model are found to be 0.000309 and 0.849687, respectively. Whereas for the test model, these predicted values are found to be 0.000438 and 0.819347, respectively.     

Wells and well-being: neoliberalism and holistic sustainability in the shale energy debate

Based on semi-structured interviews with 31 Ohioans, this article argues that individuals who are concerned about shale energy development draw from a discursive framework that diverges dramatically from the position promoted by industrial proponents. While the oil and gas industry and its supporters largely embrace a neoliberal outlook that most closely correlates well-being with economic growth, citizens troubled by such development are guided by a more holistic perspective that links well-being to numerous interrelated non-economic elements including human health, community continuity, political empowerment, and environmental sustainability. This work contributes to an emerging understanding of how environmental change and socionatural well-being converge in the novel context of shale energy development and aims to give voice to those who cope with the direct consequences of twenty-first-century fossil fuel extraction. Approaching discourse – defined here as shared communication patterns that simultaneously reproduce and generate distinctive understandings of the world – as a dynamic arena of sociopolitical struggle, I further suggest that shale energy opponents use holistic sustainability discourse to actively or implicitly challenge neoliberal strategies for guiding thought and governing action.     

A capabilities approach to the prioritization of critical infrastructure

As a consequence of the U.S. effort to increase infrastructure security and resilience, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other U.S. federal agencies have identified 16 critical infrastructure sectors that are considered vital to the nation’s well-being in terms of economic security, public health, and safety. However, there remains no articulated set of values that justify this particular list of infrastructure systems or how decision-makers might prioritize investments towards one critical sector over another during a crisis. To offer a more integrated and holistic approach to critical infrastructure resilience, this research employs the capabilities approach to human development, which offers an alternative view of critical infrastructure that focuses on the services that infrastructure provides rather than its physical condition or vulnerability to threats. This service-based perspective of infrastructure emphasizes the role of infrastructure in enabling and supporting central human capabilities that build adaptive capacity and improve human well-being. We argue that the most critical infrastructure systems are those that are essential for providing and/or supporting central human capabilities. This paper examines the DHS designation of criticality from a capabilities perspective and argues for a capabilities basis for making distinctions between those systems that should be considered most critical and those that might be temporarily sacrificed. A key implication of this work is that an across sector approach is required to reorganize existing critical infrastructure efforts around the most valuable infrastructure end-services.     

An assessment of long term ecosystem research activities across European socio-ecological gradients

Integration of European long term ecosystem research (LTER) would provide important support for the management of the pan-European environment and ecosystems, as well as international policy commitments. This does require appropriate coverage of Europe and standardised frameworks and research methods between countries. Emerging interest in socio-ecological systems prompted the present assessment of the distribution of LTER activities across European socio-ecological gradients. This paper presents a European stratification with a 1 km² resolution, delineating 48 broad socio-ecological regions. The dataset is based on an existing biogeophysical stratification constructed using multivariate clustering of mainly climatic variables and a newly developed socio-economic stratification based on an economic density indicator. The coverage of European LTER facilities across the socio-ecological gradients is tested using this dataset. The analysis shows two strong biases in the present LTER effort. Firstly, urban and disturbed regions are consistently under-represented, illustrating a bias for traditional ecological research away from human activity. Secondly, the Mediterranean, for which some of the most extreme global change impacts are projected, is receiving comparatively little attention. Both findings can help guide future investment in the European LTER network – and especially in a Long Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) component– to provide a more balanced coverage. This will provide better scientific understanding of pan-European environmental concerns and support the management of natural resources and international policy commitments in the European Union.     

“Food Metaphors and Ethics: Towards More Attention for Bodily Experience”

Official Dutch food information apparently tries to avoid images but is implicitly shaped by the metaphor that food is fuel. The image of food as fuel and its accompanying view of the body as a machine are not maximally helpful for integrating two important human desires: health and pleasure. At the basis of the split between health and pleasure is the traditional mind–body dichotomy, in which the body is an important source of evil and bodily pleasure is sinful and dangerous. In the search for alternatives, new metaphors are proposed that integrate mind and body as well as pleasure and health. The relevance of metaphors for ethics is at least twofold. (1) Moral thought and theory are at least partly shaped by metaphors. In the light of this growing recognition, the analysis of morality needs innovation. (2) With regard to food, new metaphors, such as slow food, or the image of enjoyment as an art, enable a new search for morally responsible forms of hedonism, based on more love and respect for human as well as animal bodies. But new metaphors are specific and selective, just like old ones. I argue that a search for the best overall metaphor would be misguided, but that more diverse forms of attention to bodily aspects of life, including experiences related to food, will result in richer vocabularies of the body, the mind, and body–mind relations. This holds a promise of moral progress.     

The Moral Philosophy of Automobiles

The ethics of technology use has tended to arise from the theory of the role of technology in human life and society and thus introduces a bias into moral assessment of such use. I propose a dialectical method of morally assessing a technology use without such a preset notion. Instead the assumption is that the moral agent is as responsible for use of a technology as for any other moral action of the agent, that is, the individual’s use of a technology is a moral action that can be morally assessed. I apply this outlook to automobile use, weighing its moral pros and cons, such as in terms of autonomy, environmental degradation, land use, health hazards, and other moral drawbacks arising from the technology’s use or non-use. Although the conclusion leaves the final moral assessment undecided, the method points to a way fairly to assess morally the use of technologies in terms of human betterment and environmental and health concerns, minimizing biases from assumptions of the role or nature of technologies.     

Bridging the gaps for global sustainable development: A quantitative analysis

Global human progress occurs in a complex web of interactions between society, technology and the environment as driven by governance and infrastructure management capacity among nations. In our globalizing world, this complex web of interactions over the last 200 years has resulted in the chronic widening of economic and political gaps between the haves and the have-nots with consequential global cultural and ecosystem challenges. At the bottom of these challenges is the issue of resource limitations on our finite planet with increasing population. The problem is further compounded by pleasure-driven and poverty-driven ecological depletion and pollution by the haves and the have-nots respectively. These challenges are explored in this paper as global sustainable development (SD) quantitatively; in order to assess the gaps that need to be bridged.Although there has been significant rhetoric on SD with very many qualitative definitions offered, very few quantitative definitions of SD exist. The few that do exist tend to measure SD in terms of social, energy, economic and environmental dimensions. In our research, we used several human survival, development, and progress variables to create an aggregate SD parameter that describes the capacity of nations in three dimensions: social sustainability, environmental sustainability and technological sustainability. Using our proposed quantitative definition of SD and data from relatively reputable secondary sources, 132 nations were ranked and compared.Our comparisons indicate a global hierarchy of needs among nations similar to Maslow's at the individual level. As in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, nations that are struggling to survive are less concerned with environmental sustainability than advanced and stable nations. Nations such as the United States, Canada, Finland, Norway and others have higher SD capacity, and thus, are higher on their hierarchy of needs than nations such as Nigeria, Vietnam, Mexico and other developing nations. To bridge such gaps, we suggest that global public policy for local to global governance and infrastructure management may be necessary. Such global public policy requires holistic development strategies in contrast to the very simplistic north–south, developed–developing nations dichotomies.     

Mining and development in the region of Antofagasta

The objective of this paper is to analyse the effect of mining on economic and social development in the region of Antofagasta from 1985 to 2008. Analysis of development is restricted to spheres described by available indicators used by several international and non-governmental organizations such as income distribution, education, health, poverty, human development and security, satisfaction, cost of living, income per capita, GDP per capita, employment, productive activity, added value and its distribution. Correlation between some of these variables is estimated as well as the gap between these indicators and those of developed countries.     

The Edge of “Animal Rights”

A central task of environmental ethics, which have been arising since 1960s, is to extend the objects of moral concern beyond the individuals of Homo sapiens. (Here, it involves the issue of the boundary of environmental ethics. In a narrow sense, an environmental ethic must grant moral concern to holistic environmental objects (such as ecosystems). On the other hand, if we broadly define the environmental ethic as an ethic that shows moral concern not limited to Homo sapiens and its individuals only, then, these “generalized” environmental ethics include Peter Singer’s “animal liberation” and Tom Regan’s “animal rights”. In this article, the term “environmental ethic” refers to an environmental ethic in a generalized sense.) All the objects deserving moral concern constitute the moral community. The trajectory and boundary of this extension are different among different schools. Compared to other schools, Tom Regan’s “animal rights” has a relatively smaller moral community, making it more “conservative” at first sight. Meanwhile, the rights view, like other schools, faces the question regarding the edge of moral concern. This question consists of two sub-questions: (1) where is the boundary of the moral community and (2) how ought we to treat the objects of moral concern near the boundary? Given the closeness of Regan’s theory to traditional ethics (regarding the boundary of the moral community), this study is mainly focused on analyzing the edge of moral concern within the framework of the theory of animal rights. Further, I investigate the similarities and differences in the boundary of moral concern among various schools of environmental ethics. The comparative analysis demonstrates a subtle relation between science and moral philosophy, and reveals a similar form of a metaphysical premise adopted by all environmental ethics. This research helps to clarify the moral concern of environmental ethics, which is an essential prerequisite for establishing a new ethic, and therefore helps to consolidate the reference of environmental ethics to environmental management.