Fanning the Blame: Media Accountability,Climate and Crisis on the Australian “Fire Continent”

This paper raises questions of media coverage of “compounded crises” related to extreme weather disaster, in the context of urgent calls to address the implications of a changing climate. Through media analysis, it examines the ways debate over bushfire protection policy was framed and made culturally meaningful, thereby politically consequential, in the wake of the worst bushfires in modern Australian history, Black Saturday (2009). The fires, in which 173 people died, led to a Royal Commission and fierce debate over the use of prescribed burning to reduce bushfire hazard. Longitudinal analysis of local, state and national mainstream media coverage (2009–2016) reveals blame games that targeted environmentalists and the government, which near-silenced meaningful discussion of the complexity of fire science, impacts of climate change on weather conditions, and calls for adaptation. By exploring the media’s constitutive role in crisis response, the paper highlights the legacy and potency of ideological conflict that shapes the media-policy nexus in Australia.     

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.     

Economic Conditions,the Policy Cycle,and Media Visibility of Environmental Organizations

The extent to which social movements have access to the news media has important implications on the capability of social movements to communicate with and garner support from the public. Factors that shape movement organizations' media visibility thus deserve scholarly attention. This article deals with news coverage of environmental movement organizations (EMOs) in Hong Kong and focuses on the impact of economic conditions, the policy cycle, and the number of EMOs in society on media visibility of EMOs. Analysis of a data-set constructed based on archival data and official statistics illustrates that all three factors influence media visibility of EMOs through media attention to environmental issues, while the number of EMOs and economic conditions also affect media visibility of EMOs directly. In-depth interview data are then used to supplement the quantitative analysis by showing how movement activists perceive and respond strategically to the structural factors. Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.     

The Shaping of Environmental Information in Social Media: Affordances and Technologies of Self-control

This article studies environmental information as it circulates in social media, specifically in personal blogs and microblogs. It rests on a thematic analysis of a selection of Swedish language, personal, everyday life environment blogs active during 2011 and 2012 and the social media applications connected to these blogs. Gibson's concept of affordances and Foucault's notion of governmentality are brought together to examine how material and technological affordances of social media and the structures of governmentality work together to engender a type of information on environmentally friendly living that is rooted in the conditions of the Web, together with a view of society which is structured around choice and individual responsibility. The article argues that information is woven into the texture of the social on every level, including everyday life practices, and hence social media, as tools in such practices, contribute to shaping the way in which information on environmentally friendly living is articulated, shaped, and filled with meaning.     

气候移民的概念与类型探析

气候变化问题、气候变化及其不利影响所导致的现实或潜在的大量气候移民已成为21世纪人类社会面临的严峻挑战,是现阶段人类社会普遍关注的核心问题之一。通过对社会发展进程中各种主客观因素叠加作用导致的渐变缓发性气候风险、极端突变灾害性气候风险等诸种气候变化现象所导致的气候移民问题的剖析,结合已有的研究文献对历史、现实条件下气候变化导致的气候移民产生的机理与逻辑展开分析,以把握其演变发展趋势。从而对气候移民进行概念上的辨析、梳理和界定,以揭示气候移民的实体内涵、本质特点与根本属性;并依据移民的迁移意愿、迁移时限长短、迁移的空间区域和距离远近、导致气候移民的不同致因对其进行类型上的划分与归类,以期加深我们对气候移民问题的深入理解与认知,更好把握气候移民问题产生的本质与演变发展规律。从而为有效破解各种气候变化现象导致的气候移民难题,化解气候移民面临的各种社会风险,促进社会的良性运行与协调发展做出初步探索。     

What is in an index? Construction method,data metric,and weighting scheme determine the outcome of composite social vulnerability indices in New York City

Mapping social vulnerability is a prominent way to identify regions in which the lack of capacity to cope with the impacts of weather extremes is nested in the social setting, aiding climate change adaptation for vulnerable residents, neighborhoods, or localities. Calculating social vulnerability usually involves the construction of a composite index, for which several construction methods have been suggested. However, thorough investigation of results across methods or applied weighting of vulnerability factors is largely missing. This study investigates the outcome of the variable addition—both with and without weighting of single vulnerability factors—and the variable reduction approach/model on social vulnerability indices calculated for New York City. Weighting is based on scientific assessment reports on climate change impacts in New York City. Additionally, the study calculates the outcome on social vulnerability when using either area-based (person/km²) or population-based (%) input data. The study reveals remarkable differences between indices particularly when using different methods but also when using different metrics as input data. The variable addition model has deductive advantages, whereas the variable reduction model is useful when the strength of factors of social vulnerability is unknown. The use of area-based data seems preferable to population-based data when differences are taken as a measure of credibility and quality. Results are important for all forms of vulnerability mapping using index construction techniques.

     

“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.     

Rapid Issue Tracking: A Method for Taking the Pulse of the Public Discussion of Environmental Policy

Environmental communication professionals and other decision makers need to understand public sentiment toward environmental issues to effectively carry out their stewardship responsibilities. However, it is often difficult to obtain timely and reliable information about public discussion and debate regarding these issues. This paper describes an approach designed to address this dilemma: Rapid Issue Tracking is a method for quickly “taking the pulse” of public and other stakeholder discussion. The data source for Rapid Issue Tracking is online media stories, including traditional news media, social media, and other textual data such as public comments received by an agency. Two US Forest Service cases of Rapid Issue Tracking are presented to explicate the method and its usefulness in environmental communication and decision making.     

Phony Facts and Eco-media: Fake Nature and the Call for Widespread Media Literacy

ABSTRACT

Mermaids: The Body Found privileges mythologized creatures in a fictional narrative disguised as a documentary film in order to blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. This franchise’s decisions to value factors of entertainment over educational material are not uncommon in our consumer-driven society, but the film's engagement with fake fact media potentially repositions how audiences think about important conservation issues by overshadowing critical oceanic environmental topics with fake facts. Although today’s viewers are adept in interpreting media, the mermaid franchise’s use of screen genres, corporate websites, and social media saturates viewers with fake facts making it difficult to delineate between authentic science and fictional narrative. Not a quantitative reception study of audiences, this critical analysis of multiple genres of eco-media examines the difference between fake nature documentary and other types of animal programming and mockumentaries emphasizing that the issue is not strictly a question of entertainment factors or even of the subversion of fact and fiction, alone, but that the real issue lies in the franchise’s willingness to participate in an ever-growing media moment in which programming based on fake and alternative facts has the potential to impact how the public thinks about key issues in politics and science.     

Impacts of climatic disasters in coastal Bangladesh: why does private adaptive capacity differ?

This paper quantitatively assesses the influences of various demographic and socio-economic factors, past adaptive behavioral factors, access to weather/climate information, and spatial/locational factors on coastal populations’ perceived adaptive capacity against major impacts of hydro-meteorological disasters on their livelihood. A total of 285 respondents from three coastal villages in Bangladesh were randomly interviewed between January and April 2009. Respondents rated their perceived adaptive capacity against 25 anticipated impacts of sea-level rise (SLR)-induced events on their livelihood. By employing the principal component analysis (PCA), perceived adaptive capacity was grouped into five major categories. Then, an adaptive capacity index for each of five major impacts, namely, “infrastructure damage and disrupted mobility,” “food and nutritional insecurity,” “low earning and higher cost of maintenance,” “loss of employment in offshore activities,” and “crisis of potable water and public health risk,” was prepared. How adaptive capacity against each of these major five categories of impacts differs due to the influence of various factors was assessed by employing the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) technique. The MANOVAs show that age, sex, level of education, type of occupation, farmland holdings, past adaptive behavior against rainfall, salinity intrusion, freshwater crises, use of radio for weather information, and the distance of the homestead from the shoreline have varying levels of influence on respondents’ perceived adaptive capacity against each of the five major categories of impacts. Others factors have moderate to limited influences. The policy implication is that specific programs, rather than a generic one-size fits all program, must be initiated for enhancement of adaptive capacity against specific impacts.     

Making Progress? Reproducing Hegemony Through Discourses of “Sustainable Development” in the Australian News Media

While numerous studies have investigated discourses of “sustainable development” in a variety of institutional and academic contexts, media discourses on this issue have remained largely unexamined. But considering the intertwined nature of media and society, the construction of sustainable development in the news may be an important factor shaping future ecological and social outcomes. Proceeding from the thesis that the news is a site in which hegemony may be reproduced, this paper critically analyses discourses used to construct sustainable development in news texts published over the 10-year period 2004–2013 across the eight most widely circulated newspapers in Australia. The findings show that sustainable development news is confined to a narrow range of discourses that largely serve to perpetuate the status quo, which is broadly consistent with the media hegemony thesis. Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings, propose possible explanations, and explore avenues for future research.     

The influence of climate change on the ecology of the Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) in Southern Karelia

The paper is devoted to the ecology of the Pied Flycatcher in Southern Karelia, where climate warming has had almost no effect on the weather in spring, the season especially important for birds. During the 30-year observation period, the local population has been characterized by variable breeding phenology, high fecundity, and relatively stable abundance. This appears to be related to the broad norm of reaction of this species to the action of external factors, which allows the birds to flexibly respond to changes in the unstable spring weather and adjust the timing and rates of their seasonal activities.     

Factors influencing the duration of gypsy moth (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Lymantria dispar</Emphasis> L.) population outbreaks

For the first time, an attempt has been made to reveal possible causes of the relative “brevity” of gypsy moth outbreaks in the Russian Far East. The results show that major factors limiting these outbreaks include the weakly manifested seasonal drift of gypsy moth foci, oviposition habits, as well as specific weather conditions during the period of larval development and death that facilitating the dispersal of insect pathogens in components of the forest ecosystem.     

Sources and Framing of Fracking: A Content Analysis of Newspaper Coverage in North Carolina,New York,and Pennsylvania

Research across several decades has mapped the way complex environmental issues with complicated policy implications are often differentially framed within the media, public, and policy agendas with major implications for how they are understood, discussed, and decided. Building on this work, this this study compared news coverage of the debate over natural gas “fracking” in New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina between the period 2008 and 2013. Examining state newspapers, the analysis evaluated the types of sources used, the assertions of these sources, and how the issue of fracking was framed. From a general perspective, this study reveals how differences in framing of an environmental and scientific controversy can be attributed to the locally relevant sources used in reporting, as well as the political, economic, and social factors that might be unique to a state. Specific to the debate over natural gas “fracking,” this study adds to our understanding of how such state-based factors influence the portrayal of the issue in the news media.     

Three Dimensions of Social Media Messaging Success by Environmental NGOs

Studies show that NGOs persist in using social media to impart unidirectional messages rather than taking advantage of the participatory nature of networked media. Fear of a loss of message control may be at the heart of NGOs’ desire to keep social media messages on track. The current study examines the success of an environmental NGO in keeping its social media messages under control using quantitative content analysis of an NGO-promoted hashtag, #climatemarch, during a United Nations conference on climate change in 2015. Three dimensions of social media message success – volume, topic/valence, and participants – are proposed.     

Different perceptions of adaptation to climate change: a mental model approach applied to the evidence from expert interviews

We argue that differences in the perception and governance of adaptation to climate change and extreme weather events are related to sets of beliefs and concepts through which people understand the environment and which are used to solve the problems they face (mental models). Using data gathered in 31 in-depth interviews with adaptation experts in Europe, we identify five basic stakeholder groups whose divergent aims and logic can be related to different mental models they use: advocacy groups, administration, politicians, researchers, and media and the public. Each of these groups uses specific interpretations of climate change and specifies how to deal with climate change impacts. We suggest that a deeper understanding and follow-up of the identified mental models might be useful for the design of any stakeholder involvement in future climate impact research processes. It might also foster consensus building about adequate adaptation measures against climate threats in a society.     

Structure and dynamics of marginal Gymnadenia conopsea (L.) R. Br. (Orchidaceae) populations on limestones in the northeast of European Russia

Data are presented on the abundance, structure, and dynamics of hemipopulations of G. conopsea protocorms and autotrophic individuals at the northern boundary of the species range. The dynamics of ontogenetic structure of G. conopsea cenopopulations have a fluctuating pattern. Their response to adverse weather conditions is manifested in short-term reduction of density and increase in cenopopulation ageness in subsequent years. Deterioration of growing conditions in a series of ecotopes is accompanied by an increase in the proportion of young individuals, which allows the species to level off the impact of adverse weather factors on population size.     

1998年长江大洪水与大气环流和海温异常分析

概述了引起１９９８年长江大洪水的雨情，从天气气候角度分析了１９９８年长江流域降水异常偏多的原因。指出了最直接的原因是副高移动的反常，特别７月１５日以后副高突然南撤南海季风爆发晚，南亚和东亚季风强度偏弱、夏季赤道辐合带偏弱热带地区台风生成少、生成时间晚，     

Perceived Collective Efficacy and Trust in Government Influence Public Engagement with Climate Change-Related Water Conservation Policies

Water insecurity, induced or intensified due to climate change, has emerged as a key policy challenge in poor and developing countries such as India. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this paper examines the role of perceived collective efficacy—people's shared beliefs about their group's capabilities to accomplish collective tasks—and trust in government as factors influencing Indians' engagement with government water conservation policies. Using a national survey of Indians (N = 4031), we found that individuals with high levels of perceived collective efficacy and trust in government are more likely to support government water conservation policies. Moreover, for individuals with low trust in government, higher collective efficacy is associated with greater policy support. Perceived collective efficacy is also associated with activist behaviours, while distrust is not. Increasing collective efficacy beliefs, for example through mass media channels and targeted campaigns, could help increase citizens' engagement with climate change adaptation policies.     

第四次工业革命对环境治理体系建设的影响与挑战

以人工智能为代表的第四次工业革命发展迅速,特别是能源和新材料技术的突破,极大可能改变人类现有能源格局,并对建立在化石能源思维下的传统环境治理体系带来巨大影响。为此,本文梳理了第四次工业革命代表性的科技进展,分析了其对国家环境治理体系的积极影响:(1)将改变建立在化石能源基础上的工业、农业和城市形态,打破经济发展对资源、能源和土地的高度依赖,彻底告别环境污染和生态破坏;(2)将真正实现面向现在和未来的数据精准决策,显著改善人类应对不确定性环境风险能力。另一方面,由于人工智能会极大提升公民个体对复杂科学技术和社会规则的掌握能力,会改变传统治理结构中政府—市场—社会三元力量对比,给政府在环境治理领域的政策制定和执行带来新的挑战:(1)公众的能力足以使得他们对政府做出的任何不利于自己的政策提出挑战,政府信息公开和透明决策压力空前;(2)社交媒体使得公众对政府及主流媒体信息的关注大大下降,对政府如何利用新型社交媒体进行环境保护宣传教育提出了新的挑战,同时也对社会管理部门如何培育环保社会组织,弥补政府影响力下降所产生的空白提出了新的课题;(3)个体可以同时具有律师、会计、记者等处理复杂社会问题的能力,挑战政府维护社会公平稳定的利益裁量权,对环境司法公正提出更高要求。当前,中国正在进行环境体制改革创新,追求环境治理体系和治理能力现代化,如何关注、分析并积极适应由于技术变革引起的经济基础和上层建筑变化,避免制度资源错配,对于我们这样一个正在进行工业化的后发型国家尤为重要。文章最后建议,要高度关注这个领域的研究前沿进展,在制定发展规划与改革措施过程中,以未来的技术环境为出发点;要加强治理创新,引导技术朝着有利环境保护的方向发展;要加强技术对国家治理体系和治理能力双向影响研究,推进政府改革与创新,为人民提供更好的公共产品。