The Country,the City,and the Corporation: Rio Tinto Kennecott and the Materiality of Corporate Rhetoric

Contributing to extant discourses about corporate environmental advocacy, this paper argues that corporations can embed discursive rhetorical strategies in material places and spaces. This argument contributes to environmental communication by bridging divisions between discursive and materialist approaches to corporate rhetoric. Corporate materiality is realized in the study of Rio Tinto Kennecott (RTK) at places of corporate community where RTK enunciates a dominant environmental discourse about the necessity of the Bingham Canyon Mine through strategies such as the technological shell game, the hypocrite's trap, and corporate heterotopia, which are made manifest materially alongside cultural values such as epistemic trust, technological progress, community, and home. Using participatory critical rhetoric as a methodology, I analyse RTK's material rhetoric at the Natural History Museum of Utah, the Rio Tinto Soccer Stadium, and the Daybreak suburban community. This case study reveals that corporations are assemblages that assert many different, and sometimes competing, arguments that can deflect environmental criticism, materially.     

Dynamic Discourse Coalitions on hydro-fracking in Europe and the United States

ABSTRACT

Hydraulic fracturing for shale gas is a controversial issue in most countries. In these controversies, actors use discursive boundary work to convince various audiences of their position. Discursive boundary work is a communicative strategy that involves the framing of facts in contrast to other kinds of arguments. In this article we develop the Dynamic Discourse Coalition (DDC) approach to study how discourse coalitions deploy discursive boundary work to confirm, integrate, polarize or disintegrate their own and opposing discourse coalitions. The DDC approach enables a deeper understanding of the dynamics of controversies about hydraulic fracturing and similar contested technologies by illuminating the influence of communicative processes on policy formation. Based on an analysis of policy documents, academic reports, newspapers, interviews and websites we compare the dynamics of contesting discourse coalitions in the Netherlands and New York. This analysis explains why policy formed in different ways in the cases, despite the apparent similarity of the discourse coalitions that emerged in the respective controversies.     

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.     

Containing spectacle in the transnational public sphere

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the discursive struggle over the reach and containment of spectacle in environmental politics to provide (a) case study-based evidence of how, on one hand, transnationally shared environmental awareness and concern, emerging in part through spectacle, is translating into expectations of participation and demands for accountability, and (b) how this is already impacting the ways in which environmental politics is being understood and enacted locally, regionally and transnationally. Drawing on recent mediated debate over the Great Barrier Reef, it finds that while the transnational is clearly an ambition for environmental campaigners, and the perception that transnational publics are emerging is already impacting environmental politics, the potency of these publics and their capacity to meaningfully negotiate accountability is yet to be empirically confirmed. Nevertheless, measures to contain spectacle are providing a potency for a transnational public sphere, even if in reality it is still little more than a specter.     

Spatial effect of environmental regulation measures on industrial structure upgrading from the empirical analysis of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its surrounding areas

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the spatial effect of environmental regulation measures on the upgrading of industrial structure in the integrated development strategy of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its surrounding areas. In order to reflect the effect of the environmental regulation and different regulation measures more truly, this paper constructs indices of the environmental regulation measures through the results of policy texts quantification. On the basis of the previous research, this paper divides environmental regulation into the following types: personnel and administrative measures of command and control; market-oriented fiscal, taxation, financial and other economic measures; guidance measures. Spatial panel regression results show that administrative measures of command control and market-oriented fiscal measures have a significant role in promoting regional industrial structure upgrading, but not conducive to the advancement of the industrial structure of adjacent areas. Their roles in promoting and inhibition are counteracted, which causes the total effect of industrial structure upgrading of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the surrounding areas are not significant. Personnel measures, financial measures, other economic measures and guidance measures do not have the short-term effect and spatial effect on the upgrading of industrial structure.     

Drilling Is Just the Beginning: Romanticizing Rust Belt identities in the campaign for shale gas

ABSTRACT

Public apprehension over the environmental, social, and health impacts of unconventional gas drilling, or fracking, prompts various responses from oil and gas industries. Natural gas discourses operating in the Marcellus Shale Region, USA, for example, counter claims of environmental harm by emphasizing the economic growth that industry spurs. This article argues that corporate narratives operating in the Marcellus renew the jobs versus environment dichotomy by romanticizing labor identities in the region, binding Rust Belt identities to extraction in the past, present, and future of the region. The danger of this discursive move is the exclusion of alternative possibilities for working, living, and being without fossil fuel industries. I employ a critical analysis of one corporate advertising campaign, “Drilling Is Just the Beginning,” produced by the natural gas drilling company Range Resources, to demonstrate how extraction discourses construct futures that depend on shale gas development, thereby marginalizing possibilities for ecologically sensible alternatives.     

Belligerent broadcasting,male anti-authoritarianism and anti-environmentalism: the case of Top Gear (BBC, 2002–2015)

ABSTRACT

This article considers the format and cultural politics of the hugely successful UK television program Top Gear (BBC 2002–2015). It analyzes how—through its presenting team—it constructed an informal address predicated around anti-authoritarian or contrarian banter and protest masculinity. Regular targets for Top Gear presenter’s protest—curtailed by broadcast guidelines in terms of gender and ethnicity—are deflected onto the “soft” targets of government legislation on environmental issues or various forms of regulation “red tape. Repeated references to speed cameras, central London congestion charges and “excessive” signage are all anti-authoritarian, libertarian discourses delivered through a comedic form of performance address. Thus, the BBC’s primary response to complaints made about this program was to defend the program’s political views as being part of the humor. The article draws on critical discourse analysis and conversation analysis to consider how the program licensed a particular form of engagement that helped it to deflect criticisms, and considers the limits to such discursive positioning. We conclude by examining the controversies that finally led, in 2015, to the removal of the main presenter, Jeremy Clarkson, and the ending of this version of the program through the departure of the team to an on-demand online television service.     

New energy policy and low-carbon society in Japan after the Great East Japan Earthquake

The Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 devastated the eastern region of Japan.Due to the resulting nuclear accident,Japanese Cabinet decided to revise its energy policies.The Energy and Environment Council in National Policy Unit published options on the nation’s scenarios for energy and economy in 2030.We estimated the economic impacts of the options to national economy and households in 2030.Finally,we clarified significant factors to establish a secure,affluent and low-carbon society based on the energy scenarios.     

Overall Planning of Development of Urban-Rural Areas: A Policy Mechanism for Urban-Rural Coordinated Growth

Abstract

While analyzing overall planning and coordinated development of urban-rural areas, this paper shows that overall planning for the development of urban-rural areas is a requirement for the best use of productive forces. It means the setting up of a policy mechanism for coordinated growth. Recognizing this, the government should set up a way to lead and manage a unified program to increase service and decrease controlling administration power, while safeguarding and fulfilling the farmers' ownership to the means of production.     

Identifying the determinants and spatial nexus of provincial carbon intensity in China: a dynamic spatial panel approach

Is emission intensity of carbon dioxide (CO₂) spatially correlated? What determines the CO₂ intensity at a provincial level? More importantly, what climate and economic policy decisions should the China’s central and local governments make to reduce the CO₂ intensity and prevent the environmental pollution given that China has been the largest emitter of CO₂? We aim to address these questions in this study by applying a dynamic spatial system generalized method of moment technique. Our analysis suggests that provinces are influenced by their neighbours. In addition, CO₂ intensities are relatively higher in the western and middle areas, and that the spatial agglomeration effect of the provincial CO₂ intensity is obvious. Our analysis also shows that CO₂ intensity is nonlinearly related to gross domestic product, positively associated with secondary-sector share and foreign direct investment, and negatively associated with population size. Important policy implications are drawn on reducing carbon intensity.     

Reframing Ecotage as Ecoterrorism: News and the Discourse of Fear

This study examines how certain Western institutional discourses reproduce particular human relationships with nature. The analysis focuses upon the institutional setting of the zoo, examining long-standing multi-voiced debates about zoos and exploring the contemporary zoo's conservation discourses and cultural, lexical, and spatial elements of gaze and power. The author contextualizes zoo discourses within Western ideological environmental dialectics, including those of Mastery–Harmony, Othering–Connection, and Exploitation–Idealism. The author relates these discussions to her empirical observations of how certain discursive themes are reproduced and complicated within a leading American zoo. In the tradition of critical research that advocates for social change, the essay concludes with analysis-driven discussion about possibilities for zoos to transform their core configurations to more progressively work as agents for systemic cultural and environmental change.     

Building Sustainable Community-Based Food Programs: Cautionary Tales from The Garden

This essay calls attention to the practical implications that community food organizers can glean from Scott Hamilton Kennedy's documentary, The Garden. More specifically, the authors examine the discursive tensions faced by the South Central Farmers as a way to make sense of their own use of dialog, policy, and health networking to build a community food initiative. The essay concludes by offering a unique metaphor-mycelium-in order to promote sustainable health practices and organize community-based food programs.     

南昌市中心城区城市建设用地集约利用特征及空间相关性分析

城市化进程不可避免的要占用大量土地资源,当前城市土地集约利用已经成为地理学、土地科学等相关学科研究的热点问题。为了从中观尺度科学分析城市土地集约利用空间分布规律和趋势,以南昌市中心城区为研究对象,在城市建设用地集约利用评价的基础上,运用全域Moran's I和局域Moran's I系数分析建设用地集约度的空间自相关格局(依赖性),揭示建设用地利用集约度的空间局部聚集和局部异常特征。结果表明:建设用地利用集约度全域空间相关性和局域空间相关性指标均显著,从城市边缘到中心区(或副中心)呈现递增的空间形态,其中居住功能区集约度空间相关性最高,教育功能区则最低;各功能区都存在正局域相关,空间分布呈现典型的空间聚集现象。对于高值聚类区应以结构挖潜为主,通过旧城改造和用地置换优化用地布局,低值和高低值聚类区应以管理潜力挖潜为主,通过规划管理和政策引导提高集约度,达到经济社会生态效益相统一的目标,可为南昌市城市建设用地集约利用提供必要的支撑和依据。     

Study on Simulating Spatial Distribution and Varying Patterns of Urumqi's Population

Abstract

In this paper, an approach to simulate the spatial distribution of urban population is proposed using urban land use and population statistical data through the geographical information systems (GIS). Then, the spatial population distribution of Urumqi as a case is simulated by the approach mentioned above and its varying patterns are analyzed by the raster population surface. As a result, producing raster population surface is more accurate and natural than the traditional choropleth map of population density. Concerning the spatial population distribution of Urumqi, the population density declines from south to north and the population distribution mainly presents “T-type”, the population distribution presents multi-centre agglomeration and the population distribution of the districts shows different features. The population density varies significantly with the increase in the distance from central business district (CBD). Finally, it is found in this paper that the development history of districts, terrain and traffic road are main factors that have an influence Urumqi's population distribution. This paper tries to provide more accurate population data for the plan and management of urban land, traffic and public facilities in order to enrich the researches on urban population distribution.     

Analysis on Temporal and Spatial Changes and Driving Forces of Poverty-Stricken Areas in Hebei Province

Abstract

This paper takes poverty-stricken county as the basic unit, and selects net income per peasant to study the poverty status in Hebei Province during 1986–2000. Temporal and spatial changes of poverty-stricken areas are analyzed. The result shows that poverty-stricken areas in Hebei Province distributed concentratedly and the areas decreased during 1986–2000, the net income per peasant was on the rise with an increasing speed in off-poverty counties being slightly higher than that in poverty-stricken counties, but the growth rate was extremely unstable, rising slowly in off-poverty counties while dropping in poverty-stricken counties. The main driving forces that influenced temporal and spatial changes were economic development of the whole province, ecological environment quality, infrastructure conditions and radiation of the key city. On this basis, some anti-poverty countermeasures suitable to local conditions are proposed.     

Pre- and postnatal exposures to pesticides and neurodevelopmental effects in children living in agricultural communities from South-Eastern Spain

BackgroundChildrens exposure to neurotoxic compounds poses a major problem to public health because of their actively developing brain that makes them highly vulnerable. However, limited information is available on neuropsychological effects in children associated with pre- and postnatal exposures to pesticides.ObjectiveTo evaluate the association between current and pre- and postnatal exposures to pesticides and their effects on neurodevelopment in children aged 6–11 years living in agricultural communities from South-Eastern Spain.MethodsAn ambispective study was conducted on 305 children aged 6–11 years randomly selected from public schools of the study area. Current exposure to organophosphate pesticides was assessed measuring children's urinary levels of dialkylphosphates (DAPs). Both prenatal and postnatal residential exposure to pesticides was estimated by developing a geographical information system (GIS) technology-based index that integrated distance-weighted measure of agricultural surface, time-series of crop areas per municipality and year, and land-use maps. Neuropsychological performance was evaluated with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV). The association of pre- and postnatal and current pesticide exposure with WISC-IV scale scores was assessed using multivariate linear regression models and generalized estimating equation (GEE) models, respectively.ResultsGreater urinary DAP levels were associated with a poorer performance on intelligence quotient and verbal comprehension domain, with effects being more prominent in boys than in girls. The influence of an increase in 10 ha per year in crop surface around the child's residence during the postnatal period was associated with decreased intelligence quotient, processing speed and verbal comprehension scores. As regards prenatal exposure to pesticides, a poor processing speed performance was observed. These effects were also more prominent in boys than in girls.ConclusionsOur results suggest that postnatal exposure to pesticides can negatively affect children's neuropsychological performance. Prenatal exposure was weakly associated to neurodevelopment impairment.     

Racial isolation and exposure to airborne particulate matter and ozone in understudied US populations: Environmental justice applications of downscaled numerical model output

BackgroundResearchers and policymakers are increasingly focused on combined exposures to social and environmental stressors, especially given how often these stressors tend to co-locate. Such exposures are equally relevant in urban and rural areas and may accrue disproportionately to particular communities or specific subpopulations.ObjectivesTo estimate relationships between racial isolation (RI), a measure of the extent to which minority racial/ethnic group members are exposed to only one another, and long-term particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of < 2.5 μ (PM_2.5) and ozone (O₃) levels in urban and nonurban areas of the eastern two-thirds of the US.MethodsLong-term (5 year average) census tract-level PM_2.5 and O₃ concentrations were calculated using output from a downscaler model (2002–2006). The downscaler uses a linear regression with additive and multiplicative bias coefficients to relate ambient monitoring data with gridded output from the Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) model. A local, spatial measure of RI was calculated at the tract level, and tracts were classified by urbanicity, RI, and geographic region. We examined differences in estimated pollutant exposures by RI, urbanicity, and demographic subgroup (e.g., race/ethnicity, education, socioeconomic status, age), and used linear models to estimate associations between RI and air pollution levels in urban, suburban, and rural tracts.ResultsHigh RI tracts (≥ 80th percentile) had higher average PM_2.5 levels in each category of urbanicity compared to low RI tracts (< 20th percentile), with the exception of the rural West. Patterns in O₃ levels by urbanicity and RI differed by region. Linear models indicated that PM_2.5 concentrations were significantly and positively associated with RI. The largest association between PM_2.5 and RI was observed in the rural Midwest, where a one quintile increase in RI was associated with a 0.90 μg/m³ (95% confidence interval: 0.83, 0.99 μg/m³) increase in PM_2.5 concentration. Associations between O₃ and RI in the Northeast, Midwest and West were positive and highest in suburban and rural tracts, even after controlling for potential confounders such as percentage in poverty.ConclusionRI is associated with higher 5 year estimated PM_2.5 concentrations in urban, suburban, and rural census tracts, adding to evidence that segregation is broadly associated with disparate air pollution exposures. Disproportionate burdens to adverse exposures such as air pollution may be a pathway to racial/ethnic disparities in health.     

Optimizing Urban Spatial Structure of Lanzhou Based on Geographic Concentration Method of Industries

Abstract

Geographic concentration of industries is the regionalized distribution of some industries in certain areas, which focuses on the ratio of a certain industry to the whole industries (He and Liu, 2006). In this paper we explore the improved M function of geographic concentration that adds the parameter of the number of firms according to the definition of geographic concentration of industries. The spatial distribution of the main manufacturing industries of Lanzhou urban area is evaluated based on it. The results of the evaluation imply that the spatial distribution of the main manufacturing industries is more concentrated than that of others in Lanzhou and it can absorb lots of labor forces. But the incidence, competition ability and density of the distribution of enterprises are different for each single sector, and enterprises with different production features are located closely. And three main problems are discovered. Finally, three countermeasures are put forward: locating the industrial enterprises in urban areas in a proper way through planning and policies; adjusting the industrial structure of the inner city; strengthening the local rearrangement of the existing industrial concentration areas.     

武汉市城郊乡村旅游地的类型划分及时空分布特征研究

在对武汉市城郊534个乡村旅游地进行类型划分的基础上，运用数理统计和空间分析法，对其时空分布特征和影响因素进行研究，得出以下结论：(1）武汉市城郊乡村旅游地在发展过程中，呈现出四个明显的发展时段，旅游极化发展形成的空间冷热点区随时间而发生变化，现已在武汉市西北、西部和南部形成三大旅游集聚区。（2）武汉市城郊乡村旅游地类型日益多元化，从发展初期的休闲观光和乡村文化两种类型逐步增加至休闲观光、乡村文化、农事体验、农业科技、特色村镇等五种类型；不同类型的乡村旅游地发展速度、规模、极化趋势各异。(3）与中心城区距离、相关政策、道路交通条件、水文因素、旅游资源禀赋等均对乡村旅游地的时空分布特征产生影响，各个因素对不同类型旅游地时空分布的影响存在一定差别。     

Associations between maternal exposure to air pollution and traffic noise and newborn's size at birth: A cohort study

BackgroundMaternal exposure to air pollution and traffic noise has been suggested to impair fetal growth, but studies have reported inconsistent findings.ObjectiveTo investigate associations between residential air pollution and traffic noise during pregnancy and newborn's size at birth.MethodsFrom a national birth cohort we identified 75,166 live-born singletons born at term with information on the children's size at birth. Residential address history from conception until birth was collected and air pollution (NO₂ and NO_x) and road traffic noise was modeled at all addresses. Associations between exposures and indicators of newborn's size at birth: birth weight, placental weight and head and abdominal circumference were analyzed by linear and logistic regression, and adjusted for potential confounders.ResultsIn mutually adjusted models we found a 10 μg/m³ higher time-weighted mean exposure to NO₂ during pregnancy to be associated with a 0.35 mm smaller head circumference (95% confidence interval (CI): 95% CI: − 0.57; − 0.12); a 0.50 mm smaller abdominal circumference (95% CI: − 0.80; − 0.20) and a 5.02 g higher placental weight (95% CI: 2.93; 7.11). No associations were found between air pollution and birth weight. Exposure to residential road traffic noise was weakly associated with reduced head circumference, whereas none of the other newborn's size indicators were associated with noise, neither before nor after adjustment for air pollution.ConclusionsThis study indicates that air pollution may result in a small reduction in offspring's birth head and abdominal circumference, but not birth weight, whereas traffic noise seems not to affect newborn's size at birth.