Is the degrowth debate relevant to China?

In industrialized countries, the idea of degrowth has emerged as a response to environmental, social, and economic crises. Realizing environmental limits to and failures of more than half a century of continual economic growth in terms of social progress and environmental sustainability, the degrowth paradigm calls for a downscaling of consumption and production for social equity and ecological sustainability. The call for economic degrowth is generally considered to be delimited to rich countries, where reduced consumption can save “ecological space” enabling people in poor countries to enjoy the benefits of economic growth. China, as one of the economically most expanding countries in the world, has dramatically improved its living standards, particularly along the Eastern coast, over the latest 30 years. However, China is absent from the international debates on growth. This article discusses the implications of the Western degrowth debates for China. Given the distinctive features of China’s development, the paper aims to enrich the degrowth debates, which have hitherto been dominated by Western perspectives. Based upon reflections on social, environmental, and moral dimensions of economic growth, the paper argues that limited natural resources may not continuously support universal affluence at the current level of the rich countries, a level that China is likely to reach within a few decades. Priority for growth in China should therefore be given to the poor regions of the country, and future growth should be beneficial to social and environmental development.     

World poverty,another look

The World Bank used the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to calculate changes in the world poverty level (measured in U.S. dollars) prior to 1982. In 1983, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) replaced the CPI with several indices including CPI-W which was then adopted by the World Bank. This caused the inflated rate of the U.S. dollars and the percentage of the world population in poverty to be dramatically underestimated. This new incorrect procedure gives 25% (1.5 million) below the poverty line in 2005, while the more appropriate procedure (described herein) gives 52% (3.3 million in 2005). The rapid rise of the poverty line (using the preferable CPI) starting in 1987 occurred at nearly the same time as the peak in per capita annual cereal production.     

Hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) as new Stockholm Convention POPs��a global perspective on the management of Lindane and its waste isomers

Purpose

Hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) isomers (??-, ??- and ??- (Lindane)) were recently included as new persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the Stockholm Convention, and therefore, the legacy of HCH and Lindane production became a contemporary topic of global relevance. This article wants to briefly summarise the outcomes of the Stockholm Convention process and make an estimation of the amount of HCH waste generated and dumped in the former Lindane/HCH-producing countries.

Results

In a preliminary assessment, the countries and the respective amount of HCH residues stored and deposited from Lindane production are estimated. Between 4 and 7 million tonnes of wastes of toxic, persistent and bioaccumulative residues (largely consisting of alpha- (approx. 80%) and beta-HCH) are estimated to have been produced and discarded around the globe during 60 years of Lindane production. For approximately 1.9 million tonnes, information is available regarding deposition. Countries are: Austria, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Macedonia, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, The Netherlands, UK, USA, and former USSR. The paper highlights the environmental relevance of deposited HCH wastes and the related POPs?? contaminated sites and provides suggestions for further steps to address the challenge of the legacy of HCH/Lindane production.

Conclusion

It can be expected that most locations where HCH waste was discarded/stockpiled are not secured and that critical environmental impacts are resulting from leaching and volatilisation. As parties to the Stockholm Convention are legally required to take action to stop further POPs pollution, identification and evaluation of such sites are necessary.     

Ecological footprint: an indicator of environmental sustainability of a surface coal mine

Ecological footprint of mining can be used as an indicator to monitor and regulate mining operations and ensure long-term environmental sustainability. It can be viewed as a mining footprint, which is surrogate of the environmental impacts of mining. In this paper, a methodological framework is developed to demonstrate how ecological footprint can be used as an indicator of environmental degradation. Nine air quality and 26 soil quality samples are collected from the adjoining area of a mechanized coal mine, located in Raniganj coal mining belt of Burdwan district, West Bengal. Geographical information system is used for data interpolation and preparation of air and soil quality maps. The weights of different air and soil quality parameters are calculated by running principal component analysis. These derived weights are used for preparation of final composite air and soil quality maps. The composite maps show the mining footprints, expressed as land equivalent, around the active mine sites. The impact zones reveal the extent of degradation of the soil and air qualities in the areas near a mine. It is found that the impact zones, with respect to air and soil qualities, extend over areas which are 7.7 and 7.8 times the actual mining areas, that is, the area covered under mining operations, respectively. The results show the extent of degradation of air and soil qualities of the area. At different stages of mining, these footprints can be used as indicators to reveal the areas where soil and air qualities are adversely impacted.     

Sustainable cooking energy options for rural poor people in India: an empirical study

Currently, energy consumption for cooking in rural households of India is mostly based on fuelwood used in traditional stoves. This paper presents results of a study carried out in a forest fringe area of India on cooking energy use. The concept of calculating levelized cost as cost per unit of useful energy is applied on source–device combinations of cooking and validated in Bargaon Community Development Block of Sundergarh District in Odisha, India. About 92 % of the households in the study area use fuelwood as the only energy source for cooking; the total use of fuelwood for only cooking, in the Block is nearly 1.8 times the total sustainable wood supply showing an urgent need for promoting alternative cooking energy options. This paper also presents an assessment of different cooking options in terms of cost per unit of useful cooking energy. LPG, biogas and gasifier stoves are found to be far too expensive for the local people. Briquette-fired improved stoves appear to be a promising cooking energy option in the study area. Government support and intervention are recommended for promoting this option.     

Economic potential for conversion to organic farming: a net present value analysis in the East Mau Catchment,Nakuru, Kenya

This paper discusses the economic potential in terms of income changes that may result from conversion to low-external-input agriculture (LEIA) organic farming in a Kenya’s catchment area. A spreadsheet model applying the gross margin and net present value analysis was developed to estimate economic returns to labour and land of alternative smallholder cropping systems in the East Mau Catchment. The income and costs over a 10-year horizon associated with current cropping practices of a typical farm household cultivating 1.12 hectares of maize–bean intercrop, Irish potato, carrots, tomatoes, cabbages and kales mix were characterized based on field work conducted in 2008–2010. An “average” smallholder LEIA organic farm was simulated based on the conventional one, and its income discounted. A comparison was then made of the two farm types. Results indicate annual net present value returns to cropped land average Ksh 21,878/ha ($ 267/ha) and Kshs 22,561/ha (€ 275/ha) in 2010 values for conventional and prototype LEIA organic farming systems, respectively. Net returns are particularly sensitive to crop yields and price and cost of fertilizers and seeds. Further efforts should be made to provide an economic analysis of other LEIA organic farming practices such as composting, double digging and agroforestry in terms of additional labour costs resultant. The model can be extended to build more scenarios on the role of price premiums. Additionally, further research should be done to exploit the socio-demographic factors affecting the adoption of low-external-input systems.     

Mechanism of the intermittent motion of two-phase debris flows

A typical two-phase debris flow exhibits a high and steep flow head consisting of rolling boulders and cobbles with intermittent or fluctuating velocity. The relative motion between the solid phase and the liquid phase is obvious. The motion of a two-phase debris flow depends not only on the rheological properties of the flow, but also on the energy transmission between the solid and liquid phases. Several models have been developed to study two-phase debris flows. An essential shortcoming of most of these models is the omission of the interaction between the two phases and identification of the different roles of the different materials in two-phase debris flows. The tracer particles were used for the velocity of solid phase and the velocity of liquid phase was calculated by the water velocity on the surface of the debris flow in the experiments. This paper analyzed the intermittent feature of two-phase debris flows based on videos of debris flows in the field and flume experiments. The experiments showed that the height of the head of the two-phase debris flow increased gradually in the initiation stage and reached equilibrium at a certain distance from the start of the debris flow. The height growth and the velocity of the flow head showed fluctuating characteristics. Model equations were established and the analyses proved that the average velocity of the two-phase debris flow head was proportional to the flood discharge and inversely proportional to the volume of the debris flow head.     

Froude scaling limitations in modeling of turbidity currents

The scaling problem associated with the modeling of turbidity currents has been recognized but is yet to be explored systematically. This paper presents an analysis of the dimensionless governing equations of turbidity currents to investigate the scale effect. Three types of flow conditions are considered: (i) conservative density current; (ii) purely depositional turbidity current; and (iii) mixed erosional/depositional turbidity current. Two controlling dimensionless numbers, the Froude number and the Reynolds number, appear in the non-dimensional governing equations. When densimetric Froude similarity is satisfied, the analysis shows that the results would be scale-invariant for conservative density current under the rough turbulent condition. In the case of purely depositional flows, truly scale-invariant results cannot be obtained, as the Reynolds-mediated scale effects appear in the bottom boundary conditions of the flow velocity and sediment fall velocity. However, the scale effect would be relatively modest. The Reynolds effect becomes more significant for erosional or mixed erosional/depositional turbidity currents as Reynolds-mediated scale effects also appear in the sediment entrainment relation. Numerical simulations have been conducted at three different scales by considering densimetric Froude scaling alone as well as combined densimetric Froude and Reynolds similarity. Simulation results confirm that although the scaling of densimetric Froude number alone can produce scale-invariable results for conservative density currents, variations occur in the case of turbidity currents. The results become scale invariant when densimetric Froude and Reynolds similarities are satisfied simultaneously.     

A stochastic Lagrangian micromixing model for the dispersion of reactive scalars in turbulent flows: role of concentration fluctuations and improvements to the conserved scalar theory under non-homogeneous conditions

Several reaction schemes, based on the conserved scalar theory, are implemented within a stochastic Lagrangian micromixing model to simulate the dispersion of reactive scalars in turbulent flows. In particular, the formulation of the reaction-dominated limit (RDL) reaction scheme is here extended to improve the model performance under non-homogeneous conditions (NHRDL scheme). The validation of the stochastic model is obtained by comparison with the available measurements of reactive pollutant concentrations in a grid-generated turbulent flow. This test case describes the dispersion of two atmospheric reactant species (NO and O₃) and their reaction product (NO₂) in an unbounded turbulent flow. Model inter-comparisons are also assessed, by considering the results of state-of-the-art models for pollutant dispersion. The present validation shows that RDL reaction scheme provides a systematic overestimation (relative error of ca. 85% around the centreline) in computing the local reactant consumption/production rate, whereas the NHRDL scheme drastically reduces this gap (relative error lower than 5% around the centreline). In terms of NO₂ production (or reactant consumption), neglecting concentration fluctuations determines overestimations of the product mean of around 100% and a NO₂ local production of one order of magnitude higher than the reference simulation. In terms of standard deviations, the concentration fluctuations of both the passive and reactive scalars are generally of the same order of magnitude or up to 1 or 2 orders of magnitudes higher than the corresponding ensemble mean values, except for the background reactant close to the plume edges. The study highlights the importance of modelling pollutant reactions depending on the instantaneous instead of the mean concentrations of the reactants, thus quantifying the role of the turbulent fluctuations of concentration, in terms of scalar statistics (mean, standard deviation, intensity of fluctuations, skewness and kurtosis of concentration, segregation coefficient, simulated reaction rate). This stochastic particle method represents an efficient numerical technique to solve the convection–diffusion equation for reactive scalars and involves several application fields: micro-scale air quality (urban and street-canyon scales), accidental releases, impact of odours, water quality and fluid flow industrial processes (e.g. combustion).