Understanding conservationists’ perspectives on the new‐conservation debate

A vibrant debate about the future direction of biodiversity conservation centers on the merits of the so‐called new conservation. Proponents of the new conservation advocate a series of positions on key conservation ideas, such as the importance of human‐dominated landscapes and conservation's engagement with capitalism. These have been fiercely contested in a debate dominated by a few high‐profile individuals, and so far there has been no empirical exploration of existing perspectives on these issues among a wider community of conservationists. We used Q methodology to examine empirically perspectives on the new conservation held by attendees at the 2015 International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB). Although we identified a consensus on several key issues, 3 distinct positions emerged: in favor of conservation to benefit people but opposed to links with capitalism and corporations, in favor of biocentric approaches but with less emphasis on wilderness protection than prominent opponents of new conservation, and in favor of the published new conservation perspective but with less emphasis on increasing human well‐being as a goal of conservation. Our results revealed differences between the debate on the new conservation in the literature and views held within a wider, but still limited, conservation community and demonstrated the existence of at least one viewpoint (in favor of conservation to benefit people but opposed to links with capitalism and corporations) that is almost absent from the published debate. We hope the fuller understanding we present of the variety of views that exist but have not yet been heard, will improve the quality and tone of debates on the subject.     

美国居民生活用能状况与趋势:30年微观调查数据分析

随着居民部门用能快速增长,各国都在致力于观察本国居民能源消费特征以减少碳排放,特别是发达国家。本文应用近30年的微观调查数据分析美国居民能源消费现状和趋势,为发展中国家提供一些借鉴意义。从总量上看,伴随着人口、家庭数量和建筑面积的上升,能源消费总量变化较小,趋于稳定;人均用能则呈下降趋势。从用能结构来看,以天然气和电力为主,2009年分别占比44%和41%;近30年来天然气占比小幅下降,电力占比上升明显;完善的天然气设施和电力服务体系使得能源可获得性高。从用途分类来看,取暖和家电占绝大比例,2009年分别占比41%和35%;取暖用能近30年来出现平缓下降趋势,燃料来源70%是天然气;家电设备用能占比明显上升,增长近1倍;制冷占比较小,近年出现小幅上升;热水用能则比较稳定。家庭炊事燃料以电力和天然气为主,2009年分别占比60%和34%。近30年,家用电器保有量和能源效率有显著提高。建筑用能方面,美国房屋服务时间长,后期建筑房屋在保温性能方面高于早期房屋,单位面积耗能下降。美国居民享受着较高水平的能源服务,能源消费总量在近30年没有明显变化,这和能源效率的提高有着密切关系;如完善的"能源之星"项目是一个强有力的措施,以及完善的能源统计制度为能源分析提供了有力的数据支撑。相比,中国存在居民炊事用能固体燃料占比较高、建筑服务周期短、建筑材料耗能比重大等问题。建议中国政府进一步完善能源统计制度、推行农村能源扶持项目和能源标识、加强建筑规划、落实建筑能耗标准。     

智能家电的低待机功耗研究

从智能家电待机工作状态入手,分析电器产品中参与待机工作的各部分电路原理,提出降低潜在功耗设计思路和计算方法,从家电设计研发阶段对待机功耗进行控制,同时对待机功耗精确测量方法关键点进行解读以控制低功耗测试不确定度,有助于低待机功耗设计和测量的标准化和规范化。     

家庭部门生活能源消费碳排放:测度与驱动因素研究

本文运用IPCC的二氧化碳排放量测算方法,在省际层面测度了我国家庭部门直接能源消费碳排放,并基于扩展的STIRPAT和Kaya模型,构建家庭部门直接能源消费碳排放影响因子动态面板数据模型,对我国2003-2012年分省面板数据样本及城乡子样本进行系统GMM估计。本文研究表明,第一,我国城乡家庭部门碳排放总量和人均碳排放在近十年都呈快速上升趋势,家庭部门碳排放的空间分布具有明显的地域差异特征,高碳排放地区主要集中在东、中部地区,西部地区的碳排放水平较低;第二,城乡家庭部门生活能源消费的上期碳排放量对本期碳排放产生重要的正向影响,这反映出我国家庭部门碳排放具有显著的惯性特征和路径依赖性,是一种动态自适应机制;人口规模、居民消费水平、能源消费结构、碳排放强度、能源消费强度和城镇化因素,都对我国居民能源消费碳排放总量及人均碳排放具有显著的影响,城乡之间的家庭能源消费碳排放驱动因素存在差异。本文研究得到如下启示及政策含义:家庭部门碳减排将是一个有步骤、分区域的渐进过程,我国碳减排政策应当兼顾消费升级和碳排放的双重目标,努力构建分层次碳减排的适应性预期机制。具体而言,一方面应着眼于引导和激励居民低碳消费,缓解人口规模增加、消费水平提升和城镇化对家庭部门碳减排的压力;另一方面要通过能源价格改革、财政政策和环境规制政策等优化我国能源消费结构,不断降低煤炭消费比重,提高清洁能源的消费。同时,通过技术创新、设备改造等科技手段提高煤炭利用效率,降低碳排放强度,这些政策将更有利于城镇家庭部门碳减排。     

Plant blindness and the implications for plant conservation

Plant conservation initiatives lag behind and receive considerably less funding than animal conservation projects. We explored a potential reason for this bias: a tendency among humans to neither notice nor value plants in the environment. Experimental research and surveys have demonstrated higher preference for, superior recall of, and better visual detection of animals compared with plants. This bias has been attributed to perceptual factors such as lack of motion by plants and the tendency of plants to visually blend together but also to cultural factors such as a greater focus on animals in formal biological education. In contrast, ethnographic research reveals that many social groups have strong bonds with plants, including nonhierarchical kinship relationships. We argue that plant blindness is common, but not inevitable. If immersed in a plant‐affiliated culture, the individual will experience language and practices that enhance capacity to detect, recall, and value plants, something less likely to occur in zoocentric societies. Therefore, conservation programs can contribute to reducing this bias. We considered strategies that might reduce this bias and encourage plant conservation behavior. Psychological research demonstrates that people are more likely to support conservation of species that have human‐like characteristics and that support for conservation can be increased by encouraging people to practice empathy and anthropomorphism of nonhuman species. We argue that support for plant conservation may be garnered through strategies that promote identification and empathy with plants.     

Improving Pro-environmental Behaviours in Spain. The Role of Attitudes and Socio-demographic and Political Factors

Over the last 30 years, Spain has witnessed great economic growth. Nevertheless, in spite of an increasing degree of environmental concern, environmentally friendly attitudes and behaviours are still clearly below the European average. In this context, this paper analyses the impact of personal control and attitudes, and of certain socio-demographic, economic and political variables in the development of two environmentally friendly behaviours in Spain: consumption and purchase. The data were provided by a survey carried out in 2007 by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (Centre for Sociological Research) in Spain. The results show the importance of personal control, level of environmental information, political ideology, age and educational level variables to explaining the development of pro-environmental-related consumption behaviours. Personal attitudes, work situation, female gender and level of environmental information influence pro-environmental purchase behaviour in a positive way. Taking into account that personal attitudes are more determining of pro-environmental purchase than consumption behaviour, policy measures such as informal education, tax measures, social and individual norms and interpersonal and institutional trust are discussed to increase the development of pro-environmental behaviours in Spain.     

肠道微生物对土壤中铜、锌、锰生物可给性的影响

为了更全面、准确地评价土壤中金属元素对人体的健康风险,研究土壤中金属元素在结肠阶段的生物可给性具有重要意义。通过采集我国一些地区的6种土壤,利用in vitro方法(PBET和SHIME联用)研究土壤中Cu、Zn、Mn在胃、小肠、结肠阶段的生物可给性。研究显示,土壤中Cu、Zn、Mn在胃阶段的生物可给性分别为23.8%~63.0%、21.2%~64.4%、11.7%~35.6%;从胃阶段到小肠阶段,土壤中Cu的生物可给性提高了0.4%~14.4%,而土壤中Zn在小肠阶段的生物可给性降低了6.7%~38.7%。结肠阶段,土壤中Cu、Zn、Mn的生物可给性分别为2.4%~12.9%、5.7%~18.7%、6.2%~18.9%,与小肠阶段相比,分别降低了21.7%~56.9%、0.4%~36.8%、4.5%~19.1%。结果表明,在肠道微生物存在的情况下,土壤中Cu、Zn、Mn在结肠阶段有较低的人体健康风险。     

An investigation on the fuel savings potential of hybrid hydraulic refuse collection vehicles

Refuse trucks play an important role in the waste collection process. Due to their typical driving cycle, these vehicles are characterized by large fuel consumption, which strongly affects the overall waste disposal costs. Hybrid hydraulic refuse vehicles offer an interesting alternative to conventional diesel trucks, because they are able to recuperate, store and reuse braking energy. However, the expected fuel savings can vary strongly depending on the driving cycle and the operational mode. Therefore, in order to assess the possible fuel savings, a typical driving cycle was measured in a conventional vehicle run by the waste authority of the City of Stuttgart, and a dynamical model of the considered vehicle was built up. Based on the measured driving cycle and the vehicle model including the hybrid powertrain components, simulations for both the conventional and the hybrid vehicle were performed. Fuel consumption results that indicate savings of about 20% are presented and analyzed in order to evaluate the benefit of hybrid hydraulic vehicles used for refuse collection.     

Ecological citizenship and democracy: Communitarian versus agonistic perspectives

Grassroots environmental movements have recently started to question the focus on sustainable consumption as a main strategy to tackle climate change. They prefer to address individuals as citizens rather than as consumers, and focus on collective rather than individual change. Two prominent movements in this regard are Transition Towns and Climate Justice Action. While both movements criticise conventional approaches, they put forward entirely different strategies for what has to happen instead. Based on extensive qualitative research, this article analyses how these movements manifest themselves in Flanders (Belgium). The focus is on their different accounts of how and why collective practices have to be built, and the place they attribute to ‘the political’ in this. The analysis reveals the existence of two different forms of ecological citizenship: one communitarian, the other agonistic.     

Towards a Paradigmatic Shift in Sustainability Studies: A Systematic Review of Peer Reviewed Literature and Future Agenda Setting to Consider Environmental (Un)sustainability of Digital Communication

The materiality of digital communication inflicts substantial environmental damage: the extraction of resources needed to produce digital devices; the toxicity of e-waste; and the rapidly increasing energy demands required to sustain data generated by digital communication. This damage, however, is paradoxically under-theorized in scholarship on environmental sustainability. Despite the existing critique of the “techno-fix” approach in sustainability studies, digitization – and digital communication in particular – continue to be celebrated as the tool for environmental sustainability; an approach we coin “digital solutionism.” The article presents the first systematic review of the literature to map the implicit assumptions about the relationships between digital communications and environmental sustainability, in order to examine how digital solutionism manifests, and why it persists. We propose a concept matrix that identifies the key blind spots with regards to environmental damages of the digital, and call for a paradigmatic shift in environmental sustainability studies. An agenda for future research is put forward that advocates for the following: (1) a systematic account of material damages of devices, platforms and data systems adopted into sustainability research and practice, resulting in changes in both research framing and methodological foundations; (2) a reconceptualization and denaturalization of the digital itself as a promising solution; (3) a theoretical dialogue between sustainability studies and environmental communication. (4) an expansion of environmental communication as a field, from focusing on the communication aspect of environmental change to include the environmental footprint of communication itself.