Scapegoat Ecology: Blame,Exoneration, and an Emergent Genre in Environmentalist Discourse

This essay identifies and examines scapegoat ecology, an emergent genre in online environmental discourse. In scapegoat ecology, a public of environmentally minded individuals focuses attention and vitriol on a single person for being particularly harmful to the environment. This essay argues that such discourse deflects attention from more complex and systemic environmental factors and implicitly exonerates the broader community, assuring it of its own environmental commitments while excusing it from further ecological action. The essay describes the form and appeal of scapegoat ecology, then provides a series of illustrative case examples before highlighting the implications of such discourse for both environmental communication and broader social/political conversations.     

“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.     

Dissolution of zinc oxide nanoparticles in exposure media of algae,daphnia, and fish embryos for nanotoxicological testing

Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) are being widely investigated in a bioassay due to potential negative effects to biological receptor. The dissolution of metal nanoparticles such as ZnO NPs is crucial to interpret nanotoxicity results because ZnO NPs can release toxic-free ions in exposure media. In the present study, dissolution of ZnO NPs was evaluated in three selected synthetic media for aquatic toxicological testing: Elendt M4 daphnia medium, OECD algal medium, and fish embryo rearing solution. Both media are currently recommended for OECD testing for daphnia and algae. Time-dependent dissolution of ZnO NPs has been investigated in terms of sonication time to be used for the preparation of aqueous NPs suspension, and dissolution time corresponding to exposure period in toxicity testing. Since sonication is widely applied for NPs dispersion in the most of nanotoxicological testing, the emphasis of this study was on the dissolution of NPs as a function of sonication time. We also investigated the concentration-dependent dissolution of ZnO NPs. Our results demonstrated that dissolution of ZnO NPs was significantly affected by sonication and dissolution time, as well as NPs concentration. This study showed that parameters affecting dissolution of ZnO NPs should be considered in nanotoxicological testing.     

On the search for mimetic patterns in environmental disclosure: an international perspective

In this paper, we assert and test the proposition that environmental disclosure (ED) is structured by institutionalised myths and that is why ED is decoupled from environmental performance and media pressures. Focusing on firms from Canada, France and Germany, findings show that ED mimetic isomorphism for different topics varies among countries and by industry sensitiveness to the environment. The results corroborate the institutional presumption that institutionalised myths vary among different contexts. Our findings also suggest that institutionalised ED structures may not reflect environmental performance, mimetic patterns being affected by environmental performance. However, the decoupling between ED mimetic isomorphism and environmental performance decrease when firms’ ED credibility is questioned by the media.     

Using culturomics and social media data to characterize wildlife consumption

Wildlife provides food, medicine, clothing, and other necessities for humans, but overexploitation can disrupt the sustainability of wildlife resources and severely threaten global biodiversity. Understanding the characteristics of consumer behavior is helpful for wildlife managers and policy makers, but the traditional survey methods are laborious and time-consuming. In contrast, culturomics may more efficiently identify the features of wildlife consumption. As a case study of the culturomics approach, we examined tiger bone wine consumption in China based on social media and Baidu search engine data. Tiger bone wine is one of the most purchased tiger products; its consumption is closely related to tiger poaching, which greatly threatens wild tiger survival. We searched a popular social media website for the term “tiger bone wine” and focused on posts that were originally created from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2018. We filtered and classified posts related to the purchase, sale, or consumption of tiger bone wine and extracted information on providers, consumption motivations, year of production, and place of origin of the tiger bone wines based on the texts and photos of these posts. We found 756 posts related to tiger bone wine consumption, 113 of which mentioned providers of tiger bone wine, including friends (53%), elder relatives (37%), peer relatives (7%), and others (3%). Out of the 756 posts, 266 indicated the motivations of tiger bone wine consumption. Tiger bone wines were consumed as a tonic (34%), medicine (23%), game product (30%), and a symbol of wealth (28%). Some posts indicated ≥2 consumption motivations. These findings were consistent with the search queries from Baidu index. Such information could help develop targeted strategies for tiger conservation. The culturomics approach illustrated by our study is a rapid and cost-efficient way to characterize wildlife consumption.     

金属丝网对甲烷/空气预混火焰管道内传播的影响

为研究管道内金属丝网对甲烷/空气预混火焰传播的影响，通过实验和三维数值模拟研究安装金属丝网的管道内火焰传播特性以及流场、温度场的变化。结果表明:40目4层的金属丝网可以使火焰淬熄，30目4层的金属丝网无法淬熄，但可以使火焰停滞3 ms；大涡模型可以很好地对管道内火焰淬熄现象进行模拟；当火焰穿过30目4层金属丝网时，速度增大，在Kelvin Helmholtz不稳定和Rayleigh Taylor不稳定的耦合作用下形成湍流；金属丝网的目数会影响热量在丝网层中的扩散，当金属丝网为30目4层时，火焰热量扩散快，而当金属丝网为40目4层时，火焰热量扩散慢且温度大幅度衰减，衰减率达到83%。     

湖库富营养化的改进型模糊综合评价方法研究

针对水体富营养化评价系统的非线性、模糊综合评价法过程中权重赋予的主观随意性和隶属函数的不准确性等特点,对传统模糊综合评价法进行了改进,并据此对我国24个代表性湖库的富营养化程度进行了评价.其中以SPSS16.0和Yaaph软件为载体,采用层次分析法和主成分分析法相结合来确定选取因子的权重.根据确定的评价标准作自然对数变换使之线性化,并结合由基础数据统计分布情况,生成各评价因子隶属于各营养等级的对数形式的降半梯形隶属函数,进而得到各湖库的确定度,最后依据最大确定度得到湖库富营养化级别.该法所得结果与湖库实际富营养化状况以及现有多种评价方法的结果的对比表明,该改进方法的评价结果真实、准确、计算简单,具有可行性.     

城市河道水质评价与研究

结合内梅罗指数法的原理,考虑金属毒性的积累效应,引入污染因子权重值,将权重值最大的评价指标纳入计算,采用改进的内梅罗指数法评价城市河道的水质污染状况。并对水质的划分标准临界值进行计算,以此作为评价水质污染状况的依据。研究结果表明,两种方法具有明显的差异,改进的内梅罗指数法对水质污染状况的评价结果较传统内梅罗指数法的辨识度更高,能够综合客观全面地体现城市河道水质状况,与真实情况较好的吻合,更为客观、合理。     

检测细胞DNA断裂损伤效应的彗星实验法的改良

为了解决彗星实验过程中常出现的脱胶、细胞核分离操作繁琐、重复性低等问题,对彗星实验方法进行了改良,初步建立了彗星实验的快速操作流程。结果显示,通过对载玻片进行预处理,可确保凝胶悬挂均匀;采用改良机械法分离的细胞核浓度适中;以0.5%(w/v)涂层琼脂糖作为基层、以1.5%(w/v)低熔点包埋琼脂糖作为叠加层的"双层凝胶法",辅以"推片法"铺胶,操作便捷且不发生脱胶现象;细胞核膜经裂解处理后再进行电泳和荧光观察,彗星图像清晰,杂质少。应用改良后的彗星实验方法,操作简便,耗时更短,实验效果良好,可快速检测出细胞DNA损伤效应。     

Social media and disasters: a functional framework for social media use in disaster planning,response, and research

A comprehensive review of online, official, and scientific literature was carried out in 2012–13 to develop a framework of disaster social media. This framework can be used to facilitate the creation of disaster social media tools, the formulation of disaster social media implementation processes, and the scientific study of disaster social media effects. Disaster social media users in the framework include communities, government, individuals, organisations, and media outlets. Fifteen distinct disaster social media uses were identified, ranging from preparing and receiving disaster preparedness information and warnings and signalling and detecting disasters prior to an event to (re)connecting community members following a disaster. The framework illustrates that a variety of entities may utilise and produce disaster social media content. Consequently, disaster social media use can be conceptualised as occurring at a number of levels, even within the same disaster. Suggestions are provided on how the proposed framework can inform future disaster social media development and research.