传统文化之苏绣 风景为何这边独好

提到我们的传统手工艺时,我们总是一边心怀敬意,一边扼腕痛惜。用来装饰的剪纸、用来娱乐的皮影、用来生活的漆器,它们在华丽千年后,最终成为一个老去的背影。我们看待传统工艺的消逝时,就如同看到物种的消亡,把矛头直指以经济为中心的现代社会。然而,有多少人从传统工艺自身找过原因？     

Assigning Degrees of Ease or Difficulty for Pet Animal Maintenance: The EMODE System Concept

Pet animal management is subject to varied husbandry practices and the resulting consequences often impact negatively on animal welfare. The perceptions held by someone who proposes to keep an animal regarding the ease or difficulty with which its biological needs can be provided for in captivity are key factors in whether that animal is acquired and how well or poorly it does. We propose a system to ‘score’ animals and assign them to categories indicating the ease or difficulty with which they can be kept as pets in accordance with welfare and public health and safety considerations. The ‘EMODE’ (‘Easy’, ‘Moderate’, ‘Difficult’, ‘Extreme’) system has two fundamental components: animal welfare—which considers the ‘five freedoms’ principles; and public health and safety—which considers management associated with risks from disease or injury to the keeper and to others. EMODE incorporates two tiers of assessment and guidance, and may offer a reasonable guide for the majority of relevant animals. EMODE Tier 1 provides a primary and general assessment of animals by class or group, and EMODE Tier 2 provides a secondary refined assessment of animals by species or breed. EMODE offers a user-friendly and versatile foundation concept for the future development of guidance for the layperson who may be considering acquiring a pet or for certain personnel when considering assigning species to restrictive lists of suitable animals, for example, ‘positive lists’ as used by governments to control animals in trade and keeping.     

资源补偿的难点：补偿标准如何度量

如何在大规模开发利用资源的同时保护好生态环境,在保证国家资源需求的同时实现资源地区的可持续发展,这是我们当前面临着的必须要解决的重大课题.我们首先必须从制度上解决好各方在资源开发上的利益分配问题,尤其要充分考虑到资源地区的合理述求,加快推进资源补偿制度的建立和完善.因为只有这样,才能实现"开发一方资源、发展一方经济、保护一方环境、富裕一方百姓"的多赢目标,才能以较低的资源代价和环境代价实现我国国民经济的可持续发展,并有利于区域之间的均衡发展和社会的和谐稳定.     

与自然和谐：环境保护的主旋律

人与自然关系的核心是人如何对待自然资源与环境。人与自然和谐发展,是人与人、人与经济社会协调的物质基础和前提,也是社会迈向生态文明的标志。科学发展观的要义是发展,核心是以人为本,要求是全面、协调、可持续。而人与自然和谐均与之有关。因此,实践科学发展观,促进人与自然和谐,无疑是环境保护永匣主题和基本目标。     

董冬：低碳“百灵”衔绿吐菲唤世人

军旅“百灵”苦水泡大 董冬出生在安徽省国家级贫困县定远县站岗乡一个贫寒农家,上面有四个哥哥。董冬母亲是个戏迷,妈妈给了她最初的艺术启蒙。而令父母惊喜的是,小董冬嗓音非常温婉清亮,从小就对音乐表现出较强悟性与天赋。三岁时,一首儿歌只要听过一遍,她就能哼出完整旋律。10岁那年,董冬小荷初露尖尖角,斩获安徽滁州地区少儿歌曲比赛一等奖,一举成为了县里一颗冉冉升起的童星。     

Evolution and Reform: The Art of Transition in Energy Pricing Policy

This paper presents an analysis of potential methods of reform of petroleum pricing policies in developing countries. It takes as given the highly political nature of petroleum pricing in selected developing countries (including Brazil. Ecuador, Argentina, the Sudan and Republic of Korea), and identifies several models for reform.     

生态恢复:遏制生态系统退化的良方

<正>我国是全球生态系统类型最多的国家,也是世界上唯一囊括全部陆地生态系统类型的国度。然而,我们这些生态系统都处在不同程度的退化过程中。中国生态系统退化的现实异常严峻,如果控制不住,将会影响     

浅谈环境污染治理难的原因及对策

针对我国目前环境污染治理难的现象，指出环境污染治理难的原因：一是立法问题；二是执法问题；三是普法问题。只有尽快解决这三个问题，环境污染治理才会见成效。     

The Good Life of Creatures with Dignity Some Comments on the Swiss Expert Opinion

The notion of Dignity of Creatures has been voted into the Swiss Federal Constitution by a plebiscite. Philipp Balzer, Klaus-Peter Rippe, and Peter Schaber have given an expert opinion for the Swiss government to clarify the notion of Dignity of Creatures. According to them, by voting this notion into the Swiss constitution, the Swiss have chosen for a limited biocentric approach towards biotechnology. In such an approach genetic engineering of non-human beings is only allowed insofar that their own good is not impaired. It is, however, not clear when the good of a non-human being is impaired. I defend the position that – even if we confine ourselves to animals – their good goes beyond their well being.     

Impact of the FTSE4Good Index on firm price: an event study

This paper examines whether corporate financial performance is affected by public endorsement of environmental and social performance. Event study methodology, which relies on the notion of market efficiency, is used to examine the relationship between positive and negative announcements and changes in share prices or daily returns. Inclusion in and deletion from the FTSE4Good UK Index is used as a proxy measure for good (poor) corporate social responsibility. The abnormal or unexpected daily returns associated with an event are calculated and their significance tested. The results show a trend towards positive and negative announcements having the expected effects on daily returns. But these movements are not significant and the data do not suggest that a firm's presence on the index brings it any significant financial return for signalling its corporate social responsibility.     

Consciousness or the Art of Foul Play

The psychological literature about consciousness has been analyzed. It is argued that: 1) Only the higher symbolic cognitive powers like the ability to keep secrets, knowledge of self or self-consciousness, a long-term view on the future, the ability to determine long-term goals, and to freely plan future behavior, add positive fitness-value to consciousness. Without these higher intellectual abilities consciousness will have only negative fitness value and no positive one. The intellectual powers mentioned may therefore be considered as prerequisites for consciousness. Consciousness may therefore only be expected in those animal species that show these capacities in their behavior. So far these capacities have only been described for the anthropoid apes and humans. For the time being, they are therefore the only species in which consciousness may be expected. 2) Consciousness is not synchronous with real time. Human consciousness is, in as well in the perception of stimuli as in the experience of free will to act, most times running after the facts. 3) Consciousness has to be viewed as an instinct that has been developed late in evolution. It is partially based upon primarily innate neural circuits, fulfilling specialized cognitive functions by which information is interpreted and inferences are made, in a more or less automatical way. 4) Most information processing concerning daily decisions,is done by parallel non-consciously functioning neural modules using ‘sloppy logic’, and only the end-product of these modules can be pushed forwards to consciousness. For this reason consciousness will, most times, lack the necessary information to come to the correct inferences about the evaluations on which the decision is based. Therefore, only rarely will people have insight into their cognitive processes or the real sources of their behavior. When asked why they behaved as they did, they will produce confabulations. However, people's erroneous reports are not capricious, but regular and systematic in such a way that they will fit the pre-existing ideas and beliefs. The contents of these reports are therefore not based upon introspection, but, most times, on (sub)culturally accepted ideas. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

人类走向环境伦理

环境伦理是从道德的角度研究人与自然关系的问题,本文主要从环境伦理的产生、环境伦理要求人们走出“人类中心主义”、环境伦理的道德原则和规范三个方面来阐述。环境伦理的兴起与对人类的启示“伦理”一词代表的是人们的言论和行为要遵循的原则、规范,并与人的责任和义务相联系。传统的伦理是揭示人与人之间关系的一种规律性的认识,也就是反映人们之间的伦理关系,反映人们相互之间应该承担的责任和义务。千百年来,伦理的作用和功能主要表现在调节人际之间利益关系的层面上。所以,以往当人们谈到伦理的时候,它存在于人类之间,只起调…     

超声波技术在污泥处理利用中的应用现状及前景预测

本文介绍低频超声波技术在城市污水厂污泥处理中应用的原理以及可以带来的经济和环境效益。指出,对一定量的剩余污泥进行超声处理后进行发酵,或者将其回流到生化池进水,可以增加沼气产量,并使最终的泥饼数量减少。通过分析德国的应用实例,说明了超声波设备可以带来的运行成本方面的好处。     

保护臭氧层人类共同的责任

保护臭氧层不是远不可及的务虚话题,而是近在咫尺、迫在眉睫的全人类共同任务。如果说中国古代的神话传说女娲补天有杞人忧天之嫌,那么当代的“补天”则是干真万确的全球联动。自上世纪70年代以来,在欧洲的维也纳,加拿大的蒙特利尔,亚洲的北京,从联合国的高级官员、获诺贝尔奖的科学家,到各国的政府首脑,不同肤色、不同国籍的人们都在为一个共同的使命而奔走努力：     

Reflections on the Growing Influence of Good Agricultural Practices in the Global South

EurepGAP is a pioneering field level food safety protocol called ‘good agricultural practices’ currently exercising influence over the global food quality assurance system. Developed by a consortium of major European retailers, this private standard enforces codes of conduct that address issues of health and safety for producers and consumers, as well as working conditions and environmental management on the farmland. Despite various merits and benefits that the standard is premised to offer, the institutional design gives a financial edge to powerful large farms and exporters while diminishing opportunities for smaller growers and exporters to remain in the profitable agricultural export sector of the Global South. This paper explores the institutional origin and evolution of EurepGAP, discusses entry barriers and risks that EurepGAP imposes on the global value chain stakeholders, as well as the ethical implications from broader theoretical perspectives. Subsequently, it examines the evolving nature of a new trend in the fresh fruit and vegetable sector, i.e., the rise of public GAP standards. Promoted by some governments in the Global South, these GAP standards emphasize support for horizontal partnerships among value chain stakeholders, farmer participation, and less capital-intensive agricultural innovations. The paper argues that, within certain limitations, these GAP standards have the potential to be the major alternative GAP approach by encouraging a much broader inclusion of small-scale producers towards the attainment of various social, economic, and environmental benefits.     

It's Good to Talk! Environmental Information and the Greening of Industry

This paper focuses on one aspect of industry's contribution to safeguarding the environment: the use and production of environmental information. Access to such information is an important part of the government strategy for promoting shared responsibility for the environment. The objective of the paper is to assess how far public regulation, private regulation and self regulation provide an incentive to industry to use and produce environmental information.     

下游横排头:取缔千艘沙船好安澜

"横排仙境"名不虚传寻访了水库源头与库区,自然应该去水库优质水源汇集输出下游去打探一番。车出六安,沿淠河总干渠蜿蜒20公里便来到位于裕安区苏埠镇雄伟的横排头水利工程枢纽。湿润清新空气中,置身"青山环碧水,绿树映红楼;白鹭蓝空舞,画舫逐浪游"的胜境,令人心旷神怡,"横排仙境"果然名不虚传。