论环境公共决策中风险沟通的法律实现——以预防型环境群体性事件为视角

当前我国环境群体性事件呈高发态势。根据引发事件事实状态的不同可将其分为事前预防型环境群体性事件和事后救济型环境群体性事件。预防型环境群体性事件中公众所抵制的是有关环境风险的决策结果,实质上是在主张环境公共决策过程中认知风险的权利。着眼于预防型环境群体性事件所针对的环境公共决策过程,主要运用理论分析、规范分析、比较分析的方法,从行政决策权的行使与公众参与权利的实现入手,探究环境公共决策无法取得实质合法性的根源,寻求化解之法治路径。当前环境公共决策在结构和程序上呈现出封闭性,与决策结果具有直接利害关系的公众被排除在外,其认知风险的权利得不到有效实现,风险沟通不畅导致社会可接受的风险共识不能形成,环境公共决策无法取得实质合法性,引发预防型环境群体性事件增多。由于环境风险的不确定性特征,环境公共决策中专家的理性地位被动摇,公众参与环境决策的诉求更为强烈,其对风险的认知直接决定了对最终决策结果的认可和接受程度,政府无法独占风险决策地位。在社会层面形成具体风险认知的共识以便决策结果获得普遍的认同和接受成为环境公共决策取得实质合法性的必要条件。化解预防型环境群体性事件,需要在环境公共决策过程中进行有效的风险沟通。为此,环境法应当将公众作为环境决策的合作者,要求决策者主动、全面公开决策所依据的事实和理由,对公众意见给予及时充分的回应,寻求其理解和支持;实现环境信息公开的风险沟通功能;通过程序性的设计促进风险沟通的实现,保障公众参与的有效性。当前有关立法已反映出对风险沟通的重视,但只是萌芽。     

Green-Tinted Glasses: How Do Pro-Environmental Citizens Conceptualize Environmental Sustainability?

Recent research has shown that many Australians see pro-environmental behaviour as desirable and identify as being green. However when compared to other countries, Australians score poorly on pro-environmental behaviour measures, engaging mostly in tokenistic pro-environmental actions, and demonstrate low levels of concern for the environment. In this article, we examine this tension through exploring the meaning of the term sustainability to Australian participants who self-identify as pro-environmental. Twenty-six interviews were conducted and analysed using a causal layered analysis. Through the examination of participants’ environmental discourse and practices, some of the deeper socio-psychological processes influencing pro-environmental behaviour are revealed. While participants aspired to be green, their actions were bound by cultural traditions and world views that perpetuate environmental degradation. Participants struggled to define the term sustainability and held self-enhancing motives for adopting what they identify as a pro-environmental identity. These findings highlight the influence of collective cultural constructs in shaping how pro-environmental behaviours are understood and enacted.     

Selling “Fracking”: Energy in Depth and the Marcellus Shale

The development of horizontal hydraulic fracture drilling or “fracking” has allowed for the extraction of deep, unconventional shale gas deposits in various shale seams throughout the USA. One such shale seam, the Marcellus shale, extends through New York State, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, where shale gas development has rapidly increased within the last decade. This has created a boom of economic activity surrounding the energy industry. However, this bounty comes with risks to environmental and public health and has led to divisive community polarization over the issue in the Marcellus shale region. In the face of potential environmental and social disruption, and a great deal of controversy surrounding “fracking” the oil and gas industry has had to undertake a myriad of public relations initiatives to legitimize their extraction efforts in the Marcellus shale region, and to frame the shale gas boom in a positive light to stakeholders. This article investigates one such public relations initiative, the Energy in Depth (EID) Northeast Marcellus Initiative. Through qualitative content analysis of EID's online web material, this article examines the ways in which the industry presents and frames natural gas development to the general public. Through appeals to patriotism, the use of environmental imagery, and a claimed commitment to scientific reason, the oil and gas industry uses EID to frame the shale gas extraction process in a positive light, all the while framing those who question or oppose the processes of shale gas extraction as irrational obstructionists.     

建立中国环境公益诉讼制度的理论准备

环境公益诉讼是经1981年马骧聪先生从美国等西方国家介绍引入中国,到2005年对该制度的介绍评价仍在继续。很多学者赞同我国引鉴美国公民诉讼制度用于环境公益诉讼。自1981至2005年,以环境公益诉讼为主题的研究共有期刊论文80篇、博士硕士学位论文40篇、会议交流论文12篇。在这些相关文作中,未见系统研究或专门研究环境公益诉讼的论文在法学权威刊物发表,也未见系统阐述环境公益诉讼制度或环境公益诉讼的专门著作,与环境公益诉讼制度建设相关或有内容涉及的著作仅3部。这些作品讨论了环境公益诉讼的概念,建立我国环境公益诉讼制度的必要性,环境公益诉讼制度的理论基础、原告资格、受案范围等重大问题和举证责任分配、诉讼费用负担、受诉法院、原告培养和原告激励、环境鉴定等细节问题。不可否认,我国学界、政界以及其他关心环境保护事业的人们为建立我国的环境公益诉讼制度做了有益的理论准备工作,但所做的理论准备却并不充分,表现为没有真正解决何谓环境公益这个基本认识问题,也即对何谓环境公益这个问题的回答模棱两可。正是因为建立我国环境公益诉讼制度的理论准备不充分,才有后来的制度建设实践中的一波三折。虽然人们对新《环境保护法》第五十八条倾注了无限的希望,但其中的"社会公共利益"与《民事诉讼法》第五十五条中的"众多消费者合法权益"实则同类。建立我国环境公益诉讼制度的最近路线是仿照美国《清洁水法》等法律设置公民诉讼条款的方式,在修改《水污染防治法》等单行环境法时添加支持环境公益诉讼的内容。     

环境公益诉讼的理论基础探究

环境不可能成为权利的对象,环境权论和公共信托理论都无法为环境公益诉讼提供理论支撑.多人利益意义上的环境公益诉讼以公民财产权、人身权等为根据,无须再虚构其他的理论根据.私人检察总长理论、私人实施法律理论是国家论、权力论,这种理论和我国法律中的公民检举权都以"积极公民"的存在为前提."积极公民"存在于个体与利益共同体关系中.国家、民族、自然环境决定的特定区域中的人的集合等都构成一个共同体.共同体成员对共同体的责任是公民担当"私人总检察长"、公益起诉人的理由.集体利益环境诉讼的理论基础是作为环境共同体成员的公民对共同的环境利益的责任.多人利益环境诉讼实际上是私益诉讼,只有集体公益的环境诉讼才是需要我们努力建设的环境公益诉讼.     

中国环境管理制度变革之道:从部门管理向公共管理转变

从中国社会经济制度转型对环境管理提出的需求出发．论述了环境管理制度从部门管理向公共管理转变的必要性．分析了现行环境管理制度的内在矛盾．进而依据环境资源本身所具有的稀缺性和竞争性特征．提出环境管理制度向公共管理转型具有内在驱动力和必然性．认为产权缺失是环境资源配置低效率的根本原因、有效环境权益结构的构建是实现环境资源公共管理的基础。     

环境信息公开及在中国的实践

环境信息公开是一种新的环境管理制度，对于提高环境决策的质量和执行，控制污染有着一定的作用。我国已在政府环境信息公开、企业环境信息公开和其它形式环境信息公开进行了一些探索和实践。在实践中，我国存在着环境信息公开法规体系不完善、公开的环境信息不准确、企业及产品的环境信息公开不充分等问题，应在健全环境信息公开的法规体系、加大企业环境信息公开力度、建设公共环境信息系统等方面做进一步的工作。     

“Organic is More of an American Term … We Are Traditional Farmers”: Discourses of Place-based Organic Farming,Community, Heritage,and Sustainability

The following study looks at how traditional, organic, cooperative farmers starting a new farming cooperative in the US Southwest communicate about their farming as a set of (sustainable) cultural practices. The study draws on environmental communication theory, the theory of the coordinated management of meaning, and Vandana Shiva’s three-tiered economic model to construct a communication-based framework through which to view farmers’ stories about sustainability. This framework is productive, showing how some Nuevo Mexicano farmers (and others) orient toward farming, sustenance, and human-nature relationships through community, family, heritage, and education. Moreover, in addition to a conceptualization of sustainability as specific practices for nurturing and enduring in environments, communities, and organizations/institutions, sustainability can be understood as embedded ecocultural and historical experience with cross-cultural parallels in land-based communities. This study advances the ethical duty of environmental communication to better understand the ways in which environmental discourse and ecocultural and material realities are imbricated, as well as the call for such discursive study to be grounded in phenomenological experience of the natural world.     

Image Themes and Frames in US Print News Stories about Climate Change

Research on frames in climate change (CC) news coverage has advanced substantially over the past decade, but the emerging understanding of the framing role of visual imagery that often accompanies news texts remains fragmented. We report on a set of image frames identified through content analysis of 350 images associated with 200 news articles from 11 US newspaper and magazine sources from 1969 through late 2009. We reliably identified and quantified the occurrence of 118 image themes. We then hierarchically clustered the themes based on their co-occurrence in images to identify an integrated framework of 42 image frames. We highlight frames associated with particular types of images (e.g., photographs and maps) or geographic regions. From among the full set of frames, we identify 15 that commonly appear in US CC news imagery and discuss the ways in which image frames make salient (or render invisible) particular categories of people, geographic regions, aspects of science, and spheres of activity.     

英国环境管理的公众参与及其对中国的启示

鼓励公众参与环境管理是当今国际社会重要的政策导向之一。本文从法律赋予公民环境权、环保团体在环境保护中发挥重要。作用、环境影响评价中强调公众参与三方面来介绍英国公众参与环境管理的一些做法，探讨其对中国环境管理中公众参与的启示。     

A Missed Opportunity?: NOAA’s Use of Social Media to Communicate Climate Science

In the current media landscape, organizations often communicate about science directly with publics through online channels rather than relying on journalist gatekeepers. Online platforms present organizations with the opportunity to participate in two-way communication in order to increase engagement with science. The present study examined how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) utilizes social media to interact with publics. Results suggest that NOAA does not fully utilize the dialogic potential of social media, which could enhance both the public’s science literacy and trust in science regarding climate change specifically. This study informs how public relations theory may complement science communication theory and practice as deficit model-thinking transitions to contemporary approaches for public engagement with science.     

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.     

公众参与环保行为影响因素的实证研究

依据环境意识和社会背景对环保行为的交互作用机理,采用2006年横截面数据对陕西公众环保行为的现状和影响因素分别进行了实证检验.回归分析发现公众陈述的环保行为整体得分尚不及格,但较1998年的全国平均得分有大幅提高;环保重要性、环保知识、受教育程度对个人环保习惯和公共环保行为的影响呈显著正相关;性别差异在个人环保习惯中表现突出,在公共环保行为中并不显著;收入、年龄、环保意义变量的影响都不显著.从个人环保习惯路径分析模型发现环保重要性是最显著的中介变量.最后,文章建议政府应该通过提高公众的环保重要性意识,并进一步提高他们的受教育程度和环保知识水平,且以女性为突破口来带动更广泛意义上的公众参与环保行为     

从社会排斥的视角分析中国公众环境权益的缺失

社会排斥是近年来社会学研究中的重要概念。本文在对社会排斥内涵进行简要述评的基础上．探讨将这一独特视角用于公众环境权益诠释的可能性,并具体分析中国公众在环境权益实现过程中所面临的社会文化排斥、社会体制排斥、自我认同排斥等社会排斥现象及其三者之间的关系。公众在环境权益实现中所遇到的社会排斥包括两个方面：一是由消极排斥到积极排斥再到消极排斥的作用与反作用过程;二是自为排斥与自在排斥相互交错融合的过程。消除各种社会排斥的可行对策是：建立公众参与环境制度．促进环境NGO发展,强化环保执法能力．推动环保机制从政府主导型向社会制衡型转变。     

环境侵权的公益诉讼研究

环境权是公民的法定权益，通过诉讼的途径和机制排除环境侵害是最为有效和可取的。本文正是在分析了环境侵权的种类及特点的基础上，对环境侵权提起公益诉讼进行了研究，并指出建立环境侵权公益诉讼制度的可行性和必要性。     

公用事业民营化及其环境行为政府管制的研究

公用事业民营化的目的是在公用事业行业引入民间资本和市场竞争模式,提高公共产品服务的产出质量和效率。以电力行业的民营化为例,电力市场对于民营企业的开放能够在很大程度上提高我国电力生产水平．解决当前电力供求关系紧张的问题。但是,大量民营企业介入电力生产,由于其技术落后而导致的资源浪费以及污染物的无序排放给我国的环境保护带来了新的困扰。我们应该在科学发展观和构建社会主义和谐社会的目标指引下,加强政府对于电力企业等公用事业民营化企业生产经营活动的法律管制,同时加强和完善相关的环境立法,达到公用事业积极发展和环境保护目标实现的双赢目标。