Climate change and human health—what influences the adoption of adaptation programming in the United States public health system?

With growing evidence on how climate change impacts human health, public health agencies should develop adaptation programs focused on the impacts predicted to affect their jurisdictions. However, recent research indicates that public health agencies in the United States have done little to prepare the public for predicted climate change impacts, largely due in response to a lack of resources and priority. This study surveyed Environmental Health (EH) Directors across the United States to determine the extent to which individual level attitudes and beliefs influence the adoption of climate change adaptation programming in a department. The results indicate that an EH Director’s perception of the health risk posed by climate change explained 27% of the variance in the number of climate change impacts being addressed. Furthermore, the study found that environmental attitude and political views made strong, unique contributions in explaining the variance in risk perception. The results provide evidence that individual-level attitudes and beliefs, as well as organizational-level barriers influence the adoption of climate change adaptation programs in public health agencies. As a result, increasing EH Directors’ perception of risk by highlighting the likelihood and severity of localized impacts may increase the adoption of adaptation programming despite existing organizational barriers (e.g., lack of resources). Given the fact that risk perception has been shown to influence behavior across cultures, these findings are also useful for understanding the influence of individual decision makers on public health programming around the world.     

"十三五"环境保护的网络舆情研究

以百度为数据获取渠道,综合分析了以下几类环境保护网络舆情:(1) 环境保护"十三五"规划的网络舆情分析,包括网民关注热点和网民特征;(2)"十二五"期间,网民对"空气"、"水资源"、"生活垃圾"、"噪声"、"土壤"等问题的总体关注度;(3)"十二五"期间,网民对"空气"、"水资源"、"噪声"、"土壤"四类问题的关注焦点.把握网络舆情发展的规律和趋势,加强引导和管理,将有助于环境保护"十三五"规划的有效实施.     

美国的环境立法

通过对美国环境立法发展状况的分析,阐述了美国环境法规的特点,及其在国家加强行政环境管理等方面的作用。立法不完善,是美国环境立法的主要问题。     

A new tool to map the major worldviews in the Netherlands and USA,and explore how they relate to climate change

For addressing climate change, public support for changes in policy is needed, as well changes in individual lifestyles. Both of these appear to be intimately related with people’s worldviews. Understanding these worldviews is therefore essential. In order to research and ‘map’ them, we translated the theoretical ‘Integrative Worldview Framework’ (IWF) into an empirical, quantitative approach. We constructed a worldview-scale aiming to distinguish between four major worldviews – labeled traditional, modern, postmodern, and integrative – and explored their interface with opinions and behaviors with respect to climate change. The survey was conducted with representative samples of citizens in the Netherlands and the USA (n = 527 and n = 556). The hypothesized worldviews were found in the data with a reasonable degree of reliability, especially in the Dutch sample. We also found consistent relationships between these worldview-clusters and a range of opinions, political priorities, and behaviors. In both countries postmoderns and integratives displayed significantly more concern about climate change as well as more sustainable behaviors, compared with moderns and traditionals. The implications of these findings for environmental policy and social science are noteworthy.     

Scaling down the “Netherlands Fallacy”: a local-level quantitative study of the effect of affluence on the carbon footprint across the United States

Much quantitative research examining the determinants of the ecological footprint has been conducted cross-nationally, where data on cross-boundary flows have been readily available. While local-level studies of the footprint do exist for specific localities, most quantitative research at this scale has examined direct environmental impacts attributed to the internal activities of the locality, for instance, carbon emissions. Our analysis builds on this previous work by exploiting a local-level carbon footprint dataset with coverage for 28,321 zip codes across the United States. Following prior research, we focus on the effect of local affluence, measured in terms of median household income. In spatial regression models, we regress the per capita carbon footprint on local affluence, controlling for a variety of other factors. Consistent with previous work, we find that affluence is positively correlated the carbon footprint and there is no evidence of an environmental Kuznets curve. In the conclusion, we review the results of the study and discuss their implications for policy, specifically in terms of cross-boundary environmental problems.     

A review on political factors influencing public support for urban environmental policy

Environmental quality is important to urban residents’ physical, social and psychological well-being. Governments have been formulating and implementing policies to mitigate environmental deterioration in cities. To effectively implement policies and achieve policy goals, gaining sufficient public support is an essential prerequisite; the policies would be in ruins and the government may also suffer from setbacks in other policy areas in the absence of public support. Therefore, to understand what contributes to public support is a crucial task for policymakers. Though current literature on socio-demographic and attitudinal/psychological factors provides fruitful accounts for policy support, a comprehensive examination of political determinants has yet to be established. In response to this, this review paper explores political factors that influence level of policy support based on existing literature. An integrated framework is proposed to explain policy support for urban environmental policy. This paper also discusses the possible directions of future research.     

The perceived psychological distance of climate change impacts and its influence on support for adaptation policy

Factors influencing support for climate mitigation policy in the United States are well researched, however, research regarding individuals’ support for climate adaptation policy is relatively sparse. This study explores how an individual’s perception of climate change impacts may influence their support for adaptation actions. Results of a survey of the U.S. public (n = 653) indicates that individuals who believe climate change impacts are unlikely to happen or will primarily affect other people in other places are less likely to be concerned about climate change impacts and less likely to support climate adaptation. However, an individual’s support for climate change adaptation measures is not influenced by their perception of when climate change impacts will occur even when taking into account concern for climate impacts. Critical for policy-makers, a belief that climate adaptation measures will not be effective attenuates the relationship between psychological distance, concern for climate change impacts, and adaptation policy measures. Our results indicate that to effectively communicate about climate change, policy-makers should emphasize that: (i) climate change impacts are occurring, (ii) that their constituents are being affected now, or will be in the future, and (iii) communicate that adaptation measures can be effective in addressing risks associated with climate change impacts.     

How to be a more effective environmental scientist in management and policy contexts

This paper is intended for young researchers with an environmental conscience, alerting them that a self-centred ecology can work against conservation and other desirable goals. I propose that there is confusion in the biophysical ecologists’ community about the role of knowledge, stemming from several already surpassed beliefs that have been strongly criticized by scholars in the field of science and technology studies. In particular, environmental scientists still often seem trapped in the information deficit model, assuming a linear and unidirectional flow of knowledge from experts to users. This leads to an incomplete understanding and unrealistic expectations of ongoing processes of citizen participation (co-production of knowledge), impatience regarding the speed at which issues can be dealt with by politics, and a fuzzy notion of the role of our convictions regarding the value of nature conservation when we are consulted as experts. I analyse the consequences of disregarding tacit knowledge, i.e. the one knowledge beyond that codified in academic papers and books. I emphasize that preferences and values have a large influence on how we perceive, process, and act (or postpone to act) on information on our non-exclusive roles as scientists, decision makers or citizens. I argue that this is why political and ideological preferences have a large influence not only on which teams are appointed to solve problems, but also on which situations are perceived as problematic and given higher priorities. I include a cheat-sheet to enhance communication with decision-makers and other non-scientists that could prevent environmental zeal to be transformed into society’s annoyance and our eventual irrelevance. I plea for a more realistic attitude towards ecological research, highlighting that in environmental debates we are also long-term stakeholders, and not only casual, external and aseptic observers.     

Seven suppositions about energy security in the United States

Changing the patterns of energy use requires investigating how energy consumers - not experts - conceive of energy challenges. This article explores the varying beliefs, attitudes, and views on energy security in the United States among experts and residents. Based primarily on an academic literature review to distill expert views, and a survey distributed to hundreds of residents in the U.S. to capture consumer views, the study begins by explaining its methodology before identifying seven suppositions related to energy security. These suppositions involve security of fuel supply, energy democracy, energy research and development, affordability of energy services, environmental pollution, and climate change adaptation and mitigation. The second section of the study tests these suppositions with a survey distributed to 427 respondents in the United States. Three suppositions are supported, two are unsupported, and two are neither supported nor unsupported. The final section of the study offers implications for U.S. energy policy and scholarship.     

Public support for carrot,stick, and no-government water quality policies

Public support for environmental policy provides an important foundation for democratic governance. Numerous policy innovations may improve nonpoint source pollution, but little research has examined which types of individuals are likely to support various runoff reduction policies. We conducted a household mail survey of 1136 residents in southern Wisconsin. In general, residents were more likely to support water quality policies if they were communitarians, egalitarians, concerned about water pollution, and perceived water quality as poor. The majority of respondents somewhat to strongly supported all of the seven proposed water quality policies, but opposed relying on voluntary action without government involvement on farms. Residents had higher support for incentives and market-based approaches (carrot policies) than regulation and taxes (stick policies). A more complicated pattern emerged in within-subject comparisons of residents’ views of carrot and stick approaches. Stick approaches polarized respondents by decreasing support among people with individualistic worldviews, while slightly increasing support among people with communitarian worldviews. Residents with an agricultural occupation were more likely to support voluntary, non-governmental approaches for reducing agricultural runoff, and were also more likely to support regulation for reducing urban lawn runoff. This research highlights the dominant role of cultural worldviews and the secondary roles of water pollution concern, perceived water quality, and self-interest in explaining support for diverse policies to reduce nonpoint source pollution.     

Zur Freisetzung gentechnisch veränderter Mikroorganismen

Microorganisms have been being released into the environment for a long time, e.g., in agriculture or for biotechnological processes. Amongst these microorganisms were some that had been labeled genetically, or improved by selection. In recent years, efforts have been directed towards alteration or optimization of appropriate bacteria and viruses by methods of recombinant DNA technology. In some cases, first releases of such organisms have been undertaken in experimental plots. There is public concern about the environmental risks of such releases, and about possible adverse effects. The present status of research in this controversial field, the regulations available in Germany and the United States, as well as the prospects of such work for the future are presented.     

国外环境保护产业发展现状及趋势研究概述

文章概述了国外环保产业发展的历程、特点以及政策,阐述了以日本、美国为代表的发达国家环保技术与产品的开发现状和趋势,分析并预测了发达国家环保工业的市场状况。文中提出了发展我国环保产业的建议。      

Mountain communities and climate change adaptation: barriers to planning and hurdles to implementation in the Southern Rocky Mountain Region of North America

Geographic factors make mountain communities around the world vulnerable to the direct effects of climate change, and reliance on recreation and tourism can increase vulnerability to the secondary economic impacts.The goal of this research was to investigate the current state of community adaptation planning in the Southern Rocky Mountain region of North America. Using original survey data this paper discusses the challenges that community and county officials currently face, the perceived effects of future climate change in this region, and the perceived barriers to adaptation planning and hurdles to adaptation implementation. Results show lack of resources, information and political will are the most commonly reported barriers to adaptation. This paper also examines the connectivity between mountain communities and the surrounding federal public lands. Fifty one percent of respondents report that decisions made on nearby public lands frequently or always affect planning and decision making in their community. Collaborative efforts between these entities are proposed as a way to reduce the resource burden of adaptation planning for both entities. Finally, this paper discusses how attitudes and beliefs about climate change affect responses to questions about adaptation planning. On average, respondents who report higher levels of concern about and belief in climate change and those who are better informed about climate change report higher levels of adaptation planning. Elected officials in this sample have, on average, lower concern about and belief in climate change than bureaucratic respondents. Thus changes in elected official composition or improved leadership on climate change planning by incumbent officials could facilitate progress on adaptation     

Public ecology: an environmental science and policy for global society

Public ecology exists at the interface of science and policy. Public ecology is an approach to environmental inquiry and decision making that does not expect scientific knowledge to be perfect or complete. Rather, public ecology requires that science be produced in collaboration with a wide variety of stakeholders in order to construct a body of knowledge that will reflect the pluralist and pragmatic context of its use (decision context), while continuing to maintain the rigor and accountability that earns scientific knowledge its privileged status in contemporary society. As such, public ecology entails both process and content. The process is that of a post-modern scientific method: a process that values the participation of extended peer communities composed of a diversity of research specialists, professional policy-makers, concerned citizens and a variety of other stakeholders. The content of public ecology is a biocultural knowledge of dynamic human ecosystems that directly relates to and results from the participatory, democratic processes that distinguish public ecology as a citizen science. The primary goal of public ecology is to build common ground among competing beliefs and values for the environment. The purpose of this paper is to help unify and establish public ecology as a distinctive approach to environmental science and policy in global society.     

河网区农村环境管理模式探讨——以太湖河网区为例

在研究了太湖河网区农村环境现状和环境管理现状的基础上,提出了提高村民环境意识和利用村民自主环境治理的建议,并提出了管制加自治环境管理方法,并进行了效果分析,得出了其可以在相似地区推广的结论。     

论环境教育对全球环境问题的响应

目前,环境问题日趋突出,成为全球关注的重点。这已不是一个国家、一个政府、一个研究所所能解决的事情,需要全世界的共同努力。环境教育亦是一个不可缺少的环节,这篇文章将从环境教育面对环境问题应该怎么做进行分析,把环境教育氛围普通环境教育和专业环境教育,具体分析这两种环境教育类型在面对环境问题时的不同做法。     

How robust is public support for unilateral climate policy?

Most governments emphasize the need for reciprocal (“give and take”) international commitments in global climate policy. Nonetheless, existing public opinion polls indicate strong support by individual citizens for unilateral climate policies as well. This raises the question of whether governments could, without risking electoral punishment, afford to pursue more ambitious unilateral climate policies, or whether surveys may have overestimated support for unilateralism due to measurement problems. Based on conjoint and framing experiments embedded in representative surveys in the world's two largest democracies, India and the United States, we engage in a critical re-assessment of earlier survey results. We find robust public support for unilateral climate policy in both countries. Such support declines with increasing costs and increases with growing co-benefits and problem solving effectiveness. We also find, however, that policy conditionality and possible institutional design mechanisms against free-riding by other states (which make the policy “less unilateral” by providing for reciprocation) play no significant role when citizens form their preferences with respect to climate policy. Neither is public support affected by whether policies focus on adaptation (which limits benefits to the investing country) or mitigation (which benefits all countries globally). Overall, these findings suggest that, in view of very slow progress in global climate policy, governments of rich and poor countries could politically afford to push ahead with more ambitious unilateral climate policies.     

Current status and trends of the environmental performance in European ports

This paper investigates the current status and trends over time in the environmental performance of European ports. The research is based on the provision of data from 79 European ports on issues related to their environmental management, environmental priorities and current environmental monitoring practices. This study updates previous environmental reviews, so that the trends over time are drawn. For instance, 90% of respondent ports stated that they have an environmental policy and 94% of ports have designated environmental personnel. The percentage of ports that have an Environmental Management System has increased by +33% in the last 9 years. Air quality, port waste and energy consumption emerged as the three major environmental priorities of the European port sector in 2013. The research also reveals the diversity amongst European ports in terms of size and physical surroundings. Some examples are presented on specific initiatives carried out by sector organisations about the Top-10 port priority issues. The future expectations of European ports on data collection and reporting are described.     

大连市公众海洋环境意识调查分析

研究公众的海洋环境意识对建立正确的海洋环境观,遏制当前海洋环境恶化趋势,建立和谐的人海关系具有非常重要的意义。本文采用问卷和访谈的方法调查了大连市公众的海洋环境意识,并运用SPSS软件对调查数据进行了统计分析,结果显示,大连公众的海洋环境意识水平中等偏上,没有极端表现,但这一水平还有待提高。最后,提出加强青少年海洋环境意识教育,政府带头,公众提高自身参与意识等几点建议来加强大连市公众海洋环境意识的提高。     

Sustainable urban development-the public health dimension

Public health in England developed during the first half of the nineteenth century with concern for sanitation in urban areas. Since that time environment, behaviour, social relationships, health services and genetic constitution are all recognized to contribute to health and disease in populations. Sustainable development is now of global concern, and its foundations-economy, environment and society-are similar to the determinants of health. However, while improved environment will have an important contribution to health, the broader social objectives are also needed to avoid the downward cycle of inequality and cultural deterioration that has occurred in some western cities. Epidemiological studies at University College London are particularly concerned with these social dimensions, and research opportunities exist for collaboration with environmental sciences in a number of areas, including intersectoral work, societies in social transition, collaboration with business, and research within through the European Union.