The temporal stability and developmental differences in the environmental impacts of militarism: the treadmill of destruction and consumption-based carbon emissions

This study examines the relationship between national-level militarism and consumption-based carbon dioxide emissions. We analyze panel data from 1990 to 2010 for 81 nations to determine whether the magnitude of the effects of (1) military expenditures as percent of total gross domestic product and (2) military personnel as percent of total labor force on carbon emissions change over time. Results of two-way fixed effects models highlight the temporal stability of the environmental impacts of both national-level military characteristics. The findings also reveal that the effect of military expenditures on emissions is larger in the more developed OECD nations than in the developing non-OECD nations. Overall, the results support the treadmill of destruction perspective, which suggests that the nations’ militaries are an important social institution to consider in sustainability science research on the human drivers of global environmental change.     

Persistence of rock-derived nutrients in the wet tropical forests of La Selva, Costa Rica

We used strontium isotopes and analysis of foliar and soil nutrients to test whether erosion can rejuvenate the supply of rock-derived nutrients in the lowland tropical rain forest of La Selva, Costa Rica. We expected that these nutrients would be depleted from soils on stable surfaces, a result of over one million years of weathering in situ. In fact, trees and palms in all landscape positions derive a relatively high percentage (> or =40%) of their strontium from bedrock, rather than atmospheric, sources. The fraction that is rock-derived increases on slopes, but with no detectable effect on plant macronutrient concentrations. These results differ from those in a similar ecosystem on Kauai, Hawaii, where plants on uneroded surfaces derive almost all of their foliar Sr from atmospheric, rather than bedrock, sources. The results from La Selva challenge the assumption that tropical Oxisols in general have low nutrient inputs from bedrock, and support the hypothesis that erosion can increase the supply of these nutrients in lower landscape positions.     

Business recovery: an assessment framework

This paper presents a Business Recovery Assessment Framework (BRAF) to help researchers and practitioners design robust, repeatable, and comparable studies of business recovery in various post‐disruption contexts. Studies assessing business recovery without adequately considering the research aims, recovery definitions, and indicators can produce misleading findings. The BRAF is composed of a series of steps that guide the decisions that researchers need to make to ensure: (i) that recovery is indeed being measured; (ii) that the indicators of recovery that are selected align with the objectives of the study and the definition of recovery; and, where necessary, (iii) that appropriate comparative control variables are in place. The paper draws on a large dataset of business surveys collected following the earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand, on 4 September 2010 and 22 February 2011 to demonstrate the varied conclusions that different recovery indicators can produce and to justify the need for a systematic approach to business recovery assessments.     

Differential movement patterns and site fidelity among trophic groups of reef fishes in a Hawaiian marine protected area

We tracked the long-term movements of 70 parrotfishes, surgeonfishes and goatfishes captured inside a small (1.3 km²) marine protected area (MPA: Kealakekua Bay Marine Life Conservation District, Hawaii) by implanting them with small transmitters and deploying underwater monitoring devices inside the bay and along 100 km of the adjacent west Hawaii coastline. Individual fish were detected inside Kealakekua Bay for up to 612 days but many were detected for much shorter periods (median = 52 days). There were species-specific differences in the scale of movements and habitats used, but most fish utilized between 0.2 and 1.6 km of coastline, and individuals of each species showed some degree of diel habitat shift. A wide variety of reef fishes captured inside the MPA swam back and forth across an MPA boundary intersecting continuous reef (i.e., this boundary was porous to reef fish movements), but only 1 of 11 species tagged crossed a wide sandy channel inside Kealakekua Bay suggesting that this feature may function as a natural barrier to movements. Results indicate relatively small MPAs (<2 km of coastline) could provide effective, long-term protection for multi-species assemblages of reef fishes provided that boundaries are situated along major habitat breaks (e.g., large sand channels between reefs) that may serve as natural barriers to reef fish movements. It is crucial that a multi-species approach be used when assessing MPA effectiveness.     

Evaluating Adaptive Governance Approaches to Sustainable Water Management in North-West Thailand

Adaptive governance is advanced as a potent means of addressing institutional fit of natural resource systems with prevailing modes of political–administrative management. Its advocates also argue that it enhances participatory and learning opportunities for stakeholders over time. Yet an increasing number of studies demonstrate real difficulties in implementing adaptive governance ‘solutions’. This paper builds on these debates by examining the introduction of adaptive governance to water management in Chiang Mai province, north-west Thailand. The paper considers, first, the limitations of current water governance modes at the provincial scale, and the rationale for implementation of an adaptive approach. The new approach is then critically examined, with its initial performance and likely future success evaluated by (i) analysis of water stakeholders’ opinions of its first year of operation; and (ii) comparison of its governance attributes against recent empirical accounts of implementation difficulty and failure of adaptive governance of natural resource management more generally. The analysis confirms the potentially significant role that the new approach can play in brokering and resolving the underlying differences in stakeholder representation and knowledge construction at the heart of the prevailing water governance modes in north-west Thailand.     

Cyber international relations as an integrated system

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize the hitherto separate domains of Cyberspace and International Relations into an integrated socio-technical system that we jointly call the cyber International Relations (Cyber-IR) system and to identify and analyze its emergent properties utilizing the methods common to science and engineering systems adapted here for the social sciences. Our work is an exploration in both theory and methodology. This paper (a) identifies the actors and functions in the core systems, Cyberspace, and IR, (b) disambiguates system boundary, (c) creates a design structure matrix (DSM), a matrix of the interdependencies among functions of actors, (d) analyzes DSM qualitatively to show multiple interdependent and heterogeneous Cyber-IR properties, and (e) analyzes quantitatively the differential importance of core functions as well as the impact of actor attributes on influence in Cyber-IR. This work forms a baseline for further understanding of the nature of the heterogeneous influences of the various actors and the various outcomes that could result from it.     

College and university environmental programs as a policy problem (part 1): integrating knowledge, education, and action for a better world?

The environmental sciences/studies movement, with more than 1000 programs at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, is unified by a common interest??ameliorating environmental problems through empirical enquiry and analytic judgment. Unfortunately, environmental programs have struggled in their efforts to integrate knowledge across disciplines and educate students to become sound problem solvers and leaders. We examine the environmental program movement as a policy problem, looking at overall goals, mapping trends in relation to those goals, identifying the underlying factors contributing to trends, and projecting the future. We argue that despite its shared common interest, the environmental program movement is disparate and fragmented by goal ambiguity, positivistic disciplinary approaches, and poorly rationalized curricula, pedagogies, and educational philosophies. We discuss these challenges and the nature of the changes that are needed in order to overcome them. In a subsequent article (Part 2) we propose specific strategies for improvement.     

Spectral reflectance and communication in the wolf spider, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Schizocosa ocreata</Emphasis> (Hentz): simultaneous crypsis and background contrast in visual signals

Animal color patterns often reflect a compromise between natural selection for crypsis or inconspicuousness to predators and sexual selection for conspicuousness to potential mates. In leaf litter-dwelling wolf spider species like Schizocosa ocreata, body coloration often closely matches the background coloration of a generally brown environment. However, body parts used in communication should exhibit high contrast against background coloration. We used spectral analysis to examine male and female S. ocreata for matching and contrasting coloration against leaf litter. Values were plotted in multivariate color space, based on reflectivity in different frequency ranges. When viewed from above, colors of both males and females overlap with values for dead brown leaf litter and soil, suggesting cryptic coloration when viewed by potential predators. However, when viewed from a lateral perspective, both males and females show color values that are polar opposites of litter backgrounds, suggesting higher contrast when viewed by other spiders. Moreover, male secondary characters used in visual signaling by S. ocreata (tibia brushes) show the highest level of background contrast. These findings suggest that S. ocreata wolf spiders have color patterns that provide both crypsis and background contrast at the same time, depending on receiver viewing perspective.     

Contamination of marine fauna by chlordecone in Guadeloupe: evidence of a seaward decreasing gradient

Chlordecone is an organochlorine pesticide, used in the Lesser Antilles from 1972 to 1993 to fight against a banana weevil. That molecule is very persistent in the natural environment and ends up in the sea with runoff waters. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the level of contamination in several trophic groups of marine animals according to their distance from the source of pollution. Samples of suspended matter, macroalgae, herbivorous fishes, detrivorous crustaceans, zooplanktivorous fishes, first- and second-order of carnivorous fishes, and piscivorous fishes have been collected in two sites, located downstream the contaminated sites (Goyave and Petit-Bourg), in three marine habitats (coastal mangroves, seagrass beds located 1.5 km from the shoreline, and coral reefs at 3 km offshore). Animals collected in mangroves were the most contaminated (mean concentrations 193 μg kg^?1 in Goyave and 213 μg kg^?1 in Petit-Bourg). Samples from seagrass beds presented intermediate concentrations of chlordecone (85 μg kg^?1 in Goyave and 107 μg kg^?1 in Petit-Bourg). Finally, samples from coral reefs were the less contaminated (71 μg kg^?1 in Goyave and 74 μg kg^?1 in Petit-Bourg). Reef samples, collected 3 km offshore, were two to three times less contaminated than those collected in mangroves.     

通过调节汽油中铅的使用来控制人体血铅浓度

在20世纪60～70年代,铅排放一直保持着最大速率,之后,由于工业国家采取了日益严格的政策来限制铅作为防爆剂在汽油中使用,使得含铅汽油已经变得很少见了.我们利用欧洲铅排放量(PbE)和空气浓度(PbC)的重建及对约1980年以来德国人体血铅浓度(PbB)的重复测定,建立了一个可由铅排放量(PbE)估计人体血铅浓度(PbB)的经验模型.采用这一模型有两种用途[1]估计六七十年代德国的PbB水平,当时铅排放量最大而人体血铅水平监测尚未开始.结果显示,血铅峰值已经达到了卫生官员认为对胎儿和儿童有潜在危害的平均水平.[2]估计PbB水平将如何因有关汽油中铅使用的法规的实施而变化.模型估计,如果没有或延迟法规,PbB水平将远远超过临界水平.因此,自20世纪70年代以来,德国制定的法规已经明显降低了铅对健康的危害.