Linking the environmental and social agendas

Summary In the United Kingdom there is no obvious connection between the Department of the Environment and the Home Office, nor indeed with the Department of Social Security. Yet crime rates are rising and social surveys reveal a drop in support for the institutions of governance-moral, legal and political. Other evidence clearly shows that the income and security of the very poor are declining in relation to the better off. There may well be a link between environmental deprivation, poverty and social alienation. This is not an area where heretofore any British Government has noticeably directed its energies. The UK response to the Rio Agenda 21 contains a proposal to create a Citizens' Environmental Initiative, designed ostensibly to bring sustainability to the grass roots. It now appears that this is to be a largely cosmetic exercise of grant aid to worthy local causes. It does not appear to have addressed significantly the opportunity of linking environmental and social agendas via the medium of locally promoted sustainable development. Yet the divergence efficiency and equality of treatment lies at the heart of the contemporary environmental debate. Proposals to price resource depletion and polluting emissions penalize the poor in the name of environmental efficiency. Unless there is an explicit intertwining of efficiency and equity doctrines, the cause of sustainability is doomed to self-inflicted defeat. Ecological taxation offers a solution, so long as the proceeds promote the cause of social as well as environmental justice.The address was delivered at the Global Forum '94 Academic Conference Towards a Sustainable Future: Promoting Sustainable Development Manchester UK (Fig. 1).     

Culture,local capacity,and outside aid: a community perspective on disaster response after the 2009 tsunami in American Sāmoa

Research on diverse cultural contexts has indicated that aid organisations often fail to leverage local, culturally‐grounded resources and capacities in disaster‐affected communities. Case‐study methodology was employed to explore the relationship between local and external disaster response efforts in American Sāmoa following the earthquake and tsunami on 29 September 2009 in the southern Pacific Ocean, with a specific focus on the role of culture in defining that relationship. Interview and focus group data from 37 participants, along with observational data, suggested that the local response to the event was swift and grounded in Samoan cultural systems and norms. External aid was viewed as helpful in some respects, although, on the whole, it was seen as a disruption to village hierarchies, social networks, and local response efforts. The study discusses the implications for the role of outside aid in diverse cultural contexts, and makes suggestions for improving the ecological fit of post‐disaster interventions.     

Efficacy of insurance for organisational disaster recovery: case study of the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes

Insurance is widely acknowledged to be an important component of an organisation's disaster preparedness and resilience. Yet, little analysis exists of how well current commercial insurance policies and practices support organisational recovery in the wake of a major disaster. This exploratory qualitative research, supported by some quantitative survey data, evaluated the efficacy of commercial insurance following the sequence of earthquakes in Canterbury, New Zealand, in 2010 and 2011. The study found that, generally, the commercial insurance sector performed adequately, given the complexity of the events. However, there are a number of ways in which insurers could improve their operations to increase the efficacy of commercial insurance cover and to assist organisational recovery following a disaster. The most notable of these are: (i) better wording of policies; (ii) the availability of sector‐specific policies; (iii) the enhancement of claims assessment systems; and (iv) risk‐based policy pricing to incentivise risk reduction measures.     

Social network characteristics and resource access among formerly displaced households in Lira,Uganda

In rural African communities, the support of extended family, friends, and neighbours is essential in borrowing or leveraging land, labour, food, and money, especially at times of social and financial turmoil. Little is known, though, about the nature of the networks and the conditions under which they may generate greater support in post‐conflict communities. This study, conducted in the Lira district of northern Uganda, examined the composition, proximity, and size of the networks that households utilise to gain access to resources during and after resettlement. Network structures with more kin and co‐resident ties were found to offer greater resource access to households in post‐conflict settings. Furthermore, there was a lack of meaningful linkages outside of a person's own village, especially with regard to households whose head has no or a low level of education. These findings enhance understanding of the specific role of relationships in social support for resource access among households in post‐conflict communities.     

Using a sub-grid scale modeling approach to simulate the transport and fate of toxic air pollutants

Several air toxics are emitted from mobile sources on roadways and these emissions account for a significant fraction of the health risks to the population. In addition, health effect studies are now becoming more comprehensive and some account for the spatial heterogeneities of air pollutant concentration fields (as is the case near roadways). Standard models can simulate either the near-source concentration fields or the urban background, but no model can handle both spatial scales in the vicinity of roadways in a coherent and scientifically correct manner. Here, we present a model that provides such an integrated treatment by combining a grid-based air quality model of the urban background with a plume-in-grid representation of roadway emissions. The model is applied to simulate near-roadway concentrations due to emissions from a busy interstate highway in New York City. Qualitative comparisons with typical measured concentration profiles show that the model captures the observed features of toxic air pollutant concentrations near roadways.     

A field test of the effects of familiarity and relatedness on social associations and reproduction in prairie voles

Inbreeding depression is a well-documented phenomenon. In animals, one means of avoiding the costs of inbreeding is through the recognition and avoidance of kin as mates. Prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) are short-lived, socially monogamous rodents that demonstrate inbreeding depression in the laboratory. Field data indicate that pair formation in nature is opportunistic but pairing among close relatives seems uncommon. We examined the role of relatedness and familiarity on prairie vole social associations and reproduction by placing adult voles into 0.1-ha enclosures with familiar siblings, unfamiliar siblings, and unrelated, unfamiliar conspecifics. Live-trapping data indicated that indices of social pair bonding were random with respect to relatedness and familiarity. Among females whose litters were sired by a single male, litters were significantly more likely to be sired by unfamiliar than familiar males, but the number of litters sired by males that were unrelated to their partner was not different from the number of litters sired by males that were related to their partner. Additionally, females that produced offspring with familiar siblings were significantly more likely to have litters with multiple paternity than females not producing offspring with familiar siblings. However, multiple paternity was not influenced by relatedness of sires. Finally, older individuals were more likely to produce offspring with each other than with younger individuals. Our findings suggest that prior association is a more important mechanism of inbreeding avoidance than phenotype matching for prairie voles mating under ecologically relevant conditions.     

Variation in pelagic larval growth of Atlantic billfishes: the role of prey composition and selective mortality

Atlantic blue marlin (Makaira nigricans) and sailfish (Istiophorus platypterus) larvae were collected from 10 monthly cruises (June–October 2003 and 2004) across the Straits of Florida to test (1) whether growth differed between the more productive western region near the Florida shelf, and the less productive eastern region toward the Bahamas, and (2) whether growth was related to prey consumption. Examination of larval sagittal otoliths revealed that instantaneous growth and daily growth during the first 2–3 weeks of life did not vary significantly between the two regions for either species. However, recent growth during the last two full days prior to collection was greater in the west for blue marlin larvae. Recent growth of blue marlin larvae <9 mm SL (primarily zooplanktivorous) was significantly related to prey composition (faster growth when higher proportions of Farranula copepods were consumed). Western larvae grew faster and had higher proportions of Farranula in their guts. Trends for sailfish larvae were not significant. In both species, comparison of early growth between <9 and ≥9 mm SL size groups indicated that growth trajectories diverged around 5–8 mm SL, the time when billfish larvae become capable of piscivory. Significantly faster growth of larger (older) larvae suggests that mortality was selective for fast growers and that the transition to piscivory may be a critical point in the early life of billfish.     

Contributions of global and regional sources to mercury deposition in New York State

A modeling system that includes a global chemical transport model (CTM) and a nested continental CTM (TEAM) was used to simulate the atmospheric transport, transformations and deposition of mercury (Hg). Three scenarios were used: (1) a nominal scenario, (2) a scenario conducive to local deposition and (3) a scenario conducive to long-range transport. Deposition fluxes of Hg were analyzed at three receptor locations in New York State. For the nominal scenario, the anthropogenic emission sources (including re-emission of deposited Hg) in New York State, the rest of the contiguous United States, Asia, Europe, and Canada contributed 11-1, 25-9, 13-19, 5-7, and 2-5%, respectively to total Hg deposition at these three receptors. Natural sources contributed 16-4%. The results from the local deposition and long-range transport scenarios varied only slightly from these results. However, there are still uncertainties in our understanding of the atmospheric chemistry of Hg that are likely to affect these estimates of local, regional and global contributions. Comparison of model simulation results with data from the Mercury Deposition Network suggests that local and regional contributions may currently be overestimated.