Three Dimensions of Social Media Messaging Success by Environmental NGOs

Studies show that NGOs persist in using social media to impart unidirectional messages rather than taking advantage of the participatory nature of networked media. Fear of a loss of message control may be at the heart of NGOs’ desire to keep social media messages on track. The current study examines the success of an environmental NGO in keeping its social media messages under control using quantitative content analysis of an NGO-promoted hashtag, #climatemarch, during a United Nations conference on climate change in 2015. Three dimensions of social media message success – volume, topic/valence, and participants – are proposed.     

Climate change and national crop wild relative conservation planning

Climate change is likely to be one of the most important factors affecting our future food security. To mitigate negative impacts, we will require our crops to be more genetically diverse. Such diversity is available in crop wild relatives (CWRs), the wild taxa relatively closely related to crops and from which diverse traits can be transferred to the crop. Conservation of such genetic resources resides within the nation where they are found; therefore, national-level conservation recommendations are fundamental to global food security. We investigate the potential impact of climate change on CWR richness in Norway. The consequences of a 1.5 and 3.0 °C temperature rise were studied for the years 2030, 2050, 2070, 2080 and then compared to the present climate. The results indicate a pattern of shifting CWR richness from the south to the north, with increases in taxa turnover and in the numbers of threatened taxa. Recommendations for in situ and ex situ conservation actions over the short and long term for the priority CWRs in Norway are presented. The methods and recommendations developed here can be applied within other nations and at regional and global levels to improve the effectiveness of conservation actions and help ensure global food security.     

Consequences of paternal care on pectoral fin allometry in a desert-dwelling fish

Positive static allometry is a scaling relationship where the relative size of traits covaries with adult body size. Traditionally, positive allometry is thought to result from either altered physiological requirements at larger body size or from strongly condition-dependent allocation under sexual selection. Yet, there are no theoretical reasons why positive allometry cannot evolve in fitness-related traits that are solely under the influence of natural selection. We investigated scaling and sexual dimorphism of a naturally selected trait, pectoral fin size, in comparison to a trait important in male–male combat, head width in natural populations of a fish, the desert goby Chlamydogobius eremius. Male desert gobies provide uniparental care and use their pectoral fins to fan the brood (often under hypoxic conditions); hence, larger fins are expected to be more efficient. Male pectoral fins do not appear to fulfil a signalling function in this species. We found that, for both pectoral fin size and head width, males exhibited positive allometric slopes and greater relative trait size (allometric elevation) than females. However, for head width, females also showed positive allometry, albeit to a lesser degree than males. Because fin locomotory function typically does not result in positive allometry, our findings indicate that other naturally selected uses, such as paternal care, can exaggerate trait scaling relationships.     

Bugging the Strict Vegan

Entomophagy—eating insects—is getting a lot of attention these days. However, strict vegans are often uncomfortable with entomophagy based on some version of the precautionary principle: if you aren’t sure that a being isn’t sentient, then you should treat it as though it is. But not only do precautionary principle-based arguments against entomophagy fail, they seem to support the opposite conclusion: strict vegans ought to eat bugs.     

Communication and use of climate scenarios for climate change adaptation in Finland,Sweden and Norway

This paper assesses the communication and the use of climate scenarios at the science–science and science–policy interface in Finland, Sweden and Norway. It is based on document analysis and stakeholder questionnaires. The questionnaires targeted three stakeholder groups, all engaged in the communication and the use of climate scenario information: climate scenario producers; impact, adaptation and vulnerability (IAV) experts; and policy-makers. The respondents were asked to identify issues associated with the communication of scenarios and other needs pertaining to the usefulness and availability of such information. Despite the relatively long history of climate change adaptation in the three countries, climate scenarios are not utilised to their full potential. Climate scenarios have been used in awareness raising, problem understanding and strategy development. However, far less examples can be found on adaptation actions, particularly on harnessing the benefits of climate change. The communication between climate scenario producers and IAV experts functions well; however, communication between climate researchers and policy-makers is less efficient. Each country has developed boundary services to enhance dissemination of the climate scenario information to policy-makers. They are cost-efficient but do not necessarily enhance the comprehension of the information and encourage the actual dialogue between scenario producers and the end-users. Further translation of scenario information to impact and vulnerability estimates together with established boundary work could improve the use of climate research information. As adaptation policy in these countries further progresses towards implementation, there are increasing expectations of support from research, further challenging the communication of climate scenarios.     

Book reviews

Making Cities Work: the role of local government in the urban environment. Richard Gilbert, Don Stevenson, Herbert Girardet &; Richard Stren, 1996, London, Earthscan, 203pp. ISBN 1 85383 354 1, £13.95 pbk

Environmental Policy in an International Context, Vols 1–3: Perspectives, Conflicts and Prospects. P. Glasbergen &; A. Blowers (Series Eds) London, Arnold

Rhetoric and Reality in Environmental Policy. M. Wintle &; R. Reeve (Eds), 1994, Aldershot, Avebury Studies in Green Research, 154 pp. ISBN 1 85628 927 3

FutureNatural: Nature, Science, Culture. G. Roberston et al. (Eds) 1996, London, Routledge, ISBN 0415 070139, £40.00 hbk

Environmental Policy with Political Integration: the European Union and the United States. New horizons in environmental economics. John B. Braden, Henk Folmer &; Thomas S. Ulen (Eds), 1996, Cheltenham, Elgar Publishing, 477 pp. ISBN 1 85898 217 0     

Increasing uptake of low impact urban design and development: The role of sustainability assessment systems

Abstract

‘Market transformation’ of the significant urban development industry towards more sustainable practices is not moving at great pace. Design and assessment systems that may promote uptake of more sustainable urban design and development are reviewed briefly followed by a comparison between building and neighbourhood scales. For the latter there is a dearth of design and assessment tools for the residential built environment and of indicators to monitor progress towards sustainable development. Local authorities increasingly require an integrated approach to data collection and inclusion of infrastructure service providers in design, assessment and monitoring of urban development and associated environmental effects. By examining attempts to increase uptake of more sustainable residential development, the potential for tools and indicators at the neighbourhood scale to reduce environmental impact of the built environment is highlighted. It is recommended that built environment initiatives need to be combined with research into behavioural changes to achieve the desired outcome of a sustainable built environment and to increase the dialogue between communities, developers and local authorities.     

Systems model of carbon transformations in soil subsidence

A system model was designed to simulate the interaction of climatologic and biologic factors in the biological oxidation of organic soils in ordert to stimulate research on this diminishing resource and attendant water quality problems in the Florida Everglades area. This is a mass balance model in which carbon and nitrogen are conserved in the transformations. It was designed to test different management alternatives for slowing the rate of soil subsidence and to estimate their potential effect on water quality by simulating subsidence rates and the release rates of nitrates, nitrites, and organic acids to ground and surface waters.The biological submodel is structured about two major compartments — the total non-living carbon compartment and a living carbon compartment that includes the microbial biomass and functioning extracellular enzymes.Simulations of the model show the effects of temperature, organic composition, and water table height on carbon dioxide evolution from the soil.