A commentary on decision-making and organisational legitimacy in the Risk Society

Key concepts of Risk Society as elaborated by Ulrich Beck and others (Beck, U., 1992 (trans. Mark Ritter). The Risk Society. Sage Publications, London. Beck, U., 1995, Ecological Politics in the Age of Risk. Polity Press, Cambridge. Beck, U., 1999, World Risk Society. Polity Press, Cambridge. Giddens, A., 1994, Beyond Left and Right. Polity Press, Oxford. Beck, U., Giddens, A. and Lash, S., 1994, Reflexive Modernisation: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Beck, U., Bonss, W. and Lau, C., 2003, Theory, Culture & Society 2003, Sage, London, 20(2), pp. 1-33.) are illuminated though a case study of managed environmental risk, namely the hexachlorobenzene (HCB) controversy at Botany, a southeast suburb of Sydney. We observe the way multiple stakeholder decision-making plays out a number of Risk Society themes, including the emergence of 'unbounded risk' and of highly 'individualised' and 'reflexive' risk communities. Across several decades, the events of the HCB story support Risk Society predictions of legitimacy problems faced by corporations as they harness technoscientific support for innovation in their products and industrial processes without due recognition of social and environmental risk. Tensions involving identity, trust and access to expert knowledge advance our understanding of democratic 'sub-political' decision-making and ways of distributing environmental risk.     

The role of symbolic capital in stakeholder disputes: decision-making concerning intractable wastes

This paper examines almost 30 years of disputation concerning the disposal of the world's largest stockpile of the toxic organochlorine, hexachlorbenzene. It describes the study of a chemicals company in its attempt to manage the disposal of the toxic waste in a collaborative fashion with government, environmentalists and the local community. The study describes the new processes and structures specifically designed to address the decision-making and the issues of stakeholder perception and identity construction which have influenced the outcomes. Decision-making in such disputes is often theorized from the perspective of the emergence of highly individualized and reflexive risk communities and changing modes and expectations of corporate responsibility as a result of detraditionalization. We argue that the stakeholder interaction in this study reflects competing discourses in which corporate actors prioritize the building and maintaining of identity and symbolic capital rather than an active collaboration to solve the ongoing issue of the waste. As well, issues of access to expert knowledge highlight the relationship between conditions of uncertainty, technoscientific expertise and identity. The events of the study highlight the challenges faced by contemporary technoscientific corporations such as chemicals companies as they must deliver on requirements of transparency and openness, while maintaining technoscientific capacity and strong internal identity. We conclude that the study demonstrates the co-existence of social processes of individualization and detraditionalization with quasi-traditions which maintain authority, thus challenging the radical distinctions made in the literature between modernity and late or reflexive modernity.     

Bayesian importance parameter modeling of misaligned predictors: soil metal measures related to residential history and intellectual disability in children

In this paper, we propose a novel spatial importance parameter hierarchical logistic regression modeling approach that includes measurement error from misalignment. We apply this model to study the relationship between the estimated concentration of soil metals at the residence of mothers and the development of intellectual disability (ID) in their children. The data consist of monthly computerized claims data about the prenatal experience of pregnant women living in nine areas within South Carolina and insured by Medicaid during January 1, 1996 and December 31, 2001 and the outcome of ID in their children during early childhood. We excluded mother-child pairs if the mother moved to an unknown location during pregnancy. We identified an association of the ID outcome with arsenic (As) and mercury (Hg) concentration in soil during pregnancy, controlling for infant sex, maternal race, mother’s age, and gestational weeks at delivery. There is some indication that Hg has a slightly higher importance in the third and fourth months of pregnancy, while As has a more uniform effect over all the months with a suggestion of a slight increase in risk in later months.     

对加拿大东南部湖泊从酸沉降效应中恢复的评价

北美洲SO2排放量的减少激起了人们对加拿大东南部的水生态系统能迅速摆脱酸化的状态的期待.但是只有那些明显减少了排放量的冶炼厂附近的湖泊达到了这种期望值.在临近大西洋的省份魁北克和安大略,受远程污染源影响的湖泊的硫酸根离子(SO2- 4)浓度都有一定降低,但pH和碱度则仅有较少量的提高.对于这种延迟的酸度响应,有如下几种因素可以解释:碱基阳离子含量的下降,干旱加速SO2- 4的迁移,水体内部碱性物质生成机制遭到破坏;同时硝酸盐和有机阴离子含量的提高也可能是其中的原因.对加拿大东南部生物恢复的监测资料非常有限,即使有的话,在萨德伯里(Sudbury)和基拉尼(Killarney)地区以外也很难找到恢复的证据.比如,尽管除了酸化作用外其他因素也对上述现象有一定影响,新思科舍河中的大西洋鲑鱼出现率和安大略湖潜鸟的繁殖成功率实际上正在下降.化学和生物学模型预测,只有比目前法规要求严格的多的SO2排放削减额才能促进广泛的化学恢复和其后的生物恢复,而在加拿大东南部的众多湖泊中重建工业化前的化学与生物学条件或许很难实现.     

The secondary adjustment of clutch size in red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus)

More than a half century ago, the British ornithologist David Lack suggested that parent birds may use brood reduction to track uncertain food, a process facilitated by the asynchronous hatching of their young. Lack sketched the logic of asymmetric sibling rivalry: the phenotypic handicap imposed upon last-hatched marginal offspring renders their growth and survival conditional upon uncertain ecological conditions while buffering first-hatched core offspring from the inimical effects of overcrowding during periods of stringency. Though subjected to numerous indirect tests in short-term studies, the central prediction of Lack's hypothesis - that parents use marginal offspring to track unpredictable brood-rearing conditions and thus achieve a secondary adjustment of clutch size - has never been tested directly. Here we present the results of a 7-year study of marsh-nesting red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) showing that (1) brood size tracks interannual variability in growth and survival of nestlings, (2) the growth and mortality of marginal but not core offspring is contingent upon stochastic environmental conditions (mean air temperature) during brood rearing, (3) the mortality of marginal but not core offspring is strongly affected by developmental uncertainty in the form of both experimental and natural alterations of brood size, (4) the phenotypic handicap of hatching asynchrony buffers core offspring from poor growth conditions, but (5) its effects upon marginal nestlings are reversible when growth conditions are favourable and especially when brood size is reduced either experimentally or via hatching failure. The presence of marginal offspring ensures that blackbird parents are not left with a too small brood when brood-rearing conditions are favourable. Parents create two castes of progeny: marginal offspring that are strongly affected by both ecological and developmental stochasticity, and core offspring that are not.     

Application and sensitivity testing of a eutrophication assessment method on coastal systems in the United States and European Union

The Assessment of Estuarine Trophic Status (ASSETS) screening model has been extended to allow its application to both estuarine and coastal systems. The model, which combines elements of pressure, state and response, was tested on four systems: Maryland Coastal Bays and Long Island Sound in the United States and The Firth of Clyde (Scotland) and Tagus Estuary (Portugal) in the European Union. The overall scores were: Maryland Coastal Bays: Bad; Firth of Clyde: Poor; Tagus Estuary: Good. Long Island Sound was modelled along a timeline, using 1991 data (score: Bad) and 2002 data (score: Moderate). The improvement registered for Long Island Sound is a consequence of the reduction in nutrient loading, and the ASSETS score changed accordingly. The two main areas where developments are needed are (a) In the definition of type-specific ranges for eutrophication parameters, due to the recognition that natural or pristine conditions may vary widely, and the use of a uniform set of thresholds artificially penalizes some systems and potentially leads to misclassification; (b) In the definition and quantification of measures which will result in an improved state through a change in pressures, as well as in the definition of appropriate metrics through which response may be assessed. One possibility is the use of detailed research models where different response scenarios potentially produce changes in pressure and state. These outputs may be used to drive screening models and analyze the suitability of candidate metrics for evaluating management options.     

Importance of heterotrophic planktonic communities in a mussel culture environment: the Grande Entrée lagoon,Magdalen Islands (Québec,Canada)

Mussel culture in coastal environments relies on the availability of food of sufficient quality and quantity. Both to determine this availability and to examine impacts that this aquaculture practice may have on the environment, it is important to have good knowledge of the type of plankton communities present in aquaculture sites. It is usually thought that phytoplankton make up the bulk of mussel diet in many of these sites. Here we show that the Grande-Entrée lagoon [Magdalen Islands, Gulf of St Lawrence (GSL), Canada], where commercial mussel culture has been on-going since 1980, differs from this pattern. Heterotrophic protists dominate for most of the summer-early fall season (apart from short diatom bursts), with a high average biomass of 160 mg C m⁻³. The dominance of small-sized phytoplankton cells (notably green algae), low nutrient concentrations (e.g. 0.3 μM NO₃⁻ on average) and high biomass of heterotrophic protists (mostly naked ciliates and tintinnids) all point to the importance of the microbial food web in this shallow marine environment. Sustained cultivation of suspended mussels in the lagoon suggests that these heterotrophic protists could be an important source of food for the mussels, supplementing the small amount of phytoplankton present.     

Microbiological degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: Anthracene,benzo(K)fluoranthene,dibenzothiophene, benzo(H) quinoline and 2‐nitronaphthalene

Biodegradation experiments of various polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were studied with mixed bacteria culture under aerobic conditions. An easy‐to‐handle clean‐up procedure was developed for PAH and their metabolites simultaneously as well as a gc‐ms‐method to identify and quantify these compounds.

Anthracene and dibenzothiophene are completely degradable in an aqeous system, whereas biodegradation of benzo(k)fluoranthene and benzo(h)quinoline is possible only in an oil‐in‐water‐system with dodecane as cosubstrate. No degradation of nitronaphthalene was observed in aqueous systems. New metabolites are 2,3‐dihydroxybenzothiophene, hydroxybenzothiophenecarbonic acid and benzothiophenequinone for dibenzothiophene and hydroxyfluoranthenic acid for benzo(k)flouranthene. Whereas the former metabolites are degradable under the experimental conditions, the latter accumulates during the degradation experiment.

The results are important for microbiological wastewater treatment, since knowledge of biodegradation processes is indespensable for the successful treatment of PAH‐containing wastewater.     

The fate and transport of arsenic species in the aquatic ecosystem: a case study on Bestari Jaya,Peninsular Malaysia

The field of arsenic pollution research has grown rapidly in recent years. Arsenic constitutes a broad range of elements from the Earth’s crust and is released into the environment from both anthropogenic and natural sources due to its relative mobility under different redox conditions. The toxicity of arsenic is described in its inorganic form, as inorganic arsenic compounds can leach into different environments. Sampling was carried out in the Bestari Jaya catchment while using a land use map to locate the site, and experiments were conducted via sequential extraction and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy to quantify proportions of arsenic in the sediment samples. The results show that metals in sediments of nonresidual fractions, which are more likely to be likely released into aquatic environments, are more plentiful than the residual sediment fractions. These findings support the mobility of heavy metals and especially arsenic through sediment layers, which can facilitate remediation in environments heavily polluted with heavy metals.