村域社会资本与环境影响的关系——基于甘肃省村域调查数据

社会资本作为改善生态环境的先决条件,已引起了全社会的广泛关注,当前急需辨明社会资本与环境影响之间的关系,并依次寻求解决生态环境问题的对策措施。研究基于甘肃省20个村域的调查数据,以网络、信任、规范为指标测度社会资本,以生态足迹为指标测度环境影响,利用计量经济模型分析了村域层面社会资本与环境影响的关系。结果表明:①社会资本差异有助于解释村域之间的环境影响差异;②社会资本的普遍信任维度、制度信任维度与环境影响呈显著正相关,规范维度与环境影响呈显著负相关,网络维度虽与环境影响呈负相关,但统计上不显著;③劳动力受教育程度、非农就业水平与环境影响呈显著负相关,人口规模虽与环境影响呈正相关,但在多数模型中不显著。最后,指出了社会资本对环境影响作用研究中需进一步关注的问题。     

基于广义收益—成本分析的农村面源污染治理策略

应用污染排放系数法、技术经济评价方法,统筹考虑农村面源污染治理的环境效益与经济收益、技术成本与交易费用,构建面向一般区域的农村面源污染治理策略的分析框架与方法.研究表明,2011年宜兴市农村面源污染排放总氮2880.94t,总磷501.19t,水环境经济损失为3.38亿元.耕地测土配方施肥、规模化养殖沼气工程、分散养殖沼气工程和农村生活污水净化工程的净现值率分别为55.00、2.54、0.52、-0.15.综合考虑技术可行性、交易费用和政府管理支撑能力,近期应优先治理规模化养殖和种植业面源污染,分散养殖和农村生活污水污染可作为远期治理重点.     

The humanitarian response costs of climate change

This research attempts to improve understanding of how climate change may affect international humanitarian spending, using existing international databases that track disaster occurrence and humanitarian costs. A range of potential impact scenarios is developed employing four distinct methodological approaches. The findings indicate that climate change will have a significant impact on humanitarian costs and the increase could range from a 32 per cent increase (taking into account only changes in frequency of disasters) to upwards of a 1,600 per cent increase when other criteria, such as intensity, are also taken into account. The paper further highlights that extreme weather events do not occur in isolation and the increasing interconnectedness of world economic and political systems has made disasters more complex and destructive. It makes a number of recommendations, including the need for more rigorous and systematic collection of disaster-related data and more constructive interaction between the humanitarian and climate change communities on future research, planning and action.     

A review of ecological mitigation measures in UK environmental statements with respect to sustainable development

SUMMARY

The European and UK legislation on environmental assessment (EA), as well as requiring assessment of significant ecological effects, also requires development proponents to recommend mitigation measures for adverse impacts.

Drawing on a review of proposed ecological mitigation measures in 194 environmental statements (ES) for UK development proposals, this paper highlights problems with the current legislation in ensuring that ecological impacts are mitigated effectively, with a view to sustainable development.

The review reveals confusion about the extent to which ecological mitigation is required. First, there is no objective basis for deciding which potentially adverse impacts should be mitigated. Proposed mitigation measures do not always relate directly to the ecological impacts identified in ES and there is a high risk of residual adverse effects. Second, there is no generally accepted method for evaluating the effectiveness of proposed mitigation measures, despite a clear recommendation from the UK's Department of the Environment (DOE, 1989) that an ‘assessment of the likely effectiveness’ of mitigation measures should be included in ES. Methods which can be used to evaluate the likely feasibility, costs and redistributional effects of ecological mitigation measures in EA are needed. Some of the factors which should be taken into account are considered in this paper.     

外企HSE管理探讨

通过在外企从事HSE管理工作的实践,探讨外企HSE工作的先进性,从思想、教育和培训、个人防护用品、物质激励、防火培训、环境保护、事故管理、设备管理等方面进行论述。并通过个人的实际工作,交流HSE工作的体会,以进一步提高企业HSE管理工作的水平。     

Fissioning minimizes ranging costs in spider monkeys: a multiple-level approach

The adjustment to deal with intragroup food competition is probably the most plausible explanation of high levels of fission–fusion dynamics. However, studies did not always support expected relations between food availability, ranging costs, and subgroup size. We used several levels of analysis differing in the time and spatial scale in order to investigate this explanation in spider monkeys. In our study, subgroups were larger when food availability was higher across most levels of analyses used. We also found a fine-scale adjustment: compared to the food patch previously visited, spider monkeys traveled to larger patches just after fusions. This was not without an immediate travel cost: the interpatch distance and travel time after a fusion were longer than that before the fusion. This rapid adjustment shows the flexibility that fission–fusion dynamics can offer. Spider monkeys are in large subgroups only when food conditions are favorable, as evidenced by the fact that at all the other time-scale levels larger subgroups did not experience greater ranging costs than smaller subgroups. Our results indicate that on the whole spider monkeys successfully minimize ranging costs by fission and fusion of subgroups.     

Carbon leakage: Grandfathering as an incentive device to avert firm relocation

Emission allowances are sometimes distributed for free in an early phase of a cap-and-trade scheme to reduce adverse effects on the profitability of firms. This paper investigates whether grandfathering can also be used to avert the relocation of firms to countries with lower carbon prices. We show that under certain conditions, relocation can be averted in the long run, even if the grandfathering scheme is phased out over time and immediate relocation is profitable in its absence. This requires that the permit price triggers sufficient investments into low-carbon technologies or abatement capital that create a lock-in effect which makes relocation unprofitable.     

Willingness to pay for clean air in China

We use a residential sorting model incorporating migration disutility to recover the implicit value of clean air in China. The model is estimated using China Population Census Data along with PM2.5 satellite data. Our study provides new evidence on the willingness to pay for air quality improvements in developing countries and is the first application of an equilibrium sorting model to the valuation of non-market amenities in China. We employ two instrumental variables based on coal-fired electricity generation and wind direction to address the endogeneity of local air pollution. Results suggest important differences between the residential sorting model and a conventional hedonic model, highlighting the role of moving costs and the discreteness of the choice set. Our sorting results indicate that the economic value of air quality improvement associated with a one-unit decline in PM2.5 concentration is up to $8.83 billion for all Chinese households in 2005.     

火灾预防与控制技术实施中成本与效益的研究

用经济学的基本理论与方法分析了方法技术实施中成本与效益的关系,重点研究了合理投资及最佳投资的确定原理与方法,为人们综合考虑的防火投资的经济效益和系统的安全性提供了一个理论指导。     

Unpacking the politics of natural capital and economic metaphors in environmental policy discourse

Economic metaphors – including natural capital, natural assets, ecosystem services, and ecological debt – are becoming commonplace in environmental policy discourse. Proponents consider such terms provide a clearer idea of the ‘value’ of nature, and are useful for ensuring the environment is given due attention in decision making. Critical discourse analysis highlights the ideological work language does; the way in which we think, write, and talk about the environment has important implications for how it is governed. Consequently, the widespread use of economic metaphors is politically significant. This article discusses how metaphors have been analysed in environmental policy research, surveys the use of prominent economic metaphors in environmental policy, and considers the politics associated with such terms. The uptake of various economic metaphors represents a form of reverse discourse, varies in politically significant ways, and narrows the terms of environmental debate.