Environmental Damage,Abandoned Treaties,and Fossil-Fuel Dependence: The Coming Costs of Oil-and-Gas Exploration in the “1002 Area” of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Contrary to claims from American politicians, lobbyists, and oil and gas executives, allowing energy development in the Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) will harm the environment, compromise international law, erode the social significance of wilderness protection, and ultimately fail to␣increase the energy security of the United States. After exploring a brief history of the ANWR controversy, this piece argues that the operation of oil and gas refineries in ANWR will release discharged solids, drilling waste, and dirty diesel fuel into the ecosystem’s food-chain, as they have from oil operations in Prudhoe Bay. Less obvious but equally important, oil and gas exploration in ANWR will violate a number of international treaties on biodiversity protection. In the end, development in ANWR will threaten the concept of wilderness protection, and will do little to end US dependence on foreign sources of energy. About the Author: Benjamin K. Sovacool is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. He works as a research analyst for the Consortium on Energy Restructuring and is a Senior Research Fellow for the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research. He also just completed a Graduate Fellowship in Energy Policy at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Sustainable development and the water–energy–food nexus: A perspective on livelihoods

The water–energy–food nexus is being promoted as a conceptual tool for achieving sustainable development. Frameworks for implementing nexus thinking, however, have failed to explicitly or adequately incorporate sustainable livelihoods perspectives. This is counterintuitive given that livelihoods are key to achieving sustainable development. In this paper we present a critical review of nexus approaches and identify potential linkages with sustainable livelihoods theory and practice, to deepen our understanding of the interrelated dynamics between human populations and the natural environment. Building upon this review, we explore the concept of ‘environmental livelihood security’ – which encompasses a balance between natural resource supply and human demand on the environment to promote sustainability – and develop an integrated nexus-livelihoods framework for examining the environmental livelihood security of a system. The outcome is an integrated framework with the capacity to measure and monitor environmental livelihood security of whole systems by accounting for the water, energy and food requisites for livelihoods at multiple spatial scales and institutional levels. We anticipate this holistic approach will not only provide a significant contribution to achieving national and regional sustainable development targets, but will also be effective for promoting equity amongst individuals and communities in local and global development agendas.     

Overcoming Contradictions Between Growth and Sustainability:Institutional Innovation in the BRICS

The recent accelerated growth rates or efforts to emulate countries that have achieved a rapid pace of economic growth are widely acclaimed as means to uplift millions from poverty. In so doing, however, this rapid economic growth is most likely to coincide with unsustainable levels of consumption, place excessive pressure on life support systems and terrestrial sinks and foreshorten options for the future. Rather than pursuing the "Environmental Kuznets Curve" (EKC) hypothesis that higher income will bring with it the means to reduce the impacts of greater consumption, ecological economists assert that buying our way out of future scarcity with fast growth is indeed contradictory with sustainability. To better understand these contradictions and explore potential institutional innovations that may enable developing nations to better confront them (in effect, "tunneling under" the EKC), this article refers to recent experience in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Beginning with a brief comparative summary of major development and environmental indicators, pressures on resources and society in each of the BRICS are discussed, followed by identification of institutional and policy frameworks each country has evolved to confront the challenges of growth and sustainability. The article closes with general conclusions for further research and information sharing among developing nations.     

一步法制备乙酸酐新工艺

本文提供了一步法制备乙酸酐的新工艺。它具有工艺简单、反应快、转化率高等优点,是小批量生产乙酸酐的最佳方法。     

科技促进宁夏可持续发展的现状分析

科技是推动宁夏进一步深化改革与发展、实施西部大开发战略、促进经济持续增长、优化产业结构、提升产业竞争实力、缓解发展过程中的资源环境约束力、实现可持续发展的核心力量.科技在促进宁夏实现可持续发展方面取得显著的成就与经验,但是在支Ё撑全区社会经济发展、改善环境以及区域科技创新能力建设方面仍存在急需解决的问题:①科技资源布局不合理;②产业工艺落后,能耗偏高:③特色优势产业发展后劲严重不足,成果转化率低;④区域科技创新能力弱.文章最后结合宁夏自然环境条件、社会经济发展状况、文化特点提出了其未来科技发展的战略思路及重点.     

可持续发展环境约束条件下的水资源最优配置及实证研究

在相关理论分析和Weber模型的基础上。拓展建立了面向水资源可持续发展的水资源最优配置模型。引入了基于政府管制的影响作用、沿河流域的水用户的实际消耗水量、实际排放水量、河流中可供使用水量及所排放污水水质水平等5个变量函数．通过政府管制下的水质和水量的河道内流量需求等环境约束条件．确保水资源利用始终满足最小基流水量。通过求量优解，计算得出在环境约束下达到最优配置时各个变量函数与对下游地区外部性之间的相关性。接着。本文对陕北黄土高原沿Y河的35家企业进行了实际调查．收集了2个年度共8个季度的观测值，应用计量经济Pand Data模型。对35个节点、8个季度的共280个数据作为混合样本进行经济计量分析。验证了相关结论。最后。还提出一些制定环境约束条件以及水用户间建立水资源环境生态补偿金机制等政策建议。     

贫困地区可持续发展指标体系及其综合评估--以湖南湘西贫困地区为例

本文依据贫困地区可持续发展固有的制约因素，特殊的内涵与目标，首次利用压力（Pressure)——状态（State)——响应（Respons)模型，构建了贫困地区可持续发展指标体系，并采用专家咨询与定量模型相结合的方法，对湖南湘西贫困地区可持续发展水平作了实证评估与分析。     

江苏省开发区土地集约利用潜力研究

开发区是土地利用的重要方式，特别是在促进土地集约利用方面起到了良好的示范和辐射作用。本文基于江苏省开发区典型调查的基础上，分析和测算了全省开发区土地集约利用的理论潜力，并结合江苏省资源禀赋特点和经济发展的制约因素剖析了理论潜力实现的可能性及途径。结果表明，江苏省开发区2010年和2020年的土地集约利用理论潜力分别为261km^2和1069km^2；若能在劳动生产率和工业用地容积率等方面有所作为的话，江苏省开发区2010年和2020年的土地集约利用现实潜力将分别达210km^2和869km^2。这主要通过注重开发区投资主体的多元化、软硬件环境的不断完善和提高开发区的用地门槛来实现。     

关于区域可持续发展的系统分析

本文从更高、更新、更综合的高度和角度,对区域社会可持续发展系统进行了单元要素分析、结构层次分析。提出了三单元要素、三结构层次、三种发展类型的设想。这种分析尽管还是初步的、定性的、不很深刻的,但是为研究可持续发展系统提供了一种新的思路。     

农业开发的企业化经营

目前企业化经营已被越来越多地运用于农业开发的生产管理中。本文阐述了农业开发中企业化经营形式及其重要性,分析了当前企业化经营优势尚未充分发挥的原因,提出了加强农业开发企业化管理的对策。