Rapid Issue Tracking: A Method for Taking the Pulse of the Public Discussion of Environmental Policy

Environmental communication professionals and other decision makers need to understand public sentiment toward environmental issues to effectively carry out their stewardship responsibilities. However, it is often difficult to obtain timely and reliable information about public discussion and debate regarding these issues. This paper describes an approach designed to address this dilemma: Rapid Issue Tracking is a method for quickly “taking the pulse” of public and other stakeholder discussion. The data source for Rapid Issue Tracking is online media stories, including traditional news media, social media, and other textual data such as public comments received by an agency. Two US Forest Service cases of Rapid Issue Tracking are presented to explicate the method and its usefulness in environmental communication and decision making.     

Diversity of Television Exposure and its Association with the Cultivation of Concern for Environmental Risks

Cultivation theory claims that individuals who watch a greater amount of television are more likely to accept the representation of reality as presented on television. This study introduces the variable of exposure diversity and attempts to investigate if the diversity of television channels viewed plays a significant role beyond the amount of television viewed in the cultivation of concern about environmental risks. Data from the 2002 annual Life Style Study conducted by Synovate for DDB-Chicago was paired with a corresponding content analysis of environmental television coverage. Ordinary-Least-Squares regression suggests that exposure diversity is associated with concern of environmental risks above and beyond both the effects of the amount of television watched and individual differences, suggesting the variable of exposure diversity holds promise for further explicating cultivation theory.     

Ken Burns' The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009): Missed Opportunities for Environmental Messages

Ken Burns, over the course of a long and celebrated career, has developed an effective and popular formula for his documentary films, and a comfortable relationship with the Public Broadcasting System. With such a convincing, accomplished style, his work has the opportunity to tackle ecological concerns in his latest series, but Burns chooses not to do so, offering no explicit lessons to apply to current problems. While stressing the importance of the people's parks, ecological debates on land use for future citizen-owners are minimized; the conflict of conservation versus preservation policies is barely differentiated. With the skill and reputation of Burns, his researchers, and his production team, there is a singular opportunity for their films to address ecological issues, creating productive conversation using America as a microcosm of the larger global issues faced today. Nostalgia and national pride are useful, but those attributes should be channeled to look to the future.     

An evaluation of risk assessment framework for industrial accidents in India

Due to rapid industrialization, with high population density and constraints of land, it is expected that level of risks arising from the hazardous industries will increase in India in the coming decades. However, 30 years after the Bhopal accident (1984), except a few discrete regulations, there is as yet no integrated system for assessing and managing risks arising out of these hazardous industries in India. The gravity of aspects related to the management of industrial risk still remains crucially important. In particular, there is no standard guideline on risk analysis methodology, acceptability or tolerability criteria, nor is there an accident database or a risk reduction strategy for the areas where risk levels are already high. On top of this, there are technical and legislative gaps in the institutional framework to implement any of the above mentioned issues. With the backdrop of the Bhopal gas tragedy, the objective of this paper is therefore to evaluate the effectiveness of a comprehensive risk assessment framework for the emerging economy of India, in order to control and/or to reduce the risk level that exists. In this context, regulations and policies pertaining to industrial risk assessment were reviewed.     

环境保护过程中的博弈及对策分析

主要针对工业污染,利用博弈论方法分析致污企业、个人、政府在保护环境时的不同行为策略以及相应的均衡结果,并且从博弈论角度提出如何有效环保的建议。     

Promoting pro-environmental behaviour: existing evidence and policy implications

This paper describes a recent study in the UK aimed at identifying how policy makers might more effectively encourage pro-environmental behaviours amongst their target audiences. The study included analysis and synthesis of theories and models of behaviour change, a range of current policy programmes and instruments and ‘real world’ practices of individuals, households, groups and organisations.The paper highlights some important considerations for future policy within the UK and, more widely, for other countries aiming to introduce comprehensive and multi-level policy programmes to encourage pro-environmental behaviours. To this end, it emphasises the complex and non-linear nature of environmental behaviours and, thus, the importance of adopting multi-levelled and multi-instrument integrated policies across whole systems of delivery.     

Carbon-14 transfer into rice plants from a continuous atmospheric source: observations and model predictions

Carbon-14 ((14)C) is one of the most important radionuclides from the perspective of dose estimation due to the nuclear fuel cycle. Ten years of monitoring data on (14)C in airborne emissions, in atmospheric CO(2) and in rice grain collected around the Tokai reprocessing plant (TRP) showed an insignificant radiological effect of the TRP-derived (14)C on the public, but suggested a minor contribution of the TRP-derived (14)C to atmospheric (14)C concentrations, and an influence on (14)C concentrations in rice grain at harvest. This paper also summarizes a modelling exercise (the so-called rice scenario of the IAEA's EMRAS program) in which (14)C concentrations in air and rice predicted with various models using information on (14)C discharge rates, meteorological conditions and so on were compared with observed concentrations. The modelling results showed that simple Gaussian plume models with different assumptions predict monthly averaged (14)C concentrations in air well, even for near-field receptors, and also that specific activity and dynamic models were equally good for the prediction of inter-annual changes in (14)C concentrations in rice grain. The scenario, however, offered little opportunity for comparing the predictive capabilities of these two types of models because the scenario involved a near-chronic release to the atmosphere. A scenario based on an episodic release and short-term, time-dependent observations is needed to establish the overall confidence in the predictions of environmental (14)C models.     

Guidelines and legislation for dye house effluents

Increasing attention has been paid over the years to the environmental problems related to industrial activities. Environmental standards have been established and control organisms have been created with a view to applying restrictive legislation. In the dyeing industry, ennoblers discharge in the environment large volumes of strongly coloured effluents that are heavily loaded with pollutants and highly concentrated in salts. This chemical load is generated during the different steps of textile preparation. After reviewing the characteristics of these effluents, this paper gives a comparative review of the current legislations on the dyeing industry emissions. It examines more closely the discharge legislation, first in France and then in other countries around the world. A comparison of the six most representative parameters shows how different the applied constraints are in different countries.     

IFRP: a hybrid interval-parameter fuzzy robust programming approach for waste management planning under uncertainty

In this study, an interval-parameter fuzzy-robust programming (IFRP) model is developed and applied to the planning of solid waste management systems under uncertainty. As an extension of the existing fuzzy-robust programming and interval-parameter linear programming methods, the IFRP can explicitly address system uncertainties with complex presentations. Parameters in the IFRP model can be represented as interval numbers and/or fuzzy membership functions, such that the uncertainties can be directly communicated into the optimization process and resulting solution. Furthermore, highly uncertain information for the lower and upper bounds of interval parameters that exist due to the complexity of the real world can be effectively handled through introducing the concept of fuzzy boundary interval. Consequently, robustness of the optimization process and solution can be enhanced. Results of the case study indicate that useful solutions for planning municipal solid waste management practices can be generated. They reflect a compromise between optimality and stability of the study system. Willingness to pay higher costs will guarantee the system stability; however, a desire to reduce the costs will run the risk of potential instability of the system. The results also suggest that the proposed hybrid methodology is applicable to practical problems that are associated with highly complex and uncertain information.     

江西省环境污染与破坏事故类型特征分析及对策

本文对近几年发生的环境污染与破坏事故的模型，特征进行分析，并提出今后的预防对策。