Between environmental and ecological democracy: theory and practice at the democracy-environment nexus

ABSTRACT

Concepts of ecological and environmental democracy seek to reconcile two normative ideals: ensuring environmental sustainability while safeguarding democracy. These ideals are frequently conceived as being in conflict, as democracy is perceived as too slow and cumbersome to deliver the urgent large-scale collective action needed to tackle environmental problems. Theories addressing the democracy-environment nexus can be situated on a spectrum from theories of ecological democracy that are more critical of existing liberal democratic institutions to theories of environmental democracy that call for reforming rather than radically transforming or dismantling those institutions. This article reviews theoretical and empirical scholarship on the democracy-environment nexus. We find continued theoretical and empirical diversity in the field, as well as vibrant debates on democratising global environmental politics, local material practices, and non-human representation. We argue for stronger dialogue between environmental political theory and empirical, policy-oriented research on democracy and sustainability, as well as further exploration of complementarities between ecological and environmental democracy. We identify four main areas of challenge and opportunity for theory and practice: public participation and populism; technocracy and expertise; governance across scales; and ecological rights and limits.     

金矿渣场废水对地面水环境的影响评价

阐述了在降雨时金矿渣场浸渣中残留的氰化物及泥沙淋溶于雨水中,形成地表径流进入地面水,对地面水环境造成的污染影响。具体介绍了在降雨时,渣场地表径流量、径流中污染物排放量、地面水（湖泊）允许纳污量的预测模式的应用。可为一般工矿企业露天渣场废水预测及环境影响评价提供借鉴。     

安全生产与国民经济的关系

本文以讨论安全生产与国民经济的关系为出发点,论述了安全生产是国民经济的重要组成部分,阐述了安全劳动的价值;通过对有关国家安全生产情况的综合分析,研究了安全生产与国民经济状况、社会经济发展水平之间的关系;同时对职业伤害经济损失、安全生产投资在国民经济中的比例、安全生产的意义进行了分析和探讨,说明了安全生产在国民经济中占有重要地位。     

关于安全教育学的分析与探讨

论述安全教育学的定义和研究领域;分析其理论基础、在安全科学技术体系结构中的地位与作用和本身的体系结构;指出其与相邻学科的关系、发展趋势和应注意的问题。     

自然灾害与地质勘探劳动保护

自然灾害和人密切相关,这不仅表现在自然灾害施予的客体是人,人的伤亡和财产损失是自然灾害的标志,而且表现在自然灾害的发生受人类活动的强烈影响。地质勘探活动是人类改造自然获取财富的主要活动之一。它一方面遭受自然灾害的危害,另一方面存在诱发触发自然灾害的危险,自然灾害已成了地质勘探活动的巨大障碍。自然灾害特别是地质灾害(人工诱发触发地质灾害、地方病)和气象灾害的测、报、防、治、救措施和方法研究是地质勘探劳动保护的重要课题。     

The use of terrestrial ecoregions as a regional-scale screen for selecting representative reference sites for water quality monitoring

A process has been developed to select watersheds that are representative of terrestrial ecoregions and that are relatively undisturbed by human activity. Using an existing land classification system at two hierarchical levels of resolution, representative subsets (ecodistricts) of large-scale ecoregions were selected, on the basis of their physiographic, biological, and climatological attributes, to represent the ecoregions. This was achieved using a frequency distribution analysis of existing attribute data and choosing the ecodistrict most closely resembling the most common set of conditions for that ecoregion. Within each ecodistrict, river basins were selected through a best-judgement evaluation of land use, coupled with an assessment of the size and location of each river basin, in order to meet the condition of minimal human impact. Preliminary assessment of water quality data collected from six watersheds selected in this way suggests that the process is effective in targeting regional scale river basins exhibiting the desired characteristics.     

A national critical loads framework for atmospheric deposition effects assessment: II. Defining assessment end points,indicators, and functional subregions

The United States Environmental Protection Agency, with support from the US Department of Energy and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, has been evaluating the feasibility of an effects-based (critical loads) approach to atmospheric pollutant regulation and abatement. The rationale used to develop three of the six steps in a flexible assessment framework (Strickland and others, 1992) is presented along with a discussion of a variety of implementation approaches and their ramifications. The rationale proposes that it is necessary to provide an explicit statement of the condition of the resource that is considered valuable (assessment end point) because: (1) individual ecosystem components may be more or less sensitive to deposition, (2) it is necessary to select indicators of ecosystem condition that can be objectively measured and that reflect changes in the quality of the assessment end point, and (3) acceptable status (i.e., value of indicator and quality of assessment end point at critical load) must be defined. The rationale also stresses the importance of defining the assessment regions and subregions to improve the analysis and understanding of the indicator response to deposition. Subregional definition can be based on a variety of criteria, including informed judgment or quantitative procedures. It also depends on the geographic scale at which exposure and effects models are accurate and on data availability, resolution, and quality. The research described in this article has been funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency. This document has been prepared at the EPA Environmental Research Laboratory in Corvallis, Oregon, through contract #68-C8-0006 with ManTech Environmental Technology, Inc., and Interagency Agreement #1824-B014-A7 with the US Department of Energy and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory managed by Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc., under Contract DE-AC05-84OR21400 with the US Department of Energy. Environmental Sciences Division Publication No. 3903. It has been subjected to the agency’s peer and administrative review and approved for publication. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.     

Environmental strategies: A case study of systematic evaluation

A major problem facing environmental managers is the necessity to effectively evaluate management alternatives. Traditional environmental assessments have emphasized the use of economic analyses. These approaches are often deficient due to difficulty in assigning dollar values to environmental systems and to social amenities. A more flexible decisionmaking model has been developed to analyze management options for coping with beach erosion problems at the Sandy Hook Unit of Gateway National Recreation Area in New Jersey. This model is comprised of decision-making variables which are formulated from a combination of environmental and management criteria, and it has an accept-reject format in which the management options are analyzed in terms of the variables. Through logical ordering of the insertion of the variables into the model, stepwise elimination of alternatives is possible. A hierarchy of variables is determined through estimating work required to complete an assessment of the alternatives for each variable. The assessment requiring the least work is performed first so that the more difficult evaluation will be limited to fewer alternatives. The application of this approach is illustrated with a case study in which beach protection alternatives were evaluated for the United States National Park Service.Portions of this paper have been excerpted from Sherman and Garès (1978).     

Herbaceous Covers to Control Tree Invasion in Rights-of-Way: Ecological Concepts and Applications

In northeastern America, thousands of kilometers of utility rights-of-way (ROWs) have to be managed to prevent the establishment of a tall vegetation cover that does not comply with safety and maintenance regulations. Recent decades have seen the emergence of ecologically based vegetation control strategies to reduce environmental impacts as well as maintenance costs. One such strategy is to take advantage of competitive herbaceous covers to limit tree invasion. This approach, however, as well as its fundamental underlying principles, has been little scrutinized. In this article, (1) we present the main ecological concepts supporting the use of a herbaceous cover to limit tree invasion, emphasizing naturally forested ecosystems of northeastern America. They include reported evidence of stable plant communities and an overview of potential underlying mechanisms of inhibition. (2) We then review field applications, specifically testing the ability of seeded herbaceous covers to control tree invasion in ROWs. (3) We discuss unresolved issues relevant to management and research. The available evidence suggests that seeding herbaceous covers in ROWs can help control tree invasion, but many issues still limit broad-scale applications. The various interactions that govern plant community dynamics are far from being fully understood, so selecting species still largely depends on an empirical approach. Patterns of resistance to tree invasion must be investigated over a wide range of spatial, historical, and environmental contexts to determine effective management and seeding practices that will lead to broad-scale applications. We suggest establishing communities rather than single dominant species and using as much as possible native species to limit risks of invasion.Published online     

Use of bifurcation analysis for identification of a safe CSTR operability

Exothermic reactions are the most interesting systems for safety analysis because of their potential safety problems and the possibility of exotic behavior like multiple steady states. An operability and safety analysis of an exothermic reaction (hydrolysis of propylene oxide to tri-propylene glycol with consecutive reactions in a CSTR) with cooling is reported in this work. The information obtained from the bifurcation diagram is used to identify a set of unsafe operation points, which have been chosen on the base of requirement of maximal production of the process. An important information of safe reactor operation is the time in which the operator must handle a critical situation. For this reason, dynamics simulation of a failure in the cooling medium flow rate has been done and discussed for each of the selected operation points.