Proposing of new building scheme and composite towards global warming mitigation for Malaysia

The building sector has been regarded as a potential sector where there is large capacity to reduce the climate change effect. This study has proposed solutions to mitigate environmental impacts and achieve low CO₂ emission from residential sector. Therefore, full life cycle assessment (LCA) has been run to assess the CO₂ emission and its effect on the atmosphere and climate change. Based on the result, timber scheme is the best choice due to releasing less CO₂ emissions to the atmosphere. However, house builders in Malaysia have almost completely neglected timber as a building material, with timber use as building components reduced to 5%. In this study, LCA Software was used to assess CO₂ emissions from different wall construction. The alternative building scheme has been made by reinforce steel stud, wooden beam and timber wall (S8) to improve the scheme deficiency while releasing less CO₂ emissions compared to other schemes. Therefore, S8 has a decreased CO₂ effect by 85% less than precast concrete frame and 90% less than brick over their lifetime. (S8) increased the load bearing compared to conventional timber beam. Thus, new scheme S8 could be replaced by current scheme and promote more adjustable scheme for Malaysian housing.     

At the intersection of disaster risk and religion: interpretations and responses to the threat of Tsho Rolpa glacial lake

Over the last several decades, the scientific community has replaced the ‘acts of god’ explanations for disasters with a view that disasters are actually ‘acts of nature,’ and more recently, ‘acts of human behavior and decision making.’ Despite the secular orientation of contemporary disaster research, religious beliefs still govern people’s interpretations of natural events across many continents and cultures. Using a case study of a rural Sherpa community in Nepal, this paper responds to the challenge of linking religion and disaster risk in the context of a climate change-induced glacial lake outburst flood hazard. Data collection employed ethnographic techniques including participant observation and 53 interviews with community members. Results indicate that the case study community’s religious belief system influences how they interpret and respond to the glacial lake hazard, although their beliefs co-exist with more scientific interpretations of risk. Rather than being immobilised by their belief system, we found that religious aspects like rituals and prayer can enhance social cohesion and contribute to capacities for coping with fear and uncertainty in this community. We assert that religion can yield valuable resources to glacial lake risk reduction strategies, which will benefit from incorporating social-cultural factors more profoundly.     

Another avenue of action: an examination of climate change countermovement industries’ use of PAC donations and their relationship to Congressional voting over time

The political mobilization of American business elites in the 1970s and 1980s has been well studied by political scientists. Environmental sociologists have explored how industries in this elite countermovement have organized to prevent environmental legislation. The literature often focuses on the efforts of this movement to shape public opinion on climate change. However, political scientists argue business elites are running several parallel strategies simultaneously in order to protect their interests. FEC data are utilized in multilevel logit models to examine how donations from industrial Political Action Committees (PACs) relate to Congressional representative’s environmental voting behavior over a 20-year period. Industries associated with the environmental countermovement have increasingly used PAC donations over time, and every additional $10,000 a representative received from countermovement industries significantly decreased odds of their taking the pro-environmental stance even when controlling for representatives’ demographics, districts, Congressional polarization and time-period.     

Moral reasoning in adaptation to climate change

Moral foundations theory argues that moral reasoning is widely observed and fundamental to the legitimacy of relevant governance and policy interventions. A new analytical framework to examine and test how moral reasoning underpins and legitimizes governance and practice on adaptation to climate change risks is proposed. It develops a typology of eight categories of vulnerability-based and system-based moral reasoning that pertain to the dilemmas around adaptation and examines the prevalence of these moral categories in public discourse about specific adaptation issues. The framework is tested using data on climate change impact, adaptation, and societal responsibility, drawn from 14 focus groups comprising 148 participants across the UK. Participants consistently use moral reasoning to explain their views on climate adaptation; these include both vulnerability-based and system-based framings. These findings explain public responses to adaptation options and governance, and have implications for the direction of adaptation policy, including understanding which types of reasoning support politically legitimate interventions.     

Taming the Climate? Corpus analysis of politicians’ speech on climate change

The politics of climate change is much discussed, but there has been little investigation into how politicians themselves understand or articulate the issue. Corpus analysis, a method developed within linguistics, is used to investigate how UK politicians talk about climate change, using the example of the 2008 Climate Change Bill. Corpus techniques, including keyword analysis, collocation and semantic tagging, are used, alongside critical reading of the text. The analysis shows that politicians frame climate change as an economic and technical issue, and neglect discussion of the human and social dimensions. They are selective in their use of scientific evidence, with little mention of abrupt or irreversible change. In doing so, they attempt to ‘tame’ climate change, rather than confronting difficult realities. While this strategy has the benefit of political acceptability, it does not allow for discussion of the full political and social implications of climate change, and precludes more radical responses.     

Elite cues,media coverage,and public concern: an integrated path analysis of public opinion on climate change, 2001–2013

To analyze the factors affecting US public concern about the threat of climate change between January 2002 and December 2013, data from 74 separate surveys are used to construct quarterly measures of public concern over global climate change. Five factors should account for changes in levels of concern: extreme weather events, public access to accurate scientific information, media coverage, elite cues, and movement/countermovement advocacy. Structural equation modeling indicates that elite cues, movement advocacy efforts, weather, and structural economic factors influence the level of public concern about climate change. While media coverage exerts an important influence, it is itself largely a function of elite cues and economic factors. Promulgation to the public of scientific information on climate change has no effect. Information-based science advocacy has had only a minor effect on public concern, while political mobilization by elites and advocacy groups is critical in influencing climate change concern.     

Local air pollution and global climate change taxes: a distributional analysis for the case of Spain

Global climate change measures are difficult to implement. In this context, local air pollution measures may play an important role in the political agenda since their effects are felt more immediately by citizens. Distributional implications are one of the main barriers for implementing environmental policies. This paper explores the distributional implications of air pollution taxes and compares them to climate change taxes. For the comparison, both tax schemes were set to yield the same revenue. Methodologically, the study uses a top–down approach linking a macro model to a micro model. We find that taxes on local air pollutants are more regressive than those levied on CO₂. This is because the goods implicitly taxed have a greater weight in the consumer basket of low-income groups, even if the tax revenues are recycled. Furthermore, the revenue-neutral recycle scheme increases both taxes efficiency, but, at the same time, can increase regressivity.     

胶合竹材GluBam甲醛释放影响因素的气候箱实验与分析

胶合竹材GluBam的甲醛释放情况是现代竹结构住宅环保性的一个重要方面,也是竹结构住宅推广中最受关注的指标之一。采用1 m3气候箱对温度、相对湿度和封边情况与GluBam的甲醛释放量和释放速率的相关关系进行了测试,并以一阶单衰减模型为基础提出了GluBam的甲醛释放分析模型。测试和分析结果表明:GluBam板材在各模拟条件下甲醛浓度峰值均小于规范要求;初始甲醛释放量E0和衰减率常数k可以用来评价GluBam的甲醛释放特征;GluBam的醛释放量和释放速率随环境温度和湿度增加而显著增大,且温度因素的影响更大;封边处理可以有效降低GluBam板材的甲醛释放量。     

Impacts of Climate Change on Hydrology and Water Resources in the Boise and Spokane River Basins1

Jin, Xin and Venkataramana Sridhar, 2012. Impacts of Climate Change on Hydrology and Water Resources in the Boise and Spokane River Basins. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 48(2): 197‐220. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2011.00605.x Abstract: In the Pacific Northwest, warming climate has resulted in a lengthened growing season, declining snowpack, and earlier timing of spring runoff. This study characterizes the impact of climate change in two basins in Idaho, the Spokane River and the Boise River basins. We simulated the basin‐scale hydrology by coupling the downscaled precipitation and temperature outputs from a suite of global climate models and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), between 2010 and 2060 and assess the impacts of climate change on water resources in the region. For the Boise River basin, changes in precipitation ranged from ?3.8 to 36%. Changes in temperature were expected to be between 0.02 and 3.9°C. In the Spokane River region, changes in precipitation were expected to be between ?6.7 and 17.9%. Changes in temperature appeared between 0.1 and 3.5°C over a period of the next five decades between 2010 and 2060. Without bias‐correcting the simulated streamflow, in the Boise River basin, change in peak flows (March through June) was projected to range from ?58 to +106 m³/s and, for the Spokane River basin, the range was expected to be from ?198 to +88 m³/s. Both the basins exhibited substantial variability in precipitation, evapotranspiration, and recharge estimates, and this knowledge of possible hydrologic impacts at the watershed scale can help the stakeholders with possible options in their decision‐making process.     

System Dynamics to Sustainable Water Resources Management in the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer Under Water Supply Uncertainty1

Abstract: Water supply uncertainty continues to threaten the reliability of regional water resources in the western United States. Climate variability and water dispute potentials induce water managers to develop proactive adaptive management strategies to mitigate future hydroclimate impacts. The Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer in the state of Idaho is also facing these challenges in the sense that population growth and economic development strongly depend on reliable water resources from underground storage. Drought and subsequent water conflict often drive scientific research and political agendas because water resources availability and aquifer management for a sustainable rural economy are of great interest. In this study, a system dynamics approach is applied to address dynamically complex problems with management of the aquifer and associated surface‐water and groundwater interactions. Recharge and discharge dynamics within the aquifer system are coded in an environmental modeling framework to identify long‐term behavior of aquifer responses to uncertain future hydrological variability. The research shows that the system dynamics approach is a promising modeling tool to develop sustainable water resources planning and management in a collaborative decision‐making framework and also to provide useful insights and alternative opportunities for operational management, policy support, and participatory strategic planning to mitigate future hydroclimate impacts in human dimensions.