Policy Windows, Policy Change, and Organizational Learning: Watersheds in the Evolution of Watershed Management

Employing in-depth, elite interviews, this empirical research contributes to understanding the dynamics among policy windows, policy change, and organizational learning. First, although much of the research on agenda setting—how issues attract enough attention that action is taken to address them—has been conducted at the national scale, this work explores the subnational, regional scale. With decentralization, regional-scale environmental decision-making has become increasingly important. Second, this research highlights the role of policy windows and instances of related organizational learning identified by natural resources managers. Having practitioners identify focusing events contrasts with the more typical approach of the researcher identifying a particular focusing event or events to investigate. A focusing event is a sudden, exceptional experience that, because of how it leads to harm or exposes the prospect for great devastation, is perceived as the impetus for policy change.     

Framing of Geoengineering Affects Support for Climate Change Mitigation

The growing recognition that climate change mitigation alone will be inadequate has led scientists and policymakers to discuss climate geoengineering. An experiment with a US sample found, contrary to previous research, that reading about geoengineering did not reduce conservatives’ skepticism about the existence of anthropogenic climate change. Moreover, depending on how it is framed, geoengineering can reduce support for mitigation among both conservatives and non-conservatives. When geoengineering is framed as a major solution, people worry less about climate change, leading to reduced mitigation support. When framed as disastrous, people perceived geoengineering as riskier, also leading to a decrease in mitigation support. A more moderate framing of geoengineering as a partial solution is less susceptible to moral hazard effects. Overall, results suggest that geoengineering will not lessen political polarization over anthropogenic climate change, and could undercut support for mitigation efforts. Instead, framing geoengineering as a small piece to solving a big puzzle seems to be the best strategy to weaken this potential moral hazard.     

Psychological Reactance From Reading Basic Facts on Climate Change: The Role of Prior Views and Political Identification

Scholars continue to search for solutions to shift climate change skeptics’ views on climate science and policy. However, research has shown that certain audiences are resistant to change regarding environmental issues. To explore this issue further, we examine the presence of reactance among different audiences in response to simple, yet prominently used, climate change messages. Our results show that emphasizing the scientific consensus of climate change produces reactance, but only among people who question the existence of climate change. Moreover, adding political identification to the model as an additional moderating variable shows the increases in reactance occur among Republicans who question the existence of climate change. Finally, our results show that reactance to climate change messaging may lead to backfiring effects on important outcomes tied to climate change such as risk perceptions, climate change beliefs, and support for mitigation policies.     

Optimizing Messaging to Reduce Red Meat Consumption

Red meat production has a range of negative environmental impacts. We sought to characterize the motivations, environmental attitudes and demographics of red meat-eaters, and examine the effect of message framing in reducing future meat consumption. Canadian adult meat-eaters (593) completed a survey and were randomly assigned to one of six message treatments that presented information on the environmental impacts of meat production using frames representing social norms and/or place identity constructs. Taste and quality were the most important motivators for eating meat, while moral/ethical factors were the least. Forty-nine percent of respondents indicated they would reduce red meat intake after exposure to an information only message, while the social norms frame was more effective than others (χ2). Awareness of the environmental effects increased significantly after messaging for all 13 impacts. These findings should assist communicators with designing more effective messaging aimed at encouraging pro-environmental behaviours associated with meat consumption.     

Fast,cheap, and imperfect? US public opinion about solar geoengineering

ABSTRACT

Solar geoengineering, which seeks to cool the planet by reflecting a small fraction of sunlight back into space, has drawn the attention of scientists and policymakers as climate change remains unabated. Unlike mitigation, solar geoengineering could quickly and cheaply lower global temperatures. It is also imperfect. Its environmental impacts remain unpredictable, and its low cost and immediate effects may result in ‘moral hazard,’ potentially crowding out costly mitigation efforts. There is little understanding about how the public will respond to such tradeoffs. To address this, a 1000-subject nationally representative poll focused on solar geoengineering was conducted as part of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) of the US electorate in October–November 2016. The importance that individuals place on solar geoengineering’s speed and cost predicts their support for it, but there is little to no relationship between their concerns about its shortcomings and support for its research and use. Acquiescence bias appears to be an important factor for attitudes around solar geoengineering and moral hazard.     

Unintended Effects of Emphasizing the Role of Climate Change in Recent Natural Disasters

In 2017, the United States experienced a series of natural hazards (hurricanes, wildfires, and blizzards) that resulted in significant loss of life and property. Emphasizing the role of climate change in these events might offer an important tool for engagement, particularly with skeptical audiences. However, in a survey experiment (N?=?1504) involving three different natural hazards – hurricanes, wildfires, and blizzards – we find that emphasizing the role of climate change in these hazards produced unintended effects for climate change skeptics. In particular, skeptics experienced resistance to the news article, which associated with reduced perceived hazard severity. These backfiring effects likely serve as a defensive mechanism used by skeptics to maintain their prior views of climate change, illustrating the challenges faced in communicating climate change to skeptical audiences. These findings offer additional insight for those attempting to communicate climate-related risk information to skeptical audiences.     

经济快速增长区土地利用变化对土壤质量影响研究

以苏锡常地区具有典型性的原锡山市不同土地利用类型和不同时间的土壤取样点为研究对象,从时空转换角度分析土地利用变化对土壤质量的影响. 结果表明,1980—1995年,苏锡常地区土地利用结构变动速率为0.59;1995—2000年,苏锡常地区土地利用结构变动速率增加为0.74. 统计分析和独立样本t检验结果表明:1982—2005年原锡山市pH降低0.58,w(有机质)降低1.02 g/kg,w(全氮)降低0.16 g/kg,w(全磷)降低0.48 g/kg,w(速效氮)降低7.63 mg/kg,w(速效磷)增加26.16 mg/kg,w(速效钾)增加36.9 mg/kg,土壤含水率降低0.52%,土壤的相对质量指数降低3.06;在不同土地利用方式下,土壤质量各指标的变化具有明显的差异性.      

教室内二氧化碳污染和新风量测定

新风量不足,呼吸产生的二氧化碳可造成教室内CO_2浓度严重超标,影响学生学习,降低课堂教学效果。以人呼出的CO_2作为示踪气体,测定研究教室有人和无人情况下教室内CO_2浓度变化,对教室新风量进行计算,其结果:室内CO_2排放条件不同,相应方程计算所得新风量基本一致,用忽略室外CO_2本底浓度的新风量计算公式,结果有约17%的误差。开启门窗产生对流,可保障教室内空气的新鲜。     

季节变化对海洋鱼体内EROD活性的影响

利用2001～2003年对大连大长山岛海域不同季节EROD活性的监测结果,分析了季节变化对海洋鱼体内EROD活性的影响.结果表明,春季海洋鱼体内EROD活性明显高于夏季和秋季.利用EROD活性进行海洋环境污染的监测,不宜选在背景值较高的春季进行.     

基于VOSviewer的2010-2020年安全疏散研究进展分析

为给安全疏散研究提供综合性的参考,从CNKI和Web of Science收录的2010-2020年核心期刊中整理出关于安全疏散的研究文献,应用VOSviewer软件分别对国内外研究文献的发表数量、关键词、作者等进行了计量分析,并类比其他应用此方法的研究来验证结果的有效性.结果表明:国内针对安全疏散的相关文献年度发表数...