A protracted age of oil: pipelines,refineries and quiet conflict

This article examines the relevance of environmental justice (EJ) and climate change debates as points of articulation and mobilisation among community groups responding to a proposed refinery. It then compares media coverage of the refinery project, a bi-national pipeline and other energy and climate-related news events. The analytical frame joins the EJ paradigm with citizen mobilisation on issues of climate change and energy projects that emit greenhouse gases and that discourage development of renewable sources. Data were collected and analysed from websites, public message boards and media documents. Findings indicate that a community-based anti-refinery campaign combined local EJ struggles with climate activism, while challenging fossil fuel dependencies and calling for renewable regional energy. A climate justice community formed – yet their voices were in their blogs and websites, not in local or national media.     

Community epidemiology and environmental health risk from dioxin contamination in Paritutu

This article explores community-awareness perspectives and actions towards dioxin-related health exposure in Paritutu Community, New Plymouth, New Zealand. The actions are analysed through media reports, covering a 10-year period from 1998 to 2008. Since 1964, Paritutu Community residents have expressed concern about increased morbidity associated with dioxin contamination from a nearby agrichemical plant. Upon investigation, official agencies were at first unable to verify a causal link between dioxin and morbidity, precipitating community activism and increasing public pressure on relevant authorities. Residents played a major role in alleviating further damage to their community by analysing and evaluating data and providing information that ultimately resulted in both official recognition of their environmental health risk and preventative strategies to alleviate their morbidity. This article backgrounds the Paritutu Community Epidemiology approach and evaluates stages in how the Paritutu Community overcame indifference and lack of precaution and exerted influence leading to the removal of the source of contamination and positive policy changes in public health including the setting up of ameliorative health services for affected people. The findings of this research support theories of popular, lay, community and worker epidemiology.     

Can the commons be temporary? The role of transitional commoning in post-quake Christchurch

ABSTRACT

In recent work on commons and commoning, scholars have argued that we might delink the practice of commoning from property ownership, while paying attention to modes of governance that enable long-term commons to emerge and be sustained. Yet commoning can also occur as a temporary practice, in between and around other forms of use. In this article we reflect on the transitional commoning practices and projects enabled by the Christchurch post-earthquake organisation Life in Vacant Spaces, which emerged to connect and mediate between landowners of vacant inner city demolition sites and temporary creative or entrepreneurial users. While these commons are often framed as transitional or temporary, we argue they have ongoing reverberations changing how people and local government in Christchurch approach common use. Using the cases of the physical space of the Victoria Street site “The Commons” and the virtual space of the Life in Vacant Spaces website, we show how temporary commoning projects can create and sustain the conditions of possibility required for nurturing commoner subjectivities. Thus despite their impermanence, temporary commoning projects provide a useful counter to more dominant forms of urban development and planning premised on property ownership and “permanent” timeframes, in that just as the physical space of the city being opened to commoning possibilities, so too are the expectations and dispositions of the city’s inhabitants, planners, and developers.     

Communicating risk for vulnerable groups: a case study of the Mano community’s strategies for collective knowledge to action

This paper discusses the emergent interest in risk communication as a strategy for disaster risk reduction. Communication plays an essential role in understanding risk, but studies suggest that people often do not respond in the way that risk experts anticipate. For risk communication to be effective, vulnerable communities need to understand risk within the local context as well as in terms of sustainability. Risk messages offer communities a way to enhance their collective knowledge of existing vulnerabilities, leading them towards alternative solutions for action. A longitudinal study of the Mano community development approach and its recovery from the 1995 Kobe earthquake illustrates how risk communication dynamics contributed to the community’s sustainable risk reduction. The study concludes that risk communication is a collaborative way for a community to work with risk experts, own their risk information, influence existing policies and practices, develop solutions to reduce vulnerability, and ultimately enhance a community’s capacity for managing future risk.     

Capacity building for food justice in England: the contribution of charity-led community food initiatives

This paper discusses the extent to which charity-led initiatives can contribute to capacity building for food justice in England. The paper draws on evaluations of two projects run by the charity Garden Organic: the Master Gardener Programme, operating a network of volunteers who mentor households, schools and community groups to support local food growing, and the Sowing New Seeds programme, which engages “Seed Stewards” to work with communities to encourage the growing and cooking of “exotic” crops. Based on qualitative data about peoples’ motivations for participation and the benefits that are experienced, we interpret these projects as examples of capacity building for food justice. We suggest that whilst currently depoliticised, the “quiet” process of reskilling and awareness raising that occurs through shared gardening projects could have transformative potential for people’s relationship with food. Finally, we use our findings to raise critical questions and propose future research about food justice concepts and practices.     

Quantifying the environmental impact of ecovillages and co-housing communities: a systematic literature review

Many intentional communities worldwide, such as ecovillages and co-housing communities, have explicit goals of living in an environmentally sustainable manner, and are taking conscious steps towards these goals in response to the widely discussed unsustainability of the global sociotechnical system. There are numerous claims from researchers and community members, in the academic and grey literature, that intentional communities are making significant improvements towards sustainability goals, particularly in terms of environmental impact. However, actual measures of progress, with evidence supporting these claims, are relatively scarce. This paper presents the findings of a systematic review of quantitative studies of the environmental impact of intentional communities, including comparisons with relevant “mainstream” communities. The review focused on the two indicators that are most commonly reported in studies of the impact of intentional communities – the ecological footprint and the carbon footprint. This review was undertaken as there is a lack of literature reviews that comprehensively compile existing quantitative studies about intentional communities. In total, the review identified 16 separate studies covering 23 communities and 30 footprint measurements, with publication dates ranging from 2000 to 2014. This is a greater number of studies than in any other literature review of this topic. Taken as a whole, these compiled studies provide strong support for claims of greater environmental sustainability within these communities, and reinforce the need for greater research and exploration of the role sustainability-oriented intentional communities can play in the transition to more sustainable sociotechnical systems.     

现代分子生物学技术在活性污泥微生物菌群多样性研究中的应用

以活性污泥技术为主体的好氧工艺是污水生物处理技术方面应用较为广泛的方法。随着现代分子生物学技术的不断发展,人们对活性污泥中微生物菌群多样性的认识逐渐深化,大量用传统方法未检测到,但在活性污泥中发挥关键作用的微生物逐渐引起研究学者的重视。现代分子生物学技术以FISH技术、实时荧光定量PCR技术、DGGE／TGGE技术、16SrRNA序列比较、T—RFLP技术、AFLP技术等为代表已成为研究微生物微观形态及种群结构特征的主要手段。文章就这些技术在活性污泥微生物菌群多样性研究中的应用进行了总结,为进一步研究污水处理领域活性污泥的微生物菌群多样性提供了必要的依据。     

中国表层土壤有机质空间分布模拟分析方法研究

气候变化背景下,对土壤有机碳的研究是目前大尺度上土壤性质研究的热点。基于第二次全国土壤普查5 374个典型土壤剖面数据,分析表层土壤有机质(20 cm)与环境因素的相关关系,利用多元回归模型和HASM模型结合的方法模拟中国国家尺度上表层土壤有机质含量的空间分布格局,探讨该方法的模拟误差,为国家尺度上有机碳的估算提供方法参考。研究结果表明,对350个检验点模拟结果的平均绝对误差和平均相对误差为15.61 g.kg-1和56.59%,与普通克里格法相比分别降低了1.61 g.kg-1和20.84%;对样点分布较少以及无样点的西北地区和台湾省的模拟结果也更符合实际情况。建模样点减少一半的情况下,模拟结果的平均绝对误差和平均相对误差仅分别增加了0.14 g.kg-1和1.07%。因此,论文方法可作为模拟国家尺度上有机质空间分布相对有效的方法,同时如何使模型解释更多的土壤有机质空间变异将是进一步提高模拟精度的关键。     

近58年廊坊市气象灾情普查分析及问题与建议

依据廊坊市气象灾情普查资料,对廊坊市1949—2007年主要气象灾害：暴雨洪涝、干旱、大风、冰雹、雷电等造成损失情况进行统计分析,并与同期灾害性天气发生情况进行对比,结果表明：98.4%的灾害性天气不会出现灾情;造成经济损失最大的气象灾害是暴雨洪涝;发生灾害性天气的站次总体呈下降趋势,但是近年来出现气象灾害灾情的站次呈逐渐上升趋势。同时在气象灾情普查中发现,目前廊坊市气象灾情的收集比较混乱,部门之间缺乏灾情信息共享、灾情调查渠道不畅、灾情损失计算不准确等诸多问题。在分析的基础上,提出了建立气象灾情信息共享平台等相关解决措施和建议。     

环境工程管理存在的问题和对策——基于问卷调查结果的分析

围绕我国装备环境工程管理的情况,对部分单位展开问卷调查。基于问卷调查的统计结果,对环境工程管理的基本状况、环境工程人员管理情况、实验室和自然环境试验网站的管理情况进行分析,并提出相关改进措施。