Regional Research Capacity -Building inSustainability Science:Facts, Gaps, and Futures in Northeast Asia

Evidence shows that some conceptual ideas relevant to both local and global sustainability have been adopted in some official documents in northeast Asian nations, particularly China, South Korea, and Japan. This seems to be a very positive signal for the future development of sustainability science in this region. However,studyes show that there are still some major gaps there. One is the problem of how to build up the regional research capacity of sustainability science among northeast Asian research institutes across different disciplines as well as different political systems. Another is how to shift the conceptual frameworks of sustainability science into the operational policy frameworks. There are four major obstacles to the enhancement of regional research capacity-building in sustainability science. In order to build up the regional research capacity in sustainability science and to realize both local and global goals of the sustainable development in northeast Asia, this paper proposes some ba     

Some of the Nineteenth Century Origins of the Sustainability Concept

Interpreting and applying the concept of sustainable development is increasingly viewed as being the way to promulgate just and practicable economic, environmental and social policy. It is thus important that there be increased public and political awareness concerning the origins of economic theory, and its early relationship to sustainability concepts. While the term 'sustainable development' was popularised by the World Commission on Environment and Development report Our Common Future in 1987, it is generally recognised that notions of sustainability were promoted in `limits to growth' and 'green' discourses in the early 1970s (Meadows et al.: 1974, The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome, Potomac Associates and Pan Books, London and Sydney). However, there is little acknowledgement of the way in which nineteenth century intellectuals, from a range of disciplines, conceptualised the importance of balancing economic, social and environmental sustainability in their quest for justice and the conservation of nature.There was a considerable exchange of ideas on `political economy' and nature across Europe, and later the Americas, from the middle of the eighteenth century. This discourse reached its intellectual peak in the nineteenth century. During that era there was a proliferation of literature that was aimed at improving the human condition and recognising humanity's dependence upon nature. In Europe and the USA the participants in the debate included Cantillon, Quesnay, Condorcet, Galiani, Von Hayek, Marx and George. Due to the breadth of this influential body of work, we focus here on the British Victorian thinkers such as Darwin, Malthus, Martineau and Mill. These thinkers influenced each other in developing their theories and ideas in science, politics, economics and philosophy, and were influenced in turn by an earlier generation of intellectuals, such as Adam Smith. For the Victorian thinkers, conserving nature while trying to improve the distribution of wealth was a not a paradox, but a moral duty, and for them Smith's `rational' pursuit of self-interest could only be followed if it did not interfere with 'the rules of justice'. We argue that the manner in which these thinkers conceptualised their theories and ideas represents the nineteenth century origins of sustainability concepts.     

自然资源代际转移机制及其可持续性度量

自然资源是人类社会赖以生存和持续发展最直接的物质基础和能量源泉。本文在探讨自然资源代际转移动力机制的基础上,应用资源经济学和环境经济学原理,分析了对自然资源持续性全面度量的原理与方法。     

Reconsidering the Dynamic Interaction of Renewable Resources and Population Growth: A Focus on Long-Run Sustainability

Within the framework of a general equilibrium model we study the long-run dynamics of resources and population if the growth rate of resources and population and the share of labor devoted to production are adversely affected by resource scarcity. Our results show that sustainability, i.e. a positive value of resources and population in the long run, essentially depends on the level of per capita resources at which these feedback mechanisms become active. A detailed bifurcation analysis evidences the richness of possible long-run dynamics.     

Renewable energy from gasification of manure: an innovative technology in search of fertile policy

After describing an innovative technology, the close-coupled gasification and cyclonic combustor, this article explores the policy issues that inhibit a superior sustainable solution fromflourishing. Discussion of technology includes defining biomass,explaining what biomass to energy means, what the advantages of biomass to energy are, and why gasification is a superior biomassto energy technology. Specifically the environmental benefits ofalternatives to landspreading of traditional manure management arediscussed, as well as the advantages of gasification versus traditional combustion techniques for high nitrogen fuels. The policy environment is explored, particularly regarding sustainability, manure management, and renewable energy. Artificial, non-sustainable barriers to renewable energy, and the impact of wide jurisdictional variability are discussed. North Carolina is identified as a unique jurisdiction to monitor because of its high volume of livestock manure, and laggard position in renewable energy advocacy. The authors contend that these two positions are unsustainable, and that pressures can beexpected to force the state to modify its renewable energy policies or risk losing market share in livestock production tomore pro-sustainable policy oriented states.     

Green Chemistry - Views and Strategies * (5 pp)

Background and Goal The object of Green Chemistry is the reduction of chemical pollutants flowing to the environment. The Chemistry and the Environment Division of EuCheMS has assumed Green Chemistry as one of its areas of interest, but one question to solve is where Green Chemistry should be placed within the context of Chemistry and the Environment. The concept of Green Chemistry, as primarily conceived by Paul Anastas and John Warner, is commonly presented through the Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry. However, these Twelve Principles, though fruit of a great intuition and common sense, do not provide a clear connection between aims, concepts, and related research areas of Green Chemistry. These two unsolved questions are the object of the present article.Discussion Green Chemistry is here placed as a part of Chemistry for the Environment, concerning the still non-existent pollutants. Indeed, the object of Green Chemistry is the reduction of pollution and risks by chemicals by avoiding their generation or their introduction into the biosphere. The distinction between pollutant chemicals and dangerous chemicals, along with the consideration of the exhaustion of fossil resources and the acknowledgement of the harmful effects of the chemicals employed in a great variety of activities, leads to the recognition of four general objectives for Green Chemistry. In order to accomplish these general objectives, a number of strategies, or secondary objectives and some fundamental concepts, namely, atomic economy, selectivity, potential harm or historical harm can be visualized. A connection is finally established between the strategies and current and future research areas of Green Chemistry.Conclusion The ultimate aim of green chemistry is to entirely cut down the stream of chemicals pouring into the environment. This aim seems unattainable at present, but progress in the green chemical research areas and their application through successive approaches will certainly provide safer specialty chemicals and much more satisfactory processes for the chemical industry.- * The basis of this peer-reviewed paper is a presentation at the 9th FECS Conference on ‘Chemistry and Environment’, 29 August to 1 September 2004, Bordeaux, France.     

Life Cycle Assessment as Part of Sustainability Assessment for Chemicals (5 pp)

Background LCA is the only internationally standardized environmental assessment tool (ISO 14040-43) for product systems, including services and processes. The analysis is done ‘from cradle-to-grave’, i.e. over the whole life cycle. LCA is essentially a comparative method: different systems fulfilling the same function (serving the same purpose) are compared on the basis of a ‘functional unit’ - a quantitative measure of this function or purpose. It is often believed that LCA can be used for judging the (relative) sustainability of product systems. This is only partly true, however, since LCA is restricted to the environmental part of the triad ‘environment/ecology - economy - social aspects (including intergenerational fairness)’ which constitutes sustainability. Standardized assessment tools for the second and the third part are still lacking, but Life Cycle Costing (LCC) seems to be a promising candidate for the economic part. Social Life Cycle Assessment still has to be developed on the basis of known social indicators.Method and Limitations LCA is most frequently used for the comparative assessment or optimization analysis of final products. Materials and chemicals are difficult to analyse from cradle-to-grave, since they are used in many, often innumerable product systems, which all would have to be studied in detail to give a complete LCA of a particular material or substance! This complete analysis of a material or chemical is evidently only possible in such cases where one main application exists. But even if one main application does exist, e.g. in the case of surfactants (chemicals) and detergents (final products), the latter may exist in a great abundance of compositions. Therefore, chemicals and materials are better analysed ‘from cradle-to-factory gate’, leaving the analysis of the final product(s), the use phase and the ‘end-of-life’ phases to specific, full LCAs.Conclusion A comparative assessment of production processes is possible, if the chemicals (the same is true for materials) produced by different methods have exactly the same properties. In this case, the downstream phases may be considered as a ‘black box’ and left out of the assessment. Such truncated LCAs can be used for environmental comparisons, but less so for the (environmental) optimization analysis of a specific chemical: the phases considered as ‘black box’ and left out may actually be the dominant ones. A sustainability assessment should be performed at the product level and contain the results of LCC and social assessments. Equal and consistent system boundaries will have to be used for these life cycle tools which only together can fulfil the aim of assessing the sustainability of product systems.     

广东农业旱灾的时间分布规律及重灾年份预测

广东是华南农业旱灾较严重的省份，几乎年年都有发生，造成了巨大的经济损失。过去55a间，农业旱灾波动性加重发展，大致以10a为周期，轻重灾害期交替出现。在重灾期内，受灾率和成灾率都很高。广东农业旱灾的受灾率异常指数和成灾率异常指数变化较大，据此建立了农业旱灾灰色灾变预测模型。计算结果表明，今后20a将出现3个重灾年份，即2010-2011年，2015-2017年和2022—2024年期间，后两个年份极有可能发生特大旱灾。     

I2SI: A comprehensive quantitative tool for inherent safety and cost evaluation

This paper presents details of an integrated inherent safety index (I2SI). The conceptual framework of this index was presented at the 37th Annual Loss Prevention Symposium of the AIChE (2003) and published in Process Safety Progress (volume 23(2), 136–148, 2004). In addition to the framework, the current paper discusses additional features of the index such as the cost model and system design model, which were not presented or discussed earlier. I2SI is called an integrated index because the procedure considers the life cycle of the process with economic evaluation and hazard potential identification for each option. I2SI is comprised of sub-indices which account for hazard potential, inherent safety potential, and add-on control requirements. In addition to evaluating these respective characteristics, there are also indices that measure the economic potential of the option. To demonstrate the applicability and efficacy of I2SI, an application of the index to three acrylic acid production options is also discussed in the paper.