人口统计学变量对环境保护公众参与意识的影响实证研究

采用问卷调查和数理统计等研究方法,研究了人口统计学变量在环境保护公众参与意识上的差异,以及与环境保护公众参与各个变量之间的相关性。结果表明:居民的年龄在公众环保行为和环保政策满意度上呈现显著性差异,居民的职业在环境保护认知、公众环保行为环保政策满意度上呈现显著性差异,居民的受教育程度在环境保护认知、个人环保习惯、公众环保行为、环保政策满意度上呈现显著性差异。婚姻状况与公众环保行为、环保政策满意度之间存在显著性负相关,年龄与环境保护认知之间存在显著性正相关,与环境政策满意度、环境表现满意度之间出现显著性的负相关性,职业与环境保护认知、个人环保习惯、公众环保行为之间存在显著性正相关性,与环保政策满意度、环保表现满意度之间存在显著性负相关。     

环境信息公开——一项新的环境管理手段

环境信息公开是继指令性控制手段和经济手段后一项新的环境管理方法。该手段通过对环境信息的公开来加强环境管理的公众参与和监督,从而促使污染者重视环境保护,加强污染治理。文中对环境信息公开的作用和类型作了简要的阐述,并重点介绍了企业环境信息公开的设计原则、方法和步骤。同时以呼和浩特市为例,对企业环境信息公开的方案进行了初步的设计。      

Critical pedagogy of place to enhance ecological engagement activities

Scientists in higher education institutions around the globe recognize the importance of engaging with public stakeholders to share their enthusiasm, explain their science, and encourage primary and secondary students to enter the sciences. However, without direct consideration of students’ and teachers’ perspectives and interests, scientists may design activities around their own goals, limiting the impact on school stakeholders (i.e., students, teachers, paraprofessional staff, students’ parents, and other caregivers). We drew from natural and social science research to describe how expanding the conception of place beyond the biophysical can help engage school stakeholders in meaningful ways. We describe the multidimensional PLACE framework that we developed to integrate perspectives, knowledge, and values of all stakeholders in engagement programming. The framework is organized around topics that stakeholders should discuss early on to ensure successful partnerships. We recommend that scientists identify and use pedagogy that is inclusive; language framed around dialogic communication methods; aims and motivations centered on engagement; cultural funds of knowledge of place (i.e., disciplinary, personal, or experiential knowledge); and evaluation of engagement based on meaningful metrics. Two case studies are presented to illustrate how the PLACE framework components, when addressed, can lead to robust, successful partnerships between scientists and schools.     

2019年扬州市公共场所健康危害因素监测结果分析

为了提升扬州市公共场所卫生状况和传染病防控能力,按照国家标准于2019年对扬州市宾馆(酒店)类、沐浴类、理发店类、美容店类和候车室类5类公共场所的健康危害因素(空气质量和公共用品用具)进行监测,按照《公共场所卫生指标及限值要求》(GB 37488—2019)进行评价。结果表明,共监测空气质量样品216份,合格率为84.26%,共监测公共用品用具1 414份,合格率为96.46%,不同场所的空气质量合格率和公共用品用具微生物指标合格率差异均具有统计学意义(P 0.05)。不同类型公共用品用具监测项目中,金黄色葡萄球菌的合格率最高(100%),而真菌总数的合格率最低(93.75%)。各类公共用品用具中,拖鞋合格率最低(91.67%),床单相对较高(99.70%)。扬州市公共卫生状况总体良好,在空气质量监测中,物理项目和微生物项目合格率较低,在公共用品用具监测中,细菌总数和大肠菌群存在不合格现象。     

Saving power to conserve your reputation? The effectiveness of private versus public information

Environmental damage is often an unseen byproduct of other activities. Disclosing environmental impact privately to consumers can reduce the costs and/or increase the moral benefits of conservation behaviors, while publicly disclosing such information can provide an additional motivation for conservation - cultivating a green reputation. In a unique field experiment in the residence halls at the University of California – Los Angeles, we test the efficacy of detailed private and public information on electricity conservation. Private information was given through real-time appliance level feedback and social norms over usage, and public information was given through a publicly visible conservation rating. Our analysis is based on 7,120 daily observations about energy use from heating and cooling, lights and plug load for 66 rooms collected over an academic year. Our results suggest that while private information alone was ineffective, public information combined with private information motivated a 20 percent reduction in electricity consumption achieved through lower use of heating and cooling. Public information was particularly effective for above median energy users.     

Sovereign financial disaster risk management: The case of Mexico

In 2006, Mexico became the first transition country to transfer part of its public-sector natural catastrophe risk to the international reinsurance and capital markets. The Mexican case is of considerable interest to highly exposed transition and developing countries, many of which are considering similar transactions. Risk financing instruments can assure governments of sufficient post-disaster capital to provide emergency response, disaster relief to the affected population and repair public infrastructure. The costs of financial instruments, however, can greatly exceed expected losses, and for this reason it is important to closely examine their benefits and alternatives. This paper analyzes the Mexican case from the perspective of the risk cedent (the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit), which was informed by analyses provided by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). The rationale for a government to insure its contingent liabilities is presented along with the fiscal, legal and institutional context of the Mexican transaction. Using publicly available data, the paper scrutinizes the choice the authorities faced between two different risk-transfer instruments: reinsurance and a catastrophe bond. Making use of IIASA's catastrophe simulation model (CATSIM), this financial risk management decision is analyzed within the context of a public investment decision.     

Soft systems thinking and social learning for adaptive management

The success of adaptive management in conservation has been questioned and the objective-based management paradigm on which it is based has been heavily criticized. Soft systems thinking and social-learning theory expose errors in the assumption that complex systems can be dispassionately managed by objective observers and highlight the fact that conservation is a social process in which objectives are contested and learning is context dependent. We used these insights to rethink adaptive management in a way that focuses on the social processes involved in management and decision making. Our approach to adaptive management is based on the following assumptions: action toward a common goal is an emergent property of complex social relationships; the introduction of new knowledge, alternative values, and new ways of understanding the world can become a stimulating force for learning, creativity, and change; learning is contextual and is fundamentally about practice; and defining the goal to be addressed is continuous and in principle never ends. We believe five key activities are crucial to defining the goal that is to be addressed in an adaptive-management context and to determining the objectives that are desirable and feasible to the participants: situate the problem in its social and ecological context; raise awareness about alternative views of a problem and encourage enquiry and deconstruction of frames of reference; undertake collaborative actions; and reflect on learning.     

The influence of public transportation on housing values

Transit-oriented development (TOD) is becoming an increasingly common development strategy with potential consequences on property values. This study explores the potential relationship between the proximity to public transportation and housing values. The objective is achieved by performing a hedonic regression using the 2013 American Housing Survey (AHS) sample, which includes 25 metro areas. In 2013, the AHS added a topical supplement addressing public transportation issues which makes understanding public transportation impacts on housing values more feasible. In this study, being located within half a mile of a public transportation stop was a significant factor in explaining housing values for 6 out of 25 metro areas. This research is important to real estate practitioners operating within TODs as proximity to public transportation may significantly influence property values.     

简述环境影响评价中的公众参与

环境影响评价制度是一项重要的环境法律制度,公众参与是环境影响评价程序的关键。其目的是使项目能被公众认可,提高项目的环境和经济效益。我国的《环境影响评价法》对公众参与的主体、对象、范围、方式所做的规定还不能令人满意。借鉴西方国家和港台地区立法的先进经验,我们应当通过使法律具有可操作性、协调好国家干预和公众参与、赋予公众提起环境诉讼的权利、加强公众宣传、保证信息透明等方式对其加以完善。     

Environmental Communication as Nexus

This essay examines zoos as a site of struggle in the construction of meanings and memories of human–nature relations. Modern zoos are symbols of imperial power and celebrations of the domination of nature. The grafting of “tropic worlds” onto these monuments of modernity renders the meaning of zoos more ambiguous, reflecting discursive struggles over the meaning of nature, questions about the wisdom of development and progress, recognition of the need for conservation and preservation, and nostalgia for a nature that has been lost. Through a close textual reading of “The Rainforest” at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, this essay explores the simulation of nature in zoos and “tropic worlds” in North American cities. These hyperreal spaces contain an extraordinary amount of the history and politics of the culture that constructs them for fascination, edification, conservation, commodification, and salvation. At stake in these simulated natures is not only the constructions of nature as spectacle and animals as commodities, but also the use of knowledge to maintain certain forms of domination and the “writing” of industrial culture's historical memory of nature and human–nature relations.