Preserving Wilderness or Protecting Homelands? Intersections and Divergences in Activist Discourses About Mining in Ontario’s Far North

Northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire/Wawangajing controversy constitutes a complex site of debate about the risks and benefits of mining in an area of major ecological significance that is also the ancestral territory of nine First Nation communities. This paper investigates the rhetorical alignments and divergences in public calls by Matawa First Nations tribal council and the Ontario Wildlands League for stronger environmental assessment of mining projects than that favoured by the Canadian government. Tracing the terminologies each group uses to describe the affected region and its inhabitants in its activist rhetoric about EA offers insight into the contingent, shifting ways in which wilderness advocacy and Indigenous justice discourses may speak together yet distinctly within contemporary environmental-natural resource disputes.     

Best Practices in Environmental Communication: A Case Study of Louisiana's Coastal Crisis

This mixed-method case study of environmental communication best practices in Louisiana, USA, identifies trends and approaches as informed by environmental psychology. The results provide key insights for environmental communicators, especially communicators in coastal regions. In-depth interviews with both environmental psychologists and environmental communicators showed that both groups emphasized knowing the audience, telling local stories, building relationships with target audiences and targeted messaging. Both psychologists and communicators also frequently mentioned general messaging concerns of source credibility, avoiding controversial terms and talking about issues, impacts and solutions to which the target audience can relate. A representative survey revealed that Louisiana residents are most interested in hearing about how environmental issues such as climate change, coastal land loss and flooding are affecting their own communities. This finding supports the idea that environmental communicators could do a better job tapping into strong place attachment and sense of community among coastal residents to promote action.     

基于“压力-状态-响应”模型的江苏省环境绩效评估研究

环境绩效评估通过量化环境管理效果和分析环境管理中的不足,为改善环境管理水平提供依据。本研究依据压力-状态-响应(PSR)模型和主题框架法构建了包括环境效率、环境质量、环境治理3个二级指标和15个三级指标的市级环境绩效评估指标体系,并运用目标渐进法和均权法计算了江苏省13个地级2015年的环境绩效指数。结果显示,江苏省各地级市综合环境绩效指数分布在58.41(连云港市)~74.98(苏州市)之间,且与经济发展水平正相关。从空间分布来看,位于苏中地区的城市综合环境绩效多为良好,苏南和苏北各地之间的绩效差距较大;在二级指标中,苏南环境效率和环境治理绩效相对较好,苏中环境效率和环境质量绩效较好,苏北环境质量绩效较好。此外,本研究认为三级指标中的单位GDP用水量、空气质量达良好以上天数、工业用水重复利用率、一般工业固体废物利用率以及秸秆综合利用率等是主要的限制性指标。     

环保新常态下环境保护综合名录工作的定位与重点探究

本文分析总结了环保新常态下面临的环保新形势,对环境管理转型提出的新要求,认为在环境管理模式由污染控制导向向质量改善导向转变,环境管理思路由注重行政许可、事前审批、指标分配向注重事中事后监管、市场自治、社会共治转变的背景下,现有环境管理制度体系整体与政策手段个体的覆盖主体、切入界面、作用机制、内在逻辑等基础理论问题需要再审视,制度架构顶层设计和分工体系需要再完善。在此背景和趋势下,本文从理论和实践两个层面深入探析了名录工具和产品主体在环境管理中的特性与作用,认为产品是市场经济条件下同时承载功能流、价值流和资源环境流的流通载体,也是制定差别化环境监管政策与市场监管政策、建立跨主体环境成本合理分担机制的最恰当主体,以此为基础,清晰界定了环境管理系统化、科学化、法制化、精细化、信息化转型要求下环保综合名录的本质特征、基本定位和潜力方向,并提出了综合名录工作下一阶段的重点任务。     

深化水资源水环境政策改革,积极推动环境社会治理——PACE20周年纪念大会会议综述

中国工程院国际工程科技高端论坛暨PACE 20周年纪念大会于2017年8月28~29日在北京举行。PACE 20周年大会就"水资源水环境政策"和"环境社会治理"两个主题进行了深入研讨,并达成以下共识:政府治理是中国水资源水环境治理的主导模式,但目前我国水资源水环境政府治理仍面临政策不规范、立法不完善、监管不到位等实质性的问题,要积极促进政策的制定与执行;环境社会治理是我国环境治理的短板,环境治理不仅需要政府的主导,更需要社会上的利益相关方参与政策制定、监督与执行过程,更需要社会各行为主体的自觉自主行动,促进环境行为改善,化解由环境引起的社会矛盾。     

于GRI体系的机场企业环境信息披露研究

机场作为民航运输的关键节点和重要枢纽,肩负着服务区域经济的重要使命,同时也面临环境保护与可持续发展的巨大挑战。作为公共基础设施和城市形象窗口,机场上市公司具有披露环境信息的义务与责任。在充分研究国内机场上市公司环境信息披露制度背景的基础上,本研究借鉴全球报告倡议组织（GRI）发布的《可持续发展报告指南》（第四版）及机场运营者行业补充（GRI-AOSS）构建了适用于我国机场的环境信息披露评价指标体系,并利用公开数据对国内6家机场上市公司的环境信息披露情况进行了实际测评。结果表明：我国机场环境信息披露程度较低,存在内容简单、量化不足、质量下降等问题。机场上市公司环境信息披露亟待在法律法规层面进行系统规范。建议借鉴GRI等相关国际标准及成功经验,制定适用于我国的科学可行的环境信息披露标准和制度体系。     

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.     

Public participation in municipal solid waste source-separated collection in Guilin,China: status and influencing factors

Currently, China is facing critical problems regarding the management of municipal solid waste (MSW). The failure of existing pilot programs in implementing MSW source-separated collection highlights the need to analyze the factors significantly influencing public participation in this activity. To this end, a comprehensive analysis of MSW source-separated collection in Guilin, which is representative of wider areas located in inland China and with a GDP around the national average, was conducted. The research consisted of in-person interviews involving a questionnaire and theoretical analyses in terms of public perception, public awareness, public attitude, and willingness to pay. The analytical results identify the status of waste source-separated collection and influencing factors in implementation, and provides exercisable suggestions for decision makers in both China and more generally in industrializing countries to design promotion programs and education campaigns.     

Industrial pollution,spatial stigma and economic decline: the case of Asopos river basin through the lens of local small business owners

This paper explores the notion of environmentally induced spatial stigma through an analysis of data from interviews across public attitudes to pollution within the Asopos river basin in central Greece. The area has a 40 year plus history of legal and illicit industrial waste disposal and public debate on the associated environmental degradation. The study focuses on the perceptions and beliefs of a sector of the community likely to be directly and negatively affected by stigma, that is small business owners in the tourism and hospitality sector. The qualitative analysis explores awareness and viewpoints on environmental degradation and water quality within the local context, implications for the local economy and the individual's own enterprise, views on industrial environmental management as well as corporate responsibility and future prospects for the environmental problems of Asopos. Findings reveal a noticeable variation in views on industrial pollution and ecosystem deterioration among the respondents, but overall a strong environmentally induced stigmatization of the area. They also uncover an information asymmetry and lack of credible commitment by government bodies and industry members in disclosing accurate information, a situation likely to increase speculation and uncertainty within the community. The paper concludes by addressing implications of the findings to policy-making and managerial considerations, along with future research perspectives which aim to increase considerations of sustainability aspects for local development.     

Sources and Framing of Fracking: A Content Analysis of Newspaper Coverage in North Carolina,New York,and Pennsylvania

Research across several decades has mapped the way complex environmental issues with complicated policy implications are often differentially framed within the media, public, and policy agendas with major implications for how they are understood, discussed, and decided. Building on this work, this this study compared news coverage of the debate over natural gas “fracking” in New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina between the period 2008 and 2013. Examining state newspapers, the analysis evaluated the types of sources used, the assertions of these sources, and how the issue of fracking was framed. From a general perspective, this study reveals how differences in framing of an environmental and scientific controversy can be attributed to the locally relevant sources used in reporting, as well as the political, economic, and social factors that might be unique to a state. Specific to the debate over natural gas “fracking,” this study adds to our understanding of how such state-based factors influence the portrayal of the issue in the news media.