俄罗斯环境管理问题所引发的法律思考

对俄罗斯的环境管理观念，相关环境法律规定的生态化要求，联邦及联邦各主体两级关系协调化以及环境管理手段的经济化与多样化倾向等问题作了着重分析，并鉴于中俄在历史上社会与经济制度的关联性及正处经济转轨的共同性，希望通过比较中俄两国在历史和现实发展中存在的异同与联系，以求能为我国进一步的环境管理立法提供借鉴性的思考。     

Thoughts concerning the economic valuation of landscapes

The incorporation of economic thinking into the valuation of landscapes is still relatively new. It is an approach that yields valuable new insights and can help with prioritizing the use of scarce resources to improve and/or preserve landscapes. This paper explores and discusses the uses and limitations of economic valuation of landscapes from market failure, policy process, and theoretical and philosophical perspectives.     

State subsidies induce gray jays to accept greater danger: an ecologically rational response?

Models of strictly rational choice assume that decision-makers evaluate options on relevant dimensions, assign fixed values to options, and then make consistent choices based on these values. If so, recent experience would have no impact on preference. But, recent events change an animal’s state, and preference may change accordingly. We explore how state affects willingness to accept greater danger to obtain larger food rewards. We tested how a supplement in state (hoard size) impacts this willingness in gray jays (Perisoreus canadensis). When subsidized, most of the subjects increased their willingness to trade danger for food. Why would they become less cautious when their hoard was increased? Superficially, it might seem prudent to play it safer in response to a subsidy. But imagining fitness as a sigmoid function of state (hoard size) provides a tentative explanation for our counterintuitive finding. Above a threshold hoard size, a subsidy should weaken the willingness to accept extra danger. Incremental increases in state in the deceleratory phase yield smaller fitness gains, so it would pay to increase emphasis on safety after receiving a subsidy. But below this threshold, incremental increases in state in the acceleratory phase yield bigger fitness gains, and so it would pay to decrease emphasis on safety after receiving a subsidy. Most of our subjects’ choice behavior was, thus, plausibly consistent with the possibility that effective hoard size is considerably smaller than the total number of items stored. We speculate that this response may reflect an ecologically rational compensation for the inevitable loss of hoards via theft and rot.     

No Longer “Bullying the Rhine:” Giving Narrative a Place in Flood Management

In this paper we explore whether today multiple sources of reasoning are being considered in the discourse of flood management. We examine whether stakeholders are considered and served as an audience of partners in managing rivers. To this end, we reviewed sources of reasoning that people living in river basins use for handling floods and mitigating flood risk. We focus on texts dealing with lowland flooding, taking as an example the Rhine River in historical times and in the present. Our review of river management documentation revealed that the scheme that guides engineers', policy makers', and administrators' actions toward rivers is shifting from correcting rivers toward accommodating their needs for flood plains—while still controlling the rivers. In current European river management reports we found elements of narrative side by side with formal scientific fact reporting.     

Paradoxical preferences when options are identical

Normative models of choice predict no preference when unequally priced options of identical quality are temporarily offered for the same low price, yet several studies using nonhuman subjects have found a preference in this context. Paradoxically, subjects have preferred the stimulus associated with typically higher acquisition cost. Here, preference tests were conducted for gray jays (Perisoreus canadensis) choosing between temporarily identical options, which were color coded to represent typical conditions. During no-choice trials, subjects were offered either a cheap or an expensive food reward, by positioning the reward either 1.9 or 60 cm into a tunnel. During intermittent free-choice trials, subjects chose between color-coded but otherwise identical options (same reward, both cheap). Jays preferred the stimulus associated with lower cost, unlike subjects in previous studies. To reconcile these conflicting findings, we model choice as a trade-off between state and predation. We explore how alternative mechanisms of valuation may lead to preference in either direction (i.e., for greater workload vs lower predation risk). Our models accommodate observed paradoxical preferences in both directions.     

战略环评中环境合理性综合论证要点分析——以矿产资源总体规划环评为例

对矿产资源总体规划环评中的环境影响识别与预测评价以及资源环境承载力影响评价进行了简述,提出了矿产资源总体规划环评中环境合理性综合论证要点。其结论可为国内开展矿产资源总体规划环评提供技术参考,对于其他针对空间规划的环境影响评价也具有较强的借鉴意义。     

辐射环境监测数据合理性问题与应对措施研究

本文首先就辐射环境监测数据合理性问题进行了分析,然后提出了几点应对措施以保证监测数据的准确性、一致性以及溯源性,希望能够推动辐射环境监测工作的稳步发展。     

How rational are investment decisions in the copper industry?

This paper examines ex-post 51 investment decisions made in regard to copper mines coming on stream from 1957 through 1999. It discusses two critical variables: investment timing and mine capacity choice. Using a 15% discount rate, results suggest that fewer than half of decisions were made at the right time – i.e., low price periods – confirming countercyclical investment as the optimal policy. In terms of capacity choice, the distortion is even higher, as 36 projects should have entered at least 40% larger or smaller. Realized investment decisions for timing and capacity choice would have caused a 49.1% loss over the NPV potentially achievable under optimal resolutions. Although the difference could be specifically attributed to copper price uncertainty, this paper discusses how investment evaluation methodologies could be contributing to firms not being fully rational (in the neoclassical sense) when investing.     

试论建设项目环评中总量控制目标的确定及验证

就环评报告书如何根据环境管理的要求和项目的特点,对所确定污染物总量控制目标的合理性,从多方面进行了验证。     

Can irrational behaviour maximise fitness?

Behavioural models for both humans and other animals often assume economic rationality on the part of decision makers. Economic rationality supposes that outcomes can be assigned objective values within a stable valuation framework and that choices are made to maximise a decision maker’s expected payoff. Yet, both human and animal behaviour is often not economically rational. Here, we compare economically rational making strategies with a strategy (trade-off contrasts) that has been proposed to account for decision-making behaviour in humans that departs of axiomatic rationality. We model the fitness of these strategies in a simple environment where choices are made on repeated occasions, there is stochastic fluctuation in the choices available at any given time, and uncertainty about what choices will be available in the future. Our results show that, for at least some of the model parameter space, non-rational decision strategies achieve higher fitness than economically rational strategies. The differences were comparable in magnitude to selection differentials observed in nature.