Environmental protection in Hong Kong amidst transition: Is Hong Kong ready to manage its environment by law?

Within the context of political democratization, this article explores environmental protection in Hong Kong since the government lauched a ten-year program to “save the environment” in 1989. Examining environmental management by law from a social-choice perspective, it argues that the government has yet to reach an integrative policy orocess. Hence the preconditions for an integrative set of environmental legislation are absent. Institutionally, without a comprehensive green policy, the current arrangements lack a vision as an integrative force to promote effective coordination among various sectoral environmental coordination among various sectoral environmental programs. The dominant approach of policy and law enforcement through consultation has rendered impossible strict enforcement of environmental rules and regulations as local economic growth enjoys a priority over environmental protection. At a time of environmental awakening, the people of Hong Kong are not yet prepared awakening, the people of Hong Kong are not yet prepared to participate in environmental management in a strict legal manner. The overall observation is that Hong Kong has yet to see more mature political, legal, administrative, and social conditions for managing its environment within a legal framework.     

Towards Rio + 10 – Trend of Environmentalism and Implications for Sustainable Livelihoods in the 21st Century, The Context of Southern African Region

Since the Rio conference, many countries and organisations, including the environmental movement, bilateral and multilateral institutions have endeavoured to carry out activities related to the implementation of Agenda 21. These have mostly been done with or without other outcomes of the conference. Several environmental management and sustainable development agenda have been pursued to halt the continually degrading environment. Other programmes have concentrated on outburst of economic development at the expense of the environment and the worsening poverty especially in the South. This paper therefore seeks to examine a paradigmatic shift in environmentalism, emphasising the link between agenda 21 and sustainable livelihoods. It seems though the history of the environmental movement has been forgotten after the Rio conference by the whole world. This might probably be due to complacency with the results of the UNCED conference. However, it is now obvious that clear objectives to implement the results of UNCED are almost lacking with little or no proper supervision, and further threatening the existence of mankind. The environmental movement and associated milestones have had significant impacts on the current status of the global commons. Regionally in most of southern Africa, livelihood issues are in the forefront of efforts to sustain environmental resources, and minimising proximate causes of global environmental change.     

管理者的威权领导风格对矿工安全行为的影响研究

矿工安全行为是煤矿安全生产的基础保障,而管理者的领导风格对矿工安全行为有重要影响。引入调节焦点理论和认同理论,构建威权领导风格对安全行为影响关系的理论模型。以544份调查问卷的数据对理论模型进行检验,结果发现:威权领导风格是影响矿工安全行为的重要情境因素;威权领导风格会通过矿工对管理者认同而正向影响安全行为,矿工对管理者认同在二者间具有中介作用;管理者-矿工间的调节焦点适配在矿工对管理者认同和安全行为之间有调节效应,而且调节焦点的高适配度会强化矿工对管理者认同的中介效果。研究丰富了领导风格与矿工安全行为的作用机制和边界条件,对煤矿安全管理实践有一定的启示意义。     

Comparative differences in Ontario farmers' environmental attitudes

This paper provides an analysis of a 1991 survey of the views of a stratified random sample of 1,105 Ontario farmers. Factor analysis, Kruskal—Wallis one-way ANOVA, chi-square and correlations were used to identify differences in farmers' attitudes toward rural environmental issues as a function of their demographic and farm characteristics. Younger, well-educated farmers, especially if female, were most concerned about the seriousness of rural environmental degradation. The largest operators expressed the greatest support for the use of agricultural chemicals, were most opposed to government conservation regulations and were least environmentally oriented. Such differences between Australian and Ontario farmers as the former's greater cautiousness about governmental regulation and receptivity to the Green Movement are a function of differing demographic and farm characteristics between Australia and Ontario.     

Governmentality within China's South-North Water Transfer Project: tournaments,markets and water pollution

The control of water pollution in China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) is examined through the lens of promotion tournaments as Chinese governmentality to offer a special perspective on China's hydro-politics and Chinese manners of water pollution control. This paper characterizes the existing form of governmentality in the SNWTP, pointing to its problems and potential resolutions. The promotion tournament is a market system with authoritarian control, designed to reconcile the incentives of local officials and the central managers of the SNWTP. This governmentality embodies characteristics of China's authoritarian water management system: centralized personnel control combined with market-oriented promotion competitions. However, a clear conflict between the requirements of ecological modernization and the use of power in China's water management system leads to distorted behaviors among local officials, an important source of problems in China's water management system. Compared to promotion tournaments, payments for ecosystem services or eco-compensation are applications of neoliberal environmentalism that could overcome the shortcomings of tournaments, and become the most critical governmentality for water pollution control in the SNWTP.     

公众大气能见度认知下的支付意愿及影响因素

为了进一步将公众参与政策纳入到大气环境保护工作中,结合客观试验数据和实际调查问卷统计分析数据,通过向被访者展示2组10张照片(北京,摄于2011年10月),开展公众对大气能见度认知情况的实证研究,并分析生态价值观、环保态度和支付意愿的主要影响因素. 结果表明:在332名被访者中,支付意愿为0~50元/a的占28.9%,>50~100元/a的占17.8%,>100~200元/a的占12.0%,>200~500元/a的占19.0%,>500~1 000元/a的占13.9%,>1 000元/a的仅占8.4%. 公众生态价值观决定其环保态度(β=0.381,P<0.001),进而影响其对能见度改善的支付意愿(β=0.485,P<0.1). 与来自传统媒体和非盈利组织的环保信息相比,来自社交网络的环保信息能更显著地促进公众对大气环境的环保态度(β=0.117,P<0.001).      

安全管理者的威权领导对矿工安全行为的影响研究

探讨威权领导对矿工安全行为的影响关系,以及心理安全感在二者之间的调节作用,对进行矿工安全行为管理有帮助。设计了包含威权领导、安全行为和心理安全感的调查问卷,采用回归分析方法,通过对235名矿工的调查问卷分析,结果显示:威权领导在煤矿企业中普遍存在,并对矿工安全行为有显著影响,其中对安全服从行为有正向影响,对安全参与行为有负向影响;心理安全感在威权领导与安全行为的影响中具有显著调节作用。其中,心理安全感的高低在威权领导对安全服从行为的正向影响中有缓慢提升作用,但在威权领导与安全参与行为的负向影响中有加速降低作用。该结论丰富了矿工安全行为的研究视角,为煤矿企业安全生产管理实践提供参考。     

Changing institutions for environmental policy and politics in New Era China

ABSTRACT

The evolution of Chinese environmental policy and politics can be better understood in the broader context of institutional changes that have taken place since the late 1970s. In this study, an analytical framework was established to analyze how overall institutional changes were reflected in the roles of relationships between governmental and non-governmental actors engaged in environmental governance. Institutional changes were observed at three levels: informal institutions (cultural traditions, and political ideology); formal institutions (the polity, political system, property rights, and judiciary); and governing mechanisms (structures, regulatory approaches, and incentives). This analysis of interactions between institutional changes and the changing environmental process explained not only the drives and constraints behind China’s environmental policy evolution so far but also shed light on future challenges and opportunities.     

Friends of the land and the rise of environmentalism, 1940–1954

The rise of the postwar environmental movement is rooted in the development of ecological consciousness within intellectual circles as well as the general public. Though many commentators cite the 1960s as the focal point of the new environmentalism, the ecological ethic had actually evolved by the 1930s in the writings and speeches of both scientists and public commentators. Agricultural conservationists led the way in broadcasting the message of ecology. Friends of the Land, an agriculturally-oriented conservation organization formed in 1940 and active through the 1950s, is an interesting example of how the agricultural community was an integral component in the rise of environmentalism. While Friends of the Land flourished only for a brief period, its goals and the ideas that the group represented illustrate how the ecological ethic was burgeoning by the early-1950s. Furthermore, the history of Friends of the Land is an important chapter in the ongoing quest for ecological agriculture and societal permanence.