Environmental Sustainability

The metaphor of the archipelago, which is the subject matter of this article, has been used in architectural literature as design strategy for shrinking urban environments. Within a contemporary context of increasing coexistence of manmade and natural environments in expanding metropolitan areas, archipelago becomes a pertinent strategy with sustainable potentials. With this article, we aim to introduce possible ways of using this strategy in natural contexts, which are gradually becoming part of expanding urban agglomeration areas. We go on further to talk about an 'archipelago à la carte' where the various users can shape their own archipelagos across natural and artificial environments and yet retain amongst them a common ground. The case study is the proposal for the Liopetri Fishing Harbour and Park in Cyprus, which was submitted by our team, (Ioannou, Papastergiou, Stratis) and was awarded the 3d prize in a two stage architectural competition. The article is part of a research by design process, a post-design reflection. We make explicit ideas about achieving sustainability through the reconnection of "asfound" fragmented territories both natural and artificial by the design of an "archipelago à la carte", yielding to multiple forms of engagement and belonging.

The Niger Delta region of Nigeria has become synonymous with armed banditry and existence of various restive groups clamouring for increased visible participation in the political, social and economic activities of the region. The activities of these criminalised non-state armed groups have scarred the region for more than a decade causing devastation in the major fabric of the society. This paper examines this phenomenon and discovers that, efforts towards disarming these groups have faced serious challenges ranging from the proliferation of arms, lack of an all encompassing social dialogue system, corruption on the side of government official and general underdevelopment of the area. The paper also discovers that, the degree of organised criminality in Nigeria's Delta region is mostly perpetrated by the youth in conspiracy with major political stake holders. This paper therefore recommends that, disarming these criminal gangs/groups must be situated within the human security need of the government fulfilling its social contract with the people through good governance that will guarantee the people's quality of life. This recommendation is based on the fact that Strategising on ways of disarming non-state armed groups without emphasis on human security and employment generation would create room for justification of criminality, inspire proliferation of more groups, and increase security risks in the region.

In recent years, resilience theory has come to occupy the core of our understanding and management of the adaptive capacity of people and places in complex social and environmental systems. Despite this, tourism scholars have been slow to adopt resilience concepts, at a time when the emergence of new frameworks and applications is pressing.

Drawing on original empirical and theoretical insights in resilience thinking, this book explores how tourism communities and economies respond to environmental changes, both fast (natural hazard disasters) and slow (incremental shifts). It explores how tourism places adapt, change, and sometimes transform (or not) in relation to their environmental context, with an awareness of intersection with societal dynamics and links to political, economic and social drivers of change. Contributions draw on empirical research conducted in a range of international settings, including indigenous communities, to explore the complexity and gradations of environmental change encounters and resilience planning responses in a range of tourism contexts.

As the first book to specifically focus on environmental change from a resilience perspective, this timely and original work makes a critical contribution to tourism studies, tourism management and environmental geography, as well as environmental sciences and development studies.

https://www.routledge.com/Tourism-Resilience-and-Adaptation-to-Environmental-Change/Lew-Cheer/p/book/9781138206793

(Please contact the authors if you have any questions).

The opportunities to grow the ‘organic pie’ are substantial for both China and Australia. However the challenges and the opportunities are far from identical, although the goals of growing the production area, increasing the market awareness, fostering consumer confidence in certification and labeling, broadening the product offering and availability, and increasing sales are shared issues. Some of the aspects of organics opportunity and challenge are examined in this book chapter. Comparative statistics between Australia and China are presented in Table 3.1.

Health care is ubiquitous in the lives of industrialized people. Yet, every medical development, technique, and procedure impact the environment. Green Bioethics synthesizes environmental ethics and biomedical ethics, thus creating an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable health care. Notably, Green Bioethics addresses, not the structure of environmental sustainability in health care institutions, but the sustainability of individual health care offerings.

Green Bioethics parallels traditional biomedical ethics by providing four principles for ethical guidance. Through these four principles, Green Bioethics presents a coherent framework for evaluating the sustainability of medical developments, techniques, and procedures. The principles of Green Bioethics are:
- Distributive Justice (Allocate Basic Medical Resources before Special Interest Access)
- Resource Conservation (Provide Health Care Needs before Health Care Wants)
- Simplicity (Reduce Dependence on Medical Interventions)
- Ethical Economics (Humanistic Health Care Instead of Financial Profit)

The future of our world may very well depend on how effectively we halt ecological destruction and conserve our resources. The principles of Green Bioethics, in tandem with the concrete examples given in this book, will support sustainability in health care.

This exploratory paper is a contribution to the discussion of the re-politisation of Participatory Design. After a brief introduction of this Scandinavian design tradition, the Fairphone, a sustainable and fair mobile phone, is introduced as a case to rethink design as politics. Concern for planetary destruction, as a result of climate change, motivates the discussion of Tony Fry's notion of redirective design in the analysis of the Fairphone. Is the Fairphone just 'less bad' or is it paradigmatic example of an alternative technological vision? There are many lessons to be learned from Fairphone, not just by Participatory Design. Most importantly, Fairphone shows the importance of relating the things we help design to futures that become possible or impossible. Participatory Design, with its focus on democratic practices and 'having a say', needs to find ways to bring the voices of future generations into today's design practices.

Das vorliegende Memorandum zeigt ein Zwischenergebnis des GI-Arbeitskreises «Nachhaltige Informationsgesellschaft» (GIANI) und soll zur Diskussion anregen. Entwurf des Titelblatts: Wolf Göhring Graphische Gestaltung/Layout: Therese Bracher Diese und aktualisierte Versionen des Memorandums werden auch unter http://www.giani-memorandum.de veröffentlicht. Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Bibliothek: Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. Druck: Satz-und Druck-Center des Fraunhofer-Informationszentrums Raum und Bau IRB, Stuttgart. Fraunhofer-Informationszentrum Raum und Bau IRB Nobelstraße 12, D-70569 Stuttgart Telefon 07 11 / 970 -25 00 Telefax 07 11 / 970 -25 08 E-Mail irb@irb.fraunhofer.de www.irb.fraunhofer.de ISBN 3-8167-6446-0 Seite 5 Memorandum «Nachhaltige Informationsgesellschaft» Mit diesem Memorandum will der Arbeitskreis «Nachhaltige Informationsgesellschaft» der Gesellschaft für Informatik aufzeigen, welchen Beitrag Informations-und Kommunikationstechnologien (Information and Communication Technologies, ICT) zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung leisten können. Der immer breitere Einsatz von ICT begünstigt nicht automatisch eine nachhaltige, dauerhaft umweltgerechte Entwicklung. Vielmehr ist politischer Gestaltungswille erforderlich, wenn auf dem Weg in eine globale Informationsgesellschaft die Idee der nachhaltigen Entwicklung eine Chance bekommen soll. Damit sind zwei Themen von globaler Bedeutung angesprochen, die heute kontrovers diskutiert werden: • Nachhaltige Entwicklung (sustainable development), eine Leitidee, die mit dem «Brundtland-Report» von 1987 in die Diskussion globaler Umweltund Entwicklungsfragen eingeführt wurde und seit dem UNO-Weltgipfel von 1992 in Rio wachsenden Einfluss auf die politische Willensbildung ausübt. Der UNO-Weltgipfel 2002 in Johannesburg hat neue Meilensteine in dieser Diskussion gesetzt. • Informationsgesellschaft (information society) oder auch Wissensgesellschaft (knowledge society), eine Vision der Veränderungen, die durch den breiten Einsatz der ICT in der Wirtschaft und anderen Bereichen der Gesellschaft ermöglicht oder beschleunigt werden. Der UNO-Weltgipfel zur Informationsgesellschaft (2003 in Genf und 2005 in Tunis) zeigt das wachsende politische Interesse an diesem Thema. Auf dem Weg in eine globale Informationsgesellschaft bieten sich bedeutende, ja vielleicht einzigartige Chancen für eine Kurskorrektur in Richtung Nachhaltigkeit. Zugleich bringt die rasante Weiterentwicklung und Verbreitung von ICT aber auch neuartige Risiken für Natur, Gesellschaft und Individuum mit sich. Erstaunlich ist, dass trotz dieser Zusammenhänge die Themen Nachhaltigkeit und Informationsgesellschaft in Wissenschaft, Politik und Medien noch weitgehend getrennt behandelt werden. Allerdings nimmt die Zahl der Projekte und Publikationen rasch zu, die sich mit der Beziehung zwischen Nachhaltigkeit und Informationsgesellschaft befassen. (Ein Verzeichnis ist im Anhang zu finden.) Mit diesem Memorandum will der Arbeitskreis «Nachhaltige Informationsgesellschaft» der Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI): • die Chancen und Risiken aufzeigen, die sich auf dem Weg in eine globale Informationsgesellschaft für das Ziel einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung ergeben,

This working paper examines the concept of metabolism and its potential as a critical analytical lens to study the contemporary city from a political perspective. The paper illustrates how the metabolism concept has been used historically, both as a metaphor to describe the technological, social, political and economic dimensions of human-environment relations, and as a concrete analytical tool to quantify and better understand how flows of matter and energy shape the territorial and spatial configurations of cityscapes. Drawing on the example of the urban water metabolism of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA), the paper shows how the metabolism concept can be applied to study the politics of water in the city.

In this paper I revisit previous critiques that I have made of much, though by no means all, bioethical discourse. These pertain to faithfulness to dualistic ontology, a taken-for-granted normative anthropocentrism, and the exclusion of a consideration of how political economy shapes the conditions for bioethical discourse (Twine Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 8(3):285-295, 2005; International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 16(3):1-18, 2007, 2010). Part of my argument around bioethical dualist ontology is to critique the assumption of a division between the “medical” (human) and “agricultural” (nonhuman) and to show various ways in which they are interrelated. I deepen this analysis with a focus on transnational pharmaceutical companies, with specific attention to their role in enhancing agricultural production through animal drug administration. I employ the topical case of antibiotics in order to speak to current debates in not only the interdisciplinary field of bioethics but also that of animal studies. More generally, the animal-industrial complex (Twine Journal for Critical Animal Studies 10(1):12-39, 2012) is underlined as a highly relevant bioethical object that deserves more conceptual and empirical attention.

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Rudolf Steiner's Agriculture Course at Koberwitz (now Kobierzyce), in the summer of 1924, was the gateway event that led to the development of biodynamic agriculture and, subsequently, organic agriculture. The present paper identifies for the first time the 111 attendees of that course. The list reveals that 'Koberwitzers', as they called themselves, were a well credentialed and capable group of individuals, some of whom went on to champion and develop Rudolf Steiner's ideas about agriculture and other fields. The present paper revises a prior analysis of the Koberwitzers. For each Koberwitzer, the list reveals, the name, hometown, occupation, and accommodation during the course. Thirty one percent of Koberwitzers were women. Thirty eight percent were associated directly with agriculture (including farmer, estate manager, and estate owner), 6% of attendees were creatives (including writer, author, artist and editor), and a further 6% were priests. These three occupational categories, viz. Agriculture, Creative and Priest, together account for 50% of Koberwitzer occupations (and 72% of the known occupations). There remains for further scholarship to populate gaps in the listing: the gender of one Koberwitzer remains unidentified; one hometown (and country) remains unidentified; 33 occupations remain unidentified; and 51 accommodations remain unidentified. At the time of the Koberwitz course, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was mortally ill. The course was never repeated,. It was up to the Koberwitzers to progress Rudolf Steiner's call for the development of a differentiated natural agriculture without synthetic chemicals. The Koberwitzers met the call. There are now 251,842 certified biodynamic hectares in 55 countries, included in the 71,514,583 certified organic hectares in 186 countries.

Social scientists commonly know that time is a social construct and a tool for governing by those holding power. Yet, how exactly is time used for governing? This article examines how timescape (embodiment of approaches to time) works in practice as a tool of power by considering multiple networks of time that manifest in al-Batuf/Beit Netofa Valley planning policy. This valley's agriculture, mostly owned by Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel, is considered by ecologists and officials a unique traditional agriculture landscape and wetland habitat that has become scarce in Israel due to its development and wetland drainage. Assembling separate modes of anthropological inquiry that attend to time as a technique, I show that knowledge, ethics, and time management are not separate spheres of governance but rather interwoven as one timescape tool of governing. Thus, the case of al-Batuf/Beit Netofa elucidates the ways in which time is used for governing in the context of an agricultural-environmental development policy and plan.

Previous empirical studies confirm that intellectual capital has a significant and substantive impact on performance. The purpose of this research is to examine the inter-relationships and interactions among intellectual capital components and business performance in the Portuguese banking industry. The concept of relational capital was extended to include 'stakeholder orientation' items. Model development and hypothesis testing was conducted using PLS on a sample of 253 respondents from 53 organisations. Results show a confirmation of previous studies as it relates to hypothesis testing but a difference in psychometric item evaluation given the unique geographical and sectoral context. Recommendations are then made for researchers and practitioners.

Several global corporations have been severely criticized by different lobbying groups for the impact of their operations on the natural environment and on the local communities. Because corporate operations cannot be studied in isolation but rather as a part of a large network often referred to as a supply chain, this paper investigates the potential link between supply chain characteristics and sustainable development at the country level. In particular, the linkage between supply chain strength, generally defined as the number and quality of the suppliers and customers in a country, and the three dimensions of sustainable development namely environmental performance, corporate environmental practices, and social sustainability is assessed. Using archival data from The Global Competitiveness Report (2004)(2005) and the 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index, a statistical assessment of the linkage was conducted.

The limits of the planet and of natural  resources  impede  pursuing  the  modern  project  based  on  permanent
growth  and  represent  a  major  challenge  for  humanity.  Drawing on an  agency-centred  approach,  this paper addresses two two  major  questions:
‘Who are the social actors who challenge the normative orientation at the core of modernization and promote alternative values and practices that may contribute to the rise of a global age, or may embody glimpses of a global age society?’ and ‘Can we grasp some dimensions of life and society in the global age  by studying current social movements?  ’

Inspired by the commercial desires of global brands and retailers to access the lucrative green consumer market, carbon is increasingly being counted and made knowable at the mundane sites of everyday production and consumption, from the carbon footprint of a plastic kitchen fork to that of an online bank account. Despite the challenges of counting and making commensurable the global warming impact of a myriad of biophysical and societal activities, this desire to communicate a product or service's carbon footprint has sparked complicated carbon calculative practices and enrolled actors at literally every node of multi-scaled and vastly complex global supply chains. Against this landscape, this paper critically analyses the counting practices that create the 'e' in 'CO2e'. It is shown that, central to these practices are a series of tools, models and databases which, in building upon previous work (Eden 2012; Star and Griesemer 1989) we conceptualize here as 'boundary objects'. By enrolling everyday actors from farmers to consumers, these objects abstract and stabilize greenhouse gas emissions from their messy material and social contexts into units of CO2e which can then be translated along a product's supply chain, thereby establishing a new currency of 'everyday supply chain carbon'. However, in making all greenhouse gas-related practices commensurable in enrolling and stabilizing the transfer of information between multiple actors these objects oversee a process of simplification reliant upon, and subject to, a multiplicity of approximations, assumptions, errors, discrepancies and/or omissions. Further the outcomes of these tools are subject to the politicized and commercial agendas of the worlds they attempt to link, with each boundary actor inscribing different meanings to a product’s carbon footprint in accordance with their specific subjectivities, commercial desires and epistemic framings. It is therefore shown that how a boundary object transforms greenhouse gas emissions into units of CO2e, the outcome is of distinct ideologies regarding ‘what’ a product's carbon footprint is and how it should be made legible. These politicized decisions, in turn inform specific reduction activities and ultimately advance distinct, specific and increasingly durable transition pathways to a low carbon society.

This research examines the farming landscape of the island of Tinos. Since the 14th century, travellers have often referred to it as the best cultivated of Cycladic islands, rich in silk-production and the making of silk stockings which once employed mainly women and became a major exportable product of the island.'' The crops are probably more cultivated here rather than in the rest of the island. While the ground is rocky, crops are almost everywhere in the area. Nevertheless, it has the advantage of a significant amount of freshwater that is irrigated from everywhere and contributes to the fertility of barley and other grains; legumes are collected in great abundance.''  Today the Tinos’ landscape is a composition of blurred boundaries among natural and man-made features. In order to allow the steep and dry land to be cultivated the hills and mountain areas were covered with terraces. Some of these are ancient, but most were created under Venetian rule, and extended from the 18th century when it fell under Ottoman occupation. Heavily populated during these later years the island needed to be intensely cultivated in order to cover the daily needs for food, something that forced the further extension of the terraces network. Of equal importance on TInos is its strong connection with religion since antiquity.  Over the centuries the interweaving of religion with the land’s cultivation became the key elements of daily life around which communal identity was, and remains constituted.

This paper focuses on the farming landscape of the village of Kampos today, at a time when farming no longer holds the same key role in the island’s commercial and cultural life as in the past. As one of the oldest villages of the island it belongs to the region of the Middle Lands, which  consists of villages with rural economies and mostly catholic religion. In the village there is no focal public space, such as a central square. Other communal places, such as the village wash rooms (laundries) and the old stone ovens were used by the villagers through their everyday life. Other vital public spaces are formed by the streets of the village. Of particular note is one street whose turn is gradually widened to create an open space called ''choreftra''. Here is where dances were organised on special festive occasions and where people still pause at the local cafe.

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 In a landscape that appears as semi-artificial, the boundaries on land and on water use became an essential element for the villagers. This research explores the presence and the negotiation of these boundaries as they lead to the understanding of ownership and bonding within the village culture. This is explored thought using nine different narratives that are based on archival work and field research. The fluidity of most of 
these spatial boundaries reveals the existence of ethical and emotional boundaries. This study of boundaries that define ownership in daily practice leads, through formal and informal narratives, to seeing boundaries that create contact zones and ethical spaces.

Not-guilty verdicts, mistrials, and impunity for the Bundy family and many of their supporters in the armed confrontations over public land use in Nevada and Oregon. Expanded access for private oil, gas, mining, and logging industries and the downsizing of national monuments such as Bears Ears lead by Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. A number of highly contentious debates and sensationalized events have again focused attention on land held in the public domain by the United States. This essay argues that federal land policy as a form of colonial administration has been constitutive for the logic of expectation as property in what is now the United States. From the state land cessions negotiated on behalf of the Articles of Confederation to the preemption acts (1830–1841) to the homestead acts (1862–1916) to present-day demands for land transfer, the acquisition and disposal of the so-called public domain have been central to westward colonization, the consolidation of the nation-state, and the promise of land ownership as the ostensible foundation of individual liberty. These dynamics are evident in contemporary conflicts over public lands and arguments for the transfer of public lands to either state or private ownership. Approaching the Bundy occupations as flashpoints that illuminate competing interpretations and claims to land within the history of westward colonization, this essay seeks to demonstrate the ways in which expectation emerges from particular economies of dispossession of indigenous peoples that have historically worked through and across the division of public and private property.

To consider small islands as places for sustainable tourism or sustainable anything, for that matter, must surely be cause for critical deliberation. Small islands as sanctuaries, or rare citadels for ecological safekeeping and tight-knit communities, runs counter to islands as sites for extraction and development, yet increasingly the latter prevails. However, the former are the precise reasons that small islands are aligned with the global travel supply chain. Consuming small islands abides with the tropical idyll narrative and, within such invocations, the exposure of small islands to externalities renders its utility to purposes that run counter to benign and constructive outcomes. Herein is the dilemma for small islands and their entanglements with tourism expansion.
See full report here: http://projects.upei.ca/unescochair/files/2020/07/Annual-Report-on-Global-Islands-2019.pdf

Information and Communication Technologies are usually presented as neutral in environmental terms, highlighting their benefits in comparison with other energy sources very frequently. However, its material impact increases due to the exponential growth observed both in the populations incorporated to its daily consumption and in the intensity with which they are used. This article departs from this fact aiming to identify and analyze various experiences that, from the fields of Education and Communication, try to counteract the negative and invisible effects of its wide generalization. To achieve this, more than twenty projects, with different depth and territorial scope, were identified to present good practices and solutions to face our current crossroads. With this purpose, a case study focused on the GreenTIC project is also completed. Findings show the excessive dispersion and the scarce coordination between initiatives that are developed autonomously to deal with a common problem. // Las Tecnologías de la Información y de la Comunicación se presentan habitualmente como neutras en términos medioambientales, resaltándose con frecuencia su ganancia en comparación con otras fuentes de energía. Sin embargo, su impacto material aumenta debido al crecimiento exponencial que se observa tanto en las poblaciones que se incorporan a su consumo como en la intensidad con las que se emplean. Este artículo parte de esta constatación para, a continuación, identificar y analizar diversas experiencias que, desde los campos de la Educación y de la Comunicación, intentan contrarrestar los efectos negativos e invisibilizados de su generalización. Para ello, se han localizado una veintena de proyectos, de diferente calado y alcance territorial, para exponer buenas prácticas y soluciones a la encrucijada que enfrentamos como sociedad. Con este propósito, se ofrece adicionalmente un estudio de caso centrado en el proyecto GreenTIC. Los resultados evidencian la excesiva dispersión y la escasa coordinación existente entre iniciativas que se desarrollan de forma autónoma para afrontar un problema común. Palabras clave

The disadvantages of over-reliance on the private car become more apparent as congestion increases and transportation emissions rise. The literature suggests that cycling may support the development of sustainable cities, and needs to be more vigorously promoted as a widespread form of contemporary urban transport than currently evident. This research project will interrogate cycling policy and its practice in Western Australia. The original empirical contribution will utilise a primarily qualitative approach. The proposed methodology for this study consists of; 1) content analysis of key cycling policy documents; 2) case studies of local cycling implementation, and 3) focus groups with participants from a variety of transport mode preferences. The research will develop a broad theoretical framework informed by critical political economy and the cycling-related mobility, anthropology, public health, planning, and transportation literature. I review the regime of automobility (the private car and the infrastructure that supports it). Thirdly, I discuss aspects of cycling, and the politicisation of transportation choice. Overall, the proposed research will investigate variations in, and understandings of cycling culture, with a specific focus on the barriers to, and opportunities for increased cycling in Perth.

Abundant and economical energy is the life blood of modern civilization. Energy poverty continues to be a major constraint to the developmental and economic of Nigeria and the crucial challenge of the energy sector in the country includes the issues of inadequate energy supply, energy security and sustainability. This study appraises critically the current energy scenario in Nigeria and examines the roles of all the primary energy forms in the country as well as alternative energy forms in the provision of adequate energy supply and energy security for the future, particularly as it pertains to the attainment of the country's goals for boosting energy supply as articulated in all its policy and developmental documents. The study identified poor energy mix, slow implementation of policy and inadequate private sector participation as major constraints and challenges of the energy sector and recommends appropriate strategies to improve the energy scenario in the country.

Il problema dell’invasività e dei rischi dei campi elettromagnetici ad alta frequenza è già stato trattato dalle nostre Associazioni. Nel corso degli anni si sono accumulate numerose evidenze sull’effetto nefasto di questa forma di inquinamento sulla salute umana e sull’ambiente.
Nell’ultimo decennio sono state diffuse risoluzioni scientifiche e governative, consensi scientifici e documenti di posizione, rapporti di gruppi di scienziati indipendenti e appelli ai governi per invitare a limitare la diffusione dell’uso di tecnologie di comunicazione promuovendo standard di sicurezza per i campi elettromagnetici basati su evidenze biologiche.
Alle raccomandazioni provenienti dal mondo scientifico, purtroppo, come nel caso dei pesticidi, delle emissioni in atmosfera e degli inquinanti organici persistenti (POP), è generalmente seguita una notevole inerzia normativa sia a livello europeo che nazionale. Ancora di più è trascurato, a livello politico e amministrativo, l’effetto sinergico di queste fonti di inquinamento, così come il Principio di Precauzione che dovrebbe guidare qualsiasi scelta in ambito gestionale.
Nel frattempo i campi elettromagnetici artificiali e l’inquinamento diffuso hanno continuato ad aumentare significativamente per motivazioni più legate a interessi economici privati che a effettive necessità o al concreto interesse per la salute pubblica e la tutela ambientale.
Negli ultimi tempi una notevole inquietudine si è diffusa anche presso i non addetti ai lavori per la nuova tecnologia 5G che minaccia, in un quadro già pericoloso almeno a livello locale, un ulteriore incremento dei campi elettromagnetici artificiali e l’utilizzo di frequenze mai utilizzate su così ampia scala in assenza di regole adeguate e di efficaci sistemi di monitoraggio dell’esposizione pubblica.
Per questi motivi e per porre, ancora una volta, all’attenzione pubblica e ai mass media i rischi correlati a queste tecnologie abbiamo trattato in maniera per quanto possibile sintetica le informazioni provenienti dalla ricerca scientifica, offrendo al lettore una notevole bibliografia con la quale aumentare la propria conoscenza e farsi una propria idea della situazione presente, a nostro parere già inquietante.
Le conclusioni a cui siamo giunti è che, se è vero che non si possono bloccare le innovazioni tecnologiche, esse devono essere tuttavia impiegate su larga scala solo dopo averne compiutamente considerato i possibili impatti ambientali e sanitari e solo dopo un efficace adeguamento delle normative in relazione alle conoscenze scientifiche, privilegiando la salute e l’ambiente prima di qualsiasi interesse economico.
Per tutelare la salute pubblica si rende indispensabile recepire gli studi scientifici più recenti ed attuare quanto indicato dalla Raccomandazione 1815 dell’Assemblea Plenaria del Consiglio d’Europa del 2011, volta ad abbassare i limiti di esposizione alle radiofrequenza in relazione all’uso privato di telefoni mobili, telefoni DECT (cordless), WiFi, WLAN e WIMAX per computer, Baby Phones a 0,2 V/m sul “lungo termine”, mentre secondo il rapporto Bionitiative 2012 sulla base delle evidenze sperimentali e del principio di precauzione deve essere portato a 0,6 V/m nell’immediato.
In relazione al 5G, fermi restando i presupposti di cui sopra, è necessaria una moratoria per valutare adeguatamente gli effetti sulla salute e sull’ambiente delle frequenze utilizzate, anche in relazione alla loro prevista onni-pervadenza. Vanno inoltre valutati i possibili effetti sulla sempre più folta comunità degli Elettrosensibili e sui soggetti potenzialmente più vulnerabili, come i bambini.
Riteniamo inoltre doveroso, sulla base delle evidenze disponibili, il divieto di installazione di reti Wi-Fi negli asili e nelle scuole frequentate da bambini e ragazzi al di sotto dei 16 anni e il divieto di posizionamento di ripetitori di radiotelefonia in prossimità degli stessi luoghi..
Vi deve essere obbligo, per le Agenzie di Salute Pubblica, di valutare i rischi per la salute connessi alle radiofrequenze, selezionando studi scientifici indipendenti ed escludendo quelli finanziati dall’industria delle telecomunicazioni o da fondazioni ed enti finanziati dalla stessa.
Riteniamo che debba essere sottoposto a Valutazione Ambientale Strategica l’intera Strategia per le Telecomunicazioni. Ricordiamo che il processo di VAS impone criteri ampi di partecipazione, tutela degli interessi legittimi e trasparenza del processo decisionale, attraverso il coinvolgimento e la consultazione dei soggetti competenti in materia ambientale e del pubblico che in interessato dall’iter decisionale.
Auspichiamo la promozione di investimenti pubblici e detassazione per la connettività in fibra ottica e via cavo, che è la tecnologia più efficiente e sicura per la salute e per l’ambiente.
Su questi presupposti siamo lieti di offrire al pubblico il nostro rapporto, svolto in modo del tutto indipendente.
Gradiamo costruttivi feedback per migliorare ulteriormente la conoscenza di base e la divulgazione delle problematiche correlate all’incremento dei campi elettromagnetici artificiali e alla necessità di un adeguata normativa e di processi per quanto possibile trasparenti e partecipati di valutazione degli impatti delle nuove tecnologie.

Our current environmental situation requires serious attention. We can see the problems that our environment is facing everywhere, including air pollution, ozone depletion, global warming, hazardous waste disposal and water pollution. Today, consumers are aware that their individual consumption behaviour affects the environment and these consumers are more conscious of the seriousness of environmental degradation. Thus, consumers are increasingly engaging in environmentally friendly behaviour and are interested in supporting businesses that are engaging in green strategies. Green purchasing behaviour can help achieve a sustainable environment. Four factors that may influence green purchasing behaviour were examined in this study: perceived seriousness of environmental problems, perceived environmental responsibility, perceived effectiveness of environmental behaviour and concern for self-image in environmental protection. Data were collected from Lebanon, and three factors were found to have positive effects on green purchasing behaviour. The results also indicated that the perceived seriousness of environmental problems was the main contributor to green purchasing behaviour.

From Henry David Thoreau to Bill McKibben, critics and philosophers have long sought to demonstrate how a sufficient life—one without constant, environmentally damaging growth—might still be rich and satisfying. Yet one crucial episode in the history of sufficiency has been largely forgotten. Green Victorians tells the story of a circle of men and women in the English Lake District who attempted to create a new kind of economy, turning their backs on Victorian consumer society in order to live a life dependent not on material abundance and social prestige but on artful simplicity and the bonds of community.
         
At the center of their social experiment was the charismatic art critic and political economist John Ruskin. Albritton and Albritton Jonsson show how Ruskin’s followers turned his theory into practice in a series of ambitious local projects ranging from hand spinning and woodworking to gardening, archaeology, and pedagogy. This is a lively yet unsettling story, for there was a dark side to Ruskin’s community as well—racist thinking, paternalism, and technophobia. Richly illustrated, Green Victorians breaks new ground, connecting the ideas and practices of Ruskin’s utopian community with the problems of ethical consumption then and now.

Christopher Otter, Ohio State University
"This highly original, absorbing, and beautifully written work rethinks Ruskin by anchoring his thought, and that of his friends and associates, in their daily routines, showing how a style of thought we might call “ecological” emerged through prosaic practices. But it also shows the difficulties inherent in creating such a style of thought, and the complexities and compromises that emerged alongside ecological thinking. The issues raised in this book, vital today, will become only more significant in the future."

Mark Frost, University of Portsmouth
"Green Victorians provides a welcome exploration of an important but overlooked aspect of British environmental history. A valuable addition to the recent upsurge of interest in Ruskin's sociocultural work and legacies, it also brilliantly revises the history of environmentalism, making a powerful case for tracing the roots of modern ideas on sustainability, low growth, and artisanship to John Ruskin and his lakeland disciples. This is a Victorian book for the Anthropocene."

Julia Adeney Thomas, University of Notre Dame
"Green Victorians traces the critique of consumer society and the fossil fuel economy to John Ruskin’s circle in England’s Lake District.  There among the hills, the erratic, brilliant art historian and an idiosyncratic band of visionaries including London barrister Albert Fleming, the charismatic Coniston gardener Susanna Beever, and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley tried to revive handicraft production and simpler modes of life divorced from consumerism.  This bracing story, eloquently told, traces the allure of the ‘culture of sufficiency’ and its downfall.  A joy to read as well as an edgy political challenge, Green Victorians looks at the past with an eye to our future."

Mark Fiege, Colorado State University
“Here is a remarkable and prescient recovery of a forgotten moment when a group of people tried to reenvision what it means to be modern. Their struggles to achieve what the authors call a ‘culture of sufficiency’ remind us of the enduring need for all people to live fulfilling lives without laying waste to the planet. Thoughtful, beautifully written, and profoundly unsettling, this is a model history suited to the new epoch in which we find ourselves.”

In this paper a critical analysis of how to passively cool residential buildings in Northern Nigeria was made.in particular passive design and some passive cooling strategies were analyzed. The physical properties permitting to achieve these benefits is presented as well as ways by which they can be applied. Energy in Nigeria has been a major challenging issue as the government has been struggling to increase the national grid. This paper identifies passive design strategies that can be adopted in this climatic region to minimize the use of energy for cooling, greatly boost thermal comfort and embroider passive architecture. It is most important to achieve thermal comfort through natural means or energy efficient means. The paper discusses methods by which the cooling load of buildings can be reduced tremendously and to maximize the use of natural ways to achieve thermal comfort in buildings, it also shows the ways these passive design and cooling strategies can be adopted. The paper concludes that the application of these techniques will reduce energy demand and provide a more comfortable living environment and low carbon emitting buildings that are environmentally conscious and energy efficient.

Economic mineral resources lying in the earth are necessary ingredients of all our modern conveniences. Its mining yields huge profits for the companies that own them, a source of revenue for the government, and provides employment to a large number of people. Nevertheless, getting at them comes at a price on the environment with externalities such as pollution, erosion, destruction of natural ecosystem etc. Mining affects all the components of environment and the impacts are permanent/temporary, beneficial/harmful, repairable/irreparable, but irreversible.

ʻAuwai are the irrigation ditches Kānaka Maoli developed to allow for sustainable, prolific wetland taro cultivation. This article traces the decline of ‘auwai and lo‘i kalo alongside the loss of Kanaka Maoli control of our national school system, both driven by a shift in the dominant economic system and sealed by the shock of US occupation. Drawing on oral history interviews with teachers and drawing on Corntassel’s notion of ‘sustainable self-determination’ (2008), I tell the story of current efforts of to rebuild ʻauwai and loʻi through a partnership between a Hawaiian culture-based public charter school and the nearby state university. This work provides a metaphor for educators’ efforts to restore pathways of cultural knowledge transmission against continued imperialism. I argue for simultaneous, overlapping efforts to reform education and to rehabilitate the economic and ecological systems that will again allow us to feed ourselves and our ʻāina. Indigenous education must engage in transformation of the larger political economic structures that organise our relations with the natural resources.

Indigenous ethics and feminist care ethics offer a range of related ideas and tools for environmental ethics. These ethics delve into deep connections and moral commitments between nonhumans and humans to guide ethical forms of environmental decision making and environmental science. Indigenous and feminist movements such as the Mother Earth Water Walk and the Green Belt Movement are ongoing examples of the effectiveness of on-the-ground environmental care ethics. Indigenous ethics highlight attentive caring for the intertwined needs of humans and nonhumans within interdependent communities. Feminist environmental care ethics emphasize the importance of empowering communities to care for themselves and the social and ecological communities in which their lives and interests are interwoven. The gendered, feminist, historical, and anticolonial dimensions of care ethics, indigenous ethics, and other related approaches provide rich ground for rethinking and reclaiming the nature and depth of diverse relationships as the fabric of social and ecological being.

Asia has experienced spectacular economic growth over the past two decades. However, this economic progress has come at a high cost. It has led to unprecedented environmental consequences. So this region needs to shift the conventional pattern of ''develop first and then treat the pollution'' to a trajectory of sustainable development. To that end, this paper examines a variety of policy responses, at national, regional and international levels, to deal with growing concerns about the environmental challenges in Asia. In the context of national responses, special attention is paid to the following issues: coordination between the central and local governments, market-based environmental instruments and industrial policies, tougher emissions standards for mobile and stationary sources and fuel quality, policies to promote energy efficiency and the use of clean energy and biofuels, the integration of environmental policies with economic and sectoral policies, and engagement of the private sector through e.g., ecolabelling, green government procurement, corporate ratings and disclosure programs, and drawing the support of financial institutions to promote improved corporate environmental performance. The paper concludes that having the right policy mix, coupled with strengthened cooperation at national, local and regional levels, will ensure continuing economic growth in the region without compromising its limited ecological-carrying capacity and environmental quality.

The focus of this thesis is on whether or not it is possible to decouple economic growth from the physical growth of the economy and its associated negative environmental pressures and pollution. The thesis demonstrates that it is possible to achieve significant levels of decoupling of economic growth from a range of environmental pressures such as greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss and natural resource degradation, freshwater extraction, air pollution, waste and hazardous waste.

By clearly differentiating between economic and physical growth and focusing on how to achieve significant decoupling this thesis advances the traditional debates and discourses about “growth”. This thesis shows that in theory and practice it is possible to achieve significant levels of decoupling, and thus environmental sustainability, whilst maintaining economic growth.

This thesis examines the relative costs of inaction versus action on decoupling, concluding that the costs of inaction significantly outweigh the costs of action. It also examines whether a transition to environmental sustainabilty will lead to net job losses or gains, showing that, with effective policy, it can result in net employment gains. As such, this thesis provides a new integration to show that it is possible to reconcile the need to simultaneously achieve environmental sustainability, economic growth and job creation. This result has important implications for other important sustainability debates such as the climate change debates. These are explored in detail in this thesis.

This thesis also demonstrates that many social sustainability goals – reducing poverty, inequality and corruption whilst improving access to education and health –correlate strongly with improved economic growth. Thus this thesis demonstrates that it is possible to create a new form of economic growth that is also environmentally and socially sustainable as called for in the seminal text on sustainable development "Our Common Future" in 1987.

Finally, this thesis is a formal defense of and contribution to the academic field of ecological modernization which has hypothesized that it is possible to simultaneously pursue environmental sustainability, social justice and economic growth in ways that mutually re-enforce each other. This thesis provides significant evidence to support this central tenet of ecological modernisation. The research of this thesis has helped inform and contribute to several international book publications all of which show nations how to achieve significant decoupling of economic growth from environmental pressures such as Cents and Sustainability:Securing Our Common Future by Decoupling Economic Growth from Environmental Pressures (Earthscan, 2010). Note: This thesis was submitted in May 2008 and was awarded in 2009.  You can download all the chapters individually from the ANU digital thesis library here https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/49387

A B S T R A C T The burgeoning energy justice scholarship highlights the importance of justice and equity concerns in the context of global decarbonization and the transition to a green economy. This paper seeks to extend current conceptualizations of energy justice across entire energy lifecycles, from extraction to final use, to offer an analytically richer and more accurate picture of the (in)justice impacts of energy policy decisions. We identify two key areas that require greater attention and scrutiny in order to enact energy justice within a more democratized energy system. First, we call for greater recognition of the politics, power dynamics and political economy of socio-technical energy transitions. We use the example of the fossil fuel divestment movement as a way to shift energy justice policy attention upstream to focus on the under-researched injustices relating to supply-side climate policy analysis and decisions. Second, the idea of a " just transition " and the distributional impacts on " and the role of " labor in low-carbon transitions must be addressed more systematically. This focus produces a more directly political and politicizing framing of energy (in)justice and a just energy transition.

This article examines the productivity of agriculture at the Postclassic polity of Xaltocan, Mexico. Employing multiple lines of data (remote sensing, artifactual, ecofactual, chronological, demographic, historic, ethnographic, and environmental), it reconstructs the potential productivity of an integrated raised field, chinampa system that surrounded the polity. This exercise reveals that the system was capable of producing a sizeable caloric surplus above the needs of the kingdom's estimated total population and the number of laborers necessary to maintain full production. To situate the processes related to agricultural production, the paper considers how farmers' strategies were articulated with multiple institutions. Increased integration between political, social, and household institutions possibly fostered residents' incorporation into the body politic and provided mechanisms to finance the political economy. Such integration and dependency fractured, however, when Xaltocan was conquered.

The world is experiencing unprecedented demographic transformation. In the second half of the 20th century human populations expanded more rapidly than at any time in our history – from approximately 2.6 billion people in 1950 to 6.1 billion by 2000. Current estimates project that by the close of the 21st century there may be around 11 billion people alive on Earth (UNPD, 2017). Nevertheless, there is another story taking place behind this extraordinary growth. In 2018 nearly half of the world’s countries show lower than replacement human fertility, and 33 countries are experiencing decreasing populations (GBD 2017 Collaborators, 2018). This turnaround is mainly associated with a combination of higher levels of development and increasing urbanisation. In Asia, Japan is in the vanguard. Its Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has remained below population replacement since 1974 (MIC, 2019). Demographers knew then that, if conditions persisted and without replacement migration, Japan would experience ageing and, eventually, population decrease. Conditions have persisted and, sure enough, in 2008 Japan’s population began to decrease. Currently Japan is the only shrinking country in Asia, but others are following, including China and South Korea. Beyond Asia, much of Eastern Europe is shrinking, and the European Union is ageing and, cumulatively, anticipated to start shrinking before mid-century. Even immigration friendly countries such as New Zealand and Canada are experiencing sub-national processes of ageing and shrinkage (Jackson & Cameron, 2018; Sims & Ward, 2017) and some Latin American countries – Costa Rica, Chile and Cuba – now report below replacement fertility (UNPD, 2017).

This paper identifies some of the key intersections between trade policy and water management, in areas such as agriculture, hydropower generation, water services and wastewater management.
From a trade policy perspective, the main immediate concern is to ensure that international trade rules and disciplines do not unduly affect countries’ ability to manage their water resources sustainably and according to their respective social preferences. While the local nature of water systems and the diversity of water management objectives is not conducive to the application of trade instruments to enforce a prescriptive, one-size-fits-all approach to water management, there
is also a range of areas in which trade policy could support the sustainable management of water
and related SDG objectives.

Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share in Education: The Children in Permaculture Manual is a ground-breaking book, which shines a permaculture lens to inspire child-friendly, sustainable education.

Full of innovative information, a new curriculum, hundreds of inspirations for activities, session plans, holistic pedagogy and reflection questions, this book will inspire educators to get outdoors and learn from nature.

It is for primary, nursery and kindergarten teachers, policy makers, permaculture designers, Forest School leaders, Scout leaders, parents, carers, grandparents, aunts, uncles and anyone else who is interested in holistic education for sustainability and resilience.

The book may be bought from here: https://www.permaculture.org.uk/books/children-in-permaculture-manual

Alors que le gaspillage alimentaire est estimé à plus de 20 Kg par habitant et par an en France, de plus en plus d'individus adoptent des pratiques « zéro gaspillage » ou « zéro déchet ». En 2016, l'Agence de l'environnement et de la maîtrise de l'énergie a mené l'enquête « Bien vivre en zéro déchet » pour montrer qu'une consommation sans gaspillage est compatible avec un haut niveau de bien-être et de bonheur exprimés. À partir des observations et des entretiens menés auprès d'une sélection de foyers pour cette enquête, nous faisons apparaître comment les pratiques de réduction des déchets alimentaires et d'emballages-des achats en vrac à la fabrication de ses propres yaourts-s'inscrivent dans une recherche de bien-manger et de bien-vivre. Que les foyers entrent dans la démarche pour faire des économies, protéger leur santé ou l'environnement, ils y rencontrent souvent de la satisfaction liée à la nature des produits ou au fait de cuisiner soi-même ou en famille. Surtout, ils trouvent du sens dans leur engagement qu'ils associent à une forme de simplicité volontaire. Ces résultats interrogent le rôle de l'action publique dans la promotion de la sobriété dans l'alimentation.