Suchergebnisse

Since 1971, a series of annual Environmental Surveillance … reports have served as the official public record of Los Alamos National Laboratory's (LANL) environmental performance. In northern New Mexico, where past LANL emissions are a public health concern, there is public skepticism over the accuracy of information contained in these reports. To test the hypothesis that LANL Environmental Surveillance … reports systematically understate past emissions, we compared the data on releases in LANL's own internal Occurrence Reports Collection (ORC) to the data reported to the public in the Environmental Surveillance … reports. A data set of 89 environmental occurrences recorded in the ORC in the time period from 1971 through 1980 was assembled. We did not find a systematic pattern of quantitative underreporting of source terms. However, 17 of the 89 (19%) environmental occurrences recorded in the ORC were not reported to the public in the Environmental Surveillance … reports. The observed discrepancies are discussed in terms of their relevance to public health concerns. Methodological caveats dictate restraint in applying these findings beyond the scope of the relative comparison performed here. Possible social origins for the rejected hypothesis are discussed. Areas for further consideration by the Centers for Disease Control's dose reconstruction study of LANL are identified.

"Based on empirical studies of European energy and environmental policies, this book suggests that, in combination, these two policy fields form a consensus in the EU which might also become the basis for a new European ideology, namely European 'sustainabilism'. It asks why an environmental conscience has grown since the late 1960s in the industrialised world and shows that whilst there is undeniable environmental degradation during this time, and that a European environmental conscience has mainly developed through successive steps of European integration in energy policy. In this connection between energy and the environmental we find one driver for European integration and indeed European identity. If sustainabilism should become a European ideology, it will substantially influence the way future Europeans will live. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European Studies, International Relations, Political Science, History, Economics, Sustainability Studies, Environmental and Energy Policies in Europe"--

This book comprehensively reviews, as well as analyzes, various aspects related to the Indian textile and apparel industries. While the focus is on economic and environmental issues, the discussion covers a lot of policy elements. The approach is inter-disciplinary, with concepts drawn from economics, environmental science, history, chemistry, textile technology and quantitative methods/optimization literature. This book will appeal to several stakeholders such as, policy researchers, policy-makers in governmental and international agencies, academicians and students from all the disciplines mentioned above, industrialists, managers and consultants working on Indian textile and apparel sectors. It might also provoke interest among as well as agriculturalists, farm policy analysts and industrialists focusing on other products such as chemicals, plastics, machineries, etc., who are wholly or partly dependent on textile and apparel industry in India.

Voluntary Environmental Programs (VPs) involving industry and regulatory agencies have emerged as the promise of the future in environmental policy circles. Although the number of these agreements is increasing in OECD countries, there are still concerns about their effectiveness; in particular that free-riding behavior may be difficult to avoid within VPs. Free riding occurs when one firm benefits from the actions of another without sharing the costs. Free-riding behavior may undermine the credibility of VPs and therefore their viability. Our paper focuses on understanding the factors that favor or hamper free-riding behavior in VPs. Our analysis is based on the case of the WasteWise program that was established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce municipal solid waste.

In many European countries, there are building stocks in need of extensive renovation. This constitutes an important opportunity to perform energy-saving measures and improve indoor environmental quality aiming at a more sustainable built environment. In this paper, we report results from an interview study with the aim of obtaining an in-depth understanding of renovation processes and how sustainability aspects are handled by various Swedish property owners. Examples of important barriers revealed in the interviews are insufficient inspection of existing buildings, absence of both overarching and detailed sustainability targets and guidelines, and lack of knowledge about sustainability aspects. Based on the interview study, conclusions are drawn for the further development of a process model which aims at systematize integration and effectively address energy, environmental, and indoor environmental quality aspects throughout a renovation process ; we refer to this as sustainable renovation. Some key starting points for the process model are to suggest routines, provide checklists and tools, and offer guidance for formulating sustainability targets. However, the interviews show that in order to reach a more sustainable built environment, there is a need for government subsidies, other incentives or new business models that value environmental aspects higher.

For many years the marble extraction sector of the Greek mining industry has been in conflict with the public, especially in terms of rehabilitation of marble quarry sites. One of the main reasons for that is that the marble extraction sector has been unable to adjust to the existing legislative guidelines for the rehabilitation, such as extensive backfilling and re-vegetation. In the majority of cases these methods fail due to erosion of the backfill soil and adverse climatic conditions. As a result the number of abandoned marble quarry sites is continuously increasing. The present paper suggests a different approach regarding the rehabilitation of marble quarries. More specifically, the paper questions the applicability, the effectiveness, and the social usefulness of the above-mentioned guidelines and suggests the establishment of new land-uses, which are based on an in-depth analysis of the area's special features, by taking full advantage of its potentials. What is more, the rehabilitation scheme proposes that the new land-uses and the quarrying activity may co-exist and operate simultaneously for a long period of time. © Springer-Verlag 2006.

"This book brings together perspectives on resource exploitation to expose the continued environmental and socio-political struggles in post-colonial Africa. The continent is host to a myriad of environmental struggles particularly because it abounds with diverse resources. Resources have historically been subjected to exploitation. Colonial patterns of resource use and capital accumulation continue unabated on the continent, making environmental and related socio-political problems a dominant feature of African economies. The book pursues the manifestation of these problems through four themes: environmental justice, violent capitalocenes, indigenous knowledge, and climate change. The editors locate the book within the broad fields of political ecology and environmental geopolitics to highlight the intricate geographies of resource exploitation across Africa. This volume is unique in its focus on the socio-political and geopolitical dynamics associated with the exploitation of Africa's natural resources and its people. The case studies from different parts of Africa tell a compelling story of resource exploitation, related issues of environmental degradation in a continent most vulnerable to climate change, and the continued plundering of its natural resources. The book will be of great interest to scholars and students from the interdisciplinary fields of the environmental humanities and environmental studies more broadly, as well as those studying political ecology, environmental policy, and natural resources. Scholars in African studies interested in Africa's economies fuelled by resource exploitation may also find this book valuable for their work"--

The originality of this book is to review and characterize the current body of scientific publications that describe the complete causal sequence from reorganization of agricultural production to land use changes (LUC) and the resulting environmental impacts. Concerns have been raised recently about the consequences of LUC linked to the expansion of primary production for bioenergy, notably in terms of the greenhouse gas impacts. Such concerns have prompted a sharp increase in the number of scientific publications on this topic over the past ten years. However, scientific research on LUC tends to be highly segmented between that focused on LUC drivers and the body of work examining LUC impacts. In fact, in order to account for LUC impacts /within /when assessing the environmental footprint of biomass production, we need to be able to link reorganization in biomass production to changes in the use and management of soils, and then determine the impacts of those LUC on the environment. Surprisingly, no systematic literature review encompassing this full causal sequence, "drivers - LUC - environmental impacts" have been carried out so far. The present book chapters examines both the range of territorial reorganizations leading to LUC and the range of associated environmental impacts considered in the literature, including GHG emissions, atmospheric pollution, biodiversity impacts, water resources, and soil quality. The analysis consisted of four principal steps: i) identification of research articles using a bibliographic search process; ii) description of these articles' main characteristics; iii) textual analysis of the articles and identification of thematic sub-groups; iv) closer examination of a subset of the sub-group pertaining to non-food biomass production based on a detailed template and a thorough analysis of the results. This is the first time this set of approaches was combined to assess the environmental impact of LUC, and specifically those related to non-food biomass production

Intro -- Sustainability Metrics and Indicators of Environmental Impact: Industrial and Agricultural Life Cycle Assessment -- Copyright -- Contents -- Authors biographies -- Foreword -- Chapter 1: Sustainability metrics and indicators through the life cycle assessment: A brief history -- References and recommended reading -- Chapter 2: Fundamentals of life cycle assessment: Definitions, terminology, and concepts -- Phases for life cycle assessment -- Objective and scope -- First stage: How to set the goal? -- Second stage: Delimitation of the reference system -- Third stage: Comparability assessment -- Fourth stage: How to quantify the process mapping -- Life cycle inventory -- Preparation for data collection -- Data collection -- Allocation -- Validation of data -- Process-based methods -- Input/output -- Hybrid method -- Upstream truncation -- Downstream truncation -- Lateral truncation -- Life cycle impact assessment -- Interpretation -- Identification of significant issues -- Evaluation -- Outcomes conclusion -- Boundaries for life cycle assessment -- Life cycle assessment from cradle to grave -- Life cycle assessment of cradle to gate (or farm) -- Assessment of cycle from cradle to cradle or production of open mesh -- Life cycle assessment from the gate to the gate -- Life cycle assessment of the wheel well -- References and recommended reading -- Chapter 3: Methods of evaluation of the environmental impact on the life cycle -- Impact categories -- Ozone depletion potential (stratospheric) -- Photochemical ozone creation potential (tropospheric) -- Ecotoxicity -- Acidification potential -- Eutrophication potential -- Energy assessments -- Water footprint -- Land use -- Global warming potential -- Human toxicity potential -- Categories of damage or areas of protection (endpoints) -- References and recommended reading.