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"Environment and sustainable development"
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China's environmental challenges
China's huge environmental challenges affect not only the health and well-being of China but the very future of the planet. In this fully revised and updated third edition of her acclaimed book, noted scholar of Chinese environmentalism Judith Shapiro explores China's struggle to achieve the 'ecological civilization' championed by Xi Jinping since 2017. Drawing on six core analytical concepts - globalization, governance, national identity, civil society, environmental justice, and extractivism - Shapiro ably demonstrates the multifaceted and complex nature of this struggle.
BOOK
Causal inference in coupled human and natural systems
Coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) are complex, dynamic, interconnected systems with feedback across social and environmental dimensions. This feedback leads to formidable challenges for causal inference. Two significant challenges involve assumptions about excludability and the absence of interference. These two assumptions have been largely unexplored in the CHANS literature, but when either is violated, causal inferences from observable data are difficult to interpret. To explore their plausibility, structural knowledge of the system is requisite, as is an explicit recognition that most causal variables in CHANS affect a coupled pairing of environmental and human elements. In a large CHANS literature that evaluates marine protected areas, nearly 200 studies attempt to make causal claims, but few address the excludability assumption. To examine the relevance of interference in CHANS, we develop a stylized simulation of a marine CHANS with shocks that can represent policy interventions, ecological disturbances, and technological disasters. Human and capital mobility in CHANS is both a cause of interference, which biases inferences about causal effects, and a moderator of the causal effects themselves. No perfect solutions exist for satisfying excludability and interference assumptions in CHANS. To elucidate causal relationships in CHANS, multiple approaches will be needed for a given causal question, with the aim of identifying sources of bias in each approach and then triangulating on credible inferences. Within CHANS research, and sustainability science more generally, the path to accumulating an evidence base on causal relationships requires skills and knowledge from many disciplines and effective academic-practitioner collaborations.
Journal Article
Greening citizenship : sustainable development, the state and ideology
The greening of citizenship, the state and ideology creates both opportunities and bottlenecks for progressive political movements seeking justice in sustainable development. Normative theories overlook the partial assimilation of hitherto critical ideological values to the post-industrial eco-modernizing state. Achieving ideals such as dissolving the nature/culture dualism, unifying the private and public spheres, fostering non-contractualism, non-territorialism and ethico-moral awareness of finite ecospace has not necessarily fostered justice. Indeed, the state implements these ideals by supporting corporate, social and environmental responsibility, dismantling the welfare state, embracing market-globalization, green consumerism and 'livability'. Rather, as Scerri argues, the greening of citizenship evokes a new grammar of justice that centers on a 'test of wellness'.
Book
Biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions from global livestock systems
We present a unique, biologically consistent, spatially disaggregated global livestock dataset containing information on biomass use, production, feed efficiency, excretion, and greenhouse gas emissions for 28 regions, 8 livestock production systems, 4 animal species (cattle, small ruminants, pigs, and poultry), and 3 livestock products (milk, meat, and eggs). The dataset contains over 50 new global maps containing high-resolution information for understanding the multiple roles (biophysical, economic, social) that livestock can play in different parts of the world. The dataset highlights: (i) feed efficiency as a key driver of productivity, resource use, and greenhouse gas emission intensities, with vast differences between production systems and animal products; (ii) the importance of grasslands as a global resource, supplying almost 50% of biomass for animals while continuing to be at the epicentre of land conversion processes; and (iii) the importance of mixed crop–livestock systems, producing the greater part of animal production (over 60%) in both the developed and the developing world. These data provide critical information for developing targeted, sustainable solutions for the livestock sector and its widely ranging contribution to the global food system.
Journal Article
The role of coastal plant communities for climate change mitigation and adaptation
Marine vegetated habitats occupy a small fraction of the ocean surface, but contribute about 50% of the carbon that is buried in marine sediments. In this Review the potential benefits of conservation, restoration and use of these habitats for coastal protection and climate change mitigation are assessed.
Marine vegetated habitats (seagrasses, salt-marshes, macroalgae and mangroves) occupy 0.2% of the ocean surface, but contribute 50% of carbon burial in marine sediments. Their canopies dissipate wave energy and high burial rates raise the seafloor, buffering the impacts of rising sea level and wave action that are associated with climate change. The loss of a third of the global cover of these ecosystems involves a loss of CO
2
sinks and the emission of 1 Pg CO
2
annually. The conservation, restoration and use of vegetated coastal habitats in eco-engineering solutions for coastal protection provide a promising strategy, delivering significant capacity for climate change mitigation and adaption.
Journal Article
Testing for crowd out in social nudges
This study considers the response of household electricity consumption to social nudges during peak load events. Our investigation considers two social nudges. The first targets conservation during peak load events, while the second promotes aggregate conservation. Using data from a natural field experiment with 42,100 households, we find that both social nudges reduce peak load electricity consumption by 2 to 4% when implemented in isolation and by nearly 7% when implemented in combination. These findings suggest an important role for social nudges in the regulation of electricity markets and a limited role for crowd out effects.
Journal Article
Rebuilding Global Fisheries
After a long history of overexploitation, increasing efforts to restore marine ecosystems and rebuild fisheries are under way. Here, we analyze current trends from a fisheries and conservation perspective. In 5 of 10 well-studied ecosystems, the average exploitation rate has recently declined and is now at or below the rate predicted to achieve maximum sustainable yield for seven systems. Yet 63% of assessed fish stocks worldwide still require rebuilding, and even lower exploitation rates are needed to reverse the collapse of vulnerable species. Combined fisheries and conservation objectives can be achieved by merging diverse management actions, including catch restrictions, gear modification, and closed areas, depending on local context. Impacts of international fleets and the lack of alternatives to fishing complicate prospects for rebuilding fisheries in many poorer regions, highlighting the need for a global perspective on rebuilding marine resources.
Journal Article
Spatial interactions among ecosystem services in an urbanizing agricultural watershed
Understanding spatial distributions, synergies, and tradeoffs of multiple ecosystem services (benefits people derive from ecosystems) remains challenging. We analyzed the supply of 10 ecosystem services for 2006 across a large urbanizing agricultural watershed in the Upper Midwest of the United States, and asked the following: (i) Where are areas of high and low supply of individual ecosystem services, and are these areas spatially concordant across services? (ii) Where on the landscape are the strongest tradeoffs and synergies among ecosystem services located? (iii) For ecosystem service pairs that experience tradeoffs, what distinguishes locations that are “win–win” exceptions from other locations? Spatial patterns of high supply for multiple ecosystem services often were not coincident; locations where six or more services were produced at high levels (upper 20th percentile) occupied only 3.3% of the landscape. Most relationships among ecosystem services were synergies, but tradeoffs occurred between crop production and water quality. Ecosystem services related to water quality and quantity separated into three different groups, indicating that management to sustain freshwater services along with other ecosystem services will not be simple. Despite overall tradeoffs between crop production and water quality, some locations were positive for both, suggesting that tradeoffs are not inevitable everywhere and might be ameliorated in some locations. Overall, we found that different areas of the landscape supplied different suites of ecosystem services, and their lack of spatial concordance suggests the importance of managing over large areas to sustain multiple ecosystem services.
Journal Article