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Global Environmental Issues (global + environmental_issues)
Selected AbstractsAdvancing a Political Ecology of Global Environmental DiscoursesDEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 4 2001W. Neil Adger In the past decade international and national environmental policy and action have been dominated by issues generally defined as global environmental problems. In this article, we identify the major discourses associated with four global environmental issues: deforestation, desertification, biodiversity use and climate change. These discourses are analysed in terms of their messages, narrative structures and policy prescriptions. We find striking parallels in the nature and structure of the discourses and in their illegibility at the local scale. In each of the four areas there is a global environmental management discourse representing a technocentric worldview by which blueprints based on external policy interventions can solve global environmental dilemmas. Each issue also has a contrasting populist discourse that portrays local actors as victims of external interventions bringing about degradation and exploitation. The managerial discourses dominate in all four issues, but important inputs are also supplied to political decisions from populist discourses. There are, in addition, heterodox ideas and denial claims in each of these areas, to a greater or lesser extent, in which the existence or severity of the environmental problem are questioned. We present evidence from location-specific research which does not fit easily with the dominant managerialist nor with the populist discourses. The research shows that policy-making institutions are distanced from the resource users and that local scale environmental management moves with a distinct dynamic and experiences alternative manifestations of environmental change and livelihood imperatives. [source] Addressing global environmental issuesINTEGRATED ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2007Graeme E. Batley CSIRO No abstract is available for this article. [source] Land degradation control and its global environmental benefitsLAND DEGRADATION AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2005G. Gisladottir Abstract Acknowledged by world leaders as a global problem, land degradation has been taken seriously in three ways: its extent and the proportion of the global population affected; international environmental policy responses; and its inter-relation with other global environmental issues such as biodiversity. Messages about land degradation have, however, suffered from abuses, which have rendered appropriate policy responses ineffective. For control to be effective, the paper argues that the synergies between land degradation and the two other main global environmental change components (biodiversity and climate change) should be more fully exploited. A focus on the interlinkages, of which there are six possible permutations, is fully supported by empirical findings that suggest that land degradation control would not only technically be better served by addressing aspects of biodiversity and climate change but also that international financing mechanisms and the major donors would find this more acceptable. The DPSIR (Driving Force, Pressure, State, Impacts, Response) conceptual framework model is used to illustrate how land degradation control could be more effective, tackling not only the drivers of change but also major developmental issues such as poverty and food insecurity. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] A reappraisal of sovereignty in the light of global environmental concernsLEGAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2001Duncan A French The concept of the sovereignty of the nation state is at the very core of our understanding of public international law. Nevertheless, the concept is under constant pressure to adapt to the changing global situation. This is particularly true when sovereignty is examined in the light of environmental concerns. Is the traditional paradigm still relevant in an age when so many transboundary and global environmental issues confront the international legal order? This paper suggests that whilst sovereignty remains a central pillar of international law, it is one that increasingly must be responsive to the needs and concerns of an interdependent international community. It must not be treated as a static, immovable fact, but rather as a flexible tool through which states can more effectively act in an increasingly interdependent global society. [source] Manufacturing technology for terrestrial PV systems: high efficiency crystalline Si through amorphous SiPROGRESS IN PHOTOVOLTAICS: RESEARCH & APPLICATIONS, Issue 2 2002Minoru Kaneiwa In order to meet the rapidly growing demands for solar power photovoltaic systems, grounded on public consciousness of global environmental issues, Sharp has increased the production of solar cells and modules 50-fold in last 7 years. Efforts to establish manufacturing technologies of solar cells for terrestial use and approaches toward high light-to-electricity conversion efficiency using silicon material (crystalline to amorphous ) are described. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||