Pub Date : 2022-02-17DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2042889
Zeke Baker, S. Fick
ABSTRACT Different cultural valuations of landscapes often underlie land use conflict. How do place-based experiences inform cultural values regarding landscapes? Further, how do such values shape conflicts over land use and land management? This paper draws from ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with recreational land users (primarily rock climbers), land managers, ranchers, and others in the Indian Creek area of Bears Ears National Monument in Southeast Utah to address these questions. The findings presented center on the following paradox: recreational users value the landscape as a vestige of wilderness values while simultaneously experiencing and contributing to socio-ecological dynamics that either impinge upon or unravel the basis of these values. We argue that discourses of sacredness, stewardship, authenticity, and ‘local ethics’ relieve some friction, but nonetheless build a common narrative that the landscape is being ‘loved to death.’ Two conclusions follow. First, land use conflicts can be generally understood as having cultural roots developed through embodied engagement with landscapes. Second, as land managers regulate outdoor recreation in multi-use settings, policies should engage the contradictory social pressures (namely wilderness ethics vs. high-impact consumption) that define outdoor recreation culture.
{"title":"Loving it to death: land use conflict, outdoor recreation and the contradictions of wilderness in Southeast Utah, USA","authors":"Zeke Baker, S. Fick","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2042889","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2042889","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Different cultural valuations of landscapes often underlie land use conflict. How do place-based experiences inform cultural values regarding landscapes? Further, how do such values shape conflicts over land use and land management? This paper draws from ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with recreational land users (primarily rock climbers), land managers, ranchers, and others in the Indian Creek area of Bears Ears National Monument in Southeast Utah to address these questions. The findings presented center on the following paradox: recreational users value the landscape as a vestige of wilderness values while simultaneously experiencing and contributing to socio-ecological dynamics that either impinge upon or unravel the basis of these values. We argue that discourses of sacredness, stewardship, authenticity, and ‘local ethics’ relieve some friction, but nonetheless build a common narrative that the landscape is being ‘loved to death.’ Two conclusions follow. First, land use conflicts can be generally understood as having cultural roots developed through embodied engagement with landscapes. Second, as land managers regulate outdoor recreation in multi-use settings, policies should engage the contradictory social pressures (namely wilderness ethics vs. high-impact consumption) that define outdoor recreation culture.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"345 - 361"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41790955","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-28DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2031513
Lacee A. Satcher
ABSTRACT Unequal access to important resources like grocery stores, pharmacies, and parks in the urban built environment has been a significant social problem under study by social scientists. Drawing from work in urban and environmental justice studies that conceptualize racism as a structural factor that shapes environmental inequality, I assess spatial inequality in urban cities across the southern USA. Utilizing data from the U.S. Census, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Provider Identifier (NPI) registry, and county and state government websites, I examine the relevance of race and class to the existence of neighborhoods as single or multiple resource deserts, coined multiply-deserted areas (MDAs). Results indicate that predominantly Black neighborhoods are more than twice as likely to be resource deserts, even after adjusting for class. Additionally, predominantly Black neighborhoods are nearly three times as likely to have more intense, compounded resource scarcity than other neighborhoods. Moreover, results indicate a race and class interaction effect such that a predominantly Black neighborhood has increased odds of being a multiply-deserted area as median household income increases. The findings implicate yet another route through which racism shapes inequality and demonstrate a need to address racial differences in access to resources across socioeconomic status.
{"title":"Multiply-deserted areas: environmental racism and food, pharmacy, and greenspace access in the Urban South","authors":"Lacee A. Satcher","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2031513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2031513","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Unequal access to important resources like grocery stores, pharmacies, and parks in the urban built environment has been a significant social problem under study by social scientists. Drawing from work in urban and environmental justice studies that conceptualize racism as a structural factor that shapes environmental inequality, I assess spatial inequality in urban cities across the southern USA. Utilizing data from the U.S. Census, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Provider Identifier (NPI) registry, and county and state government websites, I examine the relevance of race and class to the existence of neighborhoods as single or multiple resource deserts, coined multiply-deserted areas (MDAs). Results indicate that predominantly Black neighborhoods are more than twice as likely to be resource deserts, even after adjusting for class. Additionally, predominantly Black neighborhoods are nearly three times as likely to have more intense, compounded resource scarcity than other neighborhoods. Moreover, results indicate a race and class interaction effect such that a predominantly Black neighborhood has increased odds of being a multiply-deserted area as median household income increases. The findings implicate yet another route through which racism shapes inequality and demonstrate a need to address racial differences in access to resources across socioeconomic status.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"279 - 291"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47344061","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-26DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2031512
D. Ciplet
ABSTRACT From its origins in the labor and environmental justice movements in the United States, the concept of a just transition has travelled globally as a frame to infuse concerns of justice in public responses to escalating environmental crises. However, important gaps remain in terms of understanding the potential of transition efforts to be transformative in shifting the political economic structures that cause, sustain, and deepen injustices. This article asks: what does critical sociological theory of power and social change offer for understanding the features of transformative transition coalitions as compared to those that reinforce environmental, social, and economic inequality? To this purpose, I apply insights from Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi, contemporary scholars who use their theory, and environmental justice scholars to identify the means and form of transformative just transition coalitions. I identify two respective conditions of transformative coalitions: strategic power and embedded relations. Through this lens, I describe four transition coalition types: status quo, impeded, disembedded, and transformative, and discuss related examples.
{"title":"Transition coalitions: toward a theory of transformative just transitions","authors":"D. Ciplet","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2031512","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2031512","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT From its origins in the labor and environmental justice movements in the United States, the concept of a just transition has travelled globally as a frame to infuse concerns of justice in public responses to escalating environmental crises. However, important gaps remain in terms of understanding the potential of transition efforts to be transformative in shifting the political economic structures that cause, sustain, and deepen injustices. This article asks: what does critical sociological theory of power and social change offer for understanding the features of transformative transition coalitions as compared to those that reinforce environmental, social, and economic inequality? To this purpose, I apply insights from Antonio Gramsci and Karl Polanyi, contemporary scholars who use their theory, and environmental justice scholars to identify the means and form of transformative just transition coalitions. I identify two respective conditions of transformative coalitions: strategic power and embedded relations. Through this lens, I describe four transition coalition types: status quo, impeded, disembedded, and transformative, and discuss related examples.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"315 - 330"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45002011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-21DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2021.2004497
lAurA A. McKinney, Ryan Thomson
ABSTRACT One under-explored area of concern is the relationship between disasters and the waste they generate, which often amounts to the equivalent of 5 to 15 years of garbage that a community would create under normal circumstances. The road to recovery depends heavily on the removal of waste and debris, the bulk of which is directed towards construction and demolition (C&D), industrial, and municipal landfills. This paper theoretically develops and empirically evaluates the spatial distribution of disasters and waste using environmental justice and spatial inequality frameworks. We employ the spatial durbin model (SDM) to analyze the distribution of landfills, disaster events, and socioeconomic factors for 613 counties in the southeastern region of the United States. Findings demonstrate the disproportionate concentration of landfills in poor areas with high female-householder families and minority populations. We also find natural disasters have significant impacts on the communities that process waste. Conclusions point to the benefits of using spatial perspectives and companion analytic approaches to deepen our understanding of environmental inequality.
{"title":"Landfills and disasters: a geospatial analysis of environmental injustice across the Southern United States","authors":"lAurA A. McKinney, Ryan Thomson","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.2004497","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.2004497","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT One under-explored area of concern is the relationship between disasters and the waste they generate, which often amounts to the equivalent of 5 to 15 years of garbage that a community would create under normal circumstances. The road to recovery depends heavily on the removal of waste and debris, the bulk of which is directed towards construction and demolition (C&D), industrial, and municipal landfills. This paper theoretically develops and empirically evaluates the spatial distribution of disasters and waste using environmental justice and spatial inequality frameworks. We employ the spatial durbin model (SDM) to analyze the distribution of landfills, disaster events, and socioeconomic factors for 613 counties in the southeastern region of the United States. Findings demonstrate the disproportionate concentration of landfills in poor areas with high female-householder families and minority populations. We also find natural disasters have significant impacts on the communities that process waste. Conclusions point to the benefits of using spatial perspectives and companion analytic approaches to deepen our understanding of environmental inequality.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"173 - 186"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41970599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-11DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2021.2021604
Dylan Bugden
ABSTRACT Ecological modernization refers to the process of resolving ecological crises through radical improvements in resource efficiency and the substitution of environmentally harmful industrial processes for less harmful ones without undermining economic growth and other capitalist imperatives. An important theoretical perspective within environmental sociology, it is also the intellectual kin of global environmental policies that pursue objectives such as decoupling, green growth, and sustainable development. While numerous studies cast doubt on ecological modernization and its associated policy efforts, existing empirical analyses do not fully address the theory’s core hypothesis on the relationship between technological innovation and environmental impacts. I resolve this problem by using newly available global patent data on environmental technologies across 35 countries from 1982–2016. Results of panel regression analyses demonstrate that a nation’s development of environmental technologies only marginally attenuates the effects of economic activity on a nation’s ecological footprint, while the direct effect of patents is to increase, rather than decrease, a nation’s ecological footprint. These results offer further evidence of the limits of both (a) ecological modernization theory and (b) environmental policies that exclusively emphasize technological solutions to global environmental problems.
{"title":"Technology, decoupling, and ecological crisis: examining ecological modernization theory through patent data","authors":"Dylan Bugden","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.2021604","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.2021604","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Ecological modernization refers to the process of resolving ecological crises through radical improvements in resource efficiency and the substitution of environmentally harmful industrial processes for less harmful ones without undermining economic growth and other capitalist imperatives. An important theoretical perspective within environmental sociology, it is also the intellectual kin of global environmental policies that pursue objectives such as decoupling, green growth, and sustainable development. While numerous studies cast doubt on ecological modernization and its associated policy efforts, existing empirical analyses do not fully address the theory’s core hypothesis on the relationship between technological innovation and environmental impacts. I resolve this problem by using newly available global patent data on environmental technologies across 35 countries from 1982–2016. Results of panel regression analyses demonstrate that a nation’s development of environmental technologies only marginally attenuates the effects of economic activity on a nation’s ecological footprint, while the direct effect of patents is to increase, rather than decrease, a nation’s ecological footprint. These results offer further evidence of the limits of both (a) ecological modernization theory and (b) environmental policies that exclusively emphasize technological solutions to global environmental problems.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"228 - 241"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44961617","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-05DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2021.2021603
Linus Ekman Burgman
ABSTRACT Recycling nutrients from renewable sources, like sewage sludge, has been promoted as a step towards a circular economy by decreasing extraction and dependency on inorganic fertilizers. Implementation, however, is often controversial. In 2018, a Swedish governmental inquiry was commissioned to propose a complete ban on land application of sewage sludge to reduce soil pollution and increase phosphorus recovery. In 2020, the inquiry suggested two pathways, one to ban all land application, and one where agricultural land use should continuously be allowed. This paper is based on interviews with experts tied to the inquiry where they reference to sewage sludge, related objects, and future management. The inquiry’s inability to propose a coherent suggestion is analysed inspired by the concept of multiple ontology. Several ontological versions of sewage sludge emerge that unveil tensions between concepts of danger and cleanliness, pollution and naturalness, often captured in previous studies of waste. Some versions of sewage sludge conflict, which can explain the difficulty to establish an ontologically singular knowledge base for a transformation of sewage sludge from waste to resource. Though most of the experts agree that circular economy and nutrient recycling are good things, policymaking is caught in an ontological conundrum.
{"title":"What sewage sludge is and conflicts in Swedish circular economy policymaking","authors":"Linus Ekman Burgman","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.2021603","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.2021603","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Recycling nutrients from renewable sources, like sewage sludge, has been promoted as a step towards a circular economy by decreasing extraction and dependency on inorganic fertilizers. Implementation, however, is often controversial. In 2018, a Swedish governmental inquiry was commissioned to propose a complete ban on land application of sewage sludge to reduce soil pollution and increase phosphorus recovery. In 2020, the inquiry suggested two pathways, one to ban all land application, and one where agricultural land use should continuously be allowed. This paper is based on interviews with experts tied to the inquiry where they reference to sewage sludge, related objects, and future management. The inquiry’s inability to propose a coherent suggestion is analysed inspired by the concept of multiple ontology. Several ontological versions of sewage sludge emerge that unveil tensions between concepts of danger and cleanliness, pollution and naturalness, often captured in previous studies of waste. Some versions of sewage sludge conflict, which can explain the difficulty to establish an ontologically singular knowledge base for a transformation of sewage sludge from waste to resource. Though most of the experts agree that circular economy and nutrient recycling are good things, policymaking is caught in an ontological conundrum.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"292 - 301"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49635545","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-02DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2022.2043529
S. Lockie
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment report on physical understanding of the climate system, released August 2021, concluded that human influence has unequivocally warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land (IPCC 2021). This came as no great surprise given the Fifth and Fourth Assessment reports released in 2014 and 2007 concluded exactly the same thing. Keep going back and the only discernable difference in headline conclusions from IPCC assessments is the degree of confidence with which they are put. In 1995, the balance of evidence pointed toward human influence on the climate. By 2001, the evidence that humans were responsible for most observed change was getting stronger. Increasing confidence in our understanding of climate change and its likely trajectory is to be expected. Behind subtle changes in the language used to express headline assessment findings is both a considerable global research effort and vastly improved understanding of climate changes and drivers at finer spatial and temporal scales. Of course, IPCC assessments still have their limitations. While it is known, for example, that tipping elements in the climate system increase the risk of abrupt and irreversible change at higher levels of global warming, these processes remain difficult to model (IPCC 2021). Climate agreements and policies informed by IPCC assessments proceed, for the most part, as if tipping points are unlikely when, in reality, they are poorly understood (Lenton et al. 2019). My main concern in this essay though is the continuing sociological naivety of IPCC assessments and many of the policies they subsequently inform. It is not that IPCC assessments ignore the social dimensions of climate change altogether. In fact, they report on risks to human health, livelihoods, food systems, cities and natural resource availability alongside vulnerability and adaptive capacity in relation to these risks. What renders the assessments sociologically naïve is not ignorance of the anthropogenic drivers and consequences of climate change but simplistic assumptions about the relationships between science, policy and politics and about the dynamics of social change more generally (see Grundmann and Rödder 2019). Placing greater store on the insights of sociologists (and other social scientists) would go some way to addressing this concern and so, to this end, this essay will summarize major trends in climate change sociology before turning to a small number of key, but largely outstanding questions, that demand sociological and transdisciplinary attention. First though, it will address the charge often levelled at sociology that the discipline does not take climate change seriously.
{"title":"Mainstreaming climate change sociology","authors":"S. Lockie","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2022.2043529","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2022.2043529","url":null,"abstract":"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment report on physical understanding of the climate system, released August 2021, concluded that human influence has unequivocally warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land (IPCC 2021). This came as no great surprise given the Fifth and Fourth Assessment reports released in 2014 and 2007 concluded exactly the same thing. Keep going back and the only discernable difference in headline conclusions from IPCC assessments is the degree of confidence with which they are put. In 1995, the balance of evidence pointed toward human influence on the climate. By 2001, the evidence that humans were responsible for most observed change was getting stronger. Increasing confidence in our understanding of climate change and its likely trajectory is to be expected. Behind subtle changes in the language used to express headline assessment findings is both a considerable global research effort and vastly improved understanding of climate changes and drivers at finer spatial and temporal scales. Of course, IPCC assessments still have their limitations. While it is known, for example, that tipping elements in the climate system increase the risk of abrupt and irreversible change at higher levels of global warming, these processes remain difficult to model (IPCC 2021). Climate agreements and policies informed by IPCC assessments proceed, for the most part, as if tipping points are unlikely when, in reality, they are poorly understood (Lenton et al. 2019). My main concern in this essay though is the continuing sociological naivety of IPCC assessments and many of the policies they subsequently inform. It is not that IPCC assessments ignore the social dimensions of climate change altogether. In fact, they report on risks to human health, livelihoods, food systems, cities and natural resource availability alongside vulnerability and adaptive capacity in relation to these risks. What renders the assessments sociologically naïve is not ignorance of the anthropogenic drivers and consequences of climate change but simplistic assumptions about the relationships between science, policy and politics and about the dynamics of social change more generally (see Grundmann and Rödder 2019). Placing greater store on the insights of sociologists (and other social scientists) would go some way to addressing this concern and so, to this end, this essay will summarize major trends in climate change sociology before turning to a small number of key, but largely outstanding questions, that demand sociological and transdisciplinary attention. First though, it will address the charge often levelled at sociology that the discipline does not take climate change seriously.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"1 - 6"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43558260","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-29DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2021.2015548
Ellen Kohl, M. Sullivan, Mark Milton Chambers, Alissa Cordner, C. Sellers, Leif Fredrickson, J. Ohayon
ABSTRACT How damaging was the Trump administration to environmental justice (EJ) efforts and policy? Since federal EJ oversight at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is governed by executive order, rather than statute, approaches to it have varied by presidential administration. In this paper, we draw on interviews with current and recently retired EPA employees along with staffing and budget data, to examine how EJ has historically been supported and enacted within the agency, with a focus on identifying impacts of the Trump administration on EPA’s EJ work. We find that while leadership support for EJ and emphasis across the agency have changed across presidential administrations, the EJ program has always held a marginal position in terms of allocation of resources and emphasis in regulatory decision-making. Starting from this position of long-term marginalization, EPA’s EJ program was further marginalized by the Trump administration. Though EPA employees expressed divided opinions as to how consequential the Trump administration’s actions were on enacting EJ internally, many thought that the administration’s emphasis on deregulation had significant health consequences in EJ communities. We argue that the impacts of the Trump administration, like those of future administrations, must be assessed within a historical context.
{"title":"From ‘marginal to marginal’: environmental justice under the Trump administration","authors":"Ellen Kohl, M. Sullivan, Mark Milton Chambers, Alissa Cordner, C. Sellers, Leif Fredrickson, J. Ohayon","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.2015548","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.2015548","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT How damaging was the Trump administration to environmental justice (EJ) efforts and policy? Since federal EJ oversight at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is governed by executive order, rather than statute, approaches to it have varied by presidential administration. In this paper, we draw on interviews with current and recently retired EPA employees along with staffing and budget data, to examine how EJ has historically been supported and enacted within the agency, with a focus on identifying impacts of the Trump administration on EPA’s EJ work. We find that while leadership support for EJ and emphasis across the agency have changed across presidential administrations, the EJ program has always held a marginal position in terms of allocation of resources and emphasis in regulatory decision-making. Starting from this position of long-term marginalization, EPA’s EJ program was further marginalized by the Trump administration. Though EPA employees expressed divided opinions as to how consequential the Trump administration’s actions were on enacting EJ internally, many thought that the administration’s emphasis on deregulation had significant health consequences in EJ communities. We argue that the impacts of the Trump administration, like those of future administrations, must be assessed within a historical context.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"242 - 253"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42387119","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-23eCollection Date: 2022-01-01DOI: 10.3906/kim-2110-13
Xiangmei Ma, Zhehao Dong, Bin Wang, Limin Liu, Ruojun Ye
The uses of inorganic metal oxide as ultraviolet (UV) absorbers have potential to increase the production of UV protection and can also overcome the disadvantages of organic molecules. In this article, we report an effective technique to fabricating polyvinyl chloride (PVC) films with well UV shielding efficiency. Surface modification of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) with different silane coupling-agents were achieved, and through solution casting technique dispersed within the PVC matrix. Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and UV spectrophotometer were applied to study the structures, dispersions, and optical properties. The results showed that the functionalized ZnO NPs could be well dispersed in PVC and endow the polymer composite films with significantly improved anti-UV capability. The facile processing and obtained properties of PVC composites have shown potential for low cost and environmentally sustainable applications in the UV protection field.
{"title":"Preparation of ZnO nanoparticles modified with silane coupling-agents to fabricate anti-UV Poly(vinyl chloride) films.","authors":"Xiangmei Ma, Zhehao Dong, Bin Wang, Limin Liu, Ruojun Ye","doi":"10.3906/kim-2110-13","DOIUrl":"10.3906/kim-2110-13","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The uses of inorganic metal oxide as ultraviolet (UV) absorbers have potential to increase the production of UV protection and can also overcome the disadvantages of organic molecules. In this article, we report an effective technique to fabricating polyvinyl chloride (PVC) films with well UV shielding efficiency. Surface modification of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) with different silane coupling-agents were achieved, and through solution casting technique dispersed within the PVC matrix. Infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and UV spectrophotometer were applied to study the structures, dispersions, and optical properties. The results showed that the functionalized ZnO NPs could be well dispersed in PVC and endow the polymer composite films with significantly improved anti-UV capability. The facile processing and obtained properties of PVC composites have shown potential for low cost and environmentally sustainable applications in the UV protection field.</p>","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"9 1","pages":"542-549"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10734761/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70215526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-18DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2021.2018123
Öykü H. Aral, J. López-Sintas
ABSTRACT Explaining cross-national differences in individual pro-environmental behaviors is usually grounded in large, heterogeneous data sets. Consequently, research findings may over- or underestimate the effects of environmental variables of interest when analyzing cross-level interactions. This research contextualizes environmental behavior in the European Union, a set of socioeconomically different countries that share a common institutional framework. We explore the effects of country-level drivers on behavior after controlling for individual-level drivers using multilevel regression analysis to estimate the impact of country-level drivers on both the mean behavior of individuals and cross-level interactions. The direct impact of country-level drivers on pro-environmental behaviors was as expected: country affluence and income inequality had positive and negative impacts, respectively, whereas country education level, environmental issues, and cultural values had no direct impact. Nonetheless, in terms of cross-level interactions, country education level increased the effect of perceived behavioral control on behaviors. In Western countries, the influence of country affluence and education level on behavior, operating through social-psychological drivers, maybe underpinned by different socioeconomic mechanisms. Income may not be enough to change perceptions of reality, but income can be transformed into cultural capital that, in turn, may change socially ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions.
{"title":"Is pro-environmentalism a privilege? Country development factors as moderators of socio-psychological drivers of pro-environmental behavior","authors":"Öykü H. Aral, J. López-Sintas","doi":"10.1080/23251042.2021.2018123","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2021.2018123","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Explaining cross-national differences in individual pro-environmental behaviors is usually grounded in large, heterogeneous data sets. Consequently, research findings may over- or underestimate the effects of environmental variables of interest when analyzing cross-level interactions. This research contextualizes environmental behavior in the European Union, a set of socioeconomically different countries that share a common institutional framework. We explore the effects of country-level drivers on behavior after controlling for individual-level drivers using multilevel regression analysis to estimate the impact of country-level drivers on both the mean behavior of individuals and cross-level interactions. The direct impact of country-level drivers on pro-environmental behaviors was as expected: country affluence and income inequality had positive and negative impacts, respectively, whereas country education level, environmental issues, and cultural values had no direct impact. Nonetheless, in terms of cross-level interactions, country education level increased the effect of perceived behavioral control on behaviors. In Western countries, the influence of country affluence and education level on behavior, operating through social-psychological drivers, maybe underpinned by different socioeconomic mechanisms. Income may not be enough to change perceptions of reality, but income can be transformed into cultural capital that, in turn, may change socially ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions.","PeriodicalId":54173,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sociology","volume":"8 1","pages":"211 - 227"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2021-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43163214","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}