Sustainability: a Dissent

Abstract:  Broadly conceived and considered in its many usages, sustainability has grave defects as a planning goal, particularly when used by conservationists: it confuses means and ends; it is vague about what is being sustained and who or what is doing the sustaining; it is uninspiring; it is little more than Pinchot-era conservation (and thus ignores the many lessons learned since then); it need not be linked to land, to the land's functioning, or to any ecological science; it need not include a moral component; it is consistent with the view of humans as all-powerful manipulators of the planet; and, in general, it is such a malleable term that its popularity provides only a facade of consensus. When sustainability is defined broadly to include the full range of economic and social aspirations, it poses the particular risk that ecological and biodiversity concerns will be cast aside in favor of more pressing human wants. Given these many defects, the conservation movement should discard the term in favor of a more alluring goal, attentive to nature and its ecological functioning. A sound goal would incorporate and distill the considerable ecological and moral wisdom accumulated since Pinchot's day while giving conservationists the rhetorical tools needed to defend the land against competing pressures. In our view, conservation would be well served by an updated variant of "land health," Aldo Leopold's ecologically grounded goal from the 1940s. Land health as an independent understanding should set the essential terms of how we live and enjoy the earth, providing the framework within which we pursue our many social and economic aims.     

502清洁生产实践

分析台州市两家502企业清洁生产情况,总结经验和成效,提出进一步清洁生产潜力,促进行业节能降耗减污。     

矿产资源的开发利用与环境保护

作者论述了人口、资源、环境三者之间的辩证关系，提出环境保护是矿产资源开发利用的前提，不能以牺牲环境为代价来开发利用矿产资源。以此为基点，作者概述了我国矿产资源开发利用对环境的影响，以及我国矿山环境保护工作的现状，提出了加强矿产资源开发利用中环境保护的五项建议。     

电石炉烟气趋零排放技术方案研究

电石工业作为我国重要的基础化工行业,也是高耗能、高污染的行业。由于电石炉烟气自身的特点,使其净化难度大,大量烟气及粉尘带来了严重的环境问题。将电石炉高温烟气作为石灰煅烧的燃料,再将石灰窑产生的烟气用于焦炭干燥,然后将烘干后的废气引出,作为助燃空气直接用管道输送至自备电厂,在利用热烟气中的显热的同时,在锅炉中通过燃烧去除烟气中的大部分污染物,随后烟气进入污染物控制系统中,将其中的污染物去除后排放,可使电石大气污染物达到趋零排放。     

我国核电发展现状浅析

核电作为一种安全的清洁能源,对于优化能源结构、减少环境污染、具有重要意义。本文介绍了我国核电的现状,从安全性、环保性、经济性几方面对核电进行分析比较,说明积极推进核电发展是我国未来电力发展的选择。     

Efficacy-based and normative interventions for facilitating the diffusion of conservation behavior through social networks

Research suggests that encouraging motivated residents to reach out to others in their social network is an effective strategy for increasing the scale and speed of conservation action adoption. However, little is known about how to effectively encourage large numbers of residents to reach out to others about conservation causes. We examined the influence of normative and efficacy-based messaging at motivating residents to engage in and to encourage others to participate in native plant gardening in their community. To do so, we conducted a field experiment with messages on mailings and tracked native plant vouchers used. Efficacy messages tended to be more effective than normative messages at increasing residents’ willingness to reach out to others to encourage conservation action, as indicated by a several percentage point increase in native plant voucher use by residents’ friends and neighbors. Messages sometimes had different impacts on residents based on past behaviors and perceptions related to native plant gardening. Among these subgroups, efficacy and combined efficacy and norm messages most effectively encouraged individual and collective actions, as indicated by increased voucher usage. Our findings suggest that interventions that build residents’ efficacy for engaging in a conservation behavior and for reaching out to others may be a promising path forward for outreach. However, given our results were significant at a false discovery rate cutoff of 0.25 but not 0.05, more experimental trials are needed to determine the robustness of these trends.     

Effects of urban greenspace configuration and native vegetation on bee and wasp reproduction

Pollinator welfare is a recognized research and policy target, and urban greenspaces have been identified as important habitats. Yet, landscape-scale habitat fragmentation and greenspace management practices may limit a city's conservation potential. We examined how landscape configuration, composition, and local patch quality influenced insect nesting success across inner-city Cleveland, Ohio (U.S.A.), a postindustrial legacy city containing a high abundance of vacant land (over 1600 ha). Here, 40 vacant lots were assigned 1 of 5 habitat treatments (T1, vacant lot; T2, grass lawn; T3, flowering lawn; T4, grass prairie; and T5, flowering prairie), and we evaluated how seeded vegetation, greenspace size, and landscape connectivity influenced cavity-nesting bee and wasp reproduction. Native bee and wasp larvae were more abundant in landscapes that contained a large patch (i.e., >6 ha) of contiguous greenspace, in habitats with low plant biomass, and in vacant lots seeded with a native wildflower seed mix or with fine-fescue grass, suggesting that fitness was influenced by urban landscape features and habitat management. Our results can guide urban planning by demonstrating that actions that maintain large contiguous greenspace in the landscape and establish native plants would support the conservation of bees and wasps. Moreover, our study highlights that the world's estimated 350 legacy cities are promising urban conservation targets due to their high abundance of vacant greenspace that could accommodate taxa's habitat needs in urban areas.     

Use of historical and contemporary distribution of mammals in China to inform conservation

A systematic understanding of dynamic animal extinction trajectories for different regions in a nation like China is critically important to developing practical conservation strategies. We explored historical and contemporary changes in terrestrial mammalian diversity to determine how diversity in each of the 5 regions in China has changed over time and to examine the conservation potential of these regions. We used records from databases on Pleistocene mammalian fossils and historical distribution records (1175–2020) for Primates (as a case study) to reconstruct evolutionary and historical distribution trajectories of the 11 orders of terrestrial mammals and to predict their prospective survival based on the national conservation strategy applied. The results indicated that since the Pleistocene, 4–5 mammalian orders have been lost in the northeast, 3 in central China, 2 along the coast, and 1 in the northwest. In the southwest, all 11 orders were maintained. Contemporarily, the coast and southwest had the highest and second-highest species densities. The southwest region and southeastern sections of the northwest region were the most historically and contemporarily diverse areas, which suggests that they should be the first priority for protected area (PA) designation. The central and coastal areas should be secondarily prioritized. In these 2 regions, conservation should focus on human coexistence with nature. Less attention should be paid to the PA in the northeast and western northwest because in these areas ecosystems are depauperate and the climate is harsh. Conservation in these areas should focus principally on avoiding further human encroachment on natural areas. Article impact statement: Historical and contemporary patterns of extinction can be a basis for mammalian conservation strategies.     

Implications of different population model structures for management of threatened plants

Population viability analysis (PVA) is a reliable tool for ranking management options for a range of species despite parameter uncertainty. No one has yet investigated whether this holds true for model uncertainty for species with complex life histories and for responses to multiple threats. We tested whether a range of model structures yielded similar rankings of management and threat scenarios for 2 plant species with complex postfire responses. We examined 2 contrasting species from different plant functional types: an obligate seeding shrub and a facultative resprouting shrub. We exposed each to altered fire regimes and an additional, species‐specific threat. Long‐term demographic data sets were used to construct an individual‐based model (IBM), a complex stage‐based model, and a simple matrix model that subsumes all life stages into 2 or 3 stages. Agreement across models was good under some scenarios and poor under others. Results from the simple and complex matrix models were more similar to each other than to the IBM. Results were robust across models when dominant threats are considered but were less so for smaller effects. Robustness also broke down as the scenarios deviated from baseline conditions, likely the result of a number of factors related to the complexity of the species’ life history and how it was represented in a model. Although PVA can be an invaluable tool for integrating data and understanding species’ responses to threats and management strategies, this is best achieved in the context of decision support for adaptive management alongside multiple lines of evidence and expert critique of model construction and output.     

基于模型推断法确定邛海总磷总氮浓度的参照状态

将流域入湖的氮磷负荷分为点源和非点源两部分,基于SCS模型和USLE模型,分别计算了流域入湖的溶解态和颗粒态非点源负荷,根据沿湖城镇、湖滨居民点生活污水及养殖废水排放,计算了入湖的点源负荷。通过出湖河流、湖内取水和渔产捕捞,计算了出湖的营养物负荷。通过计算的出、入湖负荷和现有的湖泊水体氮磷浓度数据,基于湖泊氮磷质量守恒,计算了氮磷的净沉降速度。根据计算的逐年入湖氮磷负荷和所建的湖泊氮磷质量守恒模型,逆推逐年的湖泊水体氮磷浓度,确定湖泊氮磷浓度的参照状态。应用建立的模型推断出邛海TP、TN浓度的参照状态分别为0.018和0.239 mg/L。构建的湖泊氮磷参照状态推断模型,所需资料少,概念清晰,在资料缺乏的其他湖泊流域具有推广应用价值。