Strengthening the Role of Public Health in Environmental Policy

Over the past 25 years there has been a steady decline in the role of public health agencies in environmental protection. This paper examines the major factors that have contributed to that decline, including the impact of federal environmental laws, the disparity in funding between regulatory and public health activities in environmental protection, and the emergence of risk assessment as a basis for environmental decisions. The methods of risk assessment and traditional public health approaches are contrasted, and the advantages of the involvement of public health agencies are discussed. Recommendations are presented for strengthening the role of public health in environmental decisionmaking to address more effectively public concerns about environmental risks.     

Environmental Health Policy in Ukraine After the Chernobyl Accident

The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine produced severe environmental health problems. This paper reports on the environmental health conditions in Ukraine after the accident and the health policy approaches employed to respond to the environmental conditions and health problems. Crisis conditions and a period of rapid change in Ukraine contributed to the difficulties of developing and implementing policy to address serious environmental health problems. Despite these difficulties, Ukraine is taking effective action. The paper describes the primary environmental health problem areas and the efforts taken to solve them. The effect of intense public fear of radiation on policymaking is described. The paper discusses the ability of public fear to distort health policy towards certain problems, leaving problems of greater importance with fewer resources.     

Environmental Justice and the Allocation Of Risk: The Case of Lead and Public Health

This paper examines conceptual and methodological issues in the analysis of environmental justice through use of the case of lead-exposure health risks. Researchers face important obstacles in measuring variable risks among population subgroups. The case of lead exposure, however, illustrates the dramatic potential where adequate data exist for identifying and correcting significant inequities in risk exposure. Despite sharp reductions in the general population's exposure to lead since the 1970s, substantial numbers of minority and low-income children continue to exhibit unacceptably high blood-lead levels due primarily to exposure to lead-based paint. Resolving environmental inequities in this and similar instances requires solid documentation of the risk and better integration of equity issues with other policy demands such as the call for cost-effective environmental policy.     

德国的环境变迁与环境史研究--访德国环境史学家亚克西姆·纳得考教授

亚克西姆·纳得考教授是德国著名环境史学家.2002年笔者在美进行环境史学研究期间,专门就德国环境史学问题访问了纳得考教授.访谈主要涉及两方面的内容一是关于德国的环境变迁,尤其是对环境变迁的感知,如自然的思想、景观的概念、绿党的历史、生态现代化的理论、疾病与环境的关系、社会制度与环境的关系、自然保护与文化的关系等;二是从与美国比较的角度分析德国环境史学史,重点探讨环境史在德国的起源和发展、它与全球史的关系、未来的发展趋势等.这个访谈为中国学者了解德国的环境史学提供了基本线索,有助于中国学者深入认识德国环境史的特性.     

环境史和环境史研究的生态学意识

本文从三个方面探讨了环境史和环境史研究的生态学意识以及环境史研究的发展趋势。环境史是在战后环境保护运动的推动下产生的 ,是意识变革的产物 ;现代生态学为环境史研究提供了新的视角和方法论 ;生态学研究的发展对环境史研究产生了影响。     

Neo-Corporatism and Environmental Policy

The ecologically sustainable development (ESD) process represented a significant attempt by the Commonwealth Government to involve pro-environment and pro-development protagonists in a major environmental consultative forum. The government's inclusion of peak interest organisations into an exclusive consultation process resembles a neo-corporatist approach to interest intermediation. However, neo-corporatist theory has been applied almost exclusively to economic policy areas and interest organisations representing capital, labour and the state. Analysing the involvement of select environmental organisations in the ESD process, this paper argues that neo-corporatist theory can be extended to include non-production-based interest organisations. The implications of environmental organisation participation in a neo-corporatist structure are examined, including a discussion of the tension between neo-corporatist and new social movement theories.     

藏医药保健养生

藏医药宛如甘露,源于雪山珠串环绕清静圣境中,历代圣贤论典卷帙浩繁,稀有殊胜熠熠生辉,似日月光辉遍照天地,消除寒热病症,起死回生甘露宝瓶,关怀众生无疾安康,汲取天地营养万物精华,滋养亿万生物相依相生。六章《根本医典》生命树根深枝繁叶茂,蕴集医药学精华要义。     

Health Financing Systems,Health Equity and Universal Health Coverage in Arab Countries

This article provides an overview of health financing structures in Arab countries in the context of their preparedness for universal health coverage. Current arrangements have left large swathes of the population shouldering high financial burdens and facing hardships when using healthcare, with significant impoverishing and deterrent effects. Health protection schemes are most comprehensive for those who can afford healthcare; they are mainly based on contributions and formal employment and thus fail to cater for the poor and the rural and informal sectors. Financing systems also lack the operational bases and institutional prerequisites for effective resource pooling and risk sharing, with segmentation and fragmentation worsening horizontal and vertical inequities. The neglect of public health systems has reinforced inequities by widening the gap between needs and provision, and by emphasizing the ability to pay as a basis for accessing quality care. In a context of informality and poverty, focusing reforms on health insurance is not a panacea. Rather, moving towards universal health coverage and reducing health inequities will require changes in the level of political tolerance for social injustice, and a paradigm shift to a more equity‐based political economy which views health as an investment and an entitlement.     

Petrology and Geochemistry of Late Intermediate Period Ceramics,Southern Peru

Multiple petrological and geochemical analytical techniques revealed significant similarities in element and mineral distribution between the 47 ceramic samples from Chillo (southern coast, Peru), a Late Intermediate Period (ad 1000–1400) archaeological site. The similarity indicates a common raw material source. The analytical results of Holocene fluvial sediment samples, Cretaceous clay layers and fired and non‐fired bricks, only eliminated the Cretaceous clay layers as a potential source material. Applying Raman spectroscopy, the red and violet colour of the slip is due to hematite, the yellow colour to a mixture of hematite, graphite and gypsum, and the black colour is either graphite or jacobsite.     

Economics and Health-based Environmental Standards

Many federal laws dealing with environment, safety, and health contain language directing that certain kinds of standards be set on the basis of health evidence alone. That is, economic considerations are not to be taken into account in setting these standards. This paper presents arguments in defense of this position and then suggests why these arguments are not convincing. In other words, it makes the case that regulators should strive to balance economic, health, and other considerations for sensible policymaking.

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Environmental insecurity and fortress mentality

This article explores the political, economic and ecological context within which environmental insecurity emerges and feeds back into a fortress mentality. Shortages of food, water and energy sources are the trigger for nefarious activities involving organized criminal networks, transnational corporations and governments at varying political levels. The consequences of such activities contribute to even more ruthless exploitation of rapidly vanishing natural resources, as well as the further diminishment of air, soil and water quality. These developments, in turn, exacerbate the competitive scramble by individuals, groups and nations for what is left. The accompanying insecurities and vulnerabilities ensure elite and popular support for self‐interested ‘security’. Accordingly, the ‘fortress’ is being constructed and reconstructed at individual, local, national and regional levels—as both an attitude of mind and a material reality. Fundamentally, the basis for this fortress mentality is linked to decades of neo‐liberal policy and practice that have embedded an individualizing and competitive self‐interest that, collectively, is overriding prudent and precautionary policy construction around climate change and environmental degradation. The net result is that security is being built on a platform of state, corporate and organized group wrongdoing and injustice, in many instances with the implied and/or overt consent of relevant publics. Yet, as long as the fortification continues apace, it will contribute to and further exacerbate varying levels of insecurity for all.     

Environmental Values and Water Policy

The emergence of water markets has heralded the prospect of increased efficiency in the use of the resource for extractive purposes. However, water markets have not encompassed all elements of demand for the resource. Notably, demands for the environmental public goods provided by river flows have not been revealed in markets. State Governments have instituted regulations requiring ‘environmental flows’ to be quarantined from the market allocation process. This policy has triggered negative responses from irrigators and conservationists. Lobby groups have found that the process of determining environmental flows is a prospective site for rent seeking. To avoid policy being driven by rent seeking, information on the costs and benefits of environmental flows is useful. Whereas the costs of environmental flows are readily assessed through reference to market data on irrigators’ surpluses foregone, the benefits must be estimated through the use of non‐market, stated preference valuation techniques. These techniques — including contingent valuation and choice modelling — remain controversial. Some argue that they should not be used on ethical grounds. Others argue that they cannot be used on technical grounds. These arguments are discussed in this paper, using the context of the water policy debate. The evidence is that stated preference techniques are being used, and applications have been performed in Australia in the context of riverine health. However their use remains restricted relative to the scale of the Australian natural resource management task. Some possible explanations for this limited up‐take are provided along with some suggested ways forward.     

环境史学与跨学科研究

环境史是在战后现代环保运动推动下所产生的历史学的一个新的次分支学科,其研究对象是历史上人与自然之间的关系,以及以自然为中介的各种社会关系。由于研究对象非常复杂,环境史的兴起,就为从事跨学科研究提供了重要契机。传统上,人文社会科学以人和社会为研究对象,而自然科学则以自然为研究对象。环境史的出现,则为人文社会科学之间的融合,也为人文社会科学与自然科学之间的合作搭建了桥梁。跨学科研究方法,也就成为环境史最重要的研究方法。一、复杂的研究对象对环境史这一领域而言,跨学科研究不是一种奢侈,而是一种必需。其所以如此,主要…     

Potential Discrimination of Belgian Black Marbles Using Petrography,Magnetic Susceptibility and Geochemistry

Five varieties of Belgian black marbles are investigated in order to discriminate them. Their age ranges from Frasnian (Golzinne) to Visean (Dinant, Theux, Basècle, Lives). Three methods were used: petrography, magnetic susceptibility and geochemistry of major elements and Rare Earth Elements (REE). The petrographic analyze reveals 16 microfacies reflecting very quiet environments, sporadically perturbed by more energetic phenomena like turbidites or storms. These microfacies are integrated in two depositional models: a quiet offshore setting, below or close to the storm wave base (Salet, Basècles) and a shallow but very restricted zone, protected from waves and currents (Lives and Golzinne). The magnetic susceptibility results show that all the black marbles are characterized by very low, even slightly negative values, except the Golzinne one which shows higher values. Geochemical data allow to discriminate between the Theux black marble (low SiO₂ content), and the Basècles samples (low Al₂O₃, K₂O and REE contents). These methods could be useful to determine/refine the origin of archaeological stones, even if all these analyses are destructive. Two archeologic samples were investigated in order to identify their possible origin.