Climate Testimonies and Climate-crisis Narratives. Inuit Delegated to Speak on Behalf of the Climate

Abstract

The empirical data analysed in this essay will focus on several Greenlanders who were invited to the COP15 parallel event Klimaforum09, held in Copenhagen in December 2009, as well as their experiences with the venue and the dilemmas they confronted as both local and global witnesses. This essay challenges the use of climate testimonies in the international climate-change debate. Specifically, what is drawn upon in these personal experiences with the environment, and how is it useful in a public, political, or scientific context? In the conclusion of this article, it is argued that dominant climate-crisis narratives have framed “the Greenlandic case” in a certain way, which consequently freezes arguments and possible agency. However, at the same time as there is a global framing of climate change and a specific position in this narrative for “local witnesses”, there is also room for an alternative empowerment and ways of engaging in and talking about global and local natures.     

Socio‐cultural currents affecting heritage site consideration: The impact of human values on people's attitudes and behaviour

Abstract

Many heritage site directors think of market research in simple ‘who, what, when, where’ terms; who came to their site, what did they see, when did they come, and where did they come from? Some also have employed qualitative techniques to probe ‘why’, asking groups of visitors to tell moderators why they were attracted, or not, by some specific exhibit, site or display. Research can offer a far deeper understanding than this basic marketing information. After a brief introduction focusing on the impact of demographics in the next few years, and recent trends in visits to British attractions, the analysis of key attitudinal statements regarding the psychological impact of heritage and technology is examined to see which socio‐cultural trends affect attitudes to these concepts.     

Natural and cultural heritage

We receive communal legacies from two sources—the natural environment and the creations of human beings. To be sure, these inheritances everywhere commingle; no aspect of nature is unimpacted by human agency, no artefact devoid of environmental impress. Yet we have traditionally dealt quite differently with these two kinds of legacy. Though management of both heritages has many features in common, and both realms often share similar, if not the same, leaders and spokesmen, relations between the two are marked less by cooperative amity than by envy and rivalry. This essay discusses the reasons for our dissimilar approaches to nature and culture, and shows how they bear on the campaigns to protect and preserve each. In some important ways, the history, politics, and rhetoric of conservation and destruction are shown to have converged, in others to have diverged, over the last half century.     

Inelastic Displacement Ratios for Seismic Assessment of Structures Subjected to Forward-Directivity Near-Fault Ground Motions

This article presents results of a statistical study focused on evaluating inelastic displacement ratios (i.e., ratio of maximum inelastic displacement with respect to maximum elastic displacement demand) of degrading and non degrading single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems subjected to forward-directivity near-fault ground motions. C_R spectra are computed for normalized periods of vibration with respect to the predominant period of the ground motion to provide a better ground motion characterization. This period normalization allows reducing the record-to-record variability in the estimation of C_R. An equation to obtain estimates of C_R for the seismic assessment of structures exposed to forward-directivity near-fault ground motions is proposed.     

Archaeological wells in southern France: Late Neolithic to Roman plant remains from Mas de Vignoles IX (Gard) and their implications for the study of settlement,economy and environment

Abstract

A study of plant remains from seven archaeological wells at Mas de Vignoles IX, near Nîmes, southern France, was used to shed light on a current gap in the archaeological record caused by erosion and modern agriculture. The analysis also explored the reliability of these sources for palaeoenvironmental and palaeoeconomical information. Significant results on the spatial organization of human habitation, economic activities, and on the environment and its exploitation were obtained for the Middle Neolithic to Roman periods. Furthermore, the Neolithic wells also provided the first early finds of fig seeds in France. The abundance of weed and ruderal plants up to the Iron Age is consistent with data from other studies and their dramatic decrease during the Roman period may have resulted from radical changes in land management. The study marks the first time, in southern France, that a group of wells from a single site have provided a complete record throughout the later prehistoric and Roman periods.     

Nuclear necropower: The engineering of death conditions around a nuclear power plant in south India

The article concentrates on the ways people's claim to life, citizenry and democratic dissent were revoked the more they dared to defy and mobilise against a nuclear power plant at Kudankulam in southern India. Building on the literature on biopower and necropower, it is argued that the Indian state is exercising nuclear necropower through the creation of death conditions for subaltern populations as well as their political supporters. These ‘death worlds’ go beyond physical demise to encompass ecological, social and political conditions by which a person's life is diminished. Victims, suspects, and/or targets are geographically, socially and politically created as a consequence of sliding and syncretic subjugations to do with ‘let die’ and ‘make die’. These variegated perspectives might be delineated by way of three overlapping modalities that embed necropower in the politics of the nuclear industries, environment, social hierarchies and state-backed operations to undermine subaltern populations, anti-nuclear activists and environmentalists. The first modality encompasses ecological factors by way of a silent and encroaching death where nuclear industries subject marginalised communities and casual labourers to a life of environmental uncertainty, exploitation and health hazards. The second is the more overt and punitive violence exacted on- and offline in order to contain and extinguish dissent against nuclear power. The third is by way of producing a culture of vilification in terms of strategies designed to malign and outcaste anti-nuclear activists and environmentalists.     

雕塑：博物馆陈列的二度创作

与纯粹的观赏性艺术雕塑相比,博物馆陈列展览中的雕塑在展现题材、艺术方法、运用区域、功能效用、时间概念等方面显示出自身的特点与规律,与它所依托的陈列展览比较,展览雕塑艺术形象的感染力更具持久性。     

近代西藏安全环境与清政府之战略回应(1888—1904)

本文试图利用当代国际政治学相关理论,阐述1888年至1904年西藏面临的安全环境,探讨英、俄两国在西藏的博弈与清政府的被动回应,以及清对西藏安全环境渐次认识和制定的相应安全战略,并对清政府的安全战略进行探讨。     

环境与经济关系研究的历史回顾

在回顾环境问题的基础上,本文简述了环境经济系统研究中的几个主要阶段及其特点,特别指出生态学在本类研究中的作用。最后,简述了现阶段环境经济研究的主要内容和常用研究方法,以及由于经济发展而引起的环境问题的潜在危险。     

区域制度环境及其变迁与城镇化

本文给出了区域制度环境及其两大构成要素区域正规制度与区域非正规制度的概念,阐述了区域制度环境变迁的基本规律。本文认为区域制度环境作为一种激励机制,通过限定个体选择的集合及影响区域交易成本制约着区域的城镇化过程。文章最后论述了区域正规制度与非正规制度同城镇化的关系。