Causal thinking and support for climate change policies: International survey findings

Few comparative international studies describe the climate change policies people are willing to support and the reasons for their support of different policies. Using survey data from 664 economics and business undergraduates in Austria, Bangladesh, Finland, Germany, Norway, and the United States, we explore how perceived risk characteristics and mental models of climate change influence support for policy alternatives. General green policies such as funding research on renewable technologies and planting trees were the overwhelmingly most popular policy alternatives. Around half the students support carbon reduction policies such as requiring higher car fuel efficiency and increasing taxes on fossil fuels. Least popular were engineering alternatives such as fertilizing the oceans and replacing fossil fuels with nuclear power. Variations among nations are generally small. Support for different policy alternatives corresponds with different causal thinking. Those who hold a pollution model of the causes of climate change, tend to blame environmental harms (e.g., air pollution from toxic chemicals), see general green policy alternatives as effective, and support general green policies. Support of carbon reduction strategies is associated with seeing carbon emissions as the cause and reducing carbon emissions as effective solutions. Support of engineering solutions increases with identifying volcanoes among causes and regarding engineering solutions as effective. Although these international students agree that climate change is a threatening problem, their causal thinking correlates with support for different mitigative policy actions, with the most popular ones not necessarily the most effective.     

Modelling the hydrodynamics of offshore sandbanks

This paper describes the details of a quasi-three-dimensional model (3DBANK), which has been developed to investigate medium and long-term morphological evolution and development of offshore sandbanks. The model is based on a three-dimensional tidal module using the Galerkin-eigenfunction method, but also includes four sub-modules to compute: the instantaneous bedform characteristics from which the temporal and spatial variations of the shear stresses at the sea bed can be derived; the suspended sediment concentration through the water column; the bed-load and suspended sediment fluxes at a point-in-plan; and the resulting morphological changes, respectively. The model also includes the effects of the wind and waves at the sea surface, as well as the wave–current interaction (WCI), and operates with full hydrodynamic and morphodynamic interaction. The components of the model were tested against laboratory and field data, and the complete model was then applied to Middlekerke Bank off the Flemish coast where extensive field measurements were taken during the European Community (EC) funded Circulation and Sediment Transport Around Banks (CSTAB) Project using various advanced instrumentation including STABLE and HF OSCR. Comparisons of the model results with the field measurements and observations show that the model is capable of reproducing the current and wave-induced bedforms, bed roughness, tidal currents and tidal residuals around the sandbank satisfactorily, and can be used to study the long-term sandbank evolution under various offshore conditions. This paper, however, focuses on the hydrodynamic aspects of the model, while the details of the morphological components will be given in a companion paper.     

Dynamics of polychlorinated biphenyls in striped bass from the Hudson River. III. Tissue disposition and routes for elimination

Striped bass were exposed to¹⁴C-polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) in single-dose and multiple-dose experiments. Samples were analyzed to determine rate constants for PCB elimination from individual tissues, PCB concentration in tissues, the proportion of the PCB burden retained and the proportion of the cumulative dose retained by each tissue at various times after exposure. An experiment was also conducted to determine both the potential for secondary PCB uptake in dietary exposure studies and the relative tissue disposition of PCBs assimilated from dietary sources as compared to direct water uptake. PCBs were present in the tissues of striped bass within 6 h after administration of a single dose. Certain tissue compartments, such as the liver/gall bladder, accumulated PCBs over a period of 48 h even though the whole-body burden had decreased between 24 and 48 h. Except for the gills, elimination rate constants for all tissues were similar and were similar to the whole body elimination rate constant. Elimination during the first few hours following exposure to PCBs may be due to equilibrium partitioning from the gill to the environment. The multiple-dose study showed that PCB burdens in striped bass continued to increase with dosing. However, tissue-specific rate constants for PCB elimination led to an increased flux of PCB out of tissues, and an overall decline in the percent of the cumulative dose remaining in the body 48 h after administration of each dose. The most likely route for PCB elimination from striped bass was from tissues to the liver and thence to the intestine via the bile. There were no differences in the tissue disposition of PCB related to route of exposure.     

Risk and trust in the cultural industries

Preliminary claims have been made that working practices within cultural industries such as fashion, music, design and the night time economy may differ from Fordist or modernist arrangements. Cultural firms are often imagined to be more innovative, information-rich, dynamic, flexible, non-hierarchical and dependent on local clusters and networks than their Fordist counterparts (Lash and Urry, 1994). As their impact and significance increase, understanding how creative and cultural industries actually work is of high priority. This paper presents preliminary findings from an on-going ESRC funded study of cultural Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) within Manchester, England. Drawing on one element of the project, this paper considers the significance of risk and the importance of social trust for the cultural entrepreneur. Following a discussion of Beck’s development of risk as an analytical concept, and its intersection with Giddens’ notion of ‘active trust’, the paper examines how risk and trust are defined, experienced and negotiated by entrepreneurs in Manchester’s cultural industries. It is suggested that senses of risk are constitutive and often pivotal to the whole economic and social basis of cultural entrepreneurship – risk being central to choices made not only in business but in the lifeworld more generally. The paper then investigates the importance of trust for facilitating as well as countering or offsetting risk. Empirical evidence is presented to show how risk and trust co-relate and interact as constitutive elements within a wider set of shifting relationships between work, leisure and lifestyle in the ‘creative city’.     

Tephra Fallout Models: The Effect of Different Source Shapes on Isomass Maps

Numerous tephra dispersion and sedimentation models rely on some abstraction of the volcanic plume to simplify forecasts of tephra accumulation as a function of the distance from the volcano. Here we present solutions to the commonly used advection–dispersion equation using a variety of source shapes: a point, horizontal and vertical lines, and a circular disk. These may be related to some volcanic plume structure, such as a strong plume (vertical line), umbrella cloud (circular disk), or co-ignimbrite plume (horizontal line), or can be used to build a more complex plume structure such as a series of circular disks to represent a buoyant weak plume. Basing parameters upon eruption data, we find that depositions for the horizontal source shapes are very similar but differ from the vertical line source deposition. We also compare the deposition from a series of stacked circular disk sources of increasing radius above the volcanic vent with that from a vertical line source.     

Response of fixed offshore structures in random sea

An integrated model is developed for the short-term and long-term dynamic response of an offshore structure subjected to random wave excitation. A discrete linear, elastic model of the upper structure is coupled with an iterative linear quasi-three-dimensional finite element model for the pile-soil medium, and the system is subjected to stochastic storms described by mean rate of arrival, joint probability distribution of storm duration and average intensity, and a random process that describes the variations of a statistical wave height measure during each storm. Sarpkaya's 1977 experimental information is used to specify values for C_M and C_D, in Morison's equation, consistent with the flow and response characteristics. Soil (clay) degradation, due to cyclic excitation, is followed during the passage of a storm. The indicator of soil degradation is taken to be the value of the horizontal foundation stiffness and the stiffness degradation is modelled by a homogeneous Markov process.     

Monitored Natural Attenuation to Manage PFAS Impacts to Groundwater: Scientific Basis

Sites impacted by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) pose significant challenges to investigation and remediation, including very low cleanup objectives, limited information on natural PFAS degradation processes in the subsurface, and the apparent mobility and persistence of PFAS. Consequently, monitored natural attenuation (MNA) may be considered less applicable to PFAS compared to biodegradable classes of chemicals such as petroleum hydrocarbons and chlorinated solvents that can completely biodegrade to innocuous end products. However, MNA has proven effective for certain non-degrading metals, metalloids, and radionuclides (e.g., chromium, arsenic, and uranium). To assess the applicability of MNA to PFAS, this paper reviews the fate and transport properties of PFAS in conjunction with the various physiochemical factors that control the subsurface movement of chemicals. This analysis demonstrates that two important retention processes: (1) chemical retention in the form of PFAS precursors, and (2) geochemical retention in the form of sorption and matrix diffusion to mitigate the movement and potential impacts of PFAS in groundwater that may form the scientific basis for applying MNA to PFAS contamination. This paper describes the scientific and regulatory basis for using MNA to manage PFAS-impacted groundwater.     

Composition,export and faunal utilization of drift vegetation in the salt river submarine canyon

Submarine canyons may be particularly important in the transport process of drift seagrasses and seaweeds from highly productive shallow lagoon areas to deeper water. We studied the composition, export, and faunal utilization of shallow, nearshore benthic vegetation as it was transported to offshore areas via the Salt River submarine canyon on the island of St Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. The study was conducted using a saturation diving system (NULS-1: Hydrolab) during two missions in April and August, 1980. Using bottom drifters deployed in Salt River Bay and the submarine canyon, we recorded net benthic current flow up to 2 cm s^?1 moving out of the lagoon and down the canyon to deeper water. Using bottom nets set up at the canyon head and at the 29 m isobar, and from transect surveys and drift clump samples, we determined drift plant export rates and drift clump biomass and species composition. The dominant drift plants were Thalassia testudinum and Syringodium filiforme and algae in the genera Dictyota, Dictyopterus, and Diloplus. During the second mission, the seagrass Halophila decipiens became more abundant, both in the drift and in large patches along the canyon floor. In both missions, more drift was collected in the nets during high wind conditions than during calmer days. Calculated turnover times ranged from 0·01 to 4·4 days for algae in the order Dictyotales and 4·4 to 18 days for Thalassia blades. Total exported biomass of drift vegetation varied between 1·4 to 65·1 kg wet wt day^?1. Samples of drift vegetation contained mostly juvenile forms of both invertebrates and fishes, but in relatively low numbers. Faunal numbers were most strongly related to rate of drift movement.