Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

The planetary boundaries framework defines a safe operating space for humanity based on the intrinsic biophysical processes that regulate the stability of the Earth system. Here, we revise and update the planetary boundary framework, with a focus on the underpinning biophysical science, based on targeted input from expert research communities and on more general scientific advances over the past 5 years. Several of the boundaries now have a two-tier approach, reflecting the importance of cross-scale interactions and the regional-level heterogeneity of the processes that underpin the boundaries. Two core boundaries—climate change and biosphere integrity—have been identified, each of which has the potential on its own to drive the Earth system into a new state should they be substantially and persistently transgressed.

/pdf/planetary-boundaries-guiding-human-development-on-a-changing-5gmf909etg.pdf

Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet

Part 1: Social Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Text Analysis 1. Introduction 2. Texts, Social Events, and Social Practices 3. Intertextuality and Assumptions Part 2: Genres and Action 4. Genres 5. Meaning Relations between Sentences and Clauses 6. Types of Exchange, Speech Functions, and Grammatical Mood Part 3: Discourses and Representations 7. Discourses 8. Representations of Social Events Part 4: Styles and Identities 9. Styles 10. Modality and Evaluation 11. Conclusion

http://disciplinas.stoa.usp.br/pluginfile.php/270695/mod_folder/content/0/ii.%20Norman_Fairclough_Analysing_discourse.pdf?forcedownload=1

Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society

2 1 The innovative transport systems and the CityMobil project 10 1.1 The research questions 10 2 The state of art in the field of automatic transport systems 12 2.1 Case studies and demand studies for innovative transport systems 12 3 The design and implementation of surveys 14 3.1 Definition of experimental design 14 3.2 Questionnaire design and delivery 16 3.3 First analyses on the collected sample 18 4 Calibration of Logit Multionomial demand models 21 4.1 Methodology 21 4.2 Calibration of the “full” model. 22 4.3 Calibration of the “final” model 24 4.4 The demand analysis through the final Multinomial Logit model 25 5 The analysis of interaction between the demand and socioeconomic attributes 31 5.1 Methodology 31 5.2 Application of Mixed Logit models to the demand 31 5.3 Analysis of the interactions between demand and socioeconomic attributes through Mixed Logit models 32 5.4 Mixed Logit model and interaction between age and the demand for the CTS 38 5.5 Demand analysis with Mixed Logit model 39 6 Final analyses and conclusions 45 6.1 Comparison between the results of the analyses 45 6.2 Conclusions 48 6.3 Answers to the research questions and future developments 52

The European commission

This research was designed to provide the HSE with a better understanding of the nature and dynamics of public perceptions of the risks associated with major hazard sites in the light of current policy developments and debates. It consisted of a series of case studies conducted around seven different major hazard sites and utilised a qualitative research design that involved people living close to such sites taking part in focus group discussions and completing a Q-sort exercise. The results of the research highlight the influence of local context on public perceptions of major hazard sites and outline the ways in which members of the lay public reason about the associated risks. The analysis differentiates the bases of public toleration of hazardous industrial sites and accounts for their distribution across different local contexts. The report also documents the public’s views of a number of policy issues, including the provision of risk information, the regulation of major hazard industry and the use of land use planning controls. The report concludes with a discussion of the implications of the research for policy, giving particular attention to the Seveso II Directive and forthcoming COMAH Regulations, and to the HSE’s Tolerability of Risk criteria.

Public Perception of Risks Associated with Major Accident Hazards

Introduction: Ecology, Realism and the Social Sciences

Citizens' participation in integrated assessment of climate change highlights the uneasy relationship between democracy and expert knowledges as they have been generally understood in the West. Based on empirical material gathered through in-depth groups in Venice (Italy) and citizens' panels in St. Helens (UK), the paper explores: (1) some of the challenges and opportunities of qualitative and comparative research on climate change; and (2) the similarities and differences in citizens’ environmental assessment in two European cities facing economic, urban and social re-structuring. The authors research reveals a general willingness to participate, albeit conditional, despite initial scepticism and interrogation about the objectives. During the process, participants in both cities show: (a) a broad contextual understanding of uncertainties and complexities; (b) how important interpersonal skills between lay and expert publics are; and (c) that precaution should generally apply in the case of uncertainties...

'Between Democracy and Expertise? Citizens' Participation and Environmental Integrated Assessment in Venice (Italy) and St.Helens (UK)

This paper questions the assumption that public participation in integrated assessment (IA) means finding (better) ways to make the public engage with IA. Following other studies about public perceptions of expert/scientific knowledge, it is unclear why the public should - or even want to - approach issues (such as climate change) from the epistemologically privileged expert-framed perspectives of IA. The objective of this paper is to reverse the order and re-centre the problematique of public participation and IA toward a public-centred perspective, toward a "folk integrated assessment". In order to undertake this task, illustrations of how groups of lay members of the public perceive and think about issues such as climate change are presented and analysed. They reveal the already existing, always context-dependent complexity, diversity, richness and ambiguity of lay knowledge and "integration" skills.

Brian Wynne

Papers

Public Perception of Risks Associated with Major Accident Hazards

Introduction: Ecology, Realism and the Social Sciences

'Between Democracy and Expertise? Citizens' Participation and Environmental Integrated Assessment in Venice (Italy) and St.Helens (UK)

Towards a "folk integrated assessment" of climate change?

Responsible Care:trust, credibility and environmental management