Cause, conseguenze e strategie di mitigazione Proponiamo il primo di una serie di articoli in cui affronteremo l’attuale problema dei mutamenti climatici. Presentiamo il documento redatto, votato e pubblicato dall’Ipcc - Comitato intergovernativo sui cambiamenti climatici - che illustra la sintesi delle ricerche svolte su questo tema rilevante.

/pdf/climate-change-2007-the-physical-science-basis-1x93ttz9jt.pdf

Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.

The science of the total environment

Over the past few generations, expectations of comfort, cleanliness and convenience have altered radically, but these dramatic changes have largely gone unnoticed. This intriguing book brings together the sociology of consumption and technology to investigate the evolution of these changes, as well the social meaning of the practices themselves. Homes, offices, domestic appliances and clothes play a crucial role in our lives, but not many of us question exactly how and why we perform so many daily rituals associated with them. Showers, heating, air-conditioning and clothes washing are simply accepted as part of our normal, everyday lives, but clearly this was not always the case. When did the daily shower become de rigueur? What effect has air conditioning had on the siesta at one time an integral part of Mediterranean life and culture? This book interrogates the meaning and supposed normality of these practices and draws disturbing conclusions. There is clear evidence supporting the view that routine consumption is controlled by conceptions of normality and profoundly shaped by cultural and economic forces. Shove maintains that habits are not just changing, but are changing in ways that imply escalating and standardizing patterns of consumption. This shrewd and engrossing analysis shows just how far the social meanings and practices of comfort, cleanliness and convenience have eluded us.

Comfort, cleanliness and conveniencethe social organization ofnormality

https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/9811/1/2008000329.pdf

Sustainable construction--the role of environmental assessment tools.

Transport and climate change: a review

SUMMARY Significant interest in the concept of sustainable development exists amongst scientists, planners, policy makers and the public, and considerable effort and expenditure is made or envisaged at local, national and international levels to promote a more sustainable society Until ‘green accounting’ and similar systems are made available and are implemented, the sustainability indicator will be the most effective tool available for monitoring progress towards a more sustainable society Sustainability indicators are already available but are characterized by a poor or absent theoretical underpinning This paper addresses this problem by proposing a methodological framework that can be applied to the construction of indicators of sustainable development In order to be consistent with widely accepted definitions of sustainable development, considerations relating to the measurement of quality of life and ecological integrity are central to the methodology The methodological framework has relevance t

PICABUE: a methodological framework for the development of indicators of sustainable development

Problem, research strategy, and findings: It is commonly asserted that so-called compact development is the urban form most able to sustainably accommodate growth by reducing travel distances and conserving land, but credible supportive evidence remains limited. This study rigorously and realistically tested the relative performance of spatial options over the next 30 years for three distinct kinds of English city regions. Statistical models first forecast the behavior of people within interacting markets for land and transport. These outputs were then fed to established simulation models to generate 26 indicators measuring the economic efficiency, resource use, social impact, and environmental impact of the spatial options. This permitted an explicit comparison of the costs and benefits of compact against sprawling urban forms for these regions. While the prototypes (i.e., compaction, sprawl, edge expansion, and new towns) were indeed found to differ in their sustainability, no one form was clearly super...

Growing Cities Sustainably: Does Urban Form Really Matter?

This paper presents the results of the first national study of air quality in Britain to consider the implications of its distribution across over ten thousand local communities in terms of potential environmental injustice. We consider the recent history of the environmental justice debate in Britain, Europe, and the USA and, in the light of this, estimate how one aspect of air pollution, nitrogen dioxide (NO 2) levels, affects different population groups differentially across Britain. We also estimate the extent to which people living in each community in Britain contribute towards this pollution, with the aid of information on the characteristics of the vehicles they own. We find that, although community NO x emission and ambient NO2 concentration are strongly related, the communities that have access to fewest cars tend to suffer from the highest levels of air pollution, whereas those in which car ownership is greatest enjoy the cleanest air. Pollution is most concentrated in areas where young children and their parents are more likely to live and least concentrated in areas to which the elderly tend to migrate. Those communities that are most polluted and which also emit the least pollution tend to be amongst the poorest in Britain. There is therefore evidence of environmental injustice in the distribution and production of poor air quality in Britain. However, the spatial distribution of those who produce and receive most of that pollution have to be considered simultaneously to see this injustice clearly.

/pdf/an-environmental-justice-analysis-of-british-air-quality-21tc8plove.pdf

An environmental justice analysis of british air quality

Measurement issues are of current concern to organizations faced with the task of promoting sustainability. Single figure aggregate indices of sustainable development (SD), primarily designed for use at the national scale, are not readily applicable locally and are a poor guide for decision-makers and citizens wishing to promote local sustainability. This has led to an abundance of sustainable development indicator (SDI) sets, each comprising a broad range of specific indicators. Existing indicator sets are not obviously compatible and there is a danger that, without the application of a clear method, indicators will be produced in an ad hoc fashion without full consideration of key SD principles or indicator characteristics. Such SDIs may be ineffective in promoting SD and possibly detrimental to the process. This paper examines the background to SDIs, including problems with their construction, and outlines fundamental steps that should be followed to produce any list of SDIs.

Gordon Mitchell

Papers

PICABUE: a methodological framework for the development of indicators of sustainable development

Growing Cities Sustainably: Does Urban Form Really Matter?

An environmental justice analysis of british air quality

Problems and fundamentals of sustainable development indicators

Mapping hazard from urban non-point pollution: a screening model to support sustainable urban drainage planning