CSG A Greener Tomorrow : Comprehensive Organizational and Socialistic Report

Humans have altered environments and enhanced their wellbeing unlike any other creature on the planet (Hielman & Donda, 2007); this is no different whether the environment is ecological, social or organizational. In recent times, the debate regarding greenhouse effects on the global weather patterns and the sustainment of the earth’s temperature necessary for life support has become quite infamously problematic as society pushes to find new sources of energy both renewable and environmentally sustainable. The feedback received on CSG from both government and companies alike is that the opportunities this industry creates has a lasting range of social and economic benefits worth over fifty (50) billion dollars in projects (Queensland Government, 2013). This however, has been overshadowed by social activist and lobbyist groups as ‘Lock the Gate Alliance’ saying, as one part of their report noted from the National Water Commission, “coal seam gas development could cause significant social impacts by disrupting current land-use practices and the local environment through infrastructure construction and access” (Lock the Gate Alliance, n.d.), and “In recent years both a NSW and Federal Senate inquiry into coal seam gas production were deliberately mislead by an organization that claims to work on behalf of the farming community, This is the battle for the end of the fossil fuel industry. This is the end game..." (Ward, 2013).

Design, sustainability and Australian mass-market fashion : three case studies

The production of fashion garments has negative environmental and social impacts that can potentially be reduced through decisions made in the design process. This research explores to what extent Australian mass-market fashion designers consider environmental sustainability within product design. The study presents three case studies from different market levels, assembled through interviews with designers, along with an analysis of the Australian mass-market fashion industry. The project provides insights into the workings of the fashion design process within mid and high volume companies, and identifies opportunities and barriers for consideration of sustainability.

Pro Bono partnerships : community lawyering to promote environmental justice

Rural communities across Australia are increasingly being asked to shoulder the environmental and social impacts of intensive mining and gas projects. Escalating demand for coal seam gas (CSG) is raising significant environmental justice issues for rural communities. Chief amongst environmental concerns are risks of contamination or depletion of vital underground aquifers as well as treatment and disposal of high-saline water close to high quality agricultural soils. Associated infrastructure such as pipelines, electricity lines, gas processing and port facilities can also adversely affect communities and ecosystems great distances from where the gas is originally extracted. Whilst community submission (and appeal) rights do exist, accessing expert independent information is challenging, legal terminology is complex and submission periods are short, leading ultimately to a lack of procedural justice for landholders and their communities. Since August 2012, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has worked in partnership with not-for-profit legal centre - Queensland’s Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) - to help better educate communities about mining and CSG assessment processes. The project, now entering its third semester, aims to empower communities to access relevant information and actively engage in legal processes on their own behalf. Students involved in the project so far have helped to research chapters of a comprehensive community guide to mining and CSG law as well as organising multidisciplinary community forums and preparing information on land access and compensation rights for landholders. While environmental justice issues still exist without significant law reform, the project has led to greater awareness amongst the community of the laws relating the CSG. At the same time, it has led to a greater understanding by students and academics of real life environmental justice issues currently faced by rural communities.

More than merely wicked : regulating sewage discharges and other unspeakable problems in environmental policy-making and planning

While the communicative turn in policy-making has encouraged the public deliberation of policy decisions it has arguably had a more limited impact on the ability of public processes to deal with wicked problems. Wicked policy problems are characterised by high levels of complexity, uncertainty and divergence of values. However, some wicked problems present the additional challenge of high levels of psychosocial sensitivity and verbal proscription. Because these unspeakable policy problems frequently involve a significant moral dimension, the regulation of intimate processes or bodies, and strong elements of abjection and symbolic pollution they are quite literally problems that we don’t like to think about or talk about. However, the potential environmental and social impacts of these problems require that they be addressed. In this paper I present the preliminary findings of a research project focussed on the idea of the unspeakable policy problem and how its unspeakable nature can impact upon public participation and policy and environmental outcomes.

A preliminary study into the environmental and economic consequences of a sugar factory depithing operation

Bagasse stockpile operations have the potential to lead to adverse environmental and social impacts. Dust releases can cause occupational health and safety concerns for factory workers and dust emissions impact on the surrounding community. Preliminary modelling showed that bagasse depithing would likely reduce the environmental risks, particularly dust emissions, associated with large-scale bagasse stockpiling operations. Dust emission properties were measured and used for dispersion modelling with favourable outcomes. Modelling showed a 70% reduction in peak ground level concentrations of PM10 dust (particles with an aerodynamic diameter less than 10 μm) from operations on depithed bagasse stockpiles compared to similar operations on stockpiles of whole bagasse. However, the costs of a depithing operation at a sugar factory were estimated to be approximately $2.1 million in capital expenditure to process 100 000 t/y of bagasse and operating costs were 200 000 p.a. The total capital cost for a 10 000 t/y operation was approximately $1.6 million. The cost of depithing based on a discounted cash flow analysis was $5.50 per tonne of bagasse for the 100 000 t/y scenario. This may make depithing prohibitively expensive in many situations if installed exclusively as a dust control measure.

Growing more sustainable communities

According to the Green Building Council of Australia, some 85 per cent of the Australian population is now concentrated in cities, and the nation’s population is expected to rise by 60 per cent by 2050. Clearly, the coming decade will see a greater emphasis not only on environmental impacts, but also the social impacts of our expanding urban areas.

The links between public tendencies and the urban design framework of Brisbane’s public squares: Mapping urban design frameworks present in Brisbane public squares and the correlating activities of the Australian public

This research seeks to demonstrate the ways in which urban design factors, individually and in various well-considered arrangements, stimulate and encourage social activities in Brisbane’s public squares through the mapping and analysis of user behaviour. No design factors contribute to public space in isolation, so the combinations of different design factors, contextual and social impacts as well as local climate are considered to be highly influential to the way in which Brisbane’s public engages with public space. It is this local distinctiveness that this research seeks to ascertain. The research firstly pinpoints and consolidates the design factors identified and recommended in existing literature and then maps the identified factors as they are observed at case study sites in Brisbane. This is then set against observational mappings of the site’s corresponding user activities and engagement. These mappings identify a number of patterns of behaviour; pertinently that “activated” areas of social gathering actively draw people in, and the busier a space is, both the frequency and duration of people lingering in the space increases. The study finds that simply providing respite from the urban environment (and/or weather conditions) does not adequately encourage social interaction and that people friendly design factors can instigate social activities which, if coexisting in a public space, can themselves draw in further users of the space. One of the primary conclusions drawn from these observations is that members of the public in Brisbane are both actively and passively social and often seek out locations where “people-watching” and being around other members of the public (both categorised as passive social activities) are facilitated and encouraged. Spaces that provide respite from the urban environment but that do not sufficiently accommodate social connections and activities are less favourable and are often left abandoned despite their comparable tranquillity and available space.

Defining green road infrastructure projects—A critical review

Green infrastructure is considered as a strategic approach to address the ecological and social impacts of urban sprawl. The main elements of green infrastructure have been well established and include a series of multifunctional ecological systems, such as green urban space, green road infrastructure and the links between these systems. However, it should be noted that the elements of green road infrastructure have only been briefly mentioned in isolated life cycle stages, e.g. design, procurement, construction, maintenance and operation. The definition of green road infrastructure and the elements in green road infrastructure projects remain largely unknown. To explore the elements in green road infrastructure, a critical review was adopted. As the development of green road infrastructure projects is guided by rating systems, a comparison of three major green roads rating systems, including GreenroadsTM, EnvisionTM and Infrastructure Sustainability Rating Tool—IS, was conducted. The comparison reveals that green roads can be defined as road projects that have superior performance in economic, social and environmental sustainability. The sustainability features in green roads mainly include environmental sustainability, social sustainability, economic sustainability, quality, pavement technology and innovation. The results will contribute to an increased understanding of green roads and will be useful to improve the performance of road projects on these sustainability features.

A qualitative exploration of parental experiences of stigma while living with HIV in Bangladesh

With much of the focus on the “risk” groups, families have often been less studied in HIV research. Further, because of a focus on the aetiology and epidemiology of HIV, the social impacts associated with HIV on families and neighbours are sometimes overlooked. This study examined parental experiences of stigma and discrimination while living with HIV within a family context in Bangladesh. A qualitative research design using a grounded theory approach was used for this research. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with 19 HIV-positive parents, recruited with the support of two self-help groups of HIV-positive people, in two settings namely Khulna and Dhaka in Bangladesh. The findings indicate that HIV-positive parents held the view that they continue to experience significant stigma and their narratives clearly show how this affected them and their children. A range of informal practices were enacted in everyday contexts by extended family and community members to identify, demarcate and limit the social interaction of HIV-positive parents. Parents highlighted a number of factors including negative thoughts and behaviours, rejection, isolation and derogatory remarks as manifestations of stigma and discrimination, impacting upon them and their children because of their association with HIV.

Adverse childhood experiences and the health of university students in eight provinces of Vietnam

Recent systematic reviews have emphasized the need for more research into the health and social impacts of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the Asia-Pacific region. This cross-sectional study was conducted with 2099 young adult students in 8 medical universities throughout Vietnam. An anonymous, self-report questionnaire included the World Health Organization ACE-International Questionnaire and standardized measures of mental and physical health. Three quarters (76%) of the students reported at least one exposure to ACEs; 21% had 4 or more ACEs. The most commonly reported adversities were emotional abuse, physical abuse, and witnessing a household member being treated violently (42.3%, 39.9%, and 34.6%, respectively). Co-occurrence of ACEs had dose–response relationships with poor mental health, suicidal ideation, and low physical health–related quality of life. This first multisite study of ACEs among Vietnamese university students provided evidence that childhood adversity is common and is significantly linked with impaired health and well-being into the early adult years

The host range of four new biotypes of Dactylopius tomentosus (Hemiptera: Dactylopiidae) from southern USA and their potential as biological control agents of Cylindropuntiaspp.(Cactaceae) in Australia: Part II.

Eight Cylindropuntia species have naturalised in Australia and pose serious economic, environmental and social impacts. Two biotypes of Dactylopius tomentosus have been used as bio-control agents to control different Cylindropuntia species. The host range of four additional biotypes of Dactylopius tomentosus from southern USA was investigated. Feeding and development were restricted to the genus Cylindropuntia. However, they showed differences in specificity within this genus and some biotypes discriminated between the provenances of C. rosea and C. tunicata. Efficacy trials were conducted to determine whether populations of each biotype could be sustained on the naturalised Cylindropuntia species and if these populations could retard the growth or kill these plants. The acanthocarpa biotype offers potential control of C. rosea (Lorne Station), while the cylindropuntia sp. biotype shows great potential to control C. rosea (Grawin). The cylindropuntia sp. biotype also had a high impact on C. kleiniae and C. imbricata, and a moderate impact on C. leptocaulis and C. prolifera. The acanthocarpa X echinocarpa biotype had its greatest impact on C. tunicata (Grawin), killing this plant in 18 weeks. A fourth biotype, leptocaulis, was damaging to some species, but was less effective than the other biotypes. Cylindropuntia spinosior is the only naturalised species in Australia where no effective biocontrol agent has been found.

An approach to scenario analysis of the sustainability of an industrial sector applied to clothing and textiles in the UK

Companies aiming to be 'sustainability leaders' in their sector and governments wanting to support their ambitions need a means to assess the changes required to make a significant difference in the impact of their whole sector. Previous work on scenario analysis/scenario planning demonstrates extensive developments and applications, but as yet few attempts to integrate the 'triple bottom line' concerns of sustainability into scenario planning exercises. This paper, therefore, presents a methodology for scenario analysis of large change to an entire sector. The approach includes calculation of a 'triple bottom line graphic equaliser' to allow exploration and evaluation of the trade-offs between economic, environmental and social impacts. The methodology is applied to the UK's clothing and textiles sector, and results from the study of the sector are summarised. In reflecting on the specific study, some suggestions are made about future application of a similar methodology, including a template of candidate solutions that may lead to significant reduction in impacts. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The politics of participation: Evaluating stakeholder equity in co-management regimes

Within natural resource management, there is increasing criticism of the traditional model of top-down management as a method of governance, as researchers and managers alike have recognized that resources can frequently be better managed when stakeholders are directly involved in management. As a result, in recent years the concept of co-management of natural resources, in which management responsibilities are shared between the government and stakeholders, has become increasingly popular, both in the academic literature and in practice. However, while co-management has significant potential as a successful management tool, the issue of equity in co-management has rarely been addressed. It is necessary to understand the differential impacts on stakeholders of co-management processes and the degree to which diverse stakeholders are represented within co-management. Understanding the interests of various stakeholders can be a way to more effectively address the distributional and social impacts of coastal policies, which can in turn increase compliance with management measures and lead to more sustainable resource management regimes. This research seeks to take a closer look at the concepts of co-management and participation through a number of case studies of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Caribbean. (PDF contains 4 pages)

Modos de pensar e de fazer: o cuidado de enfermagem à pessoa com HIV/Aids representado pela equipe de enfermagem

Este estudo propõe uma reflexão acerca do cuidado de enfermagem e suas práticas voltadas à pessoa com HIV/Aids desenvolvido por profissionais da equipe de enfermagem. O objetivo geral foi analisar as representações sociais e as práticas de cuidado de enfermagem a pessoa com HIV/Aids para a equipe de enfermagem que atua no Programa de DST/Aids no Município do Rio de Janeiro. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa, fundamentada na Teoria das Representações Sociais. Quanto à metodologia este estudo foi desenvolvido com 16 unidades de saúde inseridas no Programa Nacional de DST-Aids do Ministério da Saúde, que prestam assistência a pessoas que vivem com HIV/Aids em nível ambulatorial. Participaram desse estudo 37 profissionais, sendo 20 enfermeiros e 17 técnicos e auxiliares de enfermagem. Os dados foram coletados através de entrevista semiestruturada, tendo sido analisadas através da utilização do software ALCESTE 4.10; e questionário de identificação sócio-profissional, cuja análise de dados foi realizada com estatística descritiva. A partir da análise ALCESTE foram definidas 7 classes, divididas em dois blocos temáticos, sendo o primeiro denominado O HIV/Aids e seus impactos sociais através do olhar da equipe de enfermagem. Este bloco abarcou 3 classes, sendo elas: Preconceito e vulnerabilidade no cotidiano do cuidado de enfermagem de pessoas atingidas pelo HIV/Aids (classe1); As relações familiares e o envolvimento com o HIV/Aids (classe 4) e Memórias sócio profissionais sobre o HIV/Aids (classe 7). O segundo bloco temático denomina-se O HIV/Aids e as práticas de cuidado, e abarca 4 classes da análise, denominadas: A complexidade do atendimento ambulatorial da pessoa com HIV/Aids (classe 2); As práticas de cuidado da equipe de enfermagem e da equipe multiprofissional (classe 3); A educação em saúde como prática do cuidado de enfermagem (classe 5) e Medidas de proteção e biossegurança dos profissionais de enfermagem (classe 6). No primeiro bloco observa-se as representações da doença, os estigmas enfrentados pela pessoa com HIV/Aids, as relações com familiares e profissionais de saúde e as memórias da equipe de enfermagem com relação a doença. Observa-se que mesmo após ter havido mudanças no perfil da doença, as marcas do passado ainda se fazem presentes no cotidiano desses sujeitos, o que se reflete no cuidado de enfermagem, nas relações familiares e na vida em sociedade. O segundo bloco descreve as práticas institucionais e profissionais de cuidado à pessoa com HIV/Aids, observando-se o destaque da autoproteção no cuidado de enfermagem aos sujeitos com HIV/Aids. Também são destacados elementos como o cuidado do outro, tais como o vínculo, a postura acolhedora, o apoio psicológico e o relacionamento interpessoal, que são modalidades reconhecidas como participantes das práticas de cuidado, assim como a educação em saúde. Conclui-se que os diversos conteúdos que compõem as representações sociais e as práticas de cuidado de enfermagem a pessoa com HIV/Aids se apresentam sentimentos, práticas, atitudes, memórias, conceitos e imagens atuais e antigas, com a presença do cuidado instrumental, mas também do cuidado relacional.

O uso de fosfatos associado à fitorremediação em solos de Santo Amaro (BA) contaminados por metais tóxicos

A contaminação do solo no município de Santo Amaro (BA) por metais tóxicos provocada pelas atividades da empresa Plumbum Mineração tem gerado impactos sobre a saúde ambiental e humana. O objetivo da presente pesquisa foi avaliar a viabilidade da remediação deste solo contaminado por chumbo e cádmio, utilizando diferentes fontes de fosfatos e fitorremediação com o capim vetiver [Vetiveria zizanioides (L.)]. O estudo foi realizado em colunas de PVC onde amostras de solo foram colocadas com a aplicação de fosfato dihidrogênio de potássio (KH2PO4) (T1); fertilizante fosfato natural reativo (FNR) (T2) e; uma mistura do KH2PO4 e de fertilizante FNR (T3). Amostras de solo contaminado sem tratamento (T0) foram utilizadas como controle. Após 60, 120 e 180 dias, alíquotas do solo foram retiradas das colunas para análises. Ao final de cada período, mudas de capim vetiver [(Vetiveria zizanioides (L.)] foram plantadas em vasos com as amostras de solo: T0, T1, T2 e T3 em triplicata. Para a determinação das concentrações de chumbo e cádmio no solo e tecidos vegetais foi utilizado o ICP-OES. A partir das análises física e química constatou-se que o solo possui textura argilosa e capacidade de troca catiônica (CTC) elevadas. As extrações com solução de ácido dietilenotriaminopentaacético (DTPA) e Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) mostraram que o tratamento T1 seguido do T3 foram os mais eficientes na imobilização de Pb e Cd. Entretanto, todos os tratamentos resultaram em concentrações de metais ainda disponíveis no solo que excediam os limites estabelecidos pela USEPA, sendo o solo, portanto, considerado tóxico mesmo após o tratamento. Com base nas concentrações de metais extraídos através da extração sequencial pelo método BCR após a remediação e a fitorremediação do solo, foi verificado que todos os três tratamentos com fosfatos foram eficientes em imobilizar o Pb e Cd nas formas menos solúveis, porém, o Cd permaneceu mais solúvel e com maior mobilidade do que o Pb. Os ensaios de letalidade utilizando minhoca Eisenia andrei mostraram que a mortalidade observada no solo após 60 dias de tratamento foi significativamente reduzida após 120 e 180 dias de tratamento. A perda de biomassa pelas minhocas também foi reduzida de acordo com o tempo de tratamento. O teste de germinação com alfaces (Lactuca sativa L.) indicou que as amostras de solo tratadas continuam bastante tóxicas, apesar da disponibilidade reduzida do Pb e do Cd como visto nos resultados da extração por TCLP e por BCR. A avaliação de risco ecológico potencial indicou que os tratamentos do solo com fosfatos associado à fitorremediação reduziram a mobilidade do Pb, principalmente nos tratamentos T1 e T3. Para o Cd o risco ecológico potencial aumenta consideravelmente quando comparado com o Pb demonstrando que esse elemento, apesar dos tratamentos com fosfatos mais a fitorremediação continua móvel. O tratamento com KH2PO4 (T1) foi o mais eficiente na redução da mobilidade, disponibilidade e da toxicidade dos metais, seguido pelo T3 e T2 para o Pb e o T3 seguido pelo T1 e T2 para o Cd.