Benefits and costs of artificial nighttime lighting of the environment

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin J. Gaston ◽  
Sian Gaston ◽  
Jonathan Bennie ◽  
John Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Artificial Lighting ◽  
Vehicle Accidents ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Benefits And Costs ◽  
Do So ◽  
Natural Cycles

Artificial lighting has transformed the outdoor nighttime environment over large areas, modifying natural cycles of light in terms of timing, wavelength, and distribution. This has had widespread benefits and costs to humankind, impacting on health and wellbeing, vehicle accidents, crime, energy consumption and carbon emissions, aesthetics, and wildlife and ecosystems. Here, we review these effects, particularly in the context of ongoing developments in the extent of artificial lighting and in the prevalent technologies being employed. The key issue that emerges is how best to maximize the benefits of artificial nighttime lighting whilst limiting the costs. To do so, three main strategies are required. First, important knowledge gaps need to be filled. Second, there is an urgent need to connect the research being conducted in different disciplines, which to date has been very disjointed. Third, it is imperative that much firmer and well-developed links are made between research, policy, and practice.

Daring to differ? Strategies of inclusion in peacemaking

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 305-322 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas T Hirblinger ◽  
Dana M Landau
Keyword(s):  
Research Policy ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
The Third ◽  
Peace Processes ◽  
Single Identity ◽  
Sociopolitical Structures ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So ◽  
Specific Identity

‘Inclusion’ has emerged as a prominent theme in peacemaking. However, its exact meaning remains vague, as do assumptions about the relationship between inclusion and peace. This article seeks to problematize the research, policy and practice of inclusion. Focusing on United Nations (UN) peacemaking, we ask how the object of inclusion has been framed, and based on what strategies and underlying rationales. We do so against the backdrop of emerging debates about an agonistic peace, which suggest that violent antagonistic relationships can be overcome if peace processes enable contestation between adversaries. This requires that peacemakers recognize the constitutive role of difference in political settlements. We identify three distinct strategies for inclusion, with corresponding framings of the included. Firstly, inclusion can be used to build a more legitimate peace; secondly, to empower and protect specific actor groups; and thirdly, to transform the sociopolitical structures that underlie conflict. The first strategy frames the included in open terms that can accommodate a heterogeneity of actors, the second in closed terms pertaining to specific identity traits, and the third in relational terms emerging within a specific social, cultural and political context. In practice, this leads to tensions in the operationalization of inclusion, which are evidence of an inchoate attempt to politicize peace processes. In response, we argue for an approach to relational inclusion that recognizes the power relations from which difference emerges; neither brushing over difference, nor essentializing single identity traits, but rather remaining flexible in navigating a larger web of relationships that require transformation.

scholarly journals Working out What Works: The Role of Tacit Knowledge Where Urban Greenspace Research, Policy and Practice Intersect

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 5029 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Dobson ◽  
Nicola Dempsey
Keyword(s):  
Tacit Knowledge ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Mental Wellbeing ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Urban Nature ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Urban Greenspace

Policymakers and practitioners working in urban greenspace management want to know what kind of interventions are effective in promoting mental wellbeing. In practice, however, they rely on multiple forms of knowledge, often in unwritten form. This paper considers how such knowledge is interpreted and used by a range of stakeholders to identify greenspace interventions to support residents’ health and wellbeing in one UK city. It examines the interface between academic research, policy and practice, drawing on the findings of a three-year study in Sheffield, UK. The Improving Wellbeing through the Urban Nature project investigated the links between ‘urban nature’ and mental health. One strand of the research sought to influence policy and practice, and this article presents findings and reflects on some of the processes of this exercise. It highlights the role of tacit knowledge in practice and its influence on practitioners’ choice of greenspace interventions and the challenges in drawing on such knowledge to influence policy. The findings affirm practice-based knowledge as socially situated, interpretively fashioned and politically weighted. This paper concludes by demonstrating the importance of considering the local context when devising policy prescriptions for greenspace provision and management.

scholarly journals Just Transitions, Poverty and Energy Consumption: Personal Carbon Accounts and Households in Poverty

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 5953
Author(s):  
Martin Burgess ◽  
Mark Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Environmental Cost ◽  
Household Energy ◽  
Household Energy Use ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Database Average ◽  
Do So

Complex relations exist between issues of poverty, responsibility and just transitions toward reduced household energy use. One proposed transitional instrument is Personal Carbon Accounts (PCAs) which provide equal per capita carbon allowances and increase costs for additional usage. Previously modelled PCAs show that a third of households in poverty must curtail usage or pay more for some of their fuel, hitherto making PCAs ethically and politically untenable. Using the UK’s “Understanding Society” database, average per capita carbon allowances and—using occupancy data—the hypothetical allowance each household would receive within a PCA scheme are calculated. Occupancy levels, equivalised incomes and conversion of expenditure to carbon emissions permit analysis of households emitting more or less carbon compared to their allocation. We demonstrate that households emitting greater than average levels of CO2 do so mainly for lifestyle reasons, irrespective of income. Any calculation of legitimate social and environmental cost of CO2, even for households in poverty, must consider questions of choice and capacity to act. This suggests that even if certain low income, high emitting households are disadvantaged by the transition associated with personal carbon allowances this may still be a just transition.

scholarly journals Updating the Secondary Transition Research Base: Evidence- and Research-Based Practices in Functional Skills

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-46
Author(s):  
Dawn A. Rowe ◽  
Valerie L. Mazzotti ◽  
Catherine H. Fowler ◽  
David W. Test ◽  
Vickie J. Mitchell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Students With Disabilities ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Secondary Transition ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Evidence Based Practices ◽  
Transition Research ◽  
Research Based Practices ◽  
Do So

Transition education should be grounded in quality research. To do so, educators need information on which practices are effective for teaching students with disabilities transition-related skills. The purpose of this systematic literature review was to identify evidence-based and research-based practices in secondary special education and transition for students with disabilities. This systematic review resulted in the identification of nine secondary transition evidence-based practices and 22 research-based practices across more than 45 different transition-related skills. The range of effects for each of the secondary transition evidence-based and research-based practices identified are also included. Limitations and implications for future research, policy, and practice are discussed.

scholarly journals Educating Girls: Complexities of Informing Meaningful Social Change

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-214
Author(s):  
Karen Monkman
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equity ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Asian Country ◽  
Community Sustainability ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Global Policy ◽  
The Face ◽  
Do So

Jackie Kirk devoted her career to trying to bridge the relationships among research, policy and practice for the purpose of making the world a better place for children, teachers, and communities. Reflecting her priorities, we examine herein how research, policy and practice interact to enable a robust and dynamic program that educates girls for purposes far beyond typical policy priorities of access and parity. To do so, we rely on interviews and focus group discussions that involved over 130 individuals who were involved with one girls’ education program in a remote region of a Southeast Asian country. Their narratives reveal that the program was flexible and responsive, yet guided by clear ideas about gender equity. This work is not prescriptive or predictable; it evolves through dynamic interactions. Global policy priorities of access and parity became means toward more important goals including community sustainability in the face of environmental and economic challenges. Structures that enabled this robust program included space, time, funding, and a dynamic conceptual lens.

scholarly journals Creativity, health and wellbeing: challenges of research and evidence  

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Norma Daykin
Keyword(s):  
Research Policy ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Long Term Conditions ◽  
Community Assets ◽  
Cultural Engagement ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Policy Objectives ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S

Creativity, health and wellbeing (CHW) has emerged as a multidisciplinary field of research, policy and practice over the last 20 years. Its beginnings can be traced from the establishment of art therapies in the post war period and from the growth of community arts in the 1960s, which fostered connections between arts professionals, researchers, educators and policy advocates seeking to respond to local challenges (White, 2009).  Subsequently the CHW field has grown through evidence building, advocacy and sector development and there is now a wider recognition of the contribution of arts and cultural engagement to a wide range of policy objectives. For example, policies such as social prescribing view arts spaces, activities and resources as community assets that can be used to improve health, to support people living with long-term conditions and to reduce pressure on health services. Nevertheless, the successful integration of arts and creativity into policy and practice is some way off, partly because of ongoing theoretical, methodological and political challenges (Daykin, 2020).

scholarly journals Alternative denominators in transport crime rates

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reka Solymosi ◽  
Matthew P J Ashby ◽  
Tom Cohen ◽  
Aiden Sidebottom
Keyword(s):  
Public Transportation ◽  
Research Policy ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Modern Cities ◽  
Open Source Data ◽  
Source Data ◽  
London Underground ◽  
Crime Types ◽  
Crime Risk ◽  
Do So

Ensuring passenger security on mass transit is vital for modern cities. Failure to do so may jeopardize the societal, environmental and health benefits of public transportation. One challenge with securing transit environments comes from the difficulty of accurately estimating the risk of criminal victimization at various nodes, particularly with respect to the choice of denominator that most reliably captures variations in the number of opportunities for different crime types. In this paper, we draw on open-source data as denominators for calculating the risk of violent crime on London Underground. We argue that denominator choice can depend on the ease of availability, accuracy and applicability of the data required, and demonstrate how the choice of denominator significantly affects estimations of crime risk. We make recommendations for research, policy and practice in denominator choice, and finally integrate the results to develop a taxonomy of London Underground stations based on their risk profiles across all measures.

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