scholarly journals Silver linings and wishful thinking? More than human geographies of the coronavirus

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-313
Author(s):  
Camilla Royle
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Eating Habits ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
The Media ◽  
Ecological Marxism ◽  
Global Population ◽  
Silver Lining

The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated worldwide lockdown measures have several implications for geographical understandings of society–nature relations and of animal life. For some, the temporary lowering of carbon dioxide emissions during the lockdown has been cause for hope for a silver lining to the pandemic. Some commentators have even adopted the misanthropic diagnosis that humanity is the virus, a stance that invokes racialised assumptions about which parts of the global population should be reduced in order for ‘nature’ to survive. Animal geography has a tradition of addressing the ways in which supposedly improper relationships with non-human animals can serve to racialise specific groups of people. This has been useful in criticising the media fascination with wet markets and Chinese eating habits. However, when pointing to spectacular examples of the ways in which wild animals have responded to lockdown conditions, some geographical commentators have too readily accepted the notion that humans have ‘abandoned’ urban areas. They have been less attentive to the fact that the lockdown was experienced in very different ways by different social groups. This opinion piece concludes by setting out what an approach rooted in ecological Marxism might offer these debates and how it points to the more systemic changes needed to forge a more socially just relationship with the rest of nature.

Advancing integrity in urban water and sanitation: WIGO report 2021

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Webb
Keyword(s):  
Drinking Water ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Water ◽  
Safe Drinking Water ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Public Resources ◽  
Regulatory Bodies ◽  
The Media ◽  
Global Population

As the proportion of the global population living in urban areas increases, major challenges in providing safe drinking water and sanitation services need to be overcome, particularly in marginalised communities and informal settlements where services are already deficient. Strategies to provide water and sanitation are often undermined by corruption and integrity failures in the management of public resources, ‘petty corruption’ at the interface between individuals and institutions, and issues of inequitable and discriminatory planning and pricing. In the Water Integrity Global Outlook (WIGO 2021), WIN outlines successful strategies, tools and processes to reduce corruption and improve integrity by governments, utilities, the private sector, regulatory bodies, the media, NGOs and ultimately citizens, to drive improvements in the provision of reliable water and sanitation services.

scholarly journals New approaches to the development of construction technologies

2021 ◽  
Vol 247 ◽  
pp. 01014
Author(s):  
Sergey Zolotukhin ◽  
Olga Kukina ◽  
Ekaterina Artemova ◽  
Andrey Eremin ◽  
Vladimir Volokitin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Scrap Metal ◽  
Building Structures ◽  
Stone Materials ◽  
Dead End ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Repeated Use ◽  
Favorable Temperature

The paper presents data on the volume of materials consumed by builders and the carbon dioxide emissions that occur during this process. The reasons for the formation and volume of construction debris are considered. Recycling technologies currently used in the demolition of buildings are associated with crushing. The resulting concrete mix is used only for filling low-level earthworks due to the rapid carbonation of concrete surfaces. The scrap metal formed during crushing is used for remelting, polluting the atmosphere and requiring a large amount of energy. It is proved that due to the low economic and environmental efficiency, this method of recycling is a dead end. Studies have found that the constant increase in the strength of concrete and the absence of a decrease in the strength characteristics of reinforcing steels, stone materials, bricks, which are operated for a long time in favorable temperature and humidity conditions, allows them to be reused. General approaches have been developed that require changes in the existing technologies for the renovation of urban areas, the demolition of individual buildings and structures that currently exist. To reduce CO2 emissions and construction debris, it is enough to increase the volume of gentrification, reconstruction, major repairs, and re-profiling of the existing residential and industrial stock. When demolishing buildings, it is necessary to abandon the method of collapse of building structures with their further fragmentation. The method of piecemeal dismantling with repeated use of materials, products and structures (after determining their strength indicators by specialists), allows you to dramatically reduce the problems of construction debris and carbon dioxide emissions.

scholarly journals Health Cost Estimation of Traffic-Related Air Pollution and Assessing the Pollution Reduction Potential of Zero-Emission Vehicles in Toronto, Canada

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (16) ◽  
pp. 4956
Author(s):  
Hamidreza Shamsi ◽  
Mohammad Munshed ◽  
Manh-Kien Tran ◽  
Youngwoo Lee ◽  
Sean Walker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Air Pollution ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Chronic Obstructive ◽  
Health Cost ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
The Impact

Fossil fuel vehicles, emitting air toxics into the atmosphere, impose a heavy burden on the economy through additional health care expenses and ecological degradation. Air pollution is responsible for millions of deaths and chronic and acute health problems every year, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The fossil-fuel-based transportation system releases tons of toxic gases into the atmosphere putting human health at risk, especially in urban areas. This analysis aims to determine the economic burden of environmental and health impacts caused by Highway 401 traffic. Due to the high volume of vehicles driving on the Toronto Highway 401 corridor, there is an annual release of 3771 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). These emissions are mainly emitted onsite through the combustion of gasoline and diesel fuel. The integration of electric and hydrogen vehicles shows maximum reductions of 405–476 g CO2e per vehicle-kilometer. Besides these carbon dioxide emissions, there is also a large amount of hazardous air pollutants. To examine the impact of air pollution on human health, the mass and concentrations of criteria pollutants of PM2.5 and NOx emitted by passenger vehicles and commercial trucks on Highway 401 were determined using the MOVES2014b software. Then, an air dispersion model (AERMOD) was used to find the concentration of different pollutants at the receptor’s location. The increased risk of health issues was calculated using hazard ratios from literature. Finally, the health cost of air pollution from Highway 401 traffic was estimated to be CAD 416 million per year using the value of statistical life, which is significantly higher than the climate change costs of CAD 55 million per year due to air pollution.

scholarly journals Examining the Impacts of Economic, Social, and Environmental Factors on the Relationship between Urbanization and CO2 Emissions

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (21) ◽  
pp. 7430
Author(s):  
Yang Ding ◽  
Qing Yang ◽  
Lanjuan Cao
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This study examines the relationship between urbanization, economic growth, industrial transformation, technological change, public services, demographical change, urban and natural environmental changes, and carbon emissions using a dataset of 182 prefecture-level cities in China between 2001 and 2010. Specifically, this paper differs from previous studies in two aspects. First, the extant literature has focused on how economic processes accompanying rapid urbanization affect carbon emissions in urban areas but gives little attention to the other dimensions of urbanization, including social and environmental changes, which may have important effects on carbon emissions. We assessed the effects of 17 key processes accompanying urbanization in a full range of economic, social, and environmental dimensions on carbon dioxide emissions in urban areas. The results showed that social processes accompanied with rapid urbanization had distinct effects on carbon emissions, compared to economic and environmental processes. Specifically, improvement in public services, indicated by education and cultural developments, reduces the increase in carbon emissions during urbanization, while economic growth and urban construction reinforces the growth in carbon emissions. Second, we examined the impact of various urbanization processes on carbon dioxide emissions using a unique dataset of 182 prefecture-level cities that covers a wide span of regions in China. The results of our analyses on the city level have important implications for the formulation of comprehensive policies aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emission in urban areas, focusing on different urbanization processes in economic, social, and environmental phases.

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