Characterizing the energy use of disabled people in the European Union towards inclusion in the energy transition

Designing environmental policy to take account of social difference is increasingly recognized as essential to address both effectiveness and justice concerns. So far there is limited research on the experiences of disabled people in the environmental literature, amounting to a failure to recognize this substantial constituency. Here we compare disabled households’ embodied energy use, income, risk of poverty and energy poverty, and other socio-demographics with other households in the European Union. We find that households including an economically inactive disabled person earn less and consume 10% less energy than other households, and are more likely to experience energy poverty. Disabled households have lower consumption than other households in most categories, with the exception of basic consumption such as food, energy at home (gas and electricity), water and waste services: in effect they have less—and sometimes inadequate—access to resources. We conclude that more attention should be paid to disabled households needs to ensure a just energy transition.

Taking Lessons from Silent Spring: Using Environmental Literature for Climate Change

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) created a new genre termed “science nonfiction literature.” This genre blended environmental science and narrative while ushering in a new era of awareness and interest for both. With the contemporary climate crisis becoming more dire, this article returns to Carson’s work for insight into ways to engage deniers of climate change and methods to propel action. Further, it investigates and evaluates the writing within Silent Spring by considering its past in our present. Using the corporate reception of Carson’s book as reference, this article also examines ways climate change opponents create misunderstandings and inappropriately deceive and misdirect the public. Through this analysis, connections are made that connect literature, science, and public engagement, which can engender a broader, more comprehensive awareness of the importance of environmental literature as a medium for climate awareness progress.

Testing the Energy-Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis in the Renewable and Nonrenewable Energy Consumption Models in Egypt

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) association between income and pollution emissions proxies has been extensively tested in the environmental literature. However, testing of the energy-EKC is scanty. This present research examined the energy–EKC in the cubic relationship of economic growth and different renewable and nonrenewable energy proxies in Egypt from 1965–2019. In the long run, we corroborate the N-shaped relationships in the case of primary energy, oil, and coal consumption models, and confirm the long run energy–EKC association in these energy proxies. Moreover, we find turning points of the N-curve for these energy sources in 1998, 2000, and 1979–2005, in primary energy, oil, and coal consumption models, respectively. Hence, economic growth is responsible for increasing nonrenewable energy consumption and has environmental consequences in Egypt. In the short run, we find N-shaped relationships in the case of primary energy, oil, and coal consumption. Further, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship in the case of natural gas consumption. In addition, we corroborate an inverted N-shaped relationship in the case of hydroelectricity consumption, a renewable energy source. Hence, we confirm the short-run energy–EKC relationship in all investigated renewable and nonrenewable energy proxies.

Turning Environmental Strategies into Competitive Advantage in the Malaysian Manufacturing Industry: Mediating Role of Environmental Innovation

The environmental literature has focused on examining how firms leverage environmental innovation to convert environmental challenges into driving forces of competitive advantage. This paper enhances the knowledge on the implementation of environmental strategies in the Malaysian manufacturing industry by examining the impacts of environmental shared vision and environmental strategic focus on competitive advantage in the greening of the industry. The Smart PLS technique was used to analyse data collected from 124 Malaysian manufacturing firms on their environmental strategies as well as their implications for competitive advantage and environmental innovation. The findings suggest that environmental innovation mediates the positive exchange between firms’ environmental strategies and competitive advantage. The study provides valuable information for manufacturers in crafting their corporate competitive strategies, policies, and action plans. The direct and indirect roles of environmental innovation in fostering competitive advantage suggest that manufacturers should prioritise their environmental activities by enhancing innovation outcomes to achieve a successful green business status.

Toward More-Than-Human Understandings of Sport and the Environment: A New Materialist Analysis of Everyday Fitness Practices

Sport and fitness have long been linked with healthy lifestyles, yet most sporting events and consumption practices are highly detrimental to the environment. While academics have examined the harmful effects of sporting mega-events and the production and consumption of sport equipment and clothing, there has been less engagement with the “mundane,” everyday activities of consuming, laundering, and recycling of fitness objects. In this paper, we explore the potential in feminist new materialisms for rethinking the complex relationships between sport, fitness, and the environment. In particular, we explain how our engagement with Karen Barad's theory of agential realism led us to rethink women's habitual fitness practices as connected to environmental degradation. Working with Barad's concept of entanglement, we came to notice new human-clothing-environment relationships, focusing on how athleisure clothing itself is an active, vital force that intra-acts with other non-human (and human) matter within the environment. Adopting a diffractive methodology that included reading interviews with women about their activewear practices, our own experiences, new materialist theory, and environmental literature through each other, we focus on two examples that emerged through this process: laundering and disposal practices. Through these examples, we demonstrate the ways in which new materialisms encouraged us to move toward non-anthropocentric understandings of the sport-environment relationship and toward new ethical practices in our everyday fitness lifestyles.

(East) African postcolonial ecocriticism: Revisiting Okot p’ Bitek’s Song of Prisoner

This article celebrates Okot p’Bitek’s contribution to East African literature in general and the song school of East Africa in particular, by revisiting one of his less-known works, Song of Prisoner on the fiftieth anniversary of its publication. I subject the text to a close reading in order to demonstrate how p’Bitek uses imagery that is drawn from East Africa’s natural environment in a way that evokes issues that are an assault on the prevailing social and political order in East Africa at the time, in a nuanced manner. With the benefit of hindsight, the paper establishes that p’Bitek’s attempt to preserve his natural environment (that of East Africa) through writing it into his poetry, was a precursor for texts that would later be examined within the framework of the contemporary critical theory of postcolonial ecocriticism, and that using the text, one can narrow the scope further in a manner that takes into account the specificities of (East) African environmental literature. In so doing, the paper establishes that p’Bitek indeed highlights social realities through his poetry, in order to launch his attack on the existing neo-colonial capitalistic order prevailing at the historical moment of his writing, thus confirming that he displays a social vision that strives for decolonisation without the exploitative aftermath encapsulating modernity. The paper thus demonstrates how this poem is still relevant as a study to the student of East African literature reading it in the 21st century.

The role of ecological education in the spiritual develompment of pupils

Caring for nature, the emergence of ecological thinking depends on the level of ecological education and culture in the younger generation. The concept of national education also pays special attention to environmental education and upbringing. The article discusses the importance of forming environmental education in the teaching process, extracurricular activities and in the out school trainings. Key words: Environmental upbringing, environmental education, environmental literature, ecological games, ecological days

Predictors of recycling behavior: the role of self-conscious emotions

Purpose The purpose of this study is to develop a model that integrates self-conscious emotions (i.e. anticipated guilt and anticipated pride) alongside the theory of planned behavior’s key explanatory factors to challenge the idea that recycling behavior is driven mainly by cognitive factors. The model is empirically validated in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a region where research are lacking despite generating one of the highest per capita solid waste and holding one of the lowest recycling rates. Design/methodology/approach The data was collected from the general public in the UAE using a two-wave survey (n = 287). The first wave of data collection measured the constructs except for the actual recycling behavior. The second wave assessed the respondent’s self-reported recycling behavior for the previous fortnight. Findings Anticipated guilt, subjective norms, perceived effort and recycling knowledge are the main drivers of the intention to recycle. The latter impacts the actual recycling behavior positively. Attitude toward recycling and anticipated pride failed to predict the intention to recycle. Awareness of consequences triggers only anticipated pride, while the degree of concern is a significant predictor of both anticipated pride and guilt. Practical implications One key implication of this research is that governments in the Middle East have not only to focus on cognitive factors but also emotions to promote recycling behavior. Originality/value This study adds to the pro-environmental literature by showing that the decision to recycle is not only based on cognitive factors but also anticipated guilt. It is also one of the first that explore recycling behavior in the UAE.

Rethinking Ecological Catastrophe

This chapter assesses ecological catastrophes. It is very easy to link ecological problems such as global warming and population growth to the downfall of societies. There is a substantial historical and archaeological record of civilizations that have collapsed because of ecological problems. However, ecological writers note that not all environmental threats are lethal. They represent a challenge to a society. If the government, the technological system, or the economy of a society remains functional, even dire environmental threats can be addressed. In the environmental literature, the jargonistic term for such adaptation is “ecological modernization.” Ultimately, where the ecological threats are truly dangerous, it is because they undercut the capacity of a society to cooperate and work together.

Towards Improving Transparency of Count Data Regression Models for Health Impacts of Air Pollution

In studies on the health impacts of air pollution, regression analysis continues to advance far beyond classical linear regression, which many scientists may have become familiar with in an introductory statistics course. With each new level of complexity, regression analysis may become less transparent, even to the analyst working with the data. This may be especially true in count data regression models, where the response variable (typically given the symbol y) is count data (i.e., takes on values of 0, 1, 2, …). In such models, the normal distribution (the familiar bell-shaped curve) for the residuals (i.e., the differences between the observed values and the values predicted by the regression model) no longer applies. Unless care is taken to correctly specify just how those residuals are distributed, the tendency to accept untrue hypotheses may be greatly increased. The aim of this paper is to present a simple histogram of predicted and observed count values (POCH), which, while rarely found in the environmental literature but presented in authoritative statistical texts, can dramatically reduce the risk of accepting untrue hypotheses. POCH can also increase the transparency of count data regression models to analysts themselves and to the scientific community in general.