‘This loopy idea’ an analysis of UKIP’s social media discourse in relation to rurality and climate change

This paper focuses on the way that United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) attempted to communicate its policies and messages about the topic of renewable energy during 2013–2014. Renewable energy is a fruitful topic to consider as it has a strategic importance in the discussion of the future of the UK. The emergent theme from the analysis was not only rurality and renewable energy but the connection of the issue to scepticism about climate change. This paper uses the qualitative analyses the social media posts and a sample of the linked materials, with newspaper coverage, to reveal the key themes in the UKIP discourse.     

Understanding a Period of Policy Change: The Case of Hydraulic Fracturing Disclosure Policy in Colorado

This paper investigates the beliefs and framing strategies of interest groups during a period of policy change and the factors explaining policy change. We develop propositions to explore questions concerning policy change primarily from the advocacy coalition framework as well as from other theorie. The propositions are tested by examining the promulgation of a Colorado regulation requiring the disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. Using coded data of documents published by organizations involved in the rulemaking process, we find divergence between industry and environmental groups on their beliefs concerning hydraulic fracturing, as well as their portraying themselves and each other as heroes, victims, and villains, but some convergence on their more specific beliefs concerning disclosure of chemicals. Interviews point to the importance of policy entrepreneurs, timing, a negotiated agreement, and learning for explaining policy change. The findings provide both theoretical and methodological insights into how and why policy changes.     

国外可再生能源发展政策与法律制度考察及经验教训

面对气候变化和能源安全的压力,可再生能源是世界各国最具现实性的选择。特别是在能源市场全球化背景下,可再生能源发展政策与法律制度的趋同化为我国学习和借鉴国外成功经验奠定了现实基础。考察欧盟、英国和澳大利亚可再生能源发展的政策与法律制度,提炼出值得我国借鉴的有价值经验,并且总结出我国应当避免的相关教训,对于今后我国可再生能源发展政策与法律制度的构建与完善都具有参考价值。     

扫描电镜/X射线能谱仪检验电流斑规范化方法探讨

目的探讨电流斑皮肤金属化的机理、检材提取处理和扫描电镜/能谱仪检验规范化方法,对检验结果进行分析和价值判断。方法用扫描电镜/能谱检验,采用低倍大窗口覆盖损伤区域采集平均元素能谱图,并在可能的金属元素富集区域寻找球形金属颗粒。结果扫描电镜下可观察到散在的孔穴、细胞碎屑、龟裂、裂隙等特征,有些电流斑可检出金属元素,其中部分电流斑可发现球形金属颗粒。结论采用规范化的检材提取、处理和检验方法可消除随意性方法造成错检的可能。电流斑皮肤上异常含量的金属附着可支持病理检验符合电流斑表现的结论,同时也为电击导体的推断和金属元素成分比对提供依据。球形金属颗粒的发现揭示存在电弧高温的可能性极大,可强力支持病理检验符合电流斑表现的结论。     

Environmental terrorism: A case study

Abstract

The radical environmental movement, Earth First, was founded in 1980 by David Foreman, a Washington environmental lobbyist. Adopting as their slogan “No compromise in the defense of Mother Earth,” the movement progressed through the early formative stages usually associated with protest groups: letter‐writing campaigns, staged protests, sit‐ins, antiestablishment skits, and so forth. But over the past several years, Earth First has turned to violence, sabotage, and terrorism against land developers and the lumber, oil, and electricity industries.

Their well‐educated, white, middle‐class members have more recently focused their attention on planning serious attacks on nuclear facilities and associated electric systems. In 1986 they were responsible for a successful attack on the Palo Verdes nuclear facility's transmission lines. In June 1989, three members were arrested for attempting to cut down power lines in Arizona as part of a plan to disrupt operations at the Diablo Canyon nuclear generating plant. The overall radical environmentalist movement and its sabotage efforts appear to be spreading. On April 29, 1990, eco‐terrorists claimed responsibility for a serious sabotage incident in Palo Alto, California, and on the same day power lines were sabotaged in Fairfax County, Virginia, by unknown perpetrators.

It is clear that in the United States a national ecoterrorist network exists whose main purpose is to commit illegal acts in defense of the environment. These ecoter‐rorists appear to be gaining strength as well as the capability to increase their activities around the country. The radical environmentalist movement has the potential to become the country's major domestic terrorism problem.     

Energy and Enterprise in Liu Hongsheng's Cement and Coal-Briquette Businesses, 1920–1937

The cement and coal-briquette manufacturing enterprises founded by Chinese capitalist Liu Hongsheng (1888–1956) during the 1920s and 1930s illustrate the potential of perspectives from the field of energy history to enrich our understanding of the interface between business and environment in modern China. Through his involvement in coal marketing and distribution during the early twentieth century, Liu Hongsheng promoted and profited from China's nascent transition to an energy regime powered by fossil fuels. With the establishment of his cement and coal-briquette companies, Liu also devised ways to profitably reuse and exploit by-products from his coal businesses as a source of energy for other forms of industrial production. More broadly, this analysis of the ecological linkages among Liu Hongsheng's business ventures situates them in relation to the interlocking systems of technology, infrastructure, energy sources, and institutions that facilitated the initial emergence of fossil-fueled economic growth in China during the interwar period.     

Regional institutions: State withering or consolidation. the case of the Arab summits

The European Commission has spelled out its policy ambition for EU energy cooperation with the southern neighbourhood with plans for the establishment of an ‘Energy Community’. Its communications make clear that an Energy Community should be based on regulatory convergence with the EU acquis communautaire, much in the same vein as the existing institution carrying the same name; the Energy Community with Southeast Europe. It is puzzling that the Commission insists on repackaging this enlargement concept in a region with very different types of relationships vis-à-vis the EU, especially when considering the lukewarm position of key stakeholders in the field. According to them, any attempt to introduce a political integration model in this highly sensitive issue area in the politically fragmented MENA region might run the risk of hurting the incremental technical integration process that has slowly emerged over the past few years.     

俄罗斯石油公司发展历程及其与中国石油合作

俄罗斯石油公司是俄罗斯最大的国有石油公司。2012年末,它以560亿美元收购秋明—BP石油公司,预计交易在2013年上半年完成。完成收购后,俄罗斯石油公司即晋升为在产量和资源储量上全球最大的石油公司。此次收购将对俄罗斯乃至世界能源行业产生深远影响,并将促进中俄能源合作的开展。     

Pipelines,crisis and capital: understanding the contested regionalism of Southeast Asia

Abstract

Via an analysis of the trans-ASEAN gas pipeline project (TAGP), in this article we argue for a reconceptualising of the regional dynamics of Southeast Asia and the forces shaping them. For this task, we propose an analytical framework based upon social conflict theory that delves within and beyond the state, and which places emphasis upon the roles of both material and ideological factors operating across time in the reordering of particular geographical spaces. The framework reveals that the tensions acting within and upon ASEAN and the TAGP influence regionalism in such a way that the gas pipeline project – much like other ‘regional’ projects – is unlikely to ever come close to fulfilling its brief of enhancing regional security and cohesion. What is more probable is that the project's form will continue to be conditioned by entrenched politico-economic realities and the influence of dominant ideologies – factors which have the capacity to exacerbate existing regional animosities and disparities.     

China and the middle-income trap: toward a Post Washington,Post Beijing Consensus

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, China has experienced tremendous growth, with many commentators attributing the rapid development to the ‘China Model’ (CM) or the ‘Beijing Consensus’ (BC). However, in recent years growth has slowed and an ever-increasing number of bears are predicting a financial crisis, economic collapse, and a very hard landing, perhaps even a lost decade a la Japan. All of this has led to heated debate about whether the CM is now exhausted, whether China is caught in ‘the middle-income trap’ (MIT) and whether a new model is needed for the next phase of development where China attempts the difficult transition from middle-income country to high-income country status. This article addresses the following five sets of issues. First, is there a CM or BC? If so, what does it entail, and does it differ from the model followed by other successful countries in East Asia? Second, is there a MIT? Is China stuck in the MIT or perhaps multiple MITs? Third, what adjustments to the economic model are required for China to continue its long march toward becoming a high-income country? Fourth, are political, legal and social reforms also required? If so, will all reforms proceed simultaneously or are reforms likely to be sequenced, with adjustments to the economy preceding reforms in other areas? Fifth, is there now a global convergence on a new model of development for developing countries – a Post-Washington, Post-Beijing Consensus?