Real-time Urban Air Quality on a Smart Phone

New Air Quality iPhone Application (King’s College London, Mar. 30, 2010) Also discussed here: London Air iPhone app (King’s College London, YouTube video) And here: Winter smog mid January 2012 (King’s College London, Jan. 2012) For the last two years, the city of  London has been using smart phone technology to distribute up to the [...]

Why Not Report Urban Air Pollution Publicly?

WikiLeaks reveals China’s failure to measure dangerous pollution- pollutant levels were not measured and made public because findings would have been ‘too sensitive’ for the authorities (Jonathan Watts, Guardian, Aug. 26, 2011) Today’s focus is on a report provided by Wikileaks from the US foreign service in 2006 about the reluctance of Chinese officials to [...]

How Does Green Messaging in Transportation Affect Behaviour?

The power and value of green in promoting sustainable transport behavior (11 page pdf, David Gaker, David Vautin, Akshay Vij and Joan L Walker, Environmental Research Letters Volume 6 Number 3, Jul. 26, 2011) The question addressed by the review article today is how much does a “green” choice influence behavior when applied to transportation [...]

What Drives Pubic Reaction to Climate Change?

Image via Wikipedia The Perception Factor: Climate Change Gets Personal (6 page pdf, Environ Health Perspect 118:a484-a489, Nov.1, 2010) Despite the fact that “up to 98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing agree with the tenets of anthropogenic climate change outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” , the countries most responsible for [...]

The Changing Meaning of Sustainability

Image via Wikipedia What is Sustainability? (13 page pdf, Sustainability 2010, 2(11), 3436-3448, Nov.1, 2010) The authors of the article under review today tackled a large challenge in examining what “sustainable development” meant when introduced in 1987 by the Brundtland Commission and what it has become in being applied with such concepts as Triple Bottom [...]

Communicating Scientific Concepts

Image via Wikipedia Do Earth and Environmental Science Textbooks Promote Middle and High School Students ‘ Conceptual Development about Climate Change? Textbooks ‘ consideration of students’ misconceptions (Bulletin, American Meteorological Society, p. 889-898, Volume 91, Issue 7, July 2010) The article reviewed today looks at how climate change concepts are described in textbooks used by [...]

Incentives for Changing Behaviour

Image via Wikipedia Using Community-Based Social Marketing Techniques to Enhance Environmental Regulation (23 page pdf, Sustainability 2010, 2(4), 26 April 2010) Does the publicity from “world” days change how individuals treat their environment? Or does strict regulation followed up with fines?  Or are economic tools such as road tolls or fines needed to change behaviour [...]

Communicating Sustainability

Image via Wikipedia Science, Open Communication and Sustainable Development ( 23 page pdf, Sustainability – Special Issue Advanced Forum for Sustainable Development, 13 April 2010) Often, if not always, the most effective approach to sustainability starts at the local level as we have seen in this example from the UK Think Global, Act Local. Open [...]

Sustainable Development and Community Vitality

Community Vitality: The Role of Community-Level Resilience Adaptation and Innovation in Sustainable Development (17 page pdf, Sustainability 2010, 2, 215-231) – detailed cases can all be read Here Key Quotes: “Communities…can be said to have a level of community vitality that acts as a site of resilience, adaptation and innovation in the face of environmental challenges” [...]

APHEIS

The Apheis project: Air Pollution and Health—A European Information System (14 page pdf, Air Qual Atmos Health, 2009) Key Quotes: “Apheis project.. has tracked the effects of air pollution on health in 26 European cities and continues to do so as the new Aphekom project.” “roughly 40,000 people were dying every year from the effects of [...]

What Scientists Say and What the Public Hears

Communication Gap: The Disconnect Between What Scientists Say and What the Public Hears (4 pages pdf, Environ Health Perspect 117(12): doi:10.1289/ehp.117-a548) Key Quotes: “communication experts are calling for fundamental changes in how scientists interact with the media because debates over climate change, health, energy, and technology are simply too important to lose to misinformation” Reworking the [...]

Cities to fight climate change

The Mayor of a like minded country to Canada gives a hint as to what he will present next week when the  Summit of Big City Mayors (C40) takes place in the news article Cities to fight climate change . He refers to the Sustainable Sydney 2030 action plan which has specific initiatives for the [...]

Communicating Air Quality-Health Effects

Some considerations for the communication of results of air pollution health effects tracking (15 page pdf,  Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health, July 2009) Key Quotes: “This program should include frequent two-way communication, repeated and on-going evaluation of how well the audience understands the messages, and consideration of how to improve the delivery.” “based on consideration [...]

Climate Change and Public Opinion

The 15th  Conference of the Parties, beginning next week in Copenhagen, aims to reach an agreement on global greenhouse gas emissions to succeed the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.  As  many greenhouse gas emissions and most health-hazardous pollutants have urban origins, the success or failure of the Copenhagen conference will have consequences for both [...]