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In the context of global concerns about plastics, this paper sets out and exemplifies a research agenda for articulating children's encounters with plastics. The paper analyses data co-produced with 11–15 year-olds through interviews, app-based research and experimental/arts-led workshops. It moves beyond scholarship in health and environmental sciences, and in environmental education research, to outline a far richer range of ways to conceptualise children's encounters with plastics, based in children's everyday, embodied and emotive interactions with plastics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special volume considers major recent changes in southern South American animal communities. Eleven papers consider megafauna, pinnipeds, marine mammals, small terrestrial mammals and birds and are grouped under four sub-headings: (1) Isotopic insights into guanaco populations; (2) Historical sources and marine ecosystem change; (3) Changes in small mammal communities and human impacts; and (4) megafaunal extinction, domestication, avifauna and recent interactions with humans. Although some of these contributions include changes that occurred earlier in the Holocene, many highlight a current decrease in the taxonomic diversity of communities and ecosystems in different environments, which are likely to have been caused by modern human activities. The Anthropocene concept is seen as providing a useful framework for understanding and mitigation of such adverse human impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

However, Ayeni and Aborisade's survey of peri-urban residents suggests that they are more aware of provisioning ecosystem services such as access to food, fibre, fuel and timber. A far smaller proportion of urban residents is likely to depend on provisioning ecosystem services within large urban centres, but all urban dwellers depend on regulating and supporting ecosystem services such as moderating temperatures, purifying air, and reducing noise pollution. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in January 2020, millions of people around the world have endured lockdowns. While most ecosystems may reach a dynamic equilibrium if left undisturbed, urban habitats are characterised by frequent perturbations - and ecosystems everywhere are now confronted by large disruptions associated with the onset of the Anthropocene.[8] We were therefore delighted to receive submissions to this special issue that contextualise contemporary urban nature within a city's broader history while also looking forward to consider the environmental impacts of a changing climate. [Extracted from the article]

To assess risk factors for COVID-19 transmission and address the closure of mass gathering events since March 2020, the UK Government ran the Events Research Programme (ERP), following which it reopened live events in sports, music, and culture in July 2021. We report the rapid post-occupancy evaluation of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) and associated long-range airborne transmission risk conducted in the Environmental Study of the ERP. Ten large venues around the UK were monitored with CO2 sensors at a high spatial and temporal resolution during 90 events. An IAQ Index based on CO2 concentration was developed, and all monitored spaces were classified in bands from A to G based on their average and maximum CO2 concentrations from all events. High resolution monitoring and the IAQ Index depicted the overall state of ventilation at live events, and allowed identification of issues with ventilation effectiveness and distribution, and of spaces with poor ventilation and the settings in which long-range airborne transmission risk may be increased. In numerous settings, CO2 concentrations were found to follow patterns relating to event management and specific occupancy of spaces around the venues. Good ventilation was observed in 90% of spaces monitored for given occupancies. Practical applications: High-resolution monitoring of indoor CO2 concentrations is necessary to detect the spatial variation of indoor air quality (IAQ) in large mass gathering event venues. The paper summarises COVID-19 ventilation guidance for buildings and defines a methodology for measurement and rapid assessment of IAQ during occupancy at live events that can be implemented by venue managers. Comparisons of the CO2 concentrations measured during the events identified the spaces at high risk of long-range transmission of airborne pathogens. Building operators should be mindful of the ventilation strategies used relative to the total occupancy in different spaces and the occupant's activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a reconstruction of natural environmental dynamics, wildfires and vegetation change in northwest Putorana Plateau during the last 1300 years. The study area is a remote and poorly investigated region of subarctic Siberia, relatively untouched by human impacts, which offers a unique opportunity to examine natural environmental dynamics and climate-vegetation-fire relationships. The paleoenvironmental reconstructions are based on multi-proxy analysis of the Gervi peatland including pollen, plant macrofossil, testate amoebae and charcoal analysis, loss on ignition measurements and AMS radiocarbon dating. The results revealed the main phases of regional paleoenvironmental change: a warm period between 680 and 1200 C.E. (Common Era) corresponding to the Mediaeval Climate Anomaly (MCA), followed by climate cooling during the Little Ice Age (LIA, 1200–1850 C.E.) and subsequent centuries. Climate amelioration during the MCA led to afforestation of northwestern Putorana Plateau and an expansion of spruce extending 70 km northeast of its present geographical range. A quantitative water-table reconstruction was generated using a testate amoebae transfer function and suggested that relatively dry climate conditions during the MCA triggered high fire frequencies. The LIA appeared in the study area as a period of pronounced climate cooling and moderate moistening, which caused an extension of tundra vegetation and a dramatic decline of fire activity. Distinct environmental changes at the study site were detected since 1990 C.E., characterized by a high peat accumulation rate and rising water table. Since 1990 C.E., the macroscopic charcoal accumulation rate in the peat core increased abruptly, suggesting a recent increase in the fire frequency in the study region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As we stand on the precipice of unprecedented global challenges, understanding the deep-time patterns of sustainability and resilience is no longer just a scholarly endeavour but imperative for the future of our planet and its inhabitants. The collection of papers in this special issue brings together archaeologists, historians, and environmental scientists around four main topics: (1) social-ecological modelling, (2) long-term human-environment interactions, (3) modelling diachronic landscapes and (4) sustainability and resilience from past to future. Our aims are to come to a better understanding of socio-economic resilience and sustainability in past, present and future societies. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, we aim to forge new conceptual frameworks for understanding complex, long-term socio-ecological dynamics. Through the case studies, theoretical reflections and methodological innovations presented here, this special issue seeks to advance interdisciplinary scholarship on sustainability and resilience and offer fresh insights into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in building a sustainable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The visibility of female role models in science is vital for engaging and retaining women in scientific fields. In this study, we analyse four senior secondary science courses delivered across the states and territories in Australia: Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, and Physics. We compared male and female representation within the science courses by examining the mentions of male and female scientists along with the context of their inclusions in the syllabuses. We find a clear gender bias with only one unique mention of a female scientist. We also find a clear Eurocentric focus and narrow representation of scientists. This bias will contribute to the continuing low engagement of women in scientific fields. We outline possible solutions to address this issue, including the accreditation of scientific discoveries to include female scientists and explicit discussion of structural barriers preventing the participation and progression of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article's subject is the theory and practice of 'regional survey', the method of social and environmental study associated with Scottish thinker Patrick Geddes (1854–1932). Despite being overlooked or dismissed in most accounts of early 20th-century social science, regional survey had a wide influence on the development of the nascent disciplines of anthropology, sociology, and human geography. Emerging from late 19th-century field biology, the regional survey came to typify a methodological moment in the natural and social sciences that favoured the holistic analysis of geographically delimited areas. By the interwar period, the kinds of projects that went under its name can clearly be seen as forerunners of the post-Second World War tradition of community studies. Additionally, in its self-presentation as a civic, participatory exercise, the regional survey can be read as a form of popular autoethnography that contrasts with other, more familiar social-scientific ventures in the first half of the 20th century, and defies the dichotomy between 'gentlemanly' and 'technical' modes of social science. As a result, this article argues, the regional survey provides an alternative point of departure for thinking about the origins and development of the modern social sciences in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed by an emerging discourse in environmental labour studies, this article investigates the legality of environmental bargaining in Australia. It demonstrates that existing enterprise bargaining law mostly prevents meaningful and enforceable bargaining regarding environmental issues. Proposed here instead is that more impactful possibilities for environmental bargaining exist under state Work Health and Safety (WHS) laws. In this respect, the article engages with some of the latest legal developments within the field of WHS that may enable environmental bargaining on the terms recommended by the environmental labour studies literature. It nevertheless acknowledges that such proposals may generate additional regulatory and resource burdens on regulators and workers alike. Accordingly, it concludes by canvasing a range of alternative regulatory arrangements rendering environmental bargaining more fair and effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay builds on the contributions to this special issue to advance a historical relational approach to labour studies, industrial relations, and Environmental Labour Studies (ELS) while differentiating it from the interactional approaches currently dominant. Central to this choice is that relational approaches provide more empirically compelling explanations of the choices of labour, capital, and state because they take into account that the choices of these social entities are embedded within their mutual and uneven constitution. From that starting point I reflect upon the five articles in this special issue on climate change and industrial relations and examine how I see them contributing to such a relational approach even though it is not their explicit strategy. I close by briefly restating my view that a historical relational approach is empirically more complete while alerting us to our axiological and epistemological preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid rising interest in participatory research, some industries have recently begun to practice public relations citizen science (PRCS). Unlike citizen science and crowdsourcing projects that generate raw materials for product development, PRCS benefits capitalist firms primarily by improving their public image and deflecting accusations of causing harm. Three cases illustrate how PRCS works: (1) a growing assortment of citizen science projects associated with Antarctic tourism, (2) an initiative to document biodiversity, linked to Canada's oil and gas industry, and (3) a study sponsored by Biology Fortified, a nonprofit organization that works to communicate positive information about agricultural biotechnology. Scientists and research organizations may have legitimate reasons for entering into these partnerships, but PRCS can benefit industries in problematic ways. First, by supporting environmental science, PRCS can attach a 'sustainable' image to a polluting industry, without changing its core practices. Second, PRCS can accumulate data and steer volunteers' observations in ways that undermine claims about the harms caused by the industry's practices or products. Finally, in some cases, PRCS organizers hope to induce people to view an industry more 'rationally' than those who make 'emotional' or 'ideological' claims about its harms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent study by the Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy plants presented the available waste flows for WtE treatment if the circular economy targets for 2035 are met, that is 65% recycling and landfilling of <10% ([2]). Waste-to-energy (WtE) is a term that has been used inconsistently, but the strict definition mainly refers to the thermal treatment of non-hazardous solid waste. However, at the moment the existing WtE capacity in Europe is only 90 million tonnes and consequently the WtE capacity must be significantly increased, and the focus should be on covering this capacity with advanced WtE technologies compatible with circular economy environmental goals/targets. [Extracted from the article]