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Decades of research indicate that most Census‐measured U.S. racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately impacted by environmental disamenities, all else equal; the study of this is referred to as Environmental Justice (EJ) research. Yet both U.S. and world history show that another minoritized group is religious minorities. If so, this has health consequences and policy implications. Houses of worship (HOWs) are visible and physical symbols of religion. We use tax records to locate Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist or Hindu HOWs within census tracts for the entire contiguous United States. We combine these data with EJSCREEN data to analyze whether air pollution risks are greater in their presence. We find that, even holding constant race, ethnicity, and poverty, two non‐census‐measured religious minorities' HOWs are disproportionately impacted by air pollution in the United States: Jews and Muslims. This new knowledge has consequences for EJ policy and social justice‐motivated environmental research. Related Articles: Ash, John. 2010. "New Nuclear Energy, Risk, and Justice: Regulatory Strategies for an Era of Limited Trust." Politics & Policy 38(2): 255–84. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2010.00237.x. Fowler, Luke. 2022. "Searching for Green Elephants and Other Mythical Creatures during the Trump Years: Partisanship and Congressional Voting on Environmental Legislation." Politics & Policy 50(5): 913–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12499. Tubadji, Annie. 2023. "You'll Never Walk Alone: Loneliness, Religion, and Politico‐economic Transformation." Politics & Policy 51(4): 661–95. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12538. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Public opinion has a dynamic relationship with policy and real‐world outcomes in liberal settings where reliable information is abundant. In these settings, the public continuously updates its opinions with reliable policy‐relevant information, and the changes in public opinion go on to affect policy and outcomes. It is unknown whether this dynamic exists in illiberal settings where the public's access to reliable information is heavily restricted. Objectives: This article advances a theory of public opinion's dynamic relationship with policy and outcomes that applies to illiberal settings. Methods: Our study examines a vital public good in one of the world's most restrictive information environments and estimates a dynamic model of relationships among three variables—public opinion, policy, and outcomes—with a focus on public opinion and outcomes as the key dependent variables. The analysis looks at air pollution remediation in 274 Chinese localities. Results: We find that public opinion reacts to objective air pollution outcomes and not to misleading information that downplays air pollution severity, which suggests the public can accurately evaluate the reliability of available information. We also find that local public opinion's impact on local air pollution is substantively meaningful on timescales as short as 1 to 2 years, indicating that the additional policy effort prompted by public opinion change is sufficient to yield tangible real‐world outcomes even in the short term. Conclusion: Public opinion has a dynamic relationship with policy and real‐world outcomes even in highly illiberal settings. We argue that these findings are likely to generalize across issue domains with outcomes that can be directly observed by the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's high‐speed economic development and reliance on overconsumption of natural resources have led to serious environmental pollution. Environmental taxation is seen as an effective economic tool to help mitigate air pollution. In order to assess the effects of different scenarios of environmental taxation policies, we propose a frontier‐based environmentally extended input–output optimization model with explicit emission abatement sectors to reflect the inputs and benefits of abatement. Frontier analysis ensures policy scenarios are assessed under the same technical efficiency benchmark, while input–output analysis depicts the wide range of economic transactions among sectors of an economy. Four scenarios are considered in this study, which are increasing specific tax rates of SO2, NOx, and soot and dust separately and increasing all three tax rates simultaneously. Our estimation results show that: raising tax rates of SO2, NOx, and soot and dust simultaneously would have the highest emission reduction effects, with the SO2 tax rate making the greatest contribution to emission reduction. Raising the soot and dust tax rate is the most environmentally friendly strategy due to its highest abatement to welfare through avoided health costs. The combination of frontier analysis and input–output analysis provides policy makers a comprehensive and sectoral approach to assess costs and benefits of environmental taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 20 years have passed since Executive Order 12898 put environmental justice (EJ) issues on the policy agenda. Since this time, EJ has technically remained a policy priority at all levels of government. However, despite this apparent commitment to EJ, research has shown over the decades after the passage of the Executive Order, we still see persistent trends in inequality of air pollution exposure by race. This begs the question: are EJ policies actually working to create environmentally just outcomes? This article seeks to evaluate this question by examining the impact of state EJ policies on disproportionate exposure to air pollution, with the goal of understanding what types of state actions, if any, are associated with decreases in pollution inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sudden events of crisis ('focusing events') trigger intense media reporting, which in turn can prompt political decision-makers to respond with an adjustment of existing policies. As such, focusing events can potentially lead to long-term policy change on a certain issue. This article explores the sudden and intense period of air pollution in Beijing in January 2013 as a focusing event. The episode, which international media referred to as 'Airpocalypse', triggered widespread discussion and policy adjustments that can be assumed to have accelerated the control of air pollution in China. The 'Airpocalypse' was not the first event of intense air pollution in Beijing, but the only one which seemingly caused lasting sociopolitical changes. The aim of this article is to explore the underlying situational factors that enabled the 'Airpocalypse' to be more relevant than other events of severe air pollution. This paper argues that a combination of historically high pollution, improved access to information, increasing government willingness to address the issue, and the ability of media to more openly discuss air pollution created a public pressure situation to which the government was prompted to respond in a stronger way than during previous events of heavy air pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of effective policies to reduce emissions from goods movement should consider local and remote life cycle effects as well as barriers for mode shifting. Using uni- and multimodal freight movements by truck, rail, and ocean-going vessel (OGV) associated with California, a life cycle assessment (LCA) is developed to estimate the local and remote emissions that occur from freight activity inside and associated with the state. Long-run average per tonne-kilometer results show that OGVs emit the fewest emissions, followed by rail, then trucks, and that the inclusion of life cycle processes can increase impacts by up to 32% for energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and 4,200% for conventional air pollutants. Efforts to reduce emissions through mode shifting should recognize that infrastructure and market configurations may be inimical to mode substitution. A uni- and multimodal shipping emissions assessment is developed for intrastate and California-associated freight movements to illustrate the life cycle impacts of typical trips for certain types of goods. When targeting GHG reductions in California, it should be recognized that heavy-duty trucks are responsible for 99% of intrastate goods movement emissions. An assessment of future freight truck technology improvements is performed to estimate the effectiveness of strategies to meet 2050 GHG reduction goals. Whereas aggressive improvements in fuel economy coupled with alternative vehicles and fuels can significantly reduce GHG emissions, to meet 2050 goals will likely require zero carbon emission vehicle technology. The value of using LCA in GHG reduction policy for transportation systems is explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metropolitan smog alerts are prominent public information campaigns designed to enhance public health and to curb driving and other emissions. Unlike many other voluntary information-based environmental policies, air quality alerts target household behavior via forecast information about ambient concentrations rather than firm or product characteristics. This paper explores behaviors with high emissions (driving) and with high exposure (outdoor recreation) and underscores the difference between altruistic and risk aversion motivations. Behavioral impacts are identified using the threshold nature of daily air quality forecasts. A regression discontinuity (RD) design finds elderly users and exercisers tend to curtail their use of a major park following smog alerts. The RD design also reveals that households do not drive less on smog alert days. Juxtaposing high emissions behavior with high exposure behavior in the same study highlights how public forecast information may better trigger some responses and struggle to trigger others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT People change the climate. Ethnography, however, tends to look past these perpetrators and see only victims. In such accounts, parties vulnerable to climate change suffer, adapt, or do both. To varying degrees, their societies are resilient and may soon make themselves more so. These comparatively cheerful keywords overlook an entire moral field of responsibility, complicity, and culpability. High emitters of carbon dioxide bear the bulk of responsibility for the unfolding catastrophe. How do such people interpret and justify their actions? What ethics and mentalities with respect to the environment are high emitters, their firms, and their governments fabricating? In this article, I address these questions in the context of a society both complicit and vulnerable: the petrostate of Trinidad and Tobago. There, an overlapping set of environmental policymakers and environmentally minded industrialists consider Trinidad-including its oil industry-to be only vulnerable. Their 'victim slot' relies on cultural constructions of insular geography, performances in diplomatic fora, and planning rubrics for hazards. In each instance, the slot allows Trinidadian institutions and corporations-including oil firms-to skirt accountability for carbon emissions. Nevertheless, some Trinidadian public figures are beginning to reconsider hydrocarbons in ways both painful and humane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The predicted increase in unconventional gas production is set to change global energy and concomitant geopolitical relations. The scale and required infrastructure of unconventional gas extraction result in profound changes in the landscape where extraction and processing take place. Widespread public concerns about the impacts of this industry have emerged, particularly with regard to fracking, surface and subterranean water contamination, air pollution and a host of other environmental issues, as well as social impacts and health risks. This article sets out some of the emerging anthropological engagements with unconventional gas and fracking, including analyses of materiality, politics, discourses, rights, risk and knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reaching the economic, environmental and sustainability objectives of all societies requires overcoming several major energy challenges; it necessitates rapid progress in multiple areas. The scenario pathways presented in this paper describe transformative changes toward these goals, taking a broad view of the four main energy challenges faced by society in the 21st century: providing universal access to modern energy for all; reducing the impacts of energy production on human health and the environment; avoiding dangerous climate change; and enhancing energy security. The overarching objective of the paper is to provide policy guidance on how to facilitate the transformation of the energy system to achieve these multiple energy objectives. Particular focus is given to the required pace of the transformation at both the global and regional levels, and to the types of financial and policy measures that will be needed to ensure a successful transition. Synergies and trade-offs between the objectives are identified, and co-benefits quantified. The paper makes an important contribution to the scenario literature by approaching the global transition toward sustainable development in a more integrated, holistic manner than is common in other studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why would countries invest resources to protect the global atmosphere, a global common-pool resource? After all, this is an open-access resource with no restrictions on appropriating its benefits. Furthermore, why would they do so under the aegis of a weak global regime (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC) that has virtually no provisions for sanctioning noncompliance and when the largest contributor to the problem is not participating in the regime? This article examines why a number of countries have implemented the UNFCCC. I hypothesize that countries implement UNFCCC because they corner domestic environmental benefits, namely reduction in local pollution. In my empirical analysis of 127 countries, employing an ordinal logistic regression model, I find that local air pollution is associated with higher levels of implementation of the UNFCCC. Thus, I conclude that the incentives to implement a relatively weak global regime can be found in the domestic political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim was to develop and evaluate a seven-point category scale, called the Environmental Annoyance Scale (EAS), with semantic descriptors and ratio-scale properties. Six studies were conducted that involved ratings of perceived magnitude of descriptors, selection of seven descriptors with semantic coherency, and ratings of various environmental issues. Seven semantically coherent descriptors with subjective equidistance and small interindividual variability were selected for the EAS. Environmental ratings on the EAS were linearly related to magnitude estimations, and the two rating procedures generated very similar exponents of the psychophysical power function. The used selection procedure was found to be reliable and not likely affected by the respondent's educational level, and the reliability of the EAS per se was found to be satisfying. The EAS appears to have properties that approach those of a ratio scale, and to be reliable and valid for assessment of environmental annoyance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The neoliberalisation of international climate policy through devices such as emissions trading has led to a significant restructuring of governance competencies between supranational, national and non-state actors. This article explores the implications of this restructuring for the scalar politics of climate governance by examining the European Union emissions trading scheme, the world's largest multi-state carbon-trading scheme. Analysis shows that although the member states were prepared to accede to a common legal framework for emissions trading, its implementation has been characterised by intense sovereignty disputes over emissions allowances. The article concludes by reflecting on the scalar politics of international climate governance in an unevenly regulated and competitive world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exposure of children to environmental disamenities has emerged as a key policy concern in recent years, with some analysts and activists suggesting that minority children are disproportionately impacted. Utilizing a dataset that combines air toxics at the census tract level with school-based demographic and other information, this article indicates disparate exposures for students of color in California schools and suggests that there may be negative impacts on one measure of academic performance, even after controlling for other factors usually associated with test scores. Policy implications include a special focus on school remediation and strengthening overall efforts to reduce emissions “hot spots.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At various levels of environmental policy making there is a demand to translate polluting emissions into monetary units. In the so-called reduction cost approach, based upon policy targets, polluting emissions are expressed in monetary terms by determination of the marginal unit reduction cost at the emission target level. This approach provides shadow prices for emissions by which it can be established whether a certain measure or technology belongs to the most efficient set of measures by which the policy targets can be reached. This article argues that, if clear (generic) government targets such as national emission reduction targets exist for an emission, shadow prices derived by this method are to be preferred to shadow prices derived by other methods for decisions at the project (implementation) level. By application of the reduction cost approach, implementation decisions can be made that are both cost-effective and consistent with government policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a correspondence debate on whether to continue with the Kyoto Protocol-type of approach for commitments in international climate policy or to use a different framework. Debate between barrister James Cameron and colleagues and IPPR Energy Research Fellow Alex Evans.

Comments on the White Paper issued by Great Britain's government in reply to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution's report 'Energy--the changing climate.' Scientific rationale for the proposed 60 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions; Allocation of emission rights to nations on a per capita basis; Urgency of challenge; Government action through research; Scenarios for 2050.

Objectives. To expand scholarly attention to a neglected area of environmental policy and politics, I attempt to test several empirical propositions drawn from the small body of existing research on the politics of market-based environmental regulation. Methods. I analyze public comments on a recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulatory action guiding states on the design of various market-based air pollution control programs. I focus on the types of commenting organizations and the nature, extent, and foundations of their support or opposition to market-based regulatory instruments. Results. I find more support for than opposition to the use of economic incentive programs in air pollution control. The support from business commenters is not surprising, but the level of support expressed by state regulators departs from previous research findings. Environmental groups are the principal dissenters. Overall, the findings suggest both change and continuity in the politics of air pollution control policymaking, with some possibility of a shift in the contours of the advocacy coalitions in the pollution control policy network. Conclusions. Market-based environmental regulation is still an evolving phenomenon in American public policy. Further research on the politics of its development is in order, and the opportunities to pursue such research are substantial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental issues present an urgent challenge throughout the world. Air, water, and land pollution continue at alarming rates and increasingly strain the Earth's capacity to sustain healthy ecosystems and human life. Although technological and behavioral aspects of environmental conflict are often salient, this article contributes to the literature on environmentalism by examining moral orientations that underlie and fuel environmental conflict. The centerpiece of this article describes three kinds of denial in environmental conflict: (1) outcome severity; (2) stakeholder inclusion; and (3) self-involvement. Like intermeshed gears, these forms" of denial actively advance the process of moral exclusion. The article concludes with implications of this analysis for theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the evolution of global regulation of atmospheric pollution. Physical attributes of the atmosphere; Basic types of international law for regulating human activities that affect common property resources; Development of treaty law on the atmospheric pollution; Development of international regulations on acid precipitation and ozone depletion.

Congressional architects of environmental policy in the 1970s sought to resolve air, water, and land-based pollution problems by using a policy approach termed "partial preemption." A major objective was to maintain a significant policy-making role for U.S. state officials and, at the same time, attain federal environmental quality standards. The relative locus of political control varies according to the type of partial pre-emption adopted, i.e., compulsory or voluntary. Voluntary forms of partial pre-emption encourage but do not require state participation in federal environmental programs.

The article presents the viewpoints from experts in response to the question about the prospects for an effective global implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. One expert says that the Protocol still places a gap between current emissions of greenhouse gases and Japan's Kyoto target. Another implies that the prospects of the Kyoto Protocol being implemented are not important. Another also states that proposing technology programs in the late stages is an insult to all involved.