Transformacja energetyczna na obszarze Trójmorza w latach 1988–2018
Authors presents a short story of the energetic changes and backgrounds of the change in the region which became later a “Trimarium”.
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Authors presents a short story of the energetic changes and backgrounds of the change in the region which became later a “Trimarium”.
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Author coments on German state hypocrisy in the issue of German-Russian Relations
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In the bipolar system that emerged during the Cold War, security was handled within the framework of the threat and anxiety posed by the military power of one state on the other state. Environmental concerns were rarely perceived as a security problem. This approach was also an expression of the traditional understanding of security that has been accepted since the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. Environmental problems began to be discussed as a security issue both academically and in international conferences from the 1960s. However, with the end of the Cold War, these problems have turned into a global issue for which international cooperation is essential for the solution. The aim of this study is to reveal what kind of change and transformation has taken place in the way environmental problems are handled in parallel with the expansion of the content of security.
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The main aim of the article is to present the prospect of usage of green bonds and green covered bonds as the implementation tools for the principles of the European Green Deal. The material is based on the analysis of the sources of current Polish and European legal and financial public information acts, as well as the case study on the issuance of green bonds and green covered bonds. The European Green Deal was presented on December 11, 2019, as an action plan for more efficient use of resources, by transitioning to a clean circular economy, preventing climate change, countering biodiversity loss and reducing pollution. Special attention was given to the necessary investments and available financial tools. The ways of ensuring a fair transformation were also explained. Achieving the goals outlined in the European Green Deal will require significant investment. It is estimated that in order to meet the currently set climate and energy targets for the period until 2030, it is necessary to increase investment outlays by an amount of EUR 260 billion per year, or around 1.5%. 2018 EU GDP. Such investment will require the mobilization of both the public and private sectors. The aim of the article is to analyze the financial instruments in terms of the possibility of associating them with the implementation of the principles of the European Green Deal. The conclusions of the article indicate that taking into account the necessity to implement the European Union strategy in the field of environmental and climate protection, the use of green bonds and green covered bonds is possible. The basis of green bonds issuance is the realization of investment projects in the field of conservancy which coincide with the European Green Deal goals. Green covered bonds are based on green mortgages intended for financing energy-efficient buildings, which is one of the European Green Deal keystones.
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There are two main ways to reduce anthropogenic GHG emissions: energy efficiency improvement and increase usage of renewable energy sources. Taking these two main ways into account, it is possible to analyze the main drivers of GHG emissions in the country and to make forecast of future GHG emissions based on historical trends. The Visegrad group (V4) countries, including Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Czech Republic were selected to provide comparative assessment of their GHG emission drivers and to evaluate effects of climate change mitigation policies in energy sector on GHG emission trends. The Kaya identity approach was applied allowing to perform simple multiplication. Kaya identity equation substitutes the factors with well-established and measurable quantities, which leave little space for ambiguity. The multiplying population size by GDP per capita, energy intensity, and carbon intensity of energy allows to get total GHG emissions in the country and define its energy efficiency or use of renewables are the main drivers of GHG emissions, including the effect of economic growth expressed by GDP per capita.
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The EU is the world’s largest energy importer, relying on imports for 50 % of its energy needs. With an energy demand forecast likely to grow by 1–2 % a year, that figure will over the coming 20–30 years rise to 70 %. The Geothermie is an inexhaustible energy source. With the supplies, which are stored in our planet, in principle the world-wide power requirement could be covered. The Geothermie, or terrestrial heat, is the warmth stored in the upper (accessible) part of the earth's crust. It covers the energy, as far as it can be extracted and used, stored in the earth, and ranks among the regenerative energies. It can be used both directly, approximately for heating and cooling in the heating market, and for the production by electric current or in a force heat coupling. Production of heat using geothermal energy can be obtained in two very distinct ways. The first consists of directly exploiting subterranean water tables whose temperatures are included between 30 °C and 150 °C (so-called medium and low temperature applications). The second makes use of geothermal heat pumps that come under the heading of so-called very low temperature applications.
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The subject of this article is an attempt to define the planes allowing for cooperation between environmental organizations and public administration bodies in the proceedings aimed at issuing an environmental decision, also from the perspective of the latest amendment to the act of Providing information on the environment and its protection, public participation in environmental protection and environmental impact assessment, granting these organizations a number of rights allowing them to suspend the enforceability of the decision and thus block the entire process in-vestment – so there may be an abuse of the use of the granted procedural rights. An attempt was made to formulate de lege ferenda conclusions, the implementation of which could broaden the area of cooperation of environmental organizations in the proceedings aimed at issuing environ-mental decisions, while limiting their actions blocking investments.
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Reducing energy consumption has important implications for the sustainable development of society, but this consideration has become more stringent in the actual geopolitical context. Following the strategic directions established by the European Green Pact and "NextGenerationEU", a concrete action of the European Commission was the elaboration of the REPowerEU Plan, which aims to make Europe independent from Russian fossil fuels before 2030 and transition to green energy. In this context, in order to know the attitude, behaviour and future intentions of Romanian consumers toward voluntary measures aimed at reducing energy consumption, quantitative marketing research was carried out, in which data collected through a questionnaire led to the identification of new factors that can influence energy saving behaviour: the level of information of household consumers and the level of perceived importance, compared to voluntary measures to reduce electricity consumption. Although the research results cannot be extrapolated to the level of the entire Romanian population, but only to certain segments, the authors consider the association of consumption behaviour with two important factors, which have not been analysed in the scientific literature so far, to be a success. This analysis is necessary to understand, improve, and align the actions of domestic consumers with the strategic plans of the European Union for the implementation of measures to reduce energy consumption.
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Biomimetics is the science of applying nature-inspired designs and processes to human engineering and social innovation in order to solve complex problems. Emulating life’s blueprints and patterns, chemical processes, and ecosystem strategies leads to sustainable and regenerative solutions for a biosphere able to support all life on our planet. In a similar vein, Biomimetic Leadership encourages western 21st century leaders to rediscover the value of nature, apply life’s design principles, and utilize biomimetic thinking for the sake of improving organizations. Four core beliefs—Respect, Relate, Reflect, and Replicate—provide the foundation for Biomimetic Leadership as a new type of leadership. Each belief is a source of inspiration and offers insights into a hands-on approach to leading in an era of unprecedented environmental and economic concerns. Educating leaders for Biomimetic Leadership is a challenge that must be addressed by organizations with the objective of reaching equality, and by doing so, focusing on incorporating the four core beliefs described in this paper.
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Anna Stenning does in the anthology Neurodiversity. A New Critical Paradigm (2020) introduce an autistic ethics using the autobiographies of Greta Thunberg (No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference (2019)) and Temple Grandin (Animals in Translation (2005)). Stenning points to how this autistic ethics do expand its acts of care to the more-than-human. Grandin describes her being in the world as more attuned to animals than humans. Thunberg argues that her Asperger’s is the reason why she can care so totally for the climate. This article further investigates the intersection of autism and the more-than-human, or the post humanist. Using the works of openly autistic authors Madeleine Ryan (A Room Called Earth (2020)) and Hannah Emerson (You Are Helping This Great Universe Explode (2020)) as well as Emily Dickinson, posthumously diagnosed with autism. I investigate the autistic theme of nature and the autistic relationship to other species. This relation often seems to be stronger and more genuine than the relation to other humans. I propose that the autistic sense of the more-than-human is at once a response to the oppressive view of the autistic as less-than-human – a way of finding one’s allies outside the realms of human civilization – and a special kind of autistic worldly spiritualness that includes an ethics that do not segregate one life form from another.
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Review of: Horn, Eva, Bergthaller, Hannes, (2020). The Anthropocene: Key Issues for the Humanities, Routledge, 2020, 192 pages, 14 B/W illustrations. US$44,95 ISBN: 9781138342477
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Review of: Blazan, Sladja (Ed.). (2021). Haunted Nature: Entanglements of the Human and the Nonhuman. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-030-81868-5.
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This brief essay engages with environmental stewardship and scale in the Anthropocene. Taking inspiration from Kees Boeke’s illustrated children’s book Cosmic View: The Universe in 40 Jumps and Charles and Ray Eames’s Powers of Ten—a short film based on Boeke’s book—this photo essay illustrates how, through the production of eco-art, the practice of macro photography can suggest the presence of worlds within one’s world. Creative engagements are offered so that children and adults, who must all live through and contend with the Anthropocene, might appreciate notions of environmental scale, particularly in relation to our ecological footprints over time. In so doing, visual media such as illustrated books, films, and macro photography encourage sustainability on a larger scale than humanity has yet to imagine.
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Discussions and practices for biodiversity and the environment are associated predominantly with duty ethics, which spell out the do’s and don’ts of good behavior. Virtue ethics offer an alternative that is much more inspirational, provided we do not reduce it to a mere enumeration of environmental virtues. Moreover, a virtue ethic is truly humanistic, in that it builds on inborn human capacities rather than on external sources of morality. Grounded in the classic Greek account of virtue ethics and in interaction with medieval and modern visions, this paper articulates a virtue ethic for the Earth. Accessible to a broad audience, we address the foundational concepts of nature-inclusive telos, eudaimonia, virtues and friendship, and connect these with social-scientific research findings. This elucidates how the virtues, sometimes supported by moral exemplars, work in lives that include nature in their flourishing. A virtue ethic for the Earth, we think, can be helpful for policy making but most of all act as a platform for people to become more inspired, courageous and effective friends of nature and the planet as a whole.
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This commentary to Robert Biel’s book, The Entropy of Capitalism, defines the tasks of international security on the terms of a systems theory that asks how the system reproduces itself. The matter, energy, and information that go into its successful reproduction are also ecological challenges to this very system because the processes that generate the order of the system are the same processes that generate an entropy for the system that it must confront. The system confronts its own waste and the manner in which it does so, on Biel’s account, establishes its pathways of future development, including the ways in which the system is constrained. The commentary reaches beyond Biel’s framework by deepening his understanding of the structural embeddedness of capitalist development, including its surveillance stage, but it ends by defending Biel against his critics. Critics of Biel’s preference for low-input strategies of future development run astray, I suggest, in their neglect of Biel’s core insights into how an analysis of entropy is so essential to an understanding how the capitalist system works.
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Review of: Schneider-Mayerson, M., & Bellamy, B.R. (Eds). (2019). An Ecotopian Lexicon. University of Minnesota Press.
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Review of: Riccardo Moratto, Nicoletta Pesaro, and Di-kai Chao. (Eds.). (2022). Ecocriticism and Chinese Literature: Imagined Landscapes and Real Lived Spaces. Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003212317. ISBN: 978-1-003-21231-7 (ebk)
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This review critically examines Lisa E. Bloom's Climate Change and the New Polar Aesthetics (2022) by studying the book’s key methodological and analytical approaches to contemporary visual art on the poles. I locate Bloom's work as part of a larger discourse on Ice Humanities and highlight her own contribution to the field by focusing on the book's reconfiguration of critical environmentalism through intersectional feminist, indigenous, and transnational frameworks. The review also discusses the dual role of aesthetics in both shaping hegemonic perceptions of the poles and in articulating strategies for their subversion.
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The text discusses the critical issue of environmental and ecological security and emphasizes the need for a comprehensive scientific approach to solving these challenges. The paper highlights the interconnection of human activities, the ecosystem, and the natural environment and the potential consequences of neglecting their interdependence. The text explores various aspects of environmental and ecological security, including climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and resource depletion. It emphasizes the importance of adopting sustainable practices, implementing effective policies, and promoting awareness and education in preserving the future of our planet. The importance of understanding and mitigating the impact of human activities on the environment is also highlighted in order to ensure a sustainable and secure future for generations to come.
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Environmental economic valuations are often presented as means to rationalize decision-making. A critical blind spot of this argument is that it ignores pervasive environmental inequalities. The author of article criticizes the literature entrenching this credentials of economic approaches to rationalize decision-making and argues that the key for economic valuations to truly contribute to rationalization is that their usage should be embedded in the deployment of what is called a justificatory task. Then the author takes advantage of an analysis of the notion of rationality, when applied to decision-aiding processes, to translate this reasoning into the concrete terms of applications of environmental economic valuations.
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