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Throughout the existence of humans people were acquiring and evaluating findings about their life space and they were creating knowledge from their findings, which was important in their daily lives and also in their life perspective. One of the sources of this ecological knowledge is ethnographic records. These sources give us an opportunity to get to know often forgotten knowledge about the wild growing plant species, which people used to normally eat. It documents the empirical material, acquired during ground exploration in different regions in Slovakia, which represents these plants and processes of their use in traditional culinary culture of Slovakia. These plants are known as super-foods, which can be as the opposite of modified food, which has almost lost its biologically active substances and is characteristic for the life in globalized community nowadays.
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Contemporary world, as shown by both the scientific research and our everyday experiences, is a place of grave social inequalities and rapid degradation of our physical environment. Processes that have led to this are mostly explained on higher levels of abstraction. In this paper, I question them in the context of the processes of soci(et)al reproduction, and I show the relevance of Rudi Supek’s work in contemporary discussions.
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The article is an attempt to interpret the work of the Kraków poet from the ecocritical perspective. The central point of study is ecopoetics understood as a type of sensitivity, an attitude towards the world and a certain way of writing that shapes readership awareness, imagination and knowledge. The study analyzes in particular portrayal of the environmental spaces, attitude of the entity towards nature and all of non-human creatures, lines entangled in the biographical context and depicting the death of the animals. In the course of this interpretation, Małgorzata Lebda’s poetry fits in the ecological context that was postulated in the outset, revealing its ecopoetic potential.
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Julia Fiedorczuk’s academic, journalistic and critical activity invites readings of her poetry in the context of ecopoetics, which she actively promotes. Her ecocritically oriented poems explore the links between poetry and natural environment, proposing an interdisciplinary practice of co-creation of the human and non-human world, as well as a re-evaluation of our understanding of the relations between them. It is, at the same time, a type of poetry that exposes its gender affiliation; it evokes and deconstructs the culturally instilled associations between femininity and nature, and formulates questions pertaining to identity and metaphysics. With her “woman and world: user’s manuals” project, poetically original yet deeply rooted in (post)modern contexts, Fiedorczuk represents one of the most interesting currents of contemporary – and not just women’s – poetry
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The following study tries to establish whether it is possible to ascertain participation as an important factor of vulnerability to climate change. The thesis is therefore: the quality of participation influences vulnerability to climate change. In order to examine the thesis, vulnerability to climate change is defined, and the quality of participation is operationalised with the five most important dimensions. This model is then applied to a case study of a decision-making process on flood protection measures for south-west Ljubljana. Semi- -structured in-depth interviews and an analysis of written communication sources are used. Important deficiencies regarding all five of the most important dimensions of participation are discovered and, therefore, it can be concluded that in the analysed case a low quality of participation enabled the vulnerability to remain high.
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On the one hand, fast developing technology provides social cultural benefits to people and on the other hand it is obligatory to live in unhealthy environment. To emphasize the importance of green areas is the concepts that need to be taken seriously. Green areas are areas that increase the quality of life in urban living areas, which therefore have a direct impact on human health and psychology, and bring ecological benefits to people and the environment. In recent years, vertical gardens have begun to increase rapidly as the horizontal green areas gradually decrease with the reaching of serious environmental problems. Green areas serve many purposes, such as reducing environmental pollutants, providing a living space for wildlife, preventing erosion, and affecting urban development. In this context, green spaces are important in ensuring that people are intertwined with nature in daily life by eliminating the longing for people. In this study, the place and importance of green areas in the culture of Uyghur Turks and their importance for societies will be investigated.
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As a result of the developments in technology, the wide variety of human needs has resulted in excessive deterioration of nature. In order to be able to maintain the lives of people in suitable conditions and to look at the future with confidence, one has entered into different quests. Especially, in recent years, environmental pollution in the world and the global issues which excessive consumption creates for the natural ecological balance have led to make changes in production ana consumption patterns of both consumers and businesses. Issues of conservation of the resources, waste destruction in a way that will not harm the nature or their being saved to the recycling have increased the significance incresingly in logistic sector as in every sector as well. In logistics activities, support to sustainability in transportation will be ensured primarily by adopting green marketing practices of logistics enterprises. The aim of this course is to reveal the green port understanding of the ports within the logistics activities and to make suggestions. For this purpose, the relationship between green port and environment was emphasized and green marketing concept was examined.
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Greenhouse gases emissions (GHG) and global climate change phenomena have been top priorities on the agenda of highest-level policy makers for a long period of time now. Scientists are well-familiarised with the fact that use of fossil fuels, such as oil derivatives and coal, is the main generator of harmful gases. In addi-tion, possible substitutions for fossil fuels in the form of other energy sources are very limited, and it should be remembered that other energy sources also have certain adverse environmental effects. Bearing in mind climate change caused by products of fossil fuels combustion, as well as inevitable depletion of natural crude oil resources, management of growing global energy demand becomes one of the key goals and challenges of 21st century.This study is dedicated to lightening up of most significant demographic, eco-nomic and technological indicators of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 28 EU member states in the period between 1991 and 2014. The research results, based on logarithmic STIRPAT model and application of econometric techniques on unbalanced panel data sample of 587 (247) observations, indicate that impact of GDP per capita is statistically significant and positive. An increase in GDP per capita growth rate of 1% leads to increased CO2 emissions growth rate ranging between 1.10% and 1.15%. The results unequivocally suggest positive impact of energy intensity to CO2 emissions. Increased growth rate in relative energy consumption of 1% results in increased CO2 emission growth rate ranging between 1.07% and 1.09%. This analysis reinforces the conclusions of numerous empirical studies that im-pact of population on CO2 emissions is significant and positive. An increase in demographic growth rate of 1% implies increased CO2 emission growth rate ranging between 0.74% and 1.02%. In other words, low fertility rate in the Euro-pean Union might have positive effect on CO2 emissions reduction. In addition, possibility that elasticity of CO2 emission growth rate in relation to population growth rate is changed depending on the size of population growth rate is rejected on the basis of obtained findings. Impact of gross value added of manufacturing and demographic variables repre-senting the population age structure (share of children and adolescents younger than 14 and share of working age population in total population) is not estimated as statistically significant. Finally, the result that average household size does not determine the CO2 emis-sion should be construed very carefully, since it was obtained on quite small sample, thus questioning representativeness and validity thereof.
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One of the great challenges that local authorities have to face in the current period of time is climate change and that environmental protection, the responsibility of creation or strengthening green cities appearing in the forefront. In this context, the success of policies based on regulations can be sustained and substantially enhanced by appropriate use of local fiscal instruments such as taxes, fees or expenditures. From this point of view, our paper suggests some alternative design, implementation and use of these fiscal tools so that they can manifest realistic as active levers to influence the activities and behaviors of actors involved to develop and strengthen green cities.
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Ian McEwan’s Solar (2010) is centered around a Nobel Laureate Professor of Physics whose peak of academic achievement is thirty years behind him, who is trying to retrieve his reputation by proposing replacement of coal and fossil fuel use by solar power and a planet whose heyday as a nurturing haven for human species is but a fantasy. The protagonist’s conspicuous consumption of romantic entanglements also mirrors the daily routines of billions of human beings in overconsumption of commodities and non-renewable planetary resources. His one original contribution is his almost instinctive response to another major factor in climate change: overpopulation. I will focus on our failure to maintain foresight for imminent antropogenic disasters as human species as well as overpopulation as a neglected cause for such disasters, even in Solar, since the solution to overpopulation involves a counterintutive measure: not to have children.
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Nowadays, humanity is in a position to choose carefully every step it makes in order to ensure economic development without compromising the welfare of future generations who will need a social and ecological climate as favorable it could be. On the other hand, the conventional energy production is achieved taking the risks of the Earth overheating and its aggregate economic consequences, actually this climatic changes already appear in a more and more aggressive way, including on global economies. Over the past few years international organizations such as OECD, the IMF, the IEA, the World Bank are focusing their attention on the fossil fuel subsidies impacts over the energy production and consumption, quantifying the economic and social impacts of fossil fuel reform. The reason this study had to be done is the disadvantageous position of renewable energy industry compared with the fossil fuel’s industry situation which lies actually in the adopted subsidy strategy and the lack of measures for internalizing externalities on the sector, which are considered by IMF also a type of fossil fuel subsidy. So, this study presents an updated overlook on the fossil fuel externality problem, revises the identified literature linked to the”externality” notion, outlines the identified trends and polices of internalizing the fossil fuels externalities, and tries to review the estimations of the potential costs of the global warming as a consequence of too high social costs of the fossil fuel installed technologies. In this purpose there are on their way of implementation different systemic methods of research, including scientific abstraction, deduction, analysis and synthesis and quantitative analysis in order to outline the current situation of fossil fuel externality problem and its potential impact over the economic welfare.
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Idea ekspansji ludzkiego gatunku poza granice Ziemi może być rozważana z perspektywy różnych nauk i różnych punktów widzenia. Najistotniejszą perspektywą z pragmatycznego punktu widzenia jest oczywiście perspektywa technologiczna i medyczna. Podstawowe wyzwania techniczne dotyczą możliwości zbudowania odpowiednio szybkiego i bezpiecznego środka transportu, jak również zagwarantowania odpowiednich warunków do życia po wylądowaniu na dowolnej planecie. Odpowiednio istotne są wyzwania medyczne. Nie polegają one jedynie na zapewnieniu odpowiednich środków technicznych, ale na zbadaniu możliwości biologicznych człowieka, uwzględnieniu nowych warunków środowiskowych właściwych podróży i pobytowi na odległej planecie, oraz na zminimalizowaniu ryzyka zagrożenia zdrowia i śmierci. W niniejszym tekście zostaną zaprezentowane inne niż technologiczne i medyczne możliwości oceny i analizy idei ekspansji i kolonizacji obiektów pozaziemskich przez człowieka. Zagadnienie to będzie rozważane z perspektywy filozoficznej, etycznej i kulturowej, które zwracają uwagę na wyzwania związane z tak zwaną naturą człowieka, ludzkimi emocjami i skłonnościami, uwzględniając zagadnienia właściwe ewolucji biologicznej i kulturowej.
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The article concerns, according to the Pope’s Francis encyclical letter Laudato si’, the relations between the Christian spirituality and the ecological crisis. It presents the concept of God as the Creator and at the same time the caring Host-Tutor of the world. The second thematic area concerns the indicated in the encyclical letter Laudato si’ causes of the contemporary ecological crisis. These data are the basis for the presentation of the positive potential of Christian spirituality, even its necessity to successfully confront the ecological crisis.
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By proposing a thesis, which is consistent with the results of biological research in the human evolution, that due to the pressure of natural selection and the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens our species was equipped with a strong predatory instinct, which enables us to speak about “the hunter in each of us”, the author of the article traces its cultural expressions, demonstrating its realisations in the past. She proves that this instinct, in conjunction with the strategy of costly representation (the handicap theory) which is also peculiar to humankind, is currently realised inter alia by hunting practices, which due to their cruelty and the incompatibility with a classless society constitute a peculiar “relic of barbarity”.
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The impact of human activities on the planet has accelerated the loss of species and ecosystems to a level comparable to a sixth mass extinction, the first driven by a living species. The Living Planet Index, which measures biodiversity abundance levels, was reduced by 58 per cent between 1970 and 2012. Humans have already driven at least four of nine Earth system processes beyond their safe boundaries. Hunting has lost its original function (source of food and survival of people). However, hunters invoke various arguments, including ecological and ethical ones, for the maintenance of hunting. Scientific research, however, contradicts them, for example modern hunting is blamed for the disruption of natural mechanisms regulating the size of game populations. The answer to the arguments of hunting ethics is contemporary environmental ethics, in which the fundamental value is respect for life, for every form of existence. Recent research shows that overexploitation of the environment, including hunting and fishing, has the greatest negative impact on biodiversity.
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The author of the article discusses the history of the moral degradation of hunting in the former USSR, in Ukraine and in Russia mainly on the basis of a critical overview of the hunting press. Criticism is directed against the practice of the defence of hunting by means of squealing.
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In the article, I analyze argumentations of contemporary ethicists and psychologists in favour of forsaking and ethical condemnation of recreational hunting, referred to as an atavistic pastime of killing, as a practice based on drawing satisfaction from inducing fear, suffering and death. I refer to the theory of the moral development of a human by Albert Schweitzer, the views of Richard Ryder - a clinical psychologist, the ethics of Bernard Rollin, and the basic thesis of Paul Hauck - a psychologist.
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Miles Olson is the author of two books: „The Compassionate Hunter’s Guidebook: Hunting from the Heart and „Unlearn, Rewild: Earth Skills, Ideas and Inspiration for the Future Primitive”. The paper consists of a critical analysis and an ethical evaluation of Olson’s particular version of anarcho-primitivism and ideological assumptions of his concept of “rewilding”. The question of hunting and the motives for Olson’s rejection of veganism are analyzed in detail.
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This paper assesses the prospective contribution of social-ecological resilience thinking in advancing a theory of ‘ordinary’ cities. Building on the hierarchical divide that continues to prescribe analyses and representations of cities in urban studies, the paper suggests that, while ideologically contentious, the conceptual configuration of resilience thinking, promoted essentially through notions of uncertainty, diversity and transformation, shows considerable potential for interdisciplinary research. While remaining cautious about its analytical thresholds, applying the framework as it emerges from its ecological niche suggests that resilience thinking can, alongside other concepts, play a part in creating an enabling environment for broadening the way communities, neighbourhoods and institutions that form and connect cities across the globe are understood, studied and represented in urban theory; allowing us to recognise all cities and their citizens as relatable and ‘ordinary’.
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