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Ungarn erlebte im Jänner eine unabhängige, öffentliche Versammlung: Der Versuch, im Februar den Protest gegen das Kraftwerk Gahcikovo-Nagymaros auf die Straße zu tragen, scheiterte allerdings am Widerstand der Behörden.
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The article aims to analyse the worldview theories, which have become the basis for the concept of sustainable energy transformations. A number of ideas explaining the close connection between energy and environmental transformations, economic and technological progress of society and the state of the environment are considered. Energy transformations have become the research object due to the processes such as, on the one hand, the understanding of the future energy resources crisis, and on the other, the awareness of environmental problems that can lead to the real threat to humanity. The purpose of the article is to investigate philosophical concepts that lead to a new paradigm of satisfying human, and community needs in energy in the context of international and national economic strategies. The civilizational importance of the problem mentioned above and the urge to solve it at the global and local levels stimulates the curiosity of scientists and the activity of scientific and practical research in various fields. The object of scientific exploration is the economic and environmental effects of implementing renewable energy sources, the investment attractiveness of such projects; the innovative processes of renewable energy implementation and development are studied; environmental impact of various infrastructure elements is evaluated, in particular - in local systems; possibilities of the efficient architecture of the energy and ecological components of the urban environment, territorial communities, etc. are analysed. The concepts of environmental philosophy regarding the need for a harmonious combination of human and environmental needs are increasingly being taken into account in the development of state economic strategies and programs. The article states that an aspect of environmental consciousness change, building a new, socially responsible thinking of an economically and socially active part of society, and, ideally, most of humanity will remain of high importance for achieving sustainable development goals, in particular, sustainable modes of energy consumption
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The starting point for further consideration is that climate change and humanity’s contribution to this process is an indisputable global fact. The article puts forward the thesis that certain provisions of the Labour Code—either existing since its enactment (i.e. since 1974) or introduced later but before 2000 (the title labour law of the 20th century)—show a visible “pro-climate potential”. This potential should be understood in that they can become an effective instrument in the fight against climate change.The analysis examines: 1) the employer’s obligation to respect the dignity and personal rights of employees, 2) the employee’s duty to respect the interest of the work establishment and 3) the employer’s obligation to contribute to shaping the principles of social coexistence in the workplace and the related employee’s obligation to respect these principles. The option to use multiple legal constructions and protective mechanisms in parallel when determining the responsibility of the employee or the employer reinforces the importance of pro-climate behaviour in the workplace. Nevertheless, not all of the mentioned legal instruments will always be able to be applied when categorising a specific event.
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The main aim of the article is to compare the implementation of the green city concept in capital cities above 1 million population in Central Europe, i.e. Warsaw, Prague and Budapest in order to evaluate the degree to which each of these cities implement the assumptions of the abovementioned concept to achieve urban sustainability. An analysis of strategic documents on urban planning as well as data bases of the three cities was carried out. The results allowed for measuring the progress and effectiveness of the environmental policies of these cities and determining their achievements and shortcomings when it comes to realizing the green city model. Additionally, for the purpose of this research, an attempt at elaborating the definition of a ‘green city,’through determining four phases of its development, was made. Thus, the article is solution-specific, in that it points at possibilities of the development of Central European cities as regards the implementation of the green city concept.
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As is known, the Cyprus Peace Negotiation have been continuing for more than fifty years. For more than forty years, people in Cyprus have been spending a conflict-free and peaceful life. In this study, the fifty-year process of Cyprus Peace Negotiation will be summarized and explained at large within the framework of public policy analysis, analysis phases, policy preparation/implementation methods and the role of institutions in the process. The voting of the 2004 Annan Plan between the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots during this process and the effect of the voting outcome on the negotiation process will be discussed. With the opening of the border gates that provided controlled passage to northern and southern Cyprus shortly before the Annan Plan was put to a vote, the effects of the new conditions created by the collective and free contact of two populations on the negotiation process and the future apprehension of Turkish Cypriots will be analysed. Since the study involved theoretical approaches, indirect research method was adopted as a method and domestic and foreign sources were scanned within this framework. In parallel with this method, content analysis technique was used. According to the findings, such multilateral conflicts Generals and 22 UN Special Representative behind, there is the danger of the means to turn into a goal. This possibility should not be ignored and the content of the talks and the subject of negotiation in question must be preoccupied on. It is also cumbersome to maintain the peace and the human duty to endure this hardship. It is only possible to conclude the negotiations by agreeing on the acceptance and ingestion of these facts, and perhaps by agreeing on a number of boundary regulations and similar requirements. This means that all parties agree that the actual situation is the best solution.
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This paper discusses how the natural soundscape of Max Frisch’s novella Man in the Holocene (1979) affords a contemplation on the inadequacy of human epistemology against the immense temporality of the geological deep time. The sound of rain, wind, and thunderclaps in Frisch’s narrative evokes a vaster temporal scale and constantly challenges its protagonist Herr Geiser’s faith in science and objective knowledge. Following Émilie Hache and Bruno Latour’s advocacy of “resensitization,” and Derek Woods’s call for attention to scale variance and boundaries of our scalar epistemic framework, this article argues that the interrelation of sound, weather and our senses in Man in the Holocene sheds light on the limits of an anthropocentric framework of understanding, the discontinuities between different scales, and how we can reposition ourselves across and inhabit multiple epistemological scales without losing sight of their discontinuities. Weather is a profoundly intermingled sensory experience and carries temporally and geologically vast, non-human agency. By focusing on meteorological phenomena and atmospheric sound, this paper aims to contribute to the scarce literature on sound in ecocriticism and on natural soundscapes in the studies of acoustic ecology.
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Based on a dialogue with authors of pragmatist philosophy, game studies, and communication, this article intends to understand the relationship between aesthetic experience and ludic media, in particular digital games, in what this relationship distinguishes from the aesthetic experiences provided by different media, such as literature, music, film and the arts in general. To better understand this relationship, we propose the presentation and development of three epistemological axes (or keys), namely: i) aesthetics and agency, ii) aesthetics and appropriation, and iii) aesthetics and politics. Furthermore, this article intends to present and comment on selected works of digital games to illustrate the relationship between play and aesthetic experience in each of those respective axes.
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Kriza u kojoj smo se našli sve zlokobnije zaziva četiri jahača apokalipse iz Knjige Otkrovenja: bolest, rat, glad, smrt. Ova se četiri jahača ne može prosto otpisati kao figure zla - Trevor Hancock istaknuo je kako su oni "nevjerojatno blizu onome što bismo mogli nazvati četirima jahačima ekologije koji reguliraju veličinu populacije u prirodi." Pozivajuće se na Charlesa Eltona, on navodi da "četiri jahača" igraju pozitivnu ulogu u sprečavanju prenapučenosti: "porast brojnosti pod kontrolom drže predatori, patogeni, paraziti i dostupnost hrane."
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This study aims to investigate the presence of greenwashing practices within the integrated reports of enterprises operating within the integrated reporting framework. The study examines the statements on environmental management and indicators of natural capital in the integrated reports of 13 enterprises that published such reports in 2022. The analysis aims to identify whether these enterprises employ greenwashing practices in their explanations related to these indicators. In the study, it was observed that the enterprises within the scope of the research applied to greenwashing applications in their integrated reports. By presenting the findings, the study will determine whether greenwashing practices are prevalent within integrated reporting.
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With the encroachment of urban areas into peri-urban landscapes, the requirement for effective green infrastructure (GI) planning has become increasingly important for maintaining ecological integrity and human wellbeing. An expert-based matrix approach is proposed as a method for evaluating the potential of cultural ecosystem services (CES) in making informed GI planning decisions in a peri-urban landscape. Experts from various disciplines and areas of work were consulted to systematically evaluate various types of land-use and land-cover classes, as well as protection regimes characteristic of a peri-urban landscape across the CES categories. In addition to CES provision potential, experts also evaluated the possible potential to cause cultural ecosystem disservices. These scores are aggregated to generate spatially explicit maps that highlight areas with high CES provision potential and those with the potential to cause disservices. This approach was then applied to three case study areas, demonstrating its effectiveness in identifying priority areas for GI planning and management interventions. The results highlight the importance of integrating CES considerations into GI planning processes to enhance landscape resilience, social wellbeing, and cultural heritage preservation in dynamic peri-urban environments. Using scoring, validation exercises, and spatially explicit presentation on case studies, the utility and applicability of the expert-based matrix approach as a valuable tool for sustainable GI planning on a landscape scale is demonstrated.
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S širjenjem mestnih območij v obmestne krajine postaja potreba po učinkovitem načrtovanju zelene infrastrukture čedalje pomembnejša za ohranjanje ekološke celovitosti območij in človekovega dobrega počutja. V članku je predstavljena matrika strokovnih ocen kot metoda vrednotenja potenciala območij, da zagotavljajo kulturne ekosistemske storitve (KES), pri načrtovanju zelene infrastrukture (ZI) v obmestni krajini. Strokovnjaki z več področij so sistematično ovrednotili različne vrste rabe zemljišč in pokrovnosti tal ter varstvene režime, značilne za obmestne krajine, in to glede na kategorije KES. Poleg potenciala za zagotavljanje kulturnih ekosistemskih storitev so ovrednotili tudi potencial za povzročanje kulturnih ekosistemskih nevšečnosti. Njihove ocene so bile združene in na tej podlagi so bile izdelane karte, na katerih so razvidna območja z visokim potencialom za zagotavljanje KES in tista, na katerih bi lahko ekosistemi povzročili nevšečnosti. Opisani pristop je bil nato uporabljen v treh študijah primera, pri tem je bila dokazana njegova učinkovitost pri določanju prednostnih območij za načrtovanje ZI in izvedbo upravljavskih posegov. Izsledki raziskave opozarjajo na pomen upoštevanja KES pri načrtovanju ZI, saj lahko to izboljša odpornost krajin, družbeno blaginjo in ohranjanje kulturne dediščine v dinamičnih obmestnih okoljih. S presojo, vrednotenjem zbranih strokovnih ocen in jasno prostorsko predstavitvijo rezultatov za posamezno proučevano območje je bila potrjena uporabnost matrike strokovnih ocen kot uporabnega orodja za načrtovanje trajnostne ZI v krajinskem merilu.
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Human-centered environmental issues are a phenomena as old as human history. In the earlier periods, it was not regarded as a common problem because environmental damage was not at a level that would negatively affect the ecosystem and living beings. In the modern period, especially after the industrial revolution, some solutions have been developed at national and international levels after taking into consideration the damage of environmental problems to living beings and the ecosystem on a global scale. Although some countries that were experiencing these problems on a national scale made some progress individually, the 1972 Stockholm Declaration was the first time environmental issues were placed at the forefront of international concerns, and marked the start of a dialogue at the international level to protect the environment. The Qur'an does not approve any illegitimate war against a state or a community. There is no recorded war by Prophet Muhammad against a community without a legitimate reason. Islamic law proposes maximum legality and morality during a legitimate war. It is also seen that this Islamic perspective is grasped in terms of protecting the environment. When analyzing the opinion of jurists of Islamic Law, it is seen that unnecessary destruction of the environmental values such as houses, trees and green spaces is prohibited, as a basic principle. Therefore, Islamic jurists' perspectives on provisions concerning the destruction of environmental elements like trees, buildings, and green spaces are constrained by military necessity only. Consequently, environmental damage during warfare is deemed permissible solely for defensive purposes. However, this legitimacy is contingent upon avoiding unnecessary demolition.
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The destruction of soil and vegetation caused by mining, if not prevented through careful planning, is usually extreme, as the original ecosystems have been grossly disturbed or buried in the mining process. A radical reconstruction is therefore necessary. In nature, this happens through the well-known processes of primary succession, without human intervention. In the interests of the economy and the preservation of our natural resources, reclamation should try to involve the same processes. When planning reclamation, it is crucial to clearly define goals, objectives and success criteria to allow for systematic reclamation. The need for methods to assess the effectiveness in achieving environmental and social goals is increasing, especially if agricultural land is to be restored. Over time, reclamation goals may need to be modified depending on the direction of the reclamation succession. The reclamation of mined areas requires the application of monitoring tools to understand the achievement of potential success. This problem can be solved by studying the biodiversity of plant communities and soil factors of mining areas as habitats in industrialized post-mining landscapes. Thus, the reclamation of territories disturbed by industrial activities is planned with the need to correct the trajectory of the restoration process, so it requires indicators that can be used to monitor the success of the planned process. The article tests the following hypotheses: 1) the dynamics of the reclamation process can be monitored using the indices of naturalness and hemeroby; 2) at the initial stages of reclamation, the hemeroby index has an advantage due to its greater sensitivity in this range of anthropogenic transformation levels. The plant community formed as a result of spontaneous growth of the reclamation sites was represented by 70 species of vascular plants. The projective vegetation cover was 22.0± 0.30%. In one test plot, 8.4± 0.1 plant species were found. The analysis of the synoptic phytosociological table revealed that the vegetation cover of the reclamation site was represented by nine associations from the vegetation classes Artemisietea vulgaris and Stellarietea mediae. The hemeroby of the communities averaged 85.0±0.22. The lowest level of hemeroby was found within the Cirsio-Lactucetum serriolae association.The average level of hemeroby was found for the associations Medicagini lupulinae-Agropyretum repentis, Ambrosio artemisiifoliae-Cirsietum setosi and Carduo acanthoidis-Onopordetum acanthi. The highest level of hemeroby was found for the associations Agropyretum repentis and Convolvulo arvensis-Agropyretum repentis. The highest level of hemeroby was observed in those plant communities formed on lithozems on the red-brown clays, and the lowest formed on the pedozems. A negative correlation was found between hemeroby and naturalness for all lithozems. No statistically significant correlation was found for pedozems. For the classification of associations, environmental factors such as salt content in the soil solution, nitrogen content, ombroclimate, light regime, and naturalness are of greatest importance. The traditional application of the hemeroby scale is to assess the level of anthropogenic transformation of an ecosystem, i.e. to quantify how far the ecosystem has deviated from its natural state. In our study, we use the hemeroby index to observe how the plant community returns to its natural state, which can be considered as a marker of the effectiveness of the reclamation process. This approach allows us to contrast the indicators of naturalness and hemeroby, which are formally symmetrical: the higher the hemeroby, the lower the naturalness should be. In a wide range of levels of anthropogenic pressure, this pattern is certainly true. The peculiarity of the naturalness index is that it is more sensitive in the range of anthropogenic transformation that occurs at the initial stages of deviation of the natural community from the natural state at low levels of anthropogenic impact. In turn, the hemeroby index is more sensitive to changes in the community under conditions of a high level of anthropogenic transformation.
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The purpose of the study is to reveal the importance of the use of sustainable development tools by economic agents in the tourism industry. The object of the study is the extended responsibility of producers for the packaging placed on the market, which is used in the Republic of Moldova as a tool that contributes to sustainable economic development. The author used such research methods as: documentation, analysis, comparison, synthesis, deduction. Concerned by the high degree of pollution that is generated by human activity, in particular, economic activity, most of the world's states have agreed on the need to maintain adequate conditions for life on earth, by establishing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, various methods and tools are used, both of a punitive and stimulating nature. One of these tools is "extended producer responsibility". Analyzing the requirements of the legislation regarding the responsibilities of producers for the packaging placed on the market, it is found more efficient and less expensive, respectively, economic agents in the tourism industry are recommended to comply with the requirements of the legislation regarding the prevention, collection and processing of waste by using a collective system, applying the approach "extended producer responsibility".
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The subject of the considerations contained in the study is an attempt to determine whether when creating the content of Art. 4 of the Act of April 27, 2001, Environmental Protection Law, was used as a model for solutions regarding the use of water contained in the Water Law Act. This view is expressed quite often in the reference literature. The analysis carried out in this paper proves that such a view is not sufficiently justified, as evidenced primarily by significant differences in the regulation method used in Art. 4 and in the Water Law Act.
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This study focuses on the possibilities and limits of contemporary history research within the transformation of the humanities and social sciences influenced by new information technologies and the digital turn. The authors present the main trends of digitization policy in the Czech Republic in the context of the social debate on coming to terms with the communist past and in the context of professional discussions on the possibilities of the use of bibliographic datasets in the digital humanities. They focus on the role of digitization in the objectification of historical knowledge and its potential use as a tool for new interpretations of historical data, focusing first on the contrast between digitization from below, represented by the social activist digitization of samizdat texts on the initiative of individuals (typically former dissidents) or civic associations, and digitization from above, in the form of the statesponsored and institutionalised digitization of sources of state provenance (mainly materials of the security services of the Czechoslovak communist regime). In the second part of the article, the authors present the newly emerging online database “Bibliography of Ecological and Environmental Issues in Czechoslovak Samizdat” in the context of the current research on Czechoslovak dissent and bibliographic processing of samizdat texts. Using this example, they argue that bibliographies, which are among the traditional tools and aids of historical research, have a great potential for use in digital humanities and thus in digital history, although this potential is still unexploited in contemporary history.
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Due to the brutal exploitation of natural resources, man found himself on the verge of his own survival. Lately, the media have been increasingly emphasizing in their reports that the only alternative to this is a reasonable civilizational step towards sustainability in all spheres of human existence. This implies radical changes in the way raw materials are managed, produced, distributed and disposed of. The synonym of modern ecological culture is the circular economy, which is an explicit response to the insatiable materialistic greed of modern humanity. The press, radio and television, as well as online media actively monitor and support the implementation and realization of the concept of circular economy in the Western Balkan countries that accepted the so-called "Green Agenda" in 2020 in Sofia, and committed to "reduce the negative impact of the use of fossil fuels", thus making their own contribution to Europe becoming the first "climate-neutral" continent by 2050. The current results of our and many other surveys show a significant increase in media coverage of environmental problems of society, i.e. a stronger interest of journalists in the degradation and devastation of the natural environment in the context of climate change and other environmental problems.
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With the intensive development of the economy with the goal of a higher level of personal and social standards, society is increasingly faced with the problems of protecting the working environment and the living environment. The need for modern technologies requires increased exploitation of natural resources while simultaneously conquering automation and artificial intelligence in terms of more efficient business in the future. We have not always correctly applied scientific - planning and optimal methods of exploitation of available resources and chosen rational technical - technological solutions. Our behaviors are often one-sided, because our goal is material benefit, without considering the real energy and raw material possibilities. By raising industrial and energy capacities, their increasing representation in the economy, the production of complex synthetic compounds, the problems of endangering the working and living environment, disrupting the ecological balance, and ultimately creating conditions for the deterioration of the quality of life are increasing. Urban environments (large cities), with intense traffic growth, have a polluted living and working environment to such an extent that it represents a real danger for residents. For these and other reasons, I tried to highlight these issues in one place and encourage thinking about the comprehensive organized action of society and individuals with the goal of humane relations in the sphere of protection of the living and working environment on modern bases
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The cleaning up of Cișmigiu Lake in Bucharest represented one of the matters that the authorities in Bucharest were confronted with since the setting up of Cișmigiu Garden. Although some decisions were taken in order to temporarily improve the effects of periodic overflow of waters, the improper state of hygiene of the lake affected the entire area to the end of the 19th century. It was in 1883, when the Minister of Agriculture, Industry, Trade and Domains initiated a sanitation and landscaping project of Cișmigiu Lake, which supposed the co-operation with Bucharest City Hall. One of the results of this approach was that Cișmigiu Garden was transferred in the administration of the city hall, according to the law issued on June 24/July 6, 1884. The exchange of letters between the two institutions was preserved in fonds Primăria Municipiului București. Tehnic [Bucharest City Hall. Technical Matters], file 1/1883 from Bucharest Municipality Office at the National Archives of Romania. It refers to both the plans to ‘recover’ the waters in Cișmigiu Lake and the negotiations that led to the transfer of the garden in the administration of Bucharest City Hall.
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The article presents the results of a study of the history of construction and operation of the Kutuluk irrigation system, which was part of the irrigation project of the Volga region, developed in the early 1930s. It was the most complex and large-scale construction of the period of industrialization in the Middle Volga region, which lasted almost seven years (1935–1941). Tens of thousands of people from different regions of the country took part in it. Thanks to the hard work and heroic efforts of the builders, the facility was built and successfully operated in the future for fifty years. In the most difficult and responsible period (1938–1939), construction work on the Kutuluk River was headed by A.E.Bochkin, a well-known hydraulic engineer who later supervised the construction of the Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power plants. The introduction of the practice of irrigation of arid lands allowed not only to overcome the problem of regular droughts and crop failures, but also to raise the agriculture of the Kuibyshev region to a new level. The conducted research is based on published and unpublished sources, most of which are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. First of all, these are archival documents from the funds of organizations that supervised the construction of the Kutuluk irrigation system, periodical press materials, resolutions of the Soviet government, as well as clerical documents of regional and local authorities. The purpose and content of the study correspond to the subject area of socio-economic and environmental history of Russia. Its results will preserve the historical memory of the people who built the water management facility, which for a long time was of great importance for the economy of the region and the life of the local population.
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