“Unfortunately, I use my car”: Commuter transport choices in Bristol, UK

© 2018 WIT Press. The leading source of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations in Bristol, United Kingdom is road transport, and Bristol exceeds the annual mean national air quality objective of 40 µg/m3 for NO2 in many locations around the city. Understanding the reasons for residents' modal choice is an important element in managing air quality in the city. The ClairCity Project approach provides insight into how to reduce overall transport demand and identify incentives that will be effective in creating modal switch away from higher polluting private motorised vehicles. From the ClairCity Project survey subset of commuters (n=442), 45% of respondents used cars or vans at least occasionally for their journey to work, with 28% of the total number of commuters relying exclusively on private motorised transport. The majority of these car users (65.6%) said they would prefer not to travel by car to work in the future. Their responses showed a mix of negative perceptions of public transport, geography and health as key motivations. Family responsibilities, lack of safe cycling and walking spaces, poor health and disability, distance, requirements to transport goods as well as themselves and the need for flexibility were all given as barriers to modal switching. This suggests that for car commuters, well-targeted policy interventions could provide practical alternatives that would appeal to those who currently rely on private motorised transport. Understanding citizens' perceptions, behaviours and activities is a key element in decision-making to reduce transport related air quality emissions and concentrations

Genetic engineering and human mental ecology:Interlocking effects and educational considerations

This paper describes some likely semiotic consequences of genetic engineering on what Gregory Bateson has called “the mental ecology” (1979) of future humans, consequences that are less often raised in discussions surrounding the safety of GMOs (genetically modified organisms). The effects are as follows: an increased 1) habituation to the presence of GMOs in the environment, 2) normalization of empirically false assumptions grounding genetic reductionism, 3) acceptance that humans are capable and entitled to decide what constitutes an evolutionary improvement for a species, 4) perception that the main source of creativity and problem solving in the biosphere is anthropogenic. Though there are some tensions between them, these effects tend to produce self-validating webs of ideas, actions, and environments, which may reinforce destructive habits of thought. Humans are unlikely to safely develop genetic technologies without confronting these escalating processes directly. Intervening in this mental ecology presents distinct challenges for educators, as will be discussed

AIR POLLUTION IN THE AVEIRO REGION, PORTUGAL: A CITIZENS’ ENGAGEMENT APPROACH

© 2018 WIT Press. Air pollution has become a growing concern in the past few years, with an increasing number of acute air pollution episodes in many cities worldwide. In Portugal, especially in the region of Aveiro, high concentrations of particulate matter are frequently recorded, being one of the most critical air pollutants. Health impacts related with citizens' exposure to particulate matter has been threatening human health, increasing mortality and morbidity and contributing to a broad range of negative health outcomes. Different causes are attributed to air pollution over Portugal: agricultural, forest fires and dust emissions from Sahara Desert, amongst the natural emission sources, and road-traffic, residential combustion and industrial emissions, amongst the anthropogenic emission sources. Citizens' behaviour has a main role on air quality management. Each day individual choices, such as transportation or residential heating, have direct impact on air pollutant emissions. Therefore, citizens' play an important role to mitigate air pollution problems in their cities. However, the first step is to increase citizens' receptiveness about their contribution to the problem and, at the same time, to engage and empower them to contribute to the solutions. Aveiro Region is one of the case studies of ClairCity (Citizen-led air pollution reduction in cities) project. The project developed several activities to engage citizens on air pollution and carbon emissions issues. This work focus on the Delphi-like approach that includes surveys and workshops, to find out about people's lives in Aveiro Region and their vision for a low carbon, clean air and healthy future region. This paper presents an overview about air pollution in Aveiro region as well as the activities of the Delphi survey to see how citizens perceive this problem and their role on future air quality management