Environmentally Responsible Behavior: Teaching and Promoting It Effectively

The most serious long-term threat facing the world is the danger that human actions are producing irreversible harmful changes to the environmental conditions that support life on Earth. If this problem is not overcome, there may be no viable world for our descendants to inhabit. Enormous changes to human lifestyles and cultural practices may be required to reach the goal of a sustainable level of impact on the environment—i.e., one that can be maintained indefinitely. Social science courses can aid in reaching this goal by teaching about environmentally responsible behavior. Such teaching should provide sound information and strengthen motivation and behavioral skills that are necessary to make the needed changes in behavior and lifestyles. This paper discusses major obstacles to the goal of sustainability, describes a variety of motivational approaches toward accomplishing it, and proposes that we should view the achievement of sustainable living patterns as a superordinate goal—a war against the common enemy of an uninhabitable world.     

Applying Psychology to Help Save the World: Reflections on a Career in Psychology

This reflective personal account traces phases of the author's career where he saw psychology as relevant to major world problems. Chronologically, these problems included issues of international conflict, waste of energy and natural resources, human behaviors that caused environmental destruction, and the paramount threat of global climate change. Psychologists can make valuable contributions to describing, evaluating, and resolving these problems, and their vital importance should motivate the research and teaching of many psychologists. Our generation's success in achieving sustainable patterns of living on the Earth will determine whether the Earth will retain a livable environment for future generations. Brief suggestions are offered for approaches that may lead to more effective research and advocacy on crucial social issues.     

生态世界观与可持续发展

基于各种因素的影响,不同于机械世界观的新世界观已在现代世界逐步形成。这种生态世界观逐步引导人类思考新的现实发展路径,形成可持续发展的新思路,并处于人类可持续发展目标的核心。因此,实现可持续发展目标,关键在于以生态世界观全面规范人们的思想和行为。     

SPECIAL ISSUE： ECOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION AND BEAUTIFUL CHINA The Philosophical Wisdom and Action Implications of ＂Beautiful China＂

在地球这个作为迄今为止唯一适合人类生存发展的世界中,人类是最具生命活力和能力的生命存在,人类面对世界的心态和观念不应该停留于认识世界和改造世界的层面,而应该提升为一种科学认识世界并合理改善世界的新世界观。基于这样一种新的世界观,我们才会有一种新的视点,才可能形成一种新的价值观、一种新的生活方式和行动方式。“美丽中国”作为生态文明建设目标的文学隐喻,形象而充分地表达了中国特色社会主义现代化道路的全新视境。生态文明建设是一种社会谋划,需要建立其清晰、完备、长远、科学的生态文明价值观,需要观念的引导和制度的规导,也需要全体社会成员的自觉行动。     

Linkage leverage democratization and liberalization: is promoting democracy the same as promoting human rights?

Research on transnational human rights promotion and democratization often assumes that human rights promotion and democratization promotion are the same. But evidences from recent studies give reasons to question this assumption. This article compares the EU’s influence on democratization and human rights reforms in 29 countries in East-Europe West-Asia, the Middle East, and North-Africa. The results indicate that the impact of the EU on human rights protection is more notable than its impact on democracy levels. The article explains these results based on the lower level of threat to regime survival as a result of human rights reform, compared to democratization; the transmission of a clear message regarding the importance of the issue of human rights to the EU and to the member states; and the strong economic leverage the EU possess. The article draws policy implications including matching each policy goal with the most effective instruments to achieve it. The most effective human rights promotion instrument is economic pressure whereas democratization is more influenced by emulation processes than by economic pressure.     

Integrated sustainable development evaluation based on human well-being indices and pressure indices: A case study of the South China Sea Neighboring Countries

To overcome the inherent shortcomings of the human development index (HDI) and to improve the comparability of evaluation results, in this study, an evaluation indicator system of regional sustainable development pressures was constructed based on catastrophe theory. An improved catastrophe model was used to calculate the sustainable development pressure index (SPI), which was combined with the human development index (HDI) proposed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to explore the human welfare and sustainable development pressures in 9 countries bordering the South China Sea in the period 2003–2015 based on statistical data provided by the World Bank. It was found that during the period of investigation, the level of human welfare in the region gradually increased and the HDI steadily rose, with an average annual growth rate between 0.29% and 2.50%. The sustainable development pressures in the South China Sea neighboring region were very high, and the development models in this region can be divided into 4 types: very high level human welfare with very high sustainable development pressures; high level human welfare with very high sustainable development pressures; medium level human welfare with very high sustainable development pressures; and low level human welfare with very high sustainable development pressures. It is recommended that a country should explore its own development path based on the actual situation in the country to reduce sustainable development obstacles. Moreover, bilateral or multilateral cooperation should be actively pursued to solve the bottleneck problems that restrict regional sustainable development.     

Religion in School

It has become a banal statement (one that does not elicit objections) that we are living in "troubled" times. This is not the place to talk about the causes of such a situation; what we have to deal with here are the consequences. The breakdown of dogmas in the social consciousness in a period of instability is primarily a threat to young people. We are faced with the danger of producing a generation of "children of perestroika," who have lost their faith in everything and everyone, who are filled with negativism, total denial, and quiet desperation, who carry in themselves, at best, moral deafness and fierce egotism. The crisis of worldview in society may produce a generation of "lukewarm" people who are not capable of any personal or social creativity and service. At the same time, however, the crisis opens possibilities for a genuine rebirth of culture, for reactivation of the quest for "self" on the part of every person and of society as a whole. This active striving on the part of the healthy portion of young people must be met by today's intellectual elite with full knowledge and understanding of the situation, with a readiness and ability to satisfy the needs for a worldview of their fellow citizens, drawing upon all the values of our native and world culture. These needs must be truly satisfied, not by pumping out the latest current "lies" or by manufacturing the "most progressive doctrines of modern times" atthe request of this or that social body, because our society cannot stand to be deceived one more time.     

江泽民关于社会全面发展理论的突出特点

以江泽民为核心的第三代领导集体的一个重大的历史贡献 ,就是高举邓小平理论伟大旗帜 ,对中国特色社会主义理论有了新的发展 ,尤其表现在社会全面发展理论方面 :基于整个世界多样性并展现自身丰富多样性的统一 ;对全人类后代负责而实现当前发展与可持续发展相统一 ;把人的全面发展和社会全面进步相统一。     

气候变化、生态系统及社会可持续发展

温室效应造成了对人类生存不利的气候变化,引发的各种自然灾害已经严重制约了人类社会的可持续发展,社会经济发展与社会生活的代价越来越高。以包括气候环境在内的自然生态为前提和依据的生态系统化的社会价值意识为指导,自然科学及其技术与社会科学及其技术相互配合、相互支持,形成合力,才可能有效扭转气候变化与生态变化对人类社会生存和发展的不利趋势,这是实现社会可持续发展的关键。     

Environmental ethics for social work: Social work's responsibility to the non‐human world

Gray M, Coates J. Environmental ethics for social work: Social work's responsibility to the non‐human world This lead article in this Special Issue begins discussion on an environmental ethics for social work and raises arguments as to whether and, if so, why social workers have duties, obligations, responsibilities and commitments to the non‐human world. It provides an overview of the field of environmental ethics in searching for a moral stance to affirm an environmental social work. To what extent should social workers engage in fundamental geopolitical issues concerned with climate change, global warming, environmental degradation, pollution, chemical contamination, sustainable agriculture, disaster management, pet therapy, wilderness protection and so on and, if so, why and how? Are these issues incidental and peripheral and only of concern when they impact upon humans or do social workers have a responsibility beyond human interests? What is the significance of the ‘non‐human’ for social work? The article explores the terrain of the burgeoning field of environmental ethics to determine whether convincing ethical grounds for environmental social work might be found beyond hortatory claims of what the profession ought to be doing to address environmental concerns.     

Social positioning theory and quantum mechanics

Social positioning theory, or an account of the human individual that it grounds, qualifies as a quantum social theory. This is an assessment that I explain and defend in the paper. It is of interest in that, in a world where increasing numbers are seeking to construct quantum social theories, it serves to help demonstrate that this goal can be achieved without giving up on meeting criteria like explanatory intelligibility or power or discarding real-world notions like human (and other) entities. As it turns out, a central feature of the account defended and a core element of the ‘standard’ interpretation of quantum mechanics are found to stand in an interesting, unanticipated and suggestive relation to each other.     

A new challenge to economic science: Global model simulation

The FUGI (Futures of Global Interdependence) global modeling system has been developed as a scientific policy modeling and future simulation tool of providing global information to the human society and finding out possibilities of policy co-ordination among countries in order to achieve sustainable development of the global economy co-existing on the planet Earth in the ever changing universe. The FUGI global model M200 classifies the world into 200 countries/regions where each national/regional model is globally interdependent. Each national/regional model has nine subsystems as population, foods, energy, environment, economic development, peace and security, human right, healthcare and quality of life (IT revolution). This is a super complex dynamic system model using integrated multidisciplinary systems analysis where number of structural equations is over 170,000. Economic model as a core includes major economic variables such as production of GDP, employment, expenditures of GDP, income distribution, prices, money, interest rates and financial assets, government finance, international balance of payments, international finance, foreign exchange rates and development indicators.The purpose of this article is twofold, namely to provide information on a new frontier science of economics: global model simulation as well as appropriate policy exercise for sustainable development of the interdependent global economy. The world economy is facing “green” energy revolution to change from fossil to create alternative energy and energy saving technology against sky rocketing higher oil prices. Japan takes a lead in this field of technology innovation. Under such circumstances, Japan should take an initiative to create a new peaceful world through not only harmonized adjustments of Japanese economic policy but also wise cosmic mind to promote human solidarity with the ever changing nature will be desirable to adjust orbit of the fluctuated global economy. Japan should challenge for a new strategy to accelerate economic growth rates by “CO₂ reducing environment investment” based on technology innovations.     

The Menagerie of the Senses

ABSTRACT

The term “menagerie” convenes two claims: firstly that our relation to our senses is one of active and constructive management (the old sense of the word “menagerie”), and that animal senses, or our idea of them, play an indispensable part in that management of the senses. While our senses mediate the world to us, animals mediate our senses to us; animals are thus the mediators of the mediation. A review of the use of animals as emblems of the five senses in medieval and early modern illustrations shows that while, on the one hand, animals were used to enforce the idea of the lowliness of the senses, on the other hand, the awareness of the superiority of certain animal senses encouraged the imaginative recruitment of animals to augment or transform human powers. This is brought to a focus in representations of the fly. Finally, this essay considers the part played by simulations of animal perception in the development of new technologies for augmenting and extending human senses. The new organs, perceptions and forms of awareness of our world continue to implicate and improvise upon the animals, which helps us to take leave of our senses.     

历史观与世界观概念辨析

历史观是人们从时间角度观察世界而概括世界运动本质和规律形成的对世界历史过程的总体观念,也是人们从纵向观察世界历史活动过程的思维方式。历史观有狭义与广义之分,狭义为人类史观,广义为人类史观和自然史观的总和;历史观还有唯心史观与马克思的唯物史观之分,前者把历史意识化,后者旨在还原历史真相,有马克思的狭义唯物史观与广义的大唯物史观之别,关注狭义唯物史观可知人世生存之道,关注广义的大唯物史观有利于生态平衡和可持续发展。世界观有旧哲学世界观与马克思新哲学新世界观之分,旧哲学世界观是抽象世界观,旨在解释世界;马克思新哲学新世界观是现实的人实践活动的人物一体化的现实世界观,旨在改变世界。世界观还有普遍世界观、特殊世界观、个别世界观之别,普遍寓于特殊和个别之中,特殊和个别又不能脱离普遍而存在。世界观和历史观二者都是人们对同一个对象世界的观察、思考、概括、抽象,马克思的＂新世界观＂和＂唯物史观＂的本质也是同一的,都是为了认识、把握和改变世界,实现每个人自由全面的发展。     

马克思主义关于人的发展理论及其当代价值

人的发展问题是马克思主义人学理论的重要内容,也是马克思主义共产主义学说的有机组成部分。马克思主义人的发展观具有极其丰富的内涵,是一个多层次的系统理论。从一般意义上说,人的发展包括人的自由发展、全面发展和人的和谐发展三重内涵;从主体角度看,人的发展包括人的个体发展和人的类整体发展;从历史维度看,人的发展是一个从低级向高级转化的辩证过程。马克思主义人的发展观确证了人在物质世界中的主体地位和价值,强调了人与社会、自然发展的和谐统一;人的发展观确立了以人为本的可持续发展理念,突出了人的发展在社会发展中的核心和基础地位。     

Simulating Human Behavior for Understanding and Managing Environmental Resource Use

Computer simulation allows for the experimental study of dynamic interactions between human behavior and complex environmental systems. Behavioral determinants and processes as identified in social-scientific theory may be formalized in simulated agents to obtain a better understanding of man–environment interactions and of policy measures aimed at managing these interactions. A number of exemplary agent-based simulation studies is discussed to demonstrate how simulations can be used to identify behavioral determinants and processes underlying environmental problems, and to explore the possible effects of policy strategies. Finally, we highlight how agent-based simulation may contribute to our understanding of the dynamics of environmental resources, and how to manage them in a sustainable way.     

Prices in input-output: The INFORUM experience in modeling the U.S. deregulation of domestic oil

Prices, and particularly relative prices, have moved in recent years to the center of our attention. Soaring oil prices, large increases in agricultural prices, and rising costs of product materials and finished goods on world markets have set in motion major changes in the world economy. To model these changes, it has been necessary to use input-output analysis, for our input-output models have the necessary detail to trace these effects. This use of input-output may seem paradoxial to those who, for many years, dismissed this technique because it allegedly fails to take account of the effects of prices. The truth turns out to be almost the reverse: Only input-output can take full account of prices.This paper shows how prices work in the INFORUM model of the American economy. Specifically, it describes how the model generates prices, uses the prices in equations for personal consumption, and changes input-output coefficients on the basis of relative prices. Finally, it compares runs of the entire model to examine the effects in the U.S. of increasing domestic oil prices to world levels.     

The Act of Understanding

Summary Attention is drawn to experience that much social work has beenundertaken on a base of common sense, personal intuition andfeelings that the client's situation has been 'understood'.Medical, sociological and psychological sources for theory whichhave given status to objectivity and implicitly deterministicways of thinking are criticized as sometimes contrary to usefulunderstanding and not supportive to constructive change. Itis claimed that a goal of social work theory should be to disciplinethe 'understanding' which exists in the practice and it is suggestedthat this might be based upon the investigation of the meaningwhich people give to the world in which they live and to theirself within that world. This phenomenologkal approach placessubjectivity and the role of the self-concept at the focus ofattention. As a working philosophy it incorporates the formativeinfluences of past experiences whilst also asserting the primacyof the person who may impose a new significance upon both thosepast events and his immediate situation. It is claimed thatsuch an approach might be the source of a discipline which couldrelate more intimately than hitherto the theory and good practiceof all concerned with social welfare and social change.     

Human rights,cultural practices,and state policies: Implications for global social work practice and policy

Effective practice in a global world requires knowledge and understanding of diverse cultures. Most social workers around the world are committed to values and policies that enhance the well‐being of especially vulnerable populations and that protect their human rights. However, not all cultural practices or policies place the same value on human rights and the protection of vulnerable populations, a situation that may result in conflicts for social workers, who have an ethical obligation to advocate for human rights as well as to be sensitive to their clients' cultural contexts. Based on multidisciplinary research and contemporary examples of gender discrimination, forced marriages, child labor, and female genital mutilation, this article proposes resolutions to this conflict. It concludes by suggesting practices and policies that might help social workers to strike an effective balance between cultural diversity and the promotion of human rights. Key Practitioner Message: ● Social workers are best placed to understand individuals and communities within their various cultural contexts; ● Social work practice and policy should be sensitive to cultural practices that may undermine human rights and the well‐being of vulnerable populations; ● Guided by professional values and ethics, social workers can assume the roles of educator and advocate in enhancing the rights of individuals.     

"Sustainable Development" as Collective Surge

The purpose of this article is to examine a surge in the sciences surrounding the use of the concept of sustainable development. Data come from the annual frequencies of publications in various disciplines that use the concept of sustainable development as well as from a content analysis of documents. The article concludes that the surge was characterized by the use by scientists of established concepts in a new way, a form of cultural emergence; a prevailing locus of interaction revolving around a professional ideology; the prevalence of the emotions of fear and hope of deliverance from the threat; and an international arena of discourse occurring over a period of years and bounded by class-professional identities. The article demonstrates that a newer understanding of fads as collective surges in the sociology specialty area of collective behavior helps describe the use in the sciences of the concept of sustainable development during the late 1980s and 1990s. The surge is relatively short-lived, coterminous with the use of different meanings and practices of sustainable development. It cannot be understood as a superficial, odd, inconsequential, or frivolous event. Rather, it had important, lasting consequences in a number of areas, from economic and social development to professions.