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Abstract Beginning in the 2000s, the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan region became home to the world's largest and longest experiment in urban shale gas production, with 25,182 drilling permits issued from 2000 to 2016 in the Barnett Shale. Urban hydrocarbon governance centered on establishing statutory setback distances between drilling sites and nearest houses or other protected uses. Here we analyze qualitative interview data obtained with a rigorous sampling frame to examine processes and outcomes of municipal-level hydrocarbon governance. We find that early municipal responses (2001–2002) revealed lack of technical expertise to respond to unconventional drilling and production. Controversial wells, which residents considered too close to houses, focused governance debates in several municipalities. Municipal policymakers reported that protecting public health and safety were top priorities in determining setbacks. After 2003, policymakers copied ordinance language from neighboring municipalities and established task forces and working groups to reduce political tensions. The role of the hydrocarbon industry included frequent claims seeking to exploit the longstanding separation of mineral and property estates, which encouraged municipalities to reduce setbacks and lower potential exposure to regulatory takings lawsuits. Over time, municipal regulatory power in hydrocarbon governance decreased while industry power increased, offering several implications for corporate responsibility and social license debates.

This paper contributes an inclusive review of scientific studies in the field of sustainable human building ecosystems (SHBEs). Reducing energy consumption by making buildings more energy efficient has been touted as an easily attainable approach to promoting carbon-neutral energy societies. Yet, despite significant progress in research and technology development, for new buildings, as energy codes are getting more stringent, more and more technologies, e.g., LED lighting, VRF systems, smart plugs, occupancy-based controls, are used. Nevertheless, the adoption of energy efficient measures in buildings is still limited in the larger context of the developing countries and middle income/low-income population. The objective of Sustainable Human Building Ecosystem Research Coordination Network (SHBE-RCN) is to expand synergistic investigative podium in order to subdue barriers in engineering, architectural design, social and economic perspectives that hinder wider application, adoption and subsequent performance of sustainable building solutions by recognizing the essential role of human behaviors within building-scale ecosystems. Expected long-term outcomes of SHBE-RCN are collaborative ideas for transformative technologies, designs and methods of adoption for future design, construction and operation of sustainable buildings.

Abstract Urban renewal has become a key issue all through China's Transitional Period. The social, economic, political factors, and their correlations have been seriously considered. However, the effects of outdoor pedestrian thermal comfort and fluid ventilation effects as well as the residence living conditions in old city districts under urban reconstruction should, to some extent, be paid closer attention to. As an example, take an old city district in Wuhan where a comprehensive mathematical model describing the fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics has been presented. Considering the influences of ambient crosswind, solar radiation, and natural convection and radiation heat transfer, numerical analysis based on the original layout has been executed. By analyzing the temperature and velocity distributions of the old city district, a new planned layout has been presented in this research. By comparison, some basic rules have been advanced to achieve favorable thermal comfort and flow ventilation effects.

There have been a number of comprehensive and detailed studies on the question of what climate change might do to agriculture (Parry et al., 1988; Smith and Tirpak, 1989; Rosenberg, 1993; Council on Agricultural science and Technology (CAST), 1992; Houghton et al, 1990, 1992; National Academy of Sciences, 1992; and others). The potential for adaptation of agriculture to climate change has been evaluated in a number of these studies and in Rosenberg (1992). There has been, however, little if any systematic analysis of how attempts to mitigate or avoid climate change might affect agriculture. Our aim in this paper is to explore this question. Data and analyses on which to draw are limited, so the results of our exploration are preliminary, at best.

Abstract Energy-efficiency investments that are costeffective to utilities may not be cost-effective to their customers if the customers have to bear the full investment cost. Utilities must find creative ways to make energy-efficiency investments more attractive to utility customers. An innovative utility manufactured (mobile) home energy conservation programme is described to illustrate how differences in the economic perspectives of consumers and utilities can be used to design energy-efficiency programmes. This successful programme uses ‘conservation acquisition’ to make the investment attractive to manufacturers, utilities, and the consumer. The programme and framework presented here provide models for developing other energy-efficiency programmes.

Abstract The issues of fossil-fired energy shortage and global warming have aroused worldwide attention, and the renewable and sustainable energy sources, therefore, are playing an increasingly important role in future energy consumptions. Energy consumptions in buildings account for almost 40% of the primary energy use in the US. A novel research-based Z er o E nergy (ZOE) Lab as a validation testbed combining various kinds of renewable energies has been presented in this paper. The concept, unique features, and the operation performance by experiments have also been shown in detail. The results of the novel ZOE Lab can open up a good angle for the future development of zero energy buildings. After analyzing the operating data of the ZOE Lab, the energy consumption, energy generation, and energy allocation of the devices have been presented. A new HVAC system with higher performance is recommended to be used in the ZOE Lab to achieve an even lower energy consumption than the current use, as a necessary refinement.

Sustainability research has coalesced around the notion that many environmental problems can be framed as social dilemmas in which conflicts often arise between consumers’ pursuit of individual, short-term and self-directed goals and their support for collective, long-term and socially-oriented interests. The need to address this challenge is simultaneously becoming more important and challenging for macromarketers and policy makers as the incidence of individualistic consumer traits (e.g., narcissism and self-esteem), already high in general population, continues to grow throughout Western societies. This article examines why and how such individualistic tendencies (here, narcissistic exhibitionism) may impact consumers’ pro-environmental behavior. This research identifies an underlying mechanism (i.e., altruism) for the proposed effect. The potential effects of manageable boundary conditions for this relationship are also proposed and tested across four studies.

Abstract: Three pathways for resource acquisition exist in the emergent aquatic plant, Lythrum salicaria (L.); a subterranean root system, a free‐floating adventitious root system, and arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) fungal hyphae colonizing subterranean roots. This study examined the relationship(s) among these pathways and their contribution to plant performance. If the free‐floating adventitious root system and/or AM fungi contribute to plant growth in wetland habitats, we predicted that their absence would result in a significant reduction in plant performance. Furthermore, if a reduction in resource uptake, effected by an absence of free‐floating adventitious roots and/or AM fungi, is compensated for by increased allocation to remaining pathway(s) for resource uptake, we predicted altered patterns of resource allocation among shoots and the remaining pathway(s) for resource uptake. Contrary to our predications, plants experiencing adventitious root removal and/or grown in the absence of AM fungi generally had greater biomass and total shoot height than controls. Similarly, while levels of AM colonization and subterranean root biomass displayed a treatment effect, the observed responses did not correspond with our predictions. This was also true for shoot: subterranean root dry weight ratios. Our results indicate that there is interaction among the 3 pathways for resource acquisition in L. salicaria and an effect on plant performance. The adaptive significance of these characteristics is unclear, highlighting the potential difficulties in extrapolating from terrestrial to aquatic plant species and among aquatic plant species with potentially different life history strategies.

Abstract This article grapples with the meanings of the notion ‘energy ethics’ by looking at the emergence of what I call the ‘traditional energy paradigm.’ I begin by sketching the distinction between the notions of ‘energy ethics’ and ‘ethics of energy.’ Then, by reflecting on ideas and values implied in the modern Western conceptualization of energy, namely its metaphysical assumptions, I show how this concept is a cultural construct influenced by the natural sciences at the cost of a form of reductionism. Energy has been defined as a property of objects, primarily as the capacity of matter to do work. But this and other similar definitions are strongly dependent on geographical and historical contexts which we often dismiss. These definitions stress only certain measurable, quantifiable, and mechanistic properties of reality. By doing so they implicitly have been promoting instrumental and strongly anthropocentric attitudes toward the use of energy and nature. This traditional energy paradigm has been propagated throughout the world via cultural, socio-economic, and techno-scientific colonization. Different actors have carried out such processes, including multinational companies, educational institutions and international organizations. Meantime, on socio-political levels, this way of understanding energy (and hence natural resources), has found strong allies in neoliberal ideology and free-market capitalism. This homogeneous and colonizing understanding of energy is still prevalent in the energy debate and pervasive in energy policies, preventing different worldviews and more diverse values to be considered. In this article, I argue that the conceptual reduction of energy to what is practically useful, and physically and mathematically measurable hinders more nuanced, complex understandings of what energy might be for different social actors. Energy humanities generally, and energy ethnographies specifically, have a key role in contesting this homogenization, colonization, and hegemony. More diverse perspectives will enrich the energy discourse and hence benefit energy policy.