Contrasting Public and Scientific Assessments of Fracking

Social Vulnerability and Groundwater Vulnerability to Contamination From Unconventional Hydrocarbon Extraction in the Appalachian Basin

Unconventional oil and gas (UOG) development, made possible by horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing, has been fraught with controversy since the industry's rapid expansion in the early 2000's. Concerns about environmental contamination and public health risks persist in many rural communities that depend on groundwater resources for drinking and other daily needs. Spatial disparities in UOG risks can pose distributive environmental injustice if such risks are disproportionately borne by marginalized communities. In this paper, we analyzed groundwater vulnerability to contamination from UOG as a physically based measure of risk in conjunction with census tract level sociodemographic characteristics describing social vulnerability in the northern Appalachian Basin. We found significant associations between elevated groundwater vulnerability and lower population density, consistent with UOG development occurring in less densely populated rural areas. We also found associations between elevated groundwater vulnerability and lower income, higher proportions of elderly populations, and higher proportion of mobile homes, suggesting a disproportionate risk burden on these socially vulnerable groups. We did not find a statistically significant association between elevated groundwater vulnerability and populations of racial/ethnic minorities in our study region. Household surveys provided empirical support for a relationship between sociodemographic characteristics and capacity to assess and mitigate exposures to potentially contaminated water. Further research is needed to probe if the observed disparities translate to differences in chemical exposure and adverse health outcomes.

Making worldviews work: A heuristic, a planet scan, a case and their transversal implication

A worldview is, very basically, formed by tenets on the nature of the world and on the way of knowing it held by persons, social groups, intellectual currents or ethnic cultures. It is a term widely used in social sciences, but often left aside in daily research work because of being considered a vague term. Lax definitions are the reason, but such symbolic worlds will not disappear even if we do not refer to them, and we need operational and heuristic conceptualizations, both to analyze such symbolic parameters as a study objective and to refer to them as the appropriate understanding contexts of other topics. Here, definitions with a multidimensional structure that imply heuristic potential are specified as a solution; previous proposals are reviewed; the needs for improvement are set out; and a consequent conceptualization is proposed. Then onto-epistemic tenets of the main cultures on Earth and of history are briefly described as such worldviews, a case in Basque culture tested to assess the heuristic potential, and an outstanding ‘transversal’ implication is advanced: worldviews should not only be considered multidimensional concepts with heuristic potential, but also formed with areas around prototypes by cognitive-linguistic operators across the tenets.

Detection of the Perceptual Gap between Experts and Public for the Successful Implementation of New Policies: Evidence from the Educational Policy Development

Understanding the difference between the viewpoints of experts and the public and communicating are very important processes to prevent wasteful conflicts and achieve successful implementation of new policies. This study compares the structures of perceptions representing the views of experts and the public as subjects in research papers and newspaper articles of national education policy using semantic network analysis and overlay mapping. Data are collected from the Korean education system, where it is convenient to collect national-level educational policy data. The results show the group of education experts showed great interest in the core concepts of the revised curriculum and its implementation, focusing on abstract theories, whereas the public showed greater interest in practical problems and the outcomes of the revision rather than the process of revision of the curriculum. It clearly highlights the differences in and causes of the reactions of experts and the views of the public to newly developed national education policies, thereby presenting implications for the successful design of important national programs that include education policies for the future.

Multi-Criteria Analysis of Green Bonds: Hybrid Multi-Method Applications

There is an increasing pressure by the community and customers forcing companies to insert environmental concerns in their practices. To help companies initiatives, the green bonds market was created. Our research question is “How to select bonds in a growing billion-dollar market?” This paper presents a multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) model to enable investors identify opportunities based not only in opinions, but grounded on objective facts. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP), complex proportional assessment (COPRAS), full consistency method (FUCOM), step-wise Weights Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA), and technique of order preference similarity to the ideal solution (TOPSIS) are MCDA methods applied in this paper. Top-fifteen green bonds ranked by specialized media were assessed with the proposed MCDA model. Criteria included the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) proposed by Yale University, and common financial indicators as assets, risks (β), and dividends. The new ranks from MCDA are compared each other and compared with the rank published by specialized media.