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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the recent water and air pollution control legislation in the United States upon the market risk of the firms in the most directly affected industries, such as chemicals, electric utilities, iron and steel, petroleum, non‐ferrous metals and textiles, during the period 1953–75.

Spiritual ecology explores the interface of religions and spiritualities on the one hand, and environments, ecologies, and environmentalisms on the other. As an international environmental movement, spiritual ecology involves a multitude of diverse leaders, organizations, and initiatives. They share a common concern and commitment to pursuing the vital role of religion and spirituality in environmentalism to complement secular approaches to environmental problems and issues from the local to the global levels. Here, after some background, spiritual ecology as a component of the phenomena of international environmental movements is exemplified through three cases: the Green Belt Movement beginning in Kenya, the Green Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Alliance of Religions and Conservation affiliate of the World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund).

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the physicochemical attributes of the Ogu Creek serving the Onne Ports in Port Harcourt, which is impacted by ports transport activities, for establishment of its pollution status.

In situ measurements were made at six sampling points for water temperature, pH, salinity, dissolved oxygen (DO), turbidity, and conductivity with HORIBA U‐10 Water Quality Checker and for total dissolved solids (TDS) with HACH conductivity/TDS meter. Other parameters were determined using standard methods. The principal components analysis (PCA), test of homogeneity in mean variance and Pearson correlation were used to analyze data.

The lower range of pH (5.28), the upper ranges of Al (1.20 mg/L) and Fe (3.25 mg/L), as well as the concentrations of Cd (0.022±0.011 mg/L) and Cu (0.08±0.01 mg/L) were outside the Federal Ministry of Environment's permissible limits for aquatic life. Four PCs, which were most correlated with essential pollution indicator physicochemical parameters and ions formed the extraction solution that contributed a cumulative 95.258 per cent variability in the original 22 parameters. Of the associated shipping activities, garbage generation on board accounted for the highest waste volume (97.13 per cent) and bilging impacted hardness (r=0.992) at p<0.01, bunkering impacted Pb ion concentrations (r=0.948), accidental dumping of effluents impacted water temperature (r=0.881), and fish trawling and deliberate dumping of effluents each impacted DO (r=0.896 and 0.957, respectively) of water column at p<0.05.

Bilging, bunkering, dumping of effluents and fish trawling activities constituted pollution in the waterway.

All data relating the physicochemical parameters of the waterway were generated from laboratory analyses by the authors.

This paper aims to provide a critical assessment of the Internet of things (IoT) and the social and policy issues raised by its development. While the Internet will continue to become ever more central to everyday life and work, there is a new but complementary vision for an IoT, which will connect billions of objects – “things” like sensors, monitors, and radio-frequency identification devices – to the Internet at a scale that far outstrips use of the Internet as we know it, and will have enormous social and economic implications.

It is based on a review of literature and emerging developments, including synthesis of a workshop and discussions within a special interest group on the IoT.

Nations can harvest the potential of this wave of innovation not only for manufacturing but also for everyday life and work and the development of new information and services that will change the way we do things in many walks of life. However, its success is not inevitable. Technical visions will not lead inexorably to successful public and private infrastructures that support the vitality of an IoT and the quality of everyday life and work. In fact, the IoT could undermine such core values as privacy, equality, trust and individual choice if not designed, implemented and governed in appropriate ways.

There is a need for more multi-disciplinary research on the IoT.

Policymakers and opinion formers need to understand the IoT and its implications.

If the right policies and business models are developed, the IoT will stimulate major social, economic and service innovations in the next years and decades.

This paper pulls together discussions and literature from a social science perspective, as one means to enable more multidisciplinary studies of emerging developments.

In the UK there have been some recent signs that the inland waterways can play a role in meeting the nation's transport needs. The author discusses the progress already made and what still needs to be done so that the country's canals can once again take up their position in the transport scene.

The principal aim of this paper is to bring into analytical focus the institutional context of the escalation in cross‐border pollution in the Hong Kong/Pearl River Delta region.

The interplay between economic and ecological forces is highlighted against the backdrop of coordination failures in a loosely structured organizational setting.

It is apparent that powerful bottom‐up forces of economic integration are overwhelming the embryonic machinery hesitantly erected to minimize their adverse effects.

The heavily decentralized model relied upon to manage complex relationships within the Pearl River Delta region needs to be reassessed, with lessons drawn from other parts of the world, notably Europe, which is also confronting friction between the centre and periphery.

The underlying socio‐physical dynamics, fragile organizational façade and crucial policy choices are outlined in a systematic fashion, with intricate linkages carefully pinpointed.

This study aims to examine the socio-economic and environmental impacts of mining activities as perceived by communities in Ghana, with data being drawn from primary and secondary sources.

A total of 90 community residents were interviewed, with 15 from each of the six selected different communities.

The findings revealed a positive perception that corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices of mining companies contribute to the development of mining communities in Ghana by creating jobs and generating income. However, it became clear that mining activities, particularly small-scale mining, create many social and environmental challenges as well. This includes land degradation, which reduces the fertility of community-owned land suitable for agricultural use. In addition, pollution of waterways and streams intensifies the plight of community residents living in mining areas.

Since 2011, the mining industry has invested between US$12m (in 2013) and US$44m (in 2011) in Ghana’s communities. The amount spent in 2019 was US$24m. The funds were spent by the industry in areas such as roads, education, health and electricity, among others. Still, it seems more effort is needed by the mining companies to harmonise the CSR practice and gain better impression by local people. In spite of the mining industry’s investment levels, more than half of the community respondents said it was insufficient. One-third of the respondents went as far as suggesting the mining companies had a negative impact on infrastructure improvement and community development.

In many countries the existence of a comprehensive approach to environmental control through the auspices of a unified control agency is accepted. In the United States, for instance, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has received substantial support. Allen Kneese remarked that “while anyone who has observed the Washington scene for any period of time has just cause to be skeptical of the efficiency of reorganisation, one can still recognise the convincing rationale of this one”. In the United Kingdom a rather ageing and as yet unacted‐upon report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution also proposed a “unified pollution inspectorate”, although some may consider that to be something of a misnomer for what may appear in reality to be an expanded Alkali Inspectorate. In a somewhat myopic way the Royal Commission saw HMPI (as it chose to call its unified pollution inspectorate) as an organisational change designed to bring State expertise on process technology to the aid of private and public firms who had potential and actual environmental problems. There is an almost implied value judgement that concentration of action “within the factory fence” must in some way be the optimal manner in which to deal with pollution. In contrast the approach of the EPA has appeared genuinely to encompass the aims of a truly unified control ideal, paying considerable attention to benefit evaluation, integrated environmental quality studies, control technology, control costs and their incidence.