Managing Swedish forestry's impact on mercury in fish: Defining the impact and mitigation measures.

Inputs of anthropogenic mercury (Hg) to the environment have led to accumulation of Hg in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, contributing to fish Hg concentrations well above the European Union standards in large parts of Fennoscandia. Forestry operations have been reported to increase the concentrations and loads of Hg to surface waters by mobilizing Hg from the soil. This summary of available forestry effect studies reveals considerable variation in treatment effects on total Hg (THg) and methylmercury (MeHg) at different sites, varying from no effect up to manifold concentration increases, especially for the bioavailable MeHg fraction. Since Hg biomagnification depends on trophic structures, forestry impacts on nutrient flows will also influence the Hg in fish. From this, we conclude that recommendations for best management practices in Swedish forestry operations are appropriate from the perspective of mercury contamination. However, the complexity of defining effective policies needs to be recognized.

Towards a global environmental sociology? Legacies, trends and future directions.

A current debate on environmental sociology involves how the subdiscipline should conceptualise and investigate the environment and whether it should be prescriptive and deliver policy recommendations. Taking this debate as a point of departure this article discusses the current and future role of sociology in a globalised world. It discusses how environmental sociology in the US and Europe differ in their understandings of sociology's contribution to the study of the environment. Particular stress is placed on how these two regions differ with respect to their use of the tradition of sociological thought, views on what constitutes the environment and ways of institutionalising environmental sociology as a sociological field. In conclusion, the question is raised of whether current versions of environmental sociology are appropriate for analysing a globalised world environment; or whether environmental sociology's strong roots in European and US cultures make it less relevant when facing an increasingly globalised world. Finally, the article proposes some new rules for a global environmental sociology and describes some of their possible implications for the sociological study of climate change.

Le débat actuel sur la sociologie de l'environnement porte sur la façon de conceptualiser et d'examiner l'environnement et sur la nécessité de proposer une approche normative et des recommandations politiques. À partir de ce débat, cet article examine le rôle actuel et futur de la sociologie dans le contexte de la mondialisation. Il analyse dans quelle mesure les recherches sociologiques de l'environnement aux États-Unis et en Europe diffèrent dans leur compréhension de la contribution de la sociologie à l'étude de l'environnement. Un accent particulier est mis sur les différences entre les deux régions pour ce qui concerne leur utilisation de la tradition sociologique, leur vision de la nature de l'environnement et leurs moyens d'institutionnaliser la sociologie de l'environnement en tant que domaine de recherche. En conclusion, ce travail soulève la question de savoir si les approches actuelles de la sociologie de l'environnement sont appropriées à l'analyse de l'environnement mondialisé et si les origines européennes et nord-américaines de la sociologie de l'environnement la rendent moins pertinente dans un contexte de mondialisation croissante. Enfin, cet article propose de nouvelles règles pour une sociologie mondiale de l'environnement et met en évidence les incidences possibles des études sociologiques sur le changement climatique.

Un debate actual sobre la sociología ambiental implica cómo la sub-disciplina debe conceptualizar e investigar el medio ambiente y si debe ser prescriptivo y entregar recomendaciones políticas. Tomando este debate como punto de partida, este trabajo analiza el papel actual y futuro de la sociología en un mundo globalizado. Se discute cómo la sociología ambiental en los EE.UU. y Europa difieren en su comprensión de la contribución de la sociología al estudio del medio ambiente. Se hace hincapié en cómo estas dos regiones difieren con respecto al uso de la tradición del pensamiento sociológico, perspectivas sobre lo que constituye el medio ambiente y las formas de institucionalización de la sociología ambiental como un campo sociológico. En conclusión, se plantea la cuestión de si las versiones actuales de la sociología ambiental son adecuadas para el análisis de un entorno mundial globalizado, o si el fuerte arraigo de la sociología del medio ambiente en las culturas europeas y estadounidenses hacen que sea menos relevante cuando enfrentadas a un mundo cada vez más globalizado. Por último, el trabajo propone algunas nuevas reglas para una sociología del medio ambiente mundial y describe algunas de sus posibles implicaciones para el estudio sociológico del cambio climático.

Risk, communication and trust: towards an emotional understanding of trust.

Current discussions on public trust, as well as on risk communication, have a restricted rationalistic bias in which the cognitive-reflexive aspect of trust is emphasized at the expense of its emotional aspect. This article contributes to a substantive theory of trust by exploring its emotional character. Drawing on recent discussions in science and technology studies, social psychology, and general social theory, it argues that trust is a modality of action that is relational, emotional, asymmetrical, and anticipatory. Hence, trust does not develop through information and the uptake of knowledge but through emotional involvement and sense-making. The implications of this conception of trust for public understandings of science and for risk communication are discussed.

Making transboundary risks governable: reducing complexity, constructing spatial identity, and ascribing capabilities.

Environmental problems that cross national borders are attracting increasing public and political attention; regulating them involves coordinating the goals and activities of various governments, which often presupposes simplifying and standardizing complex knowledge, and finding ways to manage uncertainty. This article explores how transboundary environmental problems are dealt with to render complex issues governable. By discussing oil pollution in the Baltic Sea and the gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, we elucidate how boundaries are negotiated to make issues governable. Three processes are found to be particularly relevant to how involved actors render complex issues governable: complexity reduction, construction of a spatial identity for an issue, and ascription of capabilities to new or old actor constellations. We conclude that such regulation is always provisional, implying that existing regulation is always open for negotiation and criticism.