The impact of religious faith on attitudes to environmental issues and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies: A mixed methods study

Hope, Aimie LB, and Christopher R. Jones. “The impact of religious faith on attitudes to environmental issues and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies: A mixed methods study.” Technology in Society 38 (2014): 48-59.

This socio-environmental study was published in the journal of Technology in Society in 2014, and was conducted by Aimie Hope and Christopher Jones, who investigated the potential differences in environmental values and beliefs of people representing Christian, Muslim and secular communities. They began to explore this topic by asking two questions: (1) what were potential differences between the Muslim, Christian and secular participants in terms of pro-environmental values and beliefs; and (2) how attitudes to carbon capture storage (CCS) and climate change were shaped by religious beliefs. The type of data needed to answer the questions were deeply held opinions and attitudes as well as reports of acts, events and behaviors. Therefore, an exploratory mixed methods approach was utilized, combining in-depth focus group discussions with a short questionnaire, which incorporated topics from the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale that addresses themes surrounding anti-anthropocentrism; the reality of limits to growth; the rejection of exemptionalism; the possibility of eco-crisis; and the fragility of nature’s balance. The focus group discussions were recorded and transcribed and thematically examined, while the surveys were statistically analyzed through an NEP Template Analysis. The results revealed that both Christian and Muslim groups had relatively low perceptions of urgency for environmental issues due to beliefs in an afterlife and divine intervention while secular participants expressed anxiety in relation to environmental issues, especially climate change due to a lack of belief in an afterlife or divine intervention leading them to focus on human need for action.

Overall, this study is very comprehensive and studies many aspects of environmental issues and provides meaningful results, but I think the researchers could have surveyed many more participants and held a few more focus groups. Increasing participants in general would have definitely taken more time, but I personally don’t think 20 people could accurately represent the three different religious views accurately, so getting more people to increase the variation in responses would’ve been more interesting as well as providing a better foundation for results.

One thing I found quite interesting is that a few people from the Muslim and Christian faiths thought CCS was “interfering” with our environment, even though the constant release of fossil fuels into our atmosphere doesn’t matter too much. It just showed me how much religion can skew or enhance one’s views to a great extent.

The topic of this article is planning cities to make room in space and policies for urban agriculture, because it has a range of social and environmental benefits. This research focuses on the planning strategies of two Pacific northwest cities: Portland and Vancouver. The research question is “How does each city’s use of land inventories in urban planning affect its success in realistically supporting urban agriculture?” In urban planning, land inventories basically mean that planners are taking into account what land is available for future development and what uses that land should have to accommodate the growth of the city. This involves general plans and specific policies on zoning. The data collected consisted of information on each city’s policies, projects, and committees that had anything to do with urban agriculture, which is a combination of organizational data from the cities, and reports of events regarding what actually happened in each city and at specific urban agriculture sites. Their analysis was of the cities both individually and compared to one another. Since there was no numerical data collected, the analysis was qualitative. They found that overall, Portland’s policies and practices were more effective, the most obvious difference being that Portland involved more institutions than just the city itself. Both cities, however, showed that public policy that takes natural resources, like soil components, into account with the goal of sustainability can accomplish a lot.

Reference: Mendes, W., Balmer, K., Kaethler, T., & Rhoads, A. (2008). Using Land Inventories to Plan for Urban Agriculture: Experiences From Portland and Vancouver. Journal of the American Planning Association, 74(4), 435-449. doi:10.1080/01944360802354923

The article The Ontogeny of Fairness in Seven Societies written by P.R. Blake in Nature, is about research on different adolescents and their degree and modes of fairness. The researchers wanted to find out whether different children of different ages and backgrounds had similar or different ways of thinking when it came to what they thought was fair. To test this, they paired up children of similar age, and tested their levels of disadvantageous inequality aversion (DI) and advantageous inequality aversion (AI). DI is when you do not tolerate being exploited whereas AI is when you reject a relative advantage. Researchers hypothesized that DI would be more common in the younger children, and that AI would most likely present itself when they children became older due to social norms and maturity. Results showed that their first hypothesis of DI being more common in adolescence was true, although its development varied with the different areas that the kids came from. AI did appear more frequently in other children, but this was explained that it was due to the westernized cultures they came from. Parents in westernized cultures tend to encourage independence and so it is a possible explanation as to why these particular children reacted in that manner. Overall, they were correct when they predicted DI developing first over AI.

For this research, the topic was children’s reaction to fairness, and the question was to find the difference in their reactions based on age and background. To answer this question, the type of data needed was acts, behaviors, or events, and the data collection method was detached observation as they watched what each child did when placed in either a DI or AI situation. To analyze this data, the researchers formed their findings into ordinal data; they ranked the child’s levels of DI and AI, and at what ages/maturity they were found. These observations were then compared to those of different children.

At the end of the article, enhancements for the research were discussed which I thought was helpful. One explained how their research only studied a specific age group and that it was most likely that these traits would change throughout their own lifespan. Another was that further research could test children from a greater amount of diverse societies. Overall, I thought was a very interesting research study, and one that could be used as an example as to why children act the way they do due to their upbringings.

Blake, P. R., K. Mcauliffe, J. Corbit, T. C. Callaghan, O. Barry, A. Bowie, L. Kleutsch, K. L. Kramer, E. Ross, H. Vongsachang, R. Wrangham, and F. Warneken. “The ontogeny of fairness in seven societies.” Nature 528.7581 (2015): 258-61. Web. 17 Feb. 2017.

In OAH Magazine of History, Vol. 25, No. 3 the article, “Baseball, 9/11, and Dissent: the Carlos Delgado Controversy” by Angel G. Flores-Rodríguez discusses how in the aftermath of the 9/11, America’s pastime helped bring the country together yet despite that not all agreed with its response in the years following. Sport unites people from all walks of life and “brings fans together in a shared sense of passion and excitement” (55) that’s unlike anything else. In the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, Americans were scared as to what the future held and how its government would respond. Yet despite all the fear and anxiety going around fragile country found hope in the form of its pastime: baseball. Patriotism soared to an all-time high and it visibly transformed ballparks and the game itself.

Just two years following the attacks US Armed Forces were in Iraq and Afghanistan and the patriotism that was so infectious in the months following 9/11, seemed like a distance memory. While “God Bless America” rang out in the seventh inning and fans showed support for the nation’s war effort, not everyone felt the same. In the 2004 season, then Toronto Blue Jays first baseman and Puerto Rican slugger Carlos Delgado went public with his decision to sit for the playing of the tune. He cited his disconcert with the US Navy’s decision which had stopped activity on two-thirds of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques as well the United States’ decision to test the same types of bombs that were dropped in Iraq in Vieques. Delgado received criticism from all over and was seen by some as anti-American. Fans online “argued that Delgado’s actions spelled disrespect for the victims of September 11” (56) and even some within the Blue Jays organization believed it was inappropriate to bringing politics into baseball.

In terms of data and data gathering method used in this article, interviews and surveying online sites were used as means of collecting data. The media is an essential part of sports and how they cover the players and teams themselves. They give fans an insight as to what’s going on inside the locker room and if there is anything interesting going on. And with Delgado’s decision to sit and it being plastered all over the news by the media, debate opened up which in general I think is a healthy aspect of every society.

The article, Can Tutors Be Supported in Giving Effective Explanations? By Jörg Wittwer, Matthias Nückles, Nina Landmann, and Alexander Renkl from the University of Freiburg, questions whether tutors are ineffective in giving explanations without previous background knowledge on the tutees individual knowledge level. The study examined 30 sets of tutors and tutees, the researchers gave half of the tutors information on the tutee’s individual knowledge level, while giving the other half of the tutors no information on their tutee’s. After a few weeks the researchers realized that the tutor’s who had information on their tutee’s were able to customize instruction for them, bettering their understanding of the tutor’s explanations, while the other tutee’s were not fully comprehending their tutor’s explanations. The study very clearly showed, that only the tutors that were given background information on their tutee’s individual knowledge could successfully explain concepts to them. Overall, the findings suggest that a diagnosis-based approach to support tutors in developing a model in how to properly teach the tutee effectively contributes to the individualization of instruction in tutoring. All in all, the article is answering the research question of how can tutors give effective explanations to tutees? Therefore, the type of data needed in order to answer this question is acts, behavior, or events, since the researchers conducted their research by listening and watching in on tutoring sessions. The data-gathering method would then be detached observation, since the researcher is simply watching and listening to who they are trying to collect data from. The method of data analysis would be ordinal, since the researchers are only ranking the tutees based off of how well they appear to be absorbing the information. Overall, I found this to be a very interesting way to conduct research. It seemed to be a lot more laid back than most research strategies. However, I still found it to be effective in answering their research question, something that I think would interest the rest of the class as well.

Wittwer, Jörge, Nückles, Matthias, Landmann, Nina, and Renkl, Alexander. (2010). Can Tutors Be Supported in Giving Effective Explanations? Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 102, No. 1, pp. 1-256.

Now that I have started to look into the reasons behind women choosing to enter into religious communities (particularly fundamentalist), I thought I would give myself a starting point by reading some literature on the reasons behind why people, in general turn to religion. This article/study by Steven Reiss is titled “Why People Turn to Religion: A Motivational Analysis.” It was written in 2000, so perhaps the world of religion has changed somewhat since the publication date, but it is still valuable data to take into account. The research question at hand is “What psychological forces drive people to turn to religion?” This study takes an already established psychological measure called the Reiss Profile of Fundamental Goals and Motivational Sensitivities. This identifies and then looks into 15 fundamental desires, beginning by evaluating ordinal data responses of “very,” “somewhat,” and “not religious” from mental retardation service providers and college students. All of these responses are found to, in some way, correlate with the 15 fundamental desires. These desires are independence, power, honor, family, vengeance, order, romance, idealism, status, acceptance, social contact, tranquility, eating, curiosity, and exercise. The two groups tested are chosen because of availability and access, which in my opinion doesn’t seem to create a completely representative sample, but the individuals within the groups seem to be of a variety of different backgrounds although 411 of the total 556 are women, and 454 are caucasian. Each individual is provided with a 120 item self- reported survey on their personal opinion in relation to aspects of the 15 fundamental desires.

The results of the study first and foremost show no difference between men and women. In general, high levels of religiosity correlate with low desires for independence. Religious people are also found to value honor more than their religious counterparts, who also place lower value in family and order. However, the author recognizes that the most significant finding is that of a correlation between high religiosity and low independence. Instead, these individuals are depending on God, which has historically been identified as a sign of weakness, but this study rejects such claims. It also shows that people who are religious are more likely to be loyal to their family and honor. Therefor, these are the forces that attract people either towards, or away from religion. More than anything, this indicates how certain individuals would like to behave, rather than how they actually do.

For the sake of my research topic, I would have liked to have seen where the data from women fell in this study. I can assume that since the individuals participating in the study were of a female majority, the results are pretty indicative of their choices. However, being able to see how their responses differed compared to men would have been interesting. Overall, the article and study was very informative and took into account a lot more facets of religious affiliation than I had ever considered before.

Reiss, S. (2000). Why People Turn to Religion: A Motivational Analysis. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 39(1), 47-52. Retrieved from http://0-www.jstor.org.books.redlands.edu/stable/1387926

The article I chose examines the various foods and preparation of foods of Native American Populations in North America. It focuses on major types of produce (not including hundreds if not thousands of other minor more local varieties of foods) like corn, potatoes, new varieties of beans and squashes, peppers and tomatoes, and many other foods. Their topic is on ethnobotony of Native Americans, but the question focuses on diets and dietary culture of the indigenous North American inhabitants as well as discussing the nutritional quality of those diets and the contributions they make to the diets of all people. The data type necessary was reports of acts, looking at how Native Americans currently employ ethnobotany. There were also acts and events, such as the nutritional content of certain foods. Ethnographies and observation were used to collect the data for ethnobotany and nutrition. The method of analysis for nutrition was cross tabulations, checking how certain foods compared to each other. Overall the research was awesome, and gives lots of information on various aspects of the Native American diet that could be super useful in translating over to our current agricultural practices. I found it to be super awesome that they included recipes, although I am biased because I love cooking,

Park, Sunmin, et al. “Native American foods: History, culture, and influence on modern diets”. Journal of Ethnic Foods 3(3). (September 2016), 171–177. Science Direct. Web. 15 Feb. 2017. <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352618116300750>

Habitat destruction has forced many species that were once neighbors in their natural habitats to move into much smaller and unfamiliar territory. Habitat loss and fragmentation are two major threats to biodiversity around the world. The structure for the conservation of fragmented populations is established on the principles of Island biography. This idea of Island biography is focused on a species composition and richness on an Island habitat and aims at understanding and explaining the factors effecting the species diversity. Despite several decades of conducted research, researchers have not yet proven that patch areas can predict a species occupancy in fragmented areas do to lack of quantitative synthesis. In this scholarly article, data from 1,015 bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian, and invertebrate population networks was collected on 6 continents. The surprising results showed that patch area and isolation are poor predictors of occupancy for most of the listed species. Researchers examined improper scaling and biases in the species delineation and seek to find proof that the type of land cover that separates patches mostly effects the sensitivity of species to patch area and isolation.  The results of the research indicated that the patch area and isolation are important factors that effect the occupancy of several species.

Researchers maximized the size, accuracy, and standardization of their datasets by directly collecting raw data from authors and conducting their own statistical analyses. Studies were also found by a complete search using the Web of Science (March 2005) using the following terms:  “patch occupancy,” “habitat occupancy,” “metapopulation,” “island biogeography,” and “incidence function.” Several hundred articles were screened of which 280 were examined in detail and 109 of the 280 were deemed ok to be included in the research.

I found this research project really interesting. Habitat destruct has always been a topic of interest to me and this article went into much more detail. I found it specially interesting to learn of the importance of patch area and isolation. I believe the results of this research are important and should be utilized to predict and in the end protect more species in danger do to fragmentaiton.

Authors

1. Laura R. Prugh
   • aDepartment of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, 137 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720;
2. Karen E. Hodges
   • bCentre for Species at Risk and Habitat Studies, University of British Columbia Okanagan, 3333 University Way, Kelowna, BC, Canada V1V 1V7; and 
3. Anthony R. E. Sinclair
   • cCentre for Biodiversity Research, University of British Columbia, 6270 University Boulevard, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4
4. Justin S. Brashares
   • aDepartment of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, 137 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720;

Link to full scholarly

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/52/20770.full

Post-Fire Recovery of Acorn Production by Four Oak Species in Southern Ridge Sandhill Association in South-Central Florida

Warren G. Abrahamson and James N. Layne

Two components of research were done in this study. Both the amount of stems that grew acorns and the number of acorns produced were examined. Four types of oaks were being tested, two white oak species, and two red oak species. Counts of both of these were taken yearly from 1969 to 1998 on two 2.7 hectare plots. The prescribed burn took place in May of 1993 on one of the plots. Both species of white oak produced acorns the year after the fire, although not as many as years before the fire, although five years after the fire, began producing more acorns than years before the fire. Red oak species took 3-4 years to begin producing acorns again, although there were no remarkable differences after they began producing again. The amount of acorns produced along with the timing of production both have the potential to heavily influence the biodiversity of the area because birds, mammals and insects which eat the acorns are all affected as well as the species they interact with.

Data needed for this study is observational because the researchers are observing a behavior of a species before and after a variable is changed. Data gathering came from walking the grid of both the control plot (unburned) and the burned plot and counting each checkpoint tree for sufficiently developed acorns. Counting acorns on taller trees was almost certainly less accurate than most oaks, but a long bamboo pole was used to move branches around for visibility. Data analysis was all done by purely counting what had been produced compared to years before.  

Abrahamson, Warren G., and James N. Layne. “Post-Fire Recovery of Acorn Production by Four Oak Species in Southern Ridge Sandhill Association in South-Central Florida.” American Journal of Botany, vol. 89, no. 1, 2002, pp. 119–123. www.jstor.org/stable/4131345.

The scholarly article I choose to analyze was “Lending practices and Canadian women in micro-based businesses” by Orser Barbara J. and Foster, M K. The article was published in the Women in Management Review 9.5 in 1994. The article can be found on page 11 at the web address at the bottom of the page, I sought out this article to observe studies on micro-loaning and it’s the mechanics behind the operation of this niche market.  http://0-] search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/docview/213131010/abstract/32C5E2FDB67E44A5PQ/1?accountid=14729

The article touched upon the unusual circumstances surrounding microloans considering their inherently risky nature and neglect for conventional measures of stability to cover the crucial point of typical lending behavior which was the five C model of lending criteria. The article described in outstanding detail the characteristics that they consider in micro-loan applicants and the systems in place that has cultivated a nurturing environment for such a vulnerable industry. In addition, the article investigates the growing concern of sexism regarding the micro-loan criteria. The article pointed out that the criteria itself are not sexist although it’s application has proven to be hostile towards female entrepreneurs.

The article’s topic is on lending practices and their variability. In addition, the research question that I have arrived at is how are micro loaner’s able to survive in economic climates that large lending firms don’t find navigable?

To answer the question, I would find expert knowledge data. This is crucial because while economic repercussions are difficult to understand and adapt too although being in a market that’s based solely on high-risk dealing is far more difficult.

The data-gathering method that the author used was collecting public and private records from various sources of aggregate data and specific case studies that were of interest. The method that was determined to me most suitable for the study is interval ratio data analyses.

I find this study to be incredibly useful to forming a meticulous illustration of the criteria, biases, economic, and sociological factors that determine the eligibility of applicants. For instance, a piece of information that gave me deep insight into the field was that “economic restructuring, corporate downsizing, and high unemployment have created a “push” to self-employment. At the same time, the demand for contract services and new micro-market segments have “pulled” innovators into the micro-business sector”. This quote points out an indisputable but often ignored fact of our current economy which is that the U.S and many other nations have become service sector economies. The article proceeds to elaborate on my motivation for approaching this article which was micro-lending and utility in 3rd world countries. The method that they are referring to would fund economic development with far greater efficiency due to the emergence of micro markets during the 2nd industrial revolution the new micro-markets and in our evaluation of this research.   

I don’t believe the class or most readers would find this particular study interesting because of its niche audience although what I found was particularly interesting was that there is only a single commercial bank that performs micro-loans. The bank is called the Royal Bank and it is in Canada. In addition, Canada was found to be the 2nd most likely country in the world to secure its debt through commercial banking due to small-business owners and small-business finance.