Previous studies in Western contexts have examined the relationships between various board characteristics and CSR, yet the relationships need to be re-examined in non-Western contexts given differential theoretical premises across contexts. We specifically propose that the effects of board characteristics on CSR in Korea should be patterned distinctively from Western-based existing literature, focusing on three important board characteristics, such as a board’s independence, social ties, and diversity. Using a panel dataset from large Korean firms, we found that various relationships between (...) board characteristics and CSR were non-linear, whereas most of the previous research on Western contexts found that the same relationships were linear. Specifically, curvilinear relationships were found between CSR and board independence, CEO-outside director social ties, and educational diversity. Our findings suggest that there is no universal feature of CSR-supportive board characteristics due to the unique characteristics of various institutional contexts. (shrink)

This paper examines the influence of CEO career horizon problems on corporate social responsibility. We assume that as CEOs are getting older, they tend to disengage in CSR due to their shorter career horizons. We further argue that high levels of industry-level discretion and blockholder ownership amplify the negative effects of CEO age on CSR. Using a panel sample of US-based firms over 2004–2009, we do not find the main effect of CEO age on CSR, but find support for the (...) moderating effects, such that CEO age is negatively associated with CSR when there are high levels of ILD and blockholder ownership. Therefore, results suggest that CEO career horizon problems matter for CSR when CEOs have sufficient discretion over the firm’s strategic decisions and outside blockholders put more pressure on CEOs to engage in financial earning management. (shrink)

This study examined the relationship between person–organization (PO) fit on prosocial identity (prosocial PO fit) and various employee outcomes. The results of polynomial regression analysis based on a sample of 589 hospital employees, which included medical doctors, nurses, and staff, indicate joint effects of personal and organizational prosocial identity on the development of a sense of organizational identification and on the engagement in prosocial behaviors toward colleagues, organizations, and patients. Specifically, prosocial PO fit had a curvilinear relationship with organizational identification, (...) such that organizational identification increased as organizational prosocial characteristics increased toward personal prosocial identity and then decreased when the organizational prosocial characteristics exceeded the personal prosocial identity. In addition, organizational identification and prosocial behaviors increased as both personal and organizational prosocial identity increased from low to high. (shrink)

This study examines how the corporate philanthropy decisions of group-affiliated firms in Korea are made. Based on the attention-based view, we argue that when corporate decision makers at group-affiliated firms focus their attention more on internal markets than external stakeholders because of the firm’s high reliance on intragroup transactions, the firm will decrease its level of corporate philanthropy. We further argue that the relationship will be stronger when governance mechanisms focus on the instrumental value of corporate philanthropy. Using a panel (...) sample of group-affiliated firms in Korea from 2011 to 2015, we find that as intragroup sales increase, the level of corporate philanthropy decreases, and such a negative relationship is stronger when outside director representation and foreign investor ownership are high. Our study suggests that internal dependence and corporate governance mechanisms jointly affect the level of corporate philanthropy at firms in a business group. Thus, this study contributes to the literature on corporate philanthropy, business group, and corporate governance. (shrink)

Relatively little research has examined the effects of ownership on the firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR). In addition, most of it has been conducted in the Western context such as the U.S. and Europe. Using a sample of 118 large Korean firms, we hypothesize that different types of shareholders will have distinct motivations toward the firm’s CSR engagement. We break down ownership into different groups of shareholders: institutional, managerial, and foreign ownerships. Results indicate a significant, positive relationship between CSR ratings (...) and ownership by institutions and foreign investors. In contrast, shareholding by top managers is negatively associated with firm’s CSR rating while outside director ownership is not significant. We conclude that different owners have differential impacts on the firm’s CSR engagement. (shrink)

This study focuses on CEO hubris and its detrimental effect on corporate financial performance along with an examination of critical corporate governance contingencies that may moderate the negative effect. From 654 observations of 164 Korean firms over the years 2001–2008, we found that CEO power exacerbated the negative effect of CEO hubris on corporate financial performance, whereas board vigilance mitigated it. This study provides empirical evidence that entrenchment problems arising from CEO hubris would be exacerbated as CEOs become more powerful, (...) but weakened as board of directors become more vigilant. Theoretical contributions and practical implications will be discussed. (shrink)

The extant literature has examined the effects of ownership structures on corporate social responsibility, yet it has overlooked the non-linear and interactive effects among major shareholder groups. In this study, we examine the non-linear effects of insider and institutional ownerships on CSR. We also examine whether it is necessary to have both incentive alignment and monitoring mechanisms or it is sufficient to have either mechanism to promote CSR. Using a sample of the U.S. Fortune 1000 firms, our results suggest that (...) insider and institutional ownerships have non-linear effects on CSR. We also find support for the complementary mechanisms view, in that the highest CSR rating is observed when both ownership levels are high. Therefore, firms need to maintain strong governance structures to realize synergistic effects in promoting CSR. Our findings provide a more in-depth understanding of the relationships between ownership structures and corporate social outcomes. (shrink)

Previous studies have been split over how to view family owners’ CSR engagement, arguing that they either engage in or disengage from CSR based on different motives (i.e., preserving socio-emotional wealth vs. seeking rent expropriation). Focusing on family owners in business groups, this study integrates these divergent views. We hypothesize that family owners would pursue both motives simultaneously by optimizing the level of CSR of each affiliated firm depending on their ownership level. Furthermore, we argue that this tendency is moderated (...) by group-level contexts. Using a sample of Korean business groups, we found that family ownership is negatively associated with affiliated firms’ CSR. Also, this negative relationship is more pronounced when firms belong to business groups with more charitable corporate foundations and when business networks are greater in their scope and scale. This study contributes to the literature by offering a more complete understanding of how family owners make CSR decisions in business group contexts. (shrink)

While the effect of top executives' social networks on their compensations has received substantial scholarly attention, little effort has been made to integrate segmented views to offer more complete understanding of this effect. In this paper, we propose an integrative two-stage model by taking both economic and socio-political views into account. We theorise that some characteristics of top executive's outside social ties are positively related to firm performance, and those relationships are conditioned by external and internal strategic contexts, such as (...) environmental uncertainty, strategic relevance, and tie strength. We also theorise that firm performance leads to executives' compensations, but this linkage is moderated by the socio-political dynamics among executives (within-group dynamics) as well as between executives and a board of directors (between-group dynamics) inside the firm. Based on our integrative framework, this paper provides the comprehensive understanding of how executives' compensations are determined and highlights the importance of executive's social ties and their implications. (shrink)

Background: Healthcare workers in the front line of diagnosis, treatment, and care of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 are at great risk of both infection and developing mental health symptoms. This study aimed to investigate the following: whether healthcare workers in general hospitals experience higher mental distress than those in psychiatric hospitals; the role played by religion and alexithymic trait in influencing the mental health condition and perceived level of happiness of healthcare workers amidst the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic; (...) and factors that influence the resilience of healthcare workers at 6 weeks' follow-up.Methods: Four-hundred and fifty-eight healthcare workers were recruited from general and psychiatric hospitals, and 419 were followed-up after 6 weeks. All participants filled out the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, five-item Brief-Symptom Rating Scale, and the Chinese Oxford Happiness Questionnaire.Results: Under the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, 12.3% of frontline healthcare workers in general hospitals reported having mental distress and perceived lower social adaptation status compared with those working in psychiatric hospitals. Christians/Catholics perceived better psychological well-being, and Buddhists/Taoists were less likely to experience mental distress. The results at 6 weeks of follow-up showed that the perceived lower social adaptation status of general hospital healthcare workers was temporary and improved with time. Christian/Catholic religion and time had independent positive effects on psychological well-being; however, the interaction of Christian/Catholic religion and time had a negative effect.Conclusions: Collectivism and individualism in the cultural context are discussed with regard to alexithymic trait and Buddhist/Taoist and Christian/Catholic religious faiths. Early identification of mental distress and interventions should be implemented to ensure a healthy and robust clinical workforce for the treatment and control of the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

The appearance of mass media and a versatile medium of videos can serve the convenience and instructive information for children; on the other hand, it could abet them in implicit image consumption. Now is the time for kids' to be in need of thinking power which enables them to make a choice, applications andcriticism of information within such visual cultures. In spite of these social changes, the realities are that our curriculum still doesn't meet a learner's demand properly. This research, (...) in this context, is aimed at looking out on the currently implemented art appreciation learning process in a critical fashion, and also aimed at suggesting a plan for visual culture learning by applying the philosophy program for kids as a new alternative. The purpose of such education is toenhance the capability to solve a variety of problems they are facing in the course of daily life by reflecting their matter of concern in a curriculum. What we have to pay attention to in visual culture learning is 'visual literacy.' Such an interpretative faculty of a critical reading of images is a must especially when kids should make a judgment of value hidden in images in their daily events, make an analysis of an ideological message and make an information-oriented decision. Therefore, learners have to enrich their higher-order thinking power as well as critical thinking faculty in modern society. If there is no objection to these social surroundings, it is quite natural that philosophy education, which forms a base of a higher-order thinking for children should be handled significantly at school. (shrink)

Double 11 shopping carnival, celebrated by the most successful electronic-commerce Chinese company, Alibaba, has always been the online shopping festival with the highest turnover and involves the largest number of consumers and enterprises in China. This study integrates the elaboration likelihood model and stimulus-organism-response theory to study the dual-processing path of information, which drives customers’ behavioral intention on Double 11. There are 454 valid samples of data are collected, and the research model is tested using the partial least squares method. (...) Results show that in the Double 11 context, two different processing mechanisms affect consumers’ behavioral intention. Thereinto, consumers’ behavioral intention is more affected by the peripheral path than the central path. The affective experience affected by the information stimulus has a greater impact on the behavioral intention than cognitive experience. Furthermore, we find situational involvement have different moderating effects on the relationship between two experiences and behavioral intention. (shrink)

The practice of mathematical word problem is ubiquitous and thought to impact academic achievement. However, the underlying neural mechanisms are still poorly understood. In this study, we investigate how lexical consistency of word problem description is modulated in adults' brain responses during word problem solution. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging methods, we examined compare word problems that included relational statements, such as “A dumpling costs 9 dollars. A wonton is 2 dollars less than a dumpling. How much does a wonton (...) cost?” and manipulated lexical consistency and problem operation. We found a consistency by operation interaction in the widespread fronto-insular-parietal activations, including the anterior insula, dorsoanterior cingulate cortex, middle frontal gyrus, and intraparietal sulcus, such that inconsistent problems engaged stronger activations than consistent problems for addition, whereas the consistency effect was inverse for subtraction. Critically, these results were more salient in the less successful problem solvers than their more successful peers. Our study is the first to demonstrate that lexical consistency effects on arithmetic neural networks are modulated during reading word problem that required distinct arithmetic operations. More broadly, our study has strong potentials to add linkage between neuroscience and education by remediating deficits and enhance instruction design in the school curriculum. (shrink)

Mixtecs and Zapotecs, originating from the Oaxaca area in Mexico, are among the largest indigenous groups of workers in California. Many adults in this community only access the health care system when sick and as a last resort. This article describes the development of a radionovela to inform the community about the importance of preventive health care. It was developed following the Sabido Method. The methodology to develop a radionovela may be of interest to other public health practitioners who want (...) to develop educational materials in an engaging format, especially for communities that rely on oral, not written information. (shrink)

BackgroundAlthough the Life-Sustaining Treatment (LST) Decision Act was enforced in 2018 in Korea, data on whether it is well established in actual clinical settings are limited. Hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) is a common nosocomial infection with high mortality. However, there are limited data on the end-of-life (EOL) decision of patients with HAP. Therefore, we aimed to examine clinical characteristics and outcomes according to the EOL decision for patients with HAP.MethodsThis multicenter study enrolled patients with HAP at 16 referral hospitals retrospectively from (...) January to December 2019. EOL decisions included do-not-resuscitate (DNR), withholding of LST, and withdrawal of LST. Descriptive and Kaplan–Meier curve analyses for survival were performed.ResultsOf 1,131 patients with HAP, 283 deceased patients with EOL decisions (105 cases of DNR, 108 cases of withholding of LST, and 70 cases of withdrawal of LST) were analyzed. The median age was 74 (IQR 63–81) years. The prevalence of solid malignant tumors was high (32.4% vs. 46.3% vs. 54.3%, P = 0.011), and the ICU admission rate was lower (42.9% vs. 35.2% vs. 24.3%, P = 0.042) in the withdrawal group. The prevalence of multidrug-resistant pathogens, impaired consciousness, and cough was significantly lower in the withdrawal group. Kaplan–Meier curve analysis revealed that 30-day and 60-day survival rates were higher in the withdrawal group than in the DNR and withholding groups (log-rank P = 0.021 and 0.018). The survival of the withdrawal group was markedly decreased after 40 days; thus, the withdrawal decision was made around this time. Among patients aged below 80 years, the rates of EOL decisions were not different (P = 0.430); however, mong patients aged over 80 years, the rate of withdrawal was significantly lower than that of DNR and withholding (P = 0.001).ConclusionsAfter the LST Decision Act was enforced in Korea, a DNR order was still common in EOL decisions. Baseline characteristics and outcomes were similar between the DNR and withholding groups; however, differences were observed in the withdrawal group. Withdrawal decisions seemed to be made at the late stage of dying. Therefore, advance care planning for patients with HAP is needed. (shrink)

BackgroundBreast cancer patients are at elevated risk of depression during treatment, thus provoking the chance of poor clinical outcomes. This retrospective cohort study aimed to investigate whether integrating Chinese herbal medicines citation into conventional cancer therapy could decrease the risk of depression in the long-term breast cancer survivors.MethodsA cohort of patients aged 20–70 years and with newly diagnosed breast cancer during 2000–2008 was identified from a nationwide claims database. In this study, we focused solely on survivors of breast cancer at (...) least1 year after diagnosis. After one-to-one matching for age, sex, and baseline comorbidities, breast cancer patients who received and did not receive CHM treatment were enrolled. The incidence rate and hazard ratio citation for depression between the two groups was estimated at the end of 2012. A Cox proportional hazard model was constructed to examine the impact of the CHM use on the risk of depression.ResultsDuring the study period, the incidence rate of depression was significantly lower in the treated cohort than in the untreated cohort [8.57 compared with 11.01 per 1,000 person-years citation], and the adjusted HR remained significant at 0.74 in a Cox proportional hazards regression model. The corresponding risk further decreasing to 43% among those using CHM for more than 1 year.ConclusionFinding from this investigation indicated that the lower risk of depression observed in breast cancer patients treated with CHM, suggesting that CHM treatment should be considered for disease management toward breast cancer. Yet, the optimal administered dose should be determined in further clinical trials. (shrink)

This is a clear and lucid account of Nietzsche's philosophy of art, combining exegesis, interpretation and criticism in a judicious balance. Julian Young argues that Nietzsche's thought about art can only be understood in the context of his wider philosophy. In particular, he discusses the dramatic changes in Nietzschean aesthetics against the background of the celebrated themes of the death of God, eternal recurrence, and the idea of the Übermensch. Young then divides Nietzsche's career and his philosophy of (...) art into four distinct phases, but suggests that these phases describe a circle. An attempt at world-affirmation is made in the central phases, but Nietzsche is predominantly influenced at the beginning and end of his career by a Schopenhauerian pessimism. At the beginning and end art is important because it 'redeems' us from life. (shrink)

This is a clear and lucid account of Nietzsche's philosophy of art, combining exegesis, interpretation and criticism in a judicious balance. Julian Young argues that Nietzsche's thought about art can only be understood in the context of his wider philosophy. In particular, he discusses the dramatic changes in Nietzschean aesthetics against the background of the celebrated themes of the death of God, eternal recurrence, and the idea of the Übermensch. Young then divides Nietzsche's career and his philosophy of (...) art into four distinct phases, but suggests that these phases describe a circle. An attempt at world-affirmation is made in the central phases, but Nietzsche is predominantly influenced at the beginning and end of his career by a Schopenhauerian pessimism. At the beginning and end art is important because it 'redeems' us from life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.1 (2002) 55-59 [Access article in PDF] One Stage Is Not Enough Andrew W. Young and Karel W. de Pauw Keywords: delusions, Cotard delusion, Capgras delusion, cognitive neuropsychiatry. WE WELCOME THE OPPORTUNITY to offer our reflections on Philip Gerrans' interesting paper. Our opinion is that on fundamental issues we agree quite a bit—but there are clear differences when it comes to details.The most basic (...) issue concerns the nature of the enterprise. Like Gerrans, we think that it is possible to create testable accounts of the formation and maintenance of what would otherwise seem bizarre and inexplicable delusions, and that these accounts should be grounded in theoretical models of factors that underpin our everyday perception and reasoning. This general approach certainly forms part of what has been called cognitive neuropsychiatry. However, we disagree with Gerrans in that we see cognitive neuropsychiatry as an attempt to draw on the underlying logic of cognitive neuropsychology, rather than (as Gerrans implies) its current methods. The underlying logic of cognitive neuropsychological approaches has been to try to understand the effects of brain injury in terms of disruption of different components of theoretical models of normal abilities. In this approach, a model of normal performance is tested by its ability to account for the effects of brain injury. Where the model of normal performance also provides a convincing account of brain injury it is retained, and when it fails to account for effects of brain injury, it is revised or abandoned. In cognitive neuropsychiatry, the key theoretical move has been to argue that an adequate model of normal performance should be able to account for any disordered pattern (Ellis and Young 1990). The same logic of seeking to explain disordered performance by reference to models of normal function is then attempted, but for disorders that would usually fall within the province of psychiatry.In our opinion, however, cognitive neuropsychiatry will not simply involve importing the methods of cognitive neuropsychology into the new domain; they will need to be developed and adapted to fit the new agenda (Young 2000).In cognitive neuropsychology, progress has often come from the careful investigation of people with stable, selective deficits of fundamental cognitive functions involved in sensory analysis, memory, and verbal or motor output. In contrast, delusional beliefs can be relatively unstable; often they are only held for a few weeks or even days. When the delusions change, patients may modify or abandon them as suddenly as they seemed to form them, or they may give them up much more slowly and reluctantly. At the very least, this creates difficulties in the timing of investigations and in interpreting the relation of deficits and symptoms, which may be recorded on separate dates. These methodological problems [End Page 55] are exacerbated by the fact that deficits linked to complex abnormal experiences such as delusions may be multifaceted and diffuse, even when the delusions themselves have a specific content or theme. Such complications do not invalidate cognitive neuropsychiatry, but they do mean it will need to develop its own methods for dealing with them and making appropriate inferences.One of the key complexities that has surfaced already involves the idea that delusional beliefs might reflect the interaction of two or more contributory factors. Gerrans discusses a particular variant of this idea, which had been suggested by Young and Leafhead (1996) as an approach to understanding the Cotard delusion: The Cotard delusion represents a depressed person's attempt to account for abnormal perceptual experiences. It follows that the delusion is based on an unfortunate interaction between different contributory factors. One set of factors creates the abnormal perceptual experiences, which are characterised by lack of emotional responses and feelings of emptiness, depersonalisation and derealisation. The other factors result in a misinterpretation of these perceptual changes, in which the patients' depressed moods lead them correctly to attribute the changes to themselves, but to exaggerate their consequences. (Young and Leafhead, 1996, 166) Gerrans describes this as a two-stage account, but argues that a one-stage account based only on abnormal perceptual... (shrink)

Changing the Wor(l)d draws on feminist publishing, postmodern theory and feminist autobiography to powerfully critique both liberal feminism and scholarship on the women's movement, arguing that both ignore feminism's unique contributions to social analysis and politics. These contributions recognize the power of discourse, the diversity of women's experiences, and the importance of changing the world through changing consciousness. Young critiques social movement theory and five key studies of the women's movement, arguing that gender oppression can be understood only in (...) relation to race, sexuality, class and ethnicity; and that feminist activism has always gone beyond the realm of public policy to emphasize improving women's circumstances through transforming discourse and consciousness. Young examines feminist discursive politics, critiques social science methodology, and proposes an alternative approach to understanding the women's movement. This approach explores feminist publishing and feminist autobiographical writing as examples of discursive activism with broadly subversive potential. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the role played by disturbed phenomenology in accounting for the formation and maintenance of the Capgras delusion. Whilst endorsing a two-stage model to explain the condition, I nevertheless argue that traditional accounts prioritise the role played by some form of second-stage cognitive disruption at the expense of the significant contribution made by the patient’s disturbed phenomenology, which is often reduced to such uninformative descriptions as “anomalous” or “strange”. By advocating an interactionist model, I argue that (...) the delusional belief constitutes an attempt on the part of the patient to explain his/her initially odd and somewhat disturbed phenomenal content and, moreover, that the delusion then structures the patient’s experience such that what he/she perceives is an impostor. This fact is used to explain the delusional belief’s maintenance and resistance to revision. Thus, whilst accepting that second-stage cognitive disruption has a part to play in explaining the Capgras delusion, the emphasis here is placed on the role played by the patient’s changing phenomenal content and its congruence with the delusional belief. Unlike traditional two-stage models, which posit a unidirectional progression from experience to belief, the interactionist model advocates a two-way interaction between bottom-up and top-down processes. The application of this model to other delusional beliefs is also considered. (shrink)

There is good news, and there is bad news. The good news is that in my experience, younger physicians generally are much more concerned about the cost of clinical tests and treatments, and about justly distributing finite medical resources, than were those who practiced medicine in the fee-for-service era. The bad news has at least three components. First, with respect to medically nonbeneficial treatment in the ICU, managed care has not yet given evidence of wanting to put the brakes on (...) unrealistic family demands for aggressive medical interventions. Second, managed care is frustrating many healthcare professionals as well as patients. And third, managed care has no apparent interest in addressing, and may even have contributed to, the problem of medical indigence. Let me develop these propositions more fully. (shrink)

The idea of entrepreneurial discovery of profitable opportunities neglected by others as the driving force of the market process is the key contribution of Kirzner to economics. However, to enrich our understanding of the process of entrepreneurial discovery and to derive testable implications we need something more concrete than Kirzner’s alertness. The paper builds on Kirzner’s distinction between the logic of choice and perception, by arguing that the essence of decision making is coming to an understanding, and learning how to (...) act. A set of behavioral implications follows as patterns of learning in different contexts. Further, conventions emerge as a means of stabilizing mutual expectations. Stability of conventions on the one hand and learning over time on the other creates possibility of entrepreneurial discovery and endogenous process of change.L’idée de découverte entrepreneuriale des opportunités profitables ignorées par les autres en tant que force motrice du processus marchand représente la contribution fondamentale de Kirzner à la science économique. Cependant, nous devons disposer de quelque chose de plus concret que la vigilance kirznerienne si nous voulons approfondir notre compréhension du processus de découverte entrepreneuriale et en déduire des implications testables. L’article se fonde sur la distinction qu’opère Kirzner entre la logique des choix et la perception et propose que l’essence de la prise de décision consiste à parvenir à une compréhension et à apprendre comment agir. Un ensemble d’implications au niveau des comportements en découle comme schème d’ apprentissage dans des contextes différents. De plus, les conventions émergent en tant que moyens de stabilisation des anticipations mutuelles. La stabilité des conventions, d’un côté, et l’apprentissage dans le temps, de l’autre, créent la possibilité de découverte entrepreneuriale et de processus de changement endogènes. (shrink)

This paper aims to deal with the change of sexual discourse through the rise of a feminist movement in Korea from a constructivist point of view. First, the paper discusses the Confucianism of the Chosun dynasty as an historical background of the issue of sexuality (since Confucianism still has a far-reaching grip and effect on many aspects of everyday life in Korea). Second, it deals with chastity ideology and the double standard of sexuality between men and women as ongoing Confucian (...) sexual discourses. Third, it focuses on three themes: (1) the change from sex for procreation to sex for pleasure, (2) the change from genitally-oriented sexuality to intimacy- or relationship-oriented sexuality, and (3) the change from a woman as a sexual object to a sexual subject as part of the changes of sexual discourses. Fourth, it tries to show clashes and/or alliances between the Confucian and feminist discourses on sexuality, which make up the process of the social construction of sexuality. This shows that sexuality is a socio-historical construction in Korea as elsewhere. (shrink)

Climate change presents a fundamental challenge to the current global energy regime. Under the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international community is developing the architecture of a policy response. Three serious flaws are examined: (a) the potential sacrifice of small island states, (b) the use of market-based policy measures to commodify the atmospheric commons, and (c) the substitution of carbon sequestration for meaningful reductions in energy use. The authors’ analysis of the politics of climate change, based on these issues, (...) suggests a new understanding of ecology is emerging—what they term postmodern ecology—in which a global environmental crisis is risked to secure the future of the world energy regime. An alternative, based on principles of sustainability and equity, is proposed that would require abandoning the global energy status quo. (shrink)

Data from the Global Environmental Monitoring System indicate that pollutants such as sulphur dioxide and total suspended particulate routinely appear in the lower atmosphere of major cities at concentrations well above health guidelines set by the World Health Organization. As well, cities are major contributors to the build-up of greenhouse gases which now threaten climate change. These findings underscore the detrimental relation that has evolved between urban industrial society and the atmosphere. If this peculiar civilization is to be changed, three (...) principles—equity, sustainability and peaceful development—must guide the reevolution of urban life. The paradigm of commodification needs to be replaced with a model of a commons of life. The article provides a theoretical framework and strategy for reforming global climate policy and urban sustainability planning in a manner consistent with life in the commons. (shrink)