1 / 30

Environment in the Czech Republic

Environment in the Czech Republic. Czech culture Charles university in Prague Jan Vávra. Lecture outline. Environmental problems Agriculture Car transportation Brown coal mining and burning Air pollution Environmental politics and NGOs. Intensive agriculture. soil too much compact

field
Download Presentation

Environment in the Czech Republic

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Environment in the Czech Republic Czech culture Charles university in Prague Jan Vávra

  2. Lecture outline • Environmental problems • Agriculture • Car transportation • Brown coal mining and burning • Air pollution • Environmental politics and NGOs

  3. Intensive agriculture • soil too much compact • fast runoff of precipitation - floods • soil erosion • 50 % of arable land is in risk of water erosion • extreme use of fertilizers • usually nitrogenous and phosphorus • affecting mostly watersheds • more than 10 % of environmentally friendly agricultural land (meadows, not arable land)

  4. Changes 1953-2008 http://kontaminace.cenia.cz

  5. Car transportation • air pollution • mostly CO2, CO, NOx emissions • VOC, PM, SO2 as well • Pb almost disappeared • landscape occupation and fragmentation

  6. CO2 emissions 1990-2007 EC (2010)

  7. Passengerkilome-ters/person/year in 2009 Zpráva o životním prostředí ČR 2010.

  8. Landscape fragmentation(2005) Příroda a krajina České republiky. Zpráva o stavu 2009

  9. Landscape fragmentation 1980 (81 % UAT) UAT = Unfragmented Area by Traffic > 100 km2 < 1000 cars/day Příroda a krajina České republiky. Zpráva o stavu 2009

  10. Landscape fragmentation 2005 (64 % UAT) Příroda a krajina České republiky. Zpráva o stavu 2009

  11. Landscape fragmentation 2040 (53 % UAT) Příroda a krajina České republiky. Zpráva o stavu 2009

  12. Brown coal mining • CO2 and SO2 emissions • landscape destruction • settlements moving • 116 abandoned and moved settlements • brown coal power plants make 48 % of electricity production

  13. Brown coal production 1 t lignite = 1,17 t CO2

  14. Mining pits in NW Bohemia

  15. NW Bohemia 1950

  16. NW Bohemia 2008

  17. Overall air pollution Area with air pollution exceeding the health limits in 2010. www.chmi.cz

  18. Benzo[a]pyrene Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon benzo[a]pyrene. Mutagenous and carcinogenic. From cars, coal, smoking, etc. www.chmi.cz

  19. SO2 air pollution

  20. Stages of NGOs and env. policy • late 80’s – ecology and dissent • 1989-1991 – golden age • 1992-1996 – time of political neglect • 1997-2003 – acceptance by politics • 2003-2009 – professionalism • since 2010 – icing on a cake (again)

  21. Hnutí Duha opinons (when?) • Hnutí Duha is convinced that Czech public can have healthier and cleaner environment, as well as our European neighbours have. We suggest that kind of solutions of ecological problems, that will bring profit to everyone. • We see the causes of contemporary global crisis in the philosophy of non-regulated economical growth, chase for still increasing consumption and centralisation of society. Overload by goods and information distratcs people from the problems which must be solved to ensure our sruvival…We don’t believe that present days political parties are able to deal with the crisis.

  22. late 1980’s • official organizations (conservationists) • Czechoslovak Union of Nature Conservationists • Brontosaurus (part of Socialist Youth Union) • Ecological Section of Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences • Ecological section of Charta 77 • part of the dissent

  23. Golden age of early 90’s • boom of NGOs • 800 organizations • support from West • active members • good relationship between NGOs and state agencies • environmentalists went to agencies • Green Parliament • meetings of biggest NGOs at Ministry of Environment • unity broke in mid 90’s • different approaches • radical, political, not neccessary • most important NGOs • Greenpeace, Hnutí Duha (Friends of Earth), Childern of Earth, Společnost pro trvale udržitelný život (Society for Sustainable Living)

  24. 1992 – 1997 political marginalisation • new political parties (right-left) • new direction • economical liberalisation, fast growth, less regulations • NGOs challenged the purely economic worldview • non-party politics perceived as a problem by Václav Klaus • lack of communication between government and NGOs • cutting of funds for NGOs • decrease of public support for environmental issues • deradicalization, proffesionalization

  25. 1997-2003 improvement of the state • new government (1998-2002) – social democrats • pressure from OECD and EU on legislation • continuation of professionalization • some NGOs became absolutely non-politically oriented (conservationism, education of children)

  26. 2003-2009 – environmental agencies • change to professional agencies • improved fund raising • lobbying • changes within the system • decrease of activism and radicalism

  27. Activities • early 90s – happenings, direct actions (blockades), protests • late 90s – happenings, local demonstrations • 2000s – lobbying, legislation changes, local activities, happenings, non-violent direct actions http://www.greenpeace.org/czech/cz/Multimedia1/Videa/hrbitovvideo/

  28. 2010-2013 • Environmentalismisagain „icing on a cake“ orenemy • Growth, competitiveness, austerity are thecatchwords • Civicdemocrats (neo-liberals) govern Ministry ofEnvironment • Intentionaldisintegrationoftheoffice

  29. Hnutí Duha opinons • Hnutí Duha is convinced that Czech public can have healthier and cleaner environment, as well as our European neighbours have. We suggest that kind of solutions of ecological problems, that will bring profit to everyone. (2006) • We see the causes of contemporary global crisis in the philosophy of non-regulated economical growth, chase for still increasing consumption and centralisation of society. Overload by goods and information distratcs people from the problems which must be solved to ensure our sruvival…We don’t believe that present days political parties are able to deal with the crisis. (1991)

  30. References Binka, B. (2009). Zelení úředníci se zbytkem vzpurné duše aneb Osud environmentálních hnutí v České republice. Ekolist. May 25th 2009. http://ekolist.cz/cz/publicistika/eseje/esej-zeleni-urednici-se-zbytkem-vzpurne-duse-aneb-osud-environmentalnich-hnuti-v-ceske-republice Czech Hydrometeorological institute www.chmi.cz Databáze sociálního metabolismu Československa http://lucc.ic.cz/soc_meta/ EC (2009), Energy, transport and environment indicators. Eurostat Pocketbook http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/publications/collections/pocketbooks Fagin, A. (2000). Environmental Protest in the Czech Republic: Three Stages of Post-Communist Development. Czech Sociological Review 8 (2): 139-156. Map layers kontaminace.cenia.cz Příroda a krajina České republiky. Zpráva o stavu 2009 http://www.env.cz/C1257458002F0DC7/cz/news_091130_zpravaostavu/$FILE/zprava%20o%20stavu2009.pdf Zpráva o životním prostředí ČR 2010. www.cenia.cz

More Related