Measuring collective action intention toward gender equality across cultures

Collective action is a powerful tool for social change and is fundamental to women and girls’ empowerment on a societal level. Collective action towards gender equality could be understood as intentional and conscious civic behaviors focused on social transformation, questioning power relations, and promoting gender equality through collective efforts. Various instruments to measure collective action intentions have been developed, but to our knowledge none of the published measures were subject to invariance testing. We introduce the gender equality collective action intention (GECAI) scale and examine its psychometric isomorphism and measurement invariance, using data from 60 countries (N = 31,686). Our findings indicate that partial scalar measurement invariance of the GECAI scale permits conditional comparisons of latent mean GECAI scores across countries. Moreover, this metric psychometric isomorphism of the GECAI means we can interpret scores at the country-level (i.e., as a group attribute) conceptually similar to individual attributes. Therefore, our findings add to the growing body of literature on gender based collective action by introducing a methodologically sound tool to measure collective action intentions towards gender equality across cultures

Assessment of emissions/ discharges of mercury reaching the Arctic environment.

Our knowledge of mercury fluxes on a global scale is still incomplete. The above presented estimates for Europe and North America seem to contribute less about 25 % to the global anthropogenic emissions of the element to the atmosphere. The majority of the remaining emissions originate from combustion of fossil fuels, particularly in the Asian countries including China, India, and South and North Korea. Even less and very controversial information is available on emissions of mercury from natural sources, including volatilization of the element from terrestrial and aquatic surfaces. In general, it is assumed that natural emissions of the element are about 3000 t/year, thus contributing more 60 % to the total global emissions of mercury. However, much work needs to be done in order to verify the above estimate

Atmospheric emissions of anthropogenic lead in Europe: improvements, updates, historical data and projections

This report provides estimates of lead emissions to the atmosphere in Europe, discriminated by country and by source category within each country. Estimates of past lead emissions are provided for the years 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985, 1990 and 1995. Estimates for 1955-1990 have been improved relatively to earlier estimates for these years provided in 1996 for IIASA, using recently available data. Predictions of future lead emissions are provided for the year 2010. The methodology of estimating emissions is described. (orig.)Dieser Bericht enthaelt Schaetzungen ueber die nationalen Bleiemissionen der europaeischen Laender in die Atmosphaere. Dabei wurden die verschiedenen Arten von Bleiemissionsquellen differenziert beruecksichtigt. Die Schaetzungen liegen fuer die Jahre 1955, 1965, 1975, 1985, 1990 und 1995 vor. Im Vergleich zu den Berechnungen der IIASA 1996 fuer die Jahre 1955-1990, wurden die Schaetzungen in diesem Bericht aufgrund neuer, aktueller Dateninformationen deutlich verbessert. Vorhersagen fuer die zukuenftigen Bleiemissionen in Europa wurden fuer das Jahr 2010 gechaetzt. Zudem enthaelt der Bericht eine ausfuehrliche Beschreibung ueber die den Schaetzungen zugrunde liegenden Methode. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: RA 3251(2000/31) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman