Gorman Hugh S, Gagnon Valoree S, Norman Emma S
Michigan Technological University, USA.
Northwest Indian College, USA.
Hist Sci. 2016 Dec;54(4):443-459. doi: 10.1177/0073275316681804. Epub 2016 Dec 1.
Over the last half century, a multijurisdictional, multiscale system of governance has emerged to address concerns associated with toxic chemicals that have the capacity to bioaccumulate in organisms and biomagnify in food chains, leading to fish consumption advisories. Components of this system of governance include international conventions (such as the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Minamata Convention on Mercury), laws enacted by nation states and their subjurisdictions, and efforts to adaptively manage regional ecosystems (such as the U.S.-Canadian Great Lakes). Given that many of these compounds - including mercury, industrial chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls, and pesticides such as toxaphene - circulate throughout the globe through cycles of deposition and reemission, regional efforts to eliminate the need for fish consumption advisories cannot be successful without efforts to reduce emissions everywhere in the world. This paper argues that the scientific community, by monitoring the concentrations of these compounds in the atmosphere and by modeling their fate and transport, play an important role in connecting the various jurisdictional scales of governance. In addition, the monitoring networks that this community of scientists has established can be visualized as a technology of governance essential in an era in which societies have the capacity to produce and release such chemicals on an industrial scale.
在过去的半个世纪里，一个跨辖区、多尺度的治理体系应运而生，以应对与有毒化学物质相关的问题。这些化学物质能够在生物体内生物累积，并在食物链中生物放大，从而导致鱼类消费建议的出台。这个治理体系的组成部分包括国际公约（如《关于持久性有机污染物的斯德哥尔摩公约》和《关于汞的水俣公约》）、民族国家及其下属辖区制定的法律，以及对区域生态系统进行适应性管理的努力（如美加五大湖地区）。鉴于许多这类化合物——包括汞、多氯联苯等工业化学品以及毒杀芬等农药——通过沉积和再排放循环在全球范围内流动，若不努力在全球各地减少排放，区域层面消除鱼类消费建议必要性的努力就无法取得成功。本文认为，科学界通过监测这些化合物在大气中的浓度以及对它们的归宿和迁移进行建模，在连接不同治理辖区尺度方面发挥着重要作用。此外，科学家群体建立的监测网络可以被视为一种治理技术，在当今社会有能力以工业规模生产和释放这类化学物质的时代至关重要。
