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The book Changing society? focuses on the relationship of humans and environment as perceived by different science branches, mainly social sciences and humanities (philosophy, culturology, ethnography, art history, regional or environmental studies). The authors were asked for the question, whether there is some shift in the society towards the environmental friendliness or sustainability, briefly shift towards pro‑environmental society? The title of the book refers to the title of the conference Our Common Present: Changing society? held at Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic on March 23rd 2012. The relationship between society and environment is no longer the domain of solely natural or technical sciences. It is more and more obvious that social sciences and humanities can bring new knowledge of the social relation to the environment. In our case, they can inquiry into the processes and changes in this socio‑environmental relationship. Various approaches are presented in this book. Jan Vávra and Miloslav Lapka edited six chapters with different topics, but with the aim to show complementarities of the main problem dealing with the society and its environment. In the first chapter Carbon footprint of rural and urban households in South Bohemia Jan Vávra, Miloslav Lapka and Eva Cudlínová focus on the carbon footprint of the 500 households from South Bohemia Region. The data were obtained through questionnaire survey and analysed in six categories: heating, electricity, car using, public transport, flights and food consumption. The differences between rural and urban households are mostly not significant. Using the research data and preparatory State energy conception authors also tried to think about the future trends in carbon emissions of households in the Czech Republic. In chapter called Public administration as one of regional sustainable development agents in accordance with Triple Helix concept authors Martin Zielina, Dana Pokorná and Veronika Kainzová asked for two questions: Who belongs to the agents of development at the regional level and what degree of influence is given to them from the perspective of regional representatives? Based on the questionnaire survey among regional representatives authors investigate the regional governance through the concept of Triple Helix and conclude that the communication and cooperation between the government, university and industry actors is not sufficient. Mária Pákozdiová and Markéta Šantrůčková in their chapter Maintenance of traditions versus globalization tendencies on example of Czech ethnicity in Romanian Banat region deal with the problem of the relationship between the local community and globalization tendencies and the ways of transformation or maintenance of local traditions in globalized environment. The Czech villages in the Banát region are relatively traditional, anyway even in these villages the trends of modernization take place. One of the distinct manifestations of globalization tendencies is the build‑up of wind power plants, which is currently in progress in the cadastral territory of Svatá Helena and which will probably strongly affect the landscape character and possibly also the tourism. New concerns with regard to science and higher education in the context of sustainable development – changes of paradigms, or simply idealistic visions? is the name of the chapter by Jana Dlouhá. She deals with the so called third role of universities, connected with the demand for their social involvement, especially with regard to environmental problems and sustainability. The chapter discusses the chances and threats of the science‑policy interface and presents some examples of the construction of boundary objects which help to discuss the problems with different stakeholders. Václav Soukup in his chapter Nature, man and culture in ecological perspective presents ecological and environm |
