Do our imaginations of real landscapes get affected by works of art such as paintings, myths and literature? They often give very colourful descriptions in words as well as pictures. Do they actually change our feelings for the landscapes we are in and carry around as images inside? Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Imagine that you are leaning against a wooden fence a mild summer evening.

This essay examines the environmental ideological direction of the Swedish parliamentary parties through the private members motions directed to the committee of industry and trade and the committee of environment and agriculture during the governmental time from 2002 to 2006.The environmental ideologies explained is anthropocentrism, ecocentrism and biocentrism. Based on the ideas of these three ideologies main points the private members motions directed to the committee of industry and trade and the committee of environment and agriculture, also matching the search words environment and energy, was compared and analysed.What has emerged is that all parliamentary parties express a desire to create an energy production and producing guide lines which are stringent environmentally and matches the safety requirements. Although the approach to environmental and safety standards differ significantly between them. Basically all Swedish parliamentary parties are more or less anthropocentric in its arguments, which in short terms means that they estimate natures and animals value through their usability for humans or based on their contribution to human feelings of wellbeing.The Centre Party and the Green Party shows hints of weak ecocentrism because in many cases they put animal intrinsic value high, but the human value higher. Moderates are predominantly anthropocentric but they also express some hint of biocentrism in one statement concerning research in order to reduce and rebuild environmentally destroyed areas.

The subject-matter of the following essay is to investigate the relationship between what is commonly called Deep Ecology or Biocentric Philosophy, as articulated by the co-founder of the Deep Ecology Movement, Arne Naess, and later proponents of the biocentric school of environmentalist thought. I contrast Naess? concept of Self-realization as founded in his Ecosophy T to the ideas of american conservationist and co-founder of the radical green movement Earth First! Dave Foreman, and to the controversial finnish environmentalist and ecofascist Pentti Linkola?s ideological agenda of population-reduction respectively.According to some critics of the movement, especially the social ecologist Murray Bookchin and French liberal philosopher Luc Ferry, the Deep Ecology ideology is essentially misanthropic and totalitarian in structure. A central idea among deep ecologists is that ecosystems and natural entities have intrinsic value in themselves, even outside a human social context. This idea is thought of among deep ecologists to create a philosophically sound basis for counteracting the environmental global crisis.

Organic agriculture is financially promoted in Sweden by special environmental support and as consumers we are all encouraged to buy organic food. At the same time scholars at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences claim that organic farming does not provide any environmental benefits. The main criticism is that organic farming has lower yields than conventional, which means that more land is needed to produce the same amount of food as in conventional farming, leading to deforestation and loss of biodiversity. As for climate change, the critics claim that the significantly higher productivity in conventional crop production compared to organic, releases surplus land, which could be used for bio-fuel production and thereby replace the fossil fuels. The critics also claim that organic farming causes higher nutrient leaching than conventional.

Climate changes today are mainly caused by anthropogenic activities and the increased emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and this has raised questions on how to reduce the usage of fossil fuels. Ethanol is a good alternative to conventional gas and has been used in Brazil since the 1970 ?s. In Sweden several newspapers has written about the poor working conditions on many farms thus making the Swedish company SEKAB design a certification for their ethanol to ensure that it can be considered to be a sustainable alternative.Furthermore WWF has developed a certification tool called Bonsucro in cooperation with Coca Cola, Ferrero group, BP and Shell. This is due to the fact that no global certification tool has been available up until now.

In the 19th century, photography was often employed in attempts to objectively capture evidence of paranormal phenomena. With the advent of television, this tradition came to be coupled with the apparent mystery of distant communication through electromagnetic waves. The television set has often been depicted as intrinsically occult or even haunted.It is therefore natural that television has proven to be an ideal medium to present beliefs, tales, and investigations about paranormal phenomena. Most such presentations have been openly ficticious, but in television the distinction between fact and fiction is often blurred, and the emergence of shows where the crew claims to pursue a serious investigation was inevitable. One of the most successful such shows is the British Most Haunted, airing since 2001.

Today?s climate research shows that the climate may increase its temperature. One sector that is being threatened by global warming is the winter tourism of the Swedish municipality A?re. Tourism is an important economical source of income in A?re and is now threatened by a shortened winter season.

The objective of this study was to uncover what aspects of urban plazas and parks that are most important for users? evaluations of places? aesthetics and microclimate (the characteristic climate for a limited space). This was done by investigating people?s general ideas of plazas and parks (the prototypical concepts) and compare these with place users? descriptions of four specific places. Interviews with two groups (31 and 24 persons respectively) were carried out in order to collect this information.

In today?s hectic society more and more people experience stress and our lifestyle gives us a very limited chance to recover. For some it sometimes goes that far that they get burnt-out, they have pushed themselves to the ultimate limit. There are different methods and treatments to recover but one very efficient treatment is to spend time in a rehabilitation garden. There the patients get treated by therapeutics that uses the garden as the main tool.The fact that gardens and parks have a positive effect on humans have been used by people for a long time but it?s not until recently that the research has taken speed.

AimOur aim with this study was to examine how outdoor education is designed and experienced in three upper (senior) levels of compulsory school in Stockholm, and to compare it with the Norwegian equivalence.MethodOur method has been interviews with ten teachers, of whom six are Swedish teachers and four are Norwegian teachers. Two Swedish teachers are teaching in other subjects than Physical Education, four are teachers in Physical Education, two are teachers in Norway in Physical Education at and two are teachers in Norway at university level. Questionnaires were used to examine the Swedish pupils? attitudes towards outdoor education. 90 questionnaires were delivered, and 70 answered them.

Use of lighting is crucial to make public urban places available during dark hours. Landscape architects participate in planning of lighting, but during our education there is very little taught on the subject. Through this study we approach the subject of lighting by looking into lighting methods for urban plant materials during winter. In this thesis we look into ways to emphasize the visible characters and experiences of urban plants during winter season using light. Target audience are landscape architect students and landscape architects without knowledge of lighting. The part of the thesis that describe basic conditions for, and visual characters of plants can be useful to lighting designers without knowledge in this subject. Working methods used were the following: ? Pre-study about light and lighting techniques through literature and dialogues. ? Compiling important visual winter plant characters through photography and literature. ? Outdoor light experiments with plants.

Our aim is to create a greater understanding for how Växjö Municipality is working with their vision, strategy and brand, and also how it is perceived by the business sector. This understanding will help us to highlight success factors and pitfalls that exist in the creation, implementation, and maintenance of a municipality?s identity, image and profile to convince the business sector to follow.Methodology: We have been using an abductive and qualitative research-method in which semi-structured interviews have been the basis of our empirical material. We had interviews with three employees, a communication manager and the mayor at Växjö Municipality as well as four organizations and two companies with sustainable focus. We did this to get different perspectives and thereby get a greater understanding.Analysis & conclusion: We have been able to identify both success factors and pitfalls in Växjö Municipality's strategic sustainability work.

Background: Today, It?s not uncommon that international companies and organizations have a higher turnover than the GDP of developing countries. Consequently, this may suggest that the choices companies make in the context of their business has a great potential to influence the world from an economic, but also from a social and environmental standpoint. From this the notion emerged that companies have a responsibility, referred to as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). A clear definition of the CSR concept is difficult to find, more than 37 different definitions has been identified.

Bakgrund och problem: Under de senaste 20 åren har en global oro växt kring konsumtionens påverkan på miljön. Faktorer som den globala uppvärmningen, hål i ozonlagret samt katastrofer som Tjernobyl var några av drivkrafterna. Historiskt börjar nu den gröna marknadsföringen att framträda på marknaden. Den delades in i tre faser varav en fas representerar marknadsföring av miljövänliga produkter, designade för att främja en hållbar konsumtion (Mishra & Sharmra, 2012). Det är dock under 2000-talet som konsumenternas miljömedvetenhet leder till en ekologisk trend och livsstil.

Under de senaste åren har samhällets oro för världens miljötillstånd växt och gett upphov till en så kallad grön marknadsföring. Miljö är ett svårt ämne att kommunicera på grund av dess breda omfattning och svårigheterna som finns med att förenkla informationen utan att tappa helhetsförståelsen. Stora samhällsaktörer såsom företag och statliga organisationer har ett ansvar för förändringsarbetet i och med att de kan visa vägen för en grönare social norm och kollektivt agerande. En kvantitativ studie av miljökommunikationsteori som den beskrivs i litteraturen har utförts, dess praktiska tillämpning har sedan undersökts kvalitativt genom fallstudier av två organisationers miljökommunikation. Studien söker svar på vilka skillnader som finns mellan företags och kommuners miljökommunikationsprocess samt hur den kan förbättras för att åstadkomma positiva beteendeförändringar i samhället och därmed ta steg mot en hållbar utveckling.