Minority Stress and Barriers to Parental Support for 2SLGBTQIA+ Youth: Differences Observed Between Transgender and Cisgender Youth

2SLGBTQIA+ youth are especially reliant on their parents for emotional and instrumental support, but even supportive parents encounter barriers that make it difficult to provide adequate support to their children. Meyer’s minority stress model emphasizes the protective effect of social support, and the impact of parental support on the wellbeing of 2SLGBTQIA+ youth is well documented, but there is less research on what factors can bolster parental support. This study examines how parental support manifests and what factors influence it, as well as what interventions can improve parental support and acceptance, specifically in a rural context, by interviewing parents of 2SLGBTQIA+ youth in two urban-rural counties in Southwestern Ontario. Parents mention needing more local resources, including knowledgeable and educated healthcare providers, 2SLGBTQIA+ support groups for youth and parents, accessible information on 2SLGBTQIA+ related issues and experiences, gender affirming care without having to travel, and affordable mental health services. This study supports previous literature that has indicated the importance of expanding education for healthcare professionals to ensure they provide equitable and knowledgeable care to 2SLGBTQIA+ people and their families. It also suggests the implementation of local solutions such as the creation of support groups and 2SLGBTQIA+ resource centres. Improving local 2SLGBTQIA+ resources and cultural competency of providers will, in turn, supply parents with more relevant information and guidance while they learn to better support their 2SLGBTQIA+ children

ASSESSING DISSOLVED ORGANIC MATTER SOURCES AND DYNAMICS IN URBAN STORMWATER: IMPLICATIONS FOR GREENHOUSE GASES

Stormwater management ponds (SWMPs) are important aspects of land-use planning and increasingly recognized as active sites of biogeochemical processing that influence carbon cycling; however, little research has investigated the controls on dissolved organic and dissolved inorganic carbon (DOC and DIC) within these systems. This thesis examined the processing and transformations of dissolved carbon between three compartments to support the development of a greenhouse gas (GHG) box-model for urban stormwater ponds, including SWMP sediment, surface water, and vegetation. The objective of this thesis was to assess the biogeochemical processes that govern the rate and transformation of DOC and DIC between these compartments, contextualized through the sources and partitioning of dissolved organic matter (DOM) between different carbon pools. Transformations of carbon between the sediment, surface water, and vegetation were observed through in-situ and laboratory-based experiments for a residential (Activa) and industrial (Wabanaki) SWMP in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Sediment porewater DOC and DIC concentrations were consistently higher and more variable in the inlet forebay (IFB) compared to the main basin (MB) and outlet (OMB), with elevated concentrations observed at Wabanaki compared to Activa. Seasonal patterns were observed and reflected by increased hydrologic inputs and organic matter loading, with higher DOC and DIC concentrations and humic-dominated DOM during spring and fall. Laboratory and in-situ estimates of sediment-water carbon fluxes varied, with in-situ approaches yielding more conservative (i.e., lower-bound) carbon fluxes than lab approaches, related to a decreased concentration gradient between compartments. In-situ approaches provided the most representative assessment of sediment-water carbon exchange and was best suited for GHG modelling. Vegetation composition varied by catchment and influenced DOC leaching dynamics. Aquatic, emergent, and terrestrial plants were used in a laboratory leaching experiment; the terrestrial plant leached 1.3 times and 2.0 times more DOC compared to the emergent and aquatic plants, respectively. When scaled to biomass density, the emergent plant exhibited an estimated DOC flux that was 116 times higher than that of the aquatic plant; however, these estimates did not account for differences in the carbon sequestration potential of these species across plant life stages. Carbon uptake and storage typically increase during periods of growth and peak biomass, while DOC release may increase during senescence and decomposition; therefore, DOC flux estimates from plant leachates may not reflect the net carbon balance of these species over their full lifecycle. Vegetation-derived DOM was of similar composition to upper sediment porewater, influenced by fresh, labile organics. Catchment type, pond design, season, and vegetation presence were identified as being major controls on carbon processing in SWMPs. These findings will be used to inform future GHG models for urban SWMPs and support the development of best management strategies and SWMP design criteria to enable the sequestration of GHGs through stormwater infrastructure

Review of “The Politics of Command: Lieutenant-General A.G.L. McNaughton and the Canadian Army, 1939–1943” by John Rickard

Review of The Politics of Command: Lieutenant-General A.G.L. McNaughton and the Canadian Army, 1939–1943 by John Rickar

Review of “War, Disability and Rehabilitation in Britain: ‘Soul of a Nation’” by Julie Anderson

Review of War, Disability and Rehabilitation in Britain: ‘Soul of a Nation’ by Julie Anderso

In the Line of Fire: Military Emissions, the National Security Exemption and NATO Expansion in Climate Governance

The end of the Cold War with the peace dividend and the establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Earth Summit in 1992 created the ideal conditions for international cooperation on the threat of global warming. However, thirty years later, greenhouse gas emissions and military spending have risen to record levels and climate change is getting worse. My dissertation puts military emissions, the national security exemption, and the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) “in the line of fire” and critically examines them in the context of global climate governance. I use a multimethod, qualitative research design that includes archival and Access to Information (ATI) records, field work, and interviews to investigate the international and national governance of military emissions. My primary research question is: How are military emissions governed? Militaries use vast amounts of fossil fuel and public funding for training and combat, but there has been a lack of oversight and transparency of their climate impacts. As well, military emissions are largely exempt from national mitigation plans. I use critical theory and critical discourse analysis that are framed by the salient concepts of primacy, security, militarism, and alliances to interpret the extensive material that I collected. With the archives from the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and the Library of Congress along with substantial supplementary material, I construct a historical narrative to show how and why the United States negotiated an exemption for military emissions at the third Conference of the Parties (COP) in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. The documents reveal that the Clinton-Gore administration pursued a national security provision to exempt military emissions as it contemporaneously planned the expansion of the military alliance that it dominates. My research uncovers the individuals, institutions, and interests that were involved and traces the geopolitical and climate impacts. This historical analysis is complemented by field work at the COPs in Glasgow in 2021, Sharm el-Sheikh in 2022, and Dubai in 2023, where I investigated how the UNFCCC governs military emissions and how civil society organizations advocate for greater oversight. As well, I assess NATO’s governance of military emissions. Using ATI documents, I examine how Canada manages military emissions and carbon disclosure in defence procurement. In 1993, the Clinton-Gore administration launched the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program, which later evolved into the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the costliest, most carbon-intensive weapons system in history. Air superiority and allied interoperability have been central to NATO strategy after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, but this has led to carbon lock-in. In the post-Cold War period, allies have used coercive air power to conduct interventions, which have had grave impacts on the targeted countries and the climate. I also critique the military’s “green defence” and net-zero plans as governing practices. The Clinton-Gore administration’s decision to exempt military emissions intersected with and was contingent upon the expansion of the U.S.-led military alliance, which has been consequential for climate governance. The war in Ukraine has focused attention and increased research on the climate damage of the military and the social cost of carbon from conflict, but the roots of the tragic war stem from NATO enlargement in the 1990s. I conclude that a new climate of peace and cooperation, through demilitarization and environmental peacebuilding, is urgently needed for the effective governance of military emissions and to ensure human security and survival as the climate crisis dangerously accelerates

Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse

Book Review Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse Luke Kemp Alfred A. Knopf, 202

Review of “Militia Myths: Ideas of the Canadian Citizen Soldier, 1896–1921” by James Wood

Review of Militia Myths: Ideas of the Canadian Citizen Soldier, 1896–1921 by James Woo

Science Fiction Cinema and the Technological Sublime: Spectacle and the Infinite from Early Cinema to Digital

This dissertation examines how science fiction cinema constructs and reimagines the technological sublime in the twentieth century: the experience of awe, terror, and admiration provoked by human-made power and scale. Drawing on the philosophical foundations of the sublime in Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant and extending through Leo Marx’s and David E. Nye’s theorization of the technological sublime, I propose an aesthetic mode in which representation inflected with affect translates technological spectacle into examinations of humanity’s role and agency in the face of overwhelming technologized worlds and in some cases, even the universe itself. Through three distinct historical periods across the science fiction genre, the dissertation traces this phenomenon’s evolution. Pre-1950 films such as Georges Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon (1902), Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), and William Cameron Menzies’ Things to Come (1936) transformed the awe once reserved for natural landscapes into monumental visions of factories, electrified cities, and vast industrial infrastructures. Mid-century cinema repositioned the sublime around space rockets, nuclear weapons, and cosmic exploration, staging temporal as well as spatial immensity in films from Eugène Lourie’s The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Franklin J. Schaffner’s Planet of the Apes (both 1968). By the 1980s and 1990s, the locus of technological fascination shifted again as CGI produced new immaterial forms of spectacle in works centred on virtual reality such as Steven Lisberger’s Tron (1982), Brett Leonard’s The Lawnmower Man (1992), and Robert Longo’s Johnny Mnemonic (1995). By demonstrating how science fiction film continually redefines the sites of the sublime, this dissertation shows that cinema does not merely document technological change but actively shapes how audiences feel and conceptualize it. The technological sublime persists as a mutable aesthetic and cultural force, shifting from factories to rockets to cyberspace, yet always retaining its core experience, one that negotiates the boundary between human reason and the incredible power of technology

Review of “Maple Leaf Empire: Britain, Canada, and the Two World Wars” by Jonathan F. Vance

Review of Maple Leaf Empire: Britain, Canada, and the Two World Wars by Jonathan F. Vanc