Science-based restoration monitoring of coastal habitats, Volume Two: Tools for monitoring coastal habitats

Healthy coastal habitats are not only important ecologically; they also support healthy coastal communities and improve the quality of people’s lives. Despite their many benefits and values, coastal habitats have been systematically modified, degraded, and destroyed throughout the United States and its protectorates beginning with European colonization in the 1600’s (Dahl 1990). As a result, many coastal habitats around the United States are in desperate need of restoration. The monitoring of restoration projects, the focus of this document, is necessary to ensure that restoration efforts are successful, to further the science, and to increase the efficiency of future restoration efforts

Searching for GloFish™: Aesthetics, Ethics and Encounters with the Neon Baroque

Copyright © 2014 Pion“Davies, G. 2014. The definitive, peer-reviewed and edited version of this article is published in Environment and Planning A: international journal of urban and regional research, Vol. 46, 2014 DOI: 10.1068/a46271.”Fluorescent zebrafish are the first genetically-modified animals globally, if unevenly, circulated outside of laboratory environments. GloFish™ were developed in Singapore. They are widely sold as popular pets in the United States, but their public sale is banned in Europe and elsewhere. On the trail of these animals, I trace a fragmentary biogeography through ethnographic encounters in the spaces of scientific research, animal exhibits, pet stores and art galleries, in Europe, the USA and Singapore. At each site, as the colour, light and intensities of neon flicker with the potential for life, and concern for animal lives move in and out of focus, I ask: what is the proper way of knowing and living with genetically-altered zebrafish? To ask the question is to open up a conversation about the changing constitution of science and space, representation and reproduction in relation to these new forms of life. To try to answer it demands attention to a baroque patterning of scientific practices, aesthetic sensibilities, ethical responsibilities and political spatialities. In a discursive arena typically characterised by narratives of linearity – whether of scientific progress or slippery slopes – I suggest the affective sensibilities, theatrical qualities and unresolved elements of the baroque offer powerful, if ambivalent, resources for reflection on the intersection between the animating aesthetics and turbulent ethics of postgenomic lif

Trade sustainability impact assessment (SIA) on the comprehensive economic and trade agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada: Final report

Commissioned by the European Commission, the Final Report for the EU-Canada Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) on the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) provides a comprehensive assessment of the potential impacts of trade liberalisation under CETA. The analysis assesses the economic, social and environmental impacts in Canada and the European Union in three main sectors, sixteen sub-sectors and across seven cross-cutting issues. It predicts a number of macro-economic and sector-specific impacts. The macro analysis suggests the EU may see increases in real GDP of 0.02-0.03% in the long-term from CETA, whereas Canada may see increases of 0.18-0.36%. The Investment section of the report suggests these numbers could be higher when factoring in investment increases. At the sectoral level, the study predicts the greatest gains in output and trade to be stimulated by services liberalisation and by the removal of tariffs applied on sensitive agricultural products. It also suggests CETA could have a positive social impact if it includes provisions on the ILO’s Core Labour Standards and Decent Work Agenda. The study also details a variety of impacts in various “cross-cutting” components of CETA. It finds CETA would stimulate investment in Canada, and to a lesser extent in the EU; and finds costs outweigh the benefits of including controversial NAFTA-style investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions in CETA. It predicts potentially imbalanced benefits from a government procurement (GP) chapter. The study assumes CETA will lead to an upward harmonisation in intellectual property rights (IPR) regulations, particularly in Canada, which will have a number of effects. It predicts some notable impacts in terms of competition policy, as well as trade facilitation, free circulation of goods and labour mobility.EU-Canada Sustainability Impact Assessment; SIA; EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement; Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement; CETA; government procurement; investor-state provisions; ISDS; competition policy; Dan Prud'homme; trade impact assessment

Pesticides, Environmental Pollution, and Health

In recent years, people have been exposed to several types of substances with broad spectrum due to the rapidly evolving technology. One of these chemical substance groups are pesticides. Pesticides have been an essential part of agriculture to protect crops and livestock from pest infestations and yield reduction for many decades. Despite their usefulness, pesticides could pose potential risks to food safety, the environment, and all living things. Concern about the environmental impact of repeated pesticide use has prompted research into the environmental fate of these agents, which can emigrate from treated fields to air, other land, and water bodies. The importance of agricultural pesticides for developing countries is undeniable. However, the issue of human health and environmental risks has emerged as a key problem for these countries in accordance to a number of studies. In the last five decades, pesticide usages increased the quantity and improved the quality of food. However, with the increasing amounts of their usage, concern about their adverse effects on nontarget organisms, including human beings, has also grown. The purpose of this publication is to explain the nature of pesticides and their history, classification, risks, and effects on health and the environment

Following the Current: A Bioregional History of the Fox River from the Pleistocene to the Present

In fall 2022, IMSA’s Mod 8 History of the Environment class wrote a book. Specifically and collaboratively, we wrote a bioregional history of the Fox River watershed. Although there are several waterways in the Midwest with the same name, our Fox River originates near Colgate, Wisconsin, northwest of the city of Milwaukee. From its headwaters, the Fox runs due south and then southwest more than 200 miles, before reaching its confluence with the Illinois River near Ottawa. This includes the section flowing two-miles due east of IMSA’s campus, through the city of Aurora. All told, the entire Fox River watershed drains almost 2,700 square miles of Wisconsin and Illinois. As part of this project, students had the opportunity to design a historical research project based on their own interests. Topics ranged from the geological impacts of the Pleistocene Epoch, which ended 13,000 years or so ago, through nineteenth century industrial concerns and twentieth century recreation, to modern issues such as pollution, dam removal proposals, and legal rights for nature. Students also helped with the editing process and book construction, including original cover art and design, author bios, and the collection of appropriate maps and photographs. Four historians—experts in the field of environmental history—read our book and provided review blurbs for the back cover. This bioregional history of the Fox is both unique and incomplete. To date, this is the first academic history of this particular Fox River, making it a valuable contribution to the environmental history of the United States. There is, however, a lot more history to discover along the Fox River. The second edition is planned for fall 2023!https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/history_environment/1004/thumbnail.jp