The challenge of ecological justice in a globalising world

Ecological justice is a challenging concept in relation to the current development of agriculture, including organic agriculture, because it positions social and ecological interests against market liberalism and economic growth. Ecological justice concerns fairness with respect to common environments, and it is therefore closely connected to the idea of commons. The concepts of commons and ecological justice are particularly relevant to organic agriculture, which builds on close cooperation with ecological systems and cycles, and they may suggest ways to resist the pressures of globalisation and structural and technological developments

Preliminary comments on Title II of the EC Proposal for a new Council regulation on organic production

In response to the conclusions of the European Action Plan for organic food and farming the European Commission has adopted a proposal for a new Council regulation on organic production and labelling of organic products. Although the aim of the new regulation is to improve clarity for both consumers and farmers, stakeholders have raised questions and expressed concerns on various issues of the proposed regulation (for example at the stakeholder conference held on March 27, 2006 by the European Parliament). In order to ensure the most relevant focus for research in Organic Revision, the project has nominated three contested areas that need to be further analysed. Following this refocusing the project (Alrøe and Padel) has provided preliminary comments concerning objectives and principles (Title II) of the EC Proposal for a new regulation. The conclusions are in short: * The term objectives and principles should be defined in article 2. * It should be considered to extend Title II to cover the whole food chain including trade. * Objectives (Art. 3) should be broader. It should include point 5 and 17 in the explanatory memorandum, Article 5b, as well as social objectives. * Principles (Art. 4) should include a systems approach as first priority and not only focus on inputs. * Organic actors and other stakeholders should be involved in formulating objectives and principles. * Further comments must depend on changes in objectives etc

Sustainability assessment and complementarity

Sustainability assessments bring together different perspectives that pertain to sustainability in order to produce overall assessments and a wealth of approaches and tools have been developed in the past decades. But two major problematics remain. The problem of integration concerns the surplus of possibilities for integration; different tools produce different assessments. The problem of implementation concerns the barrier between assessment and transformation; assessments do not lead to the expected changes in practice. This paper aims to analyze issues of complementarity in sustainability assessment and transformation as a key to better handling the problems of integration and implementation. Based on a generalization of Niels Bohr’s complementarity from quantum mechanics, we have identified two forms of complementarity in sustainability assessment, observer stance complementarity and value complementarity. Unlike many other problems of sustainability assessment, complementarity is of a fundamental character connected to the very conditions for observation. Therefore complementarity cannot be overcome methodologically; only handled better or worse. Science is essential to the societal goal of sustainability, but these issues of complementarity impede the constructive role of science in the transition to more sustainable structures and practices in food systems. The agencies of sustainability assessment and transformation need to be acutely aware of the importance of different perspectives and values and the complementarities that may be connected to these differences. An improved understanding of complementarity can help to better recognize and handle issues of complementarity. These deliberations have relevance not only for sustainability assessment, but more generally for transdisciplinary research on wicked problems

Time domain beam propagation method for the simulation of temporal solitons in periodic media

A time domain beam propagation method for the simulation of optical pulses propagating through Kerr-nonlinear structures is presented. The method is verified by simulation of the known solitary wave solutions in nonlinear periodic medi

Innovation Fertility and Patent Design

It may be advantageous to provide a variety of kinds of patent protection to heterogenous innovations. Innovations which benefit society largely through their use as building blocks to future inventions may require a different scope of protection in order to be encouraged. We model the problem of designing an optimal patent menu (scope and length) when the fertility of an innovation in generating more innovations cannot be observed. The menu of patent scope can be implemented with mandated buyout fees. Evidence of heterogeneous fertility and patent obsolescence, keys to the model, are presented using patent data from the US.