Socio-metabolic Transitions in Developing Asia

A possible sustainability transition in developing Asia needs to complement the ongoing transition from an agrarian to an industrial socio-ecological regime. As is known from other world regions, an agrarian-industrial transition involves a major increase in material and energy flows (corresponding to a 2-4 fold increase in the demand for raw materials and energy). The socio-metabolic profile of the South-East Asian region still shows relatively low material and energy consumption per capita, suggesting that major growth may follow. Infrastructures that are closely bound-up in bulk material flows (transport, energy and food sectors) will be critical to future developments. The paper illustrates the challenge and potential solutions from a number of case studies.socio-ecological regime, metabolic profile, industrial transformation, developing Asia, sustainability transition

Conceptualizing, observing and influencing socio-ecological transitions

This article creates a meeting ground between two distinct and fairly elaborate research traditions dealing with social “transitions”: the Dutch societal transitions management approach, and the Viennese sociometabolic transitions approach. Sharing a similar understanding of sustainability transitions—namely as major transformational changes of system characteristics—and a background epistemology of complex systems, autopoeisis, and evolutionary mechanisms, they address the subject from different angles: one approach asks how transformative changes happen and what they look like, and the other approach tries answer the question of how to bring them about. The Viennese approach is almost exclusively analytical and deals with a macro (“landscape”) level of human history with a time scale of decades to centuries; the Dutch approach is based on intervention experiences and deals with a shorter time frame (decades) of micro–meso–macro levels of industrial societies. From both their respective angles, they contribute to some of the key questions of sustainability research, namely: how can a transformative change toward sustainability be distinguished from other types of social change? By which mechanisms can obstacles, path dependencies, and adverse interests be overcome? And what are the key persistent problems that call for such a transition

Weibliche Moral und Öffentlichkeit: (Kommentar)

Dieser Beitrag setzt sich mit der These auseinander, daß es keine weibliche Moral gibt, und was als solche erscheint, nur erlerntes Rollenverhalten sei. Zunächst werden historische Bedingungen thematisiert, unter denen Frauen ihr Verhältnis zur Moral gelernt haben. Für unsere Zeit wird eine Fragmentierung der traditionellen Kontrolle des Privaten festgestellt, die neue Entwicklungsperspektiven für die Frauen eröffnet. Durch die neue Öffentlichkeit für Privates wird das Modernisierungsprojekt der Aufklärung weitergeführt: als Ausrottung der Reste der alten Gesellschaft - in der Organisation des Alltags und in den Personen selbst. Die Schlußfolgerung lautet: Soweit es um Moral, um normative Steuerung geht, gibt es keine weibliche Moral, und zwar desto weniger, als traditionelles weibliches Rollenverhalten abnimmt. Soweit es aber um außermoralische, nicht-normative Modi der Verständigung, Konfliktregelung und Verhaltenssteuerung geht, sind die Frauen um eine Nasenlänge voraus. (GF

A Consumption-Based Approach to Carbon Emission Accounting – Sectoral Differences and Environmental Benefits

In recent years there has been growing concern about the emission trade balances of countries. This is due to the fact that countries with an open economy are active players in international trade. Trade is not only a major factor in forging a country’s economic structure, but contributes to the movement of embodied emissions beyond country borders. This issue is especially relevant from the carbon accounting policy and domestic production perspective, as it is known that the production-based principle is employed in the Kyoto agreement. The research described herein was designed to reveal the interdependence of countries on international trade and the corresponding embodied emissions both on national and on sectoral level and to illustrate the significance of the consumption-based emission accounting. It is presented here to what extent a consumption-based accounting would change the present system based on production-based accounting and allocation. The relationship of CO2 emission embodied in exports and embodied in imports is analysed here. International trade can blur the responsibility for the ecological effects of production and consumption and it can lengthen the link between consumption and its consequences. Input-output models are used in the methodology as they provide an appropriate framework for climate change accounting. The analysis comprises an international comparative study of four European countries (Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Hungary) with extended trading activities and carbon emissions. Moving from a production-based approach in climate policy to a consumption-based principle and allocation approach would help to increase the efficiency of emission reductions and would force countries to rethink their trading activities in order to decrease the environmental load of production activities. The results of this study show that it is important to distinguish between the two emission accounting approaches, both on the global and the local level

Solving the At-Most-Once Problem with Nearly Optimal Effectiveness

We present and analyze a wait-free deterministic algorithm for solving the at-most-once problem: how m shared-memory fail-prone processes perform asynchronously n jobs at most once. Our algorithmic strategy provides for the first time nearly optimal effectiveness, which is a measure that expresses the total number of jobs completed in the worst case. The effectiveness of our algorithm equals n-2m+2. This is up to an additive factor of m close to the known effectiveness upper bound n-m+1 over all possible algorithms and improves on the previously best known deterministic solutions that have effectiveness only n-log m o(n). We also present an iterative version of our algorithm that for any $m = O\left(\sqrt[3+\epsilon]{n/\log n}\right)$ is both effectiveness-optimal and work-optimal, for any constant $\epsilon > 0$. We then employ this algorithm to provide a new algorithmic solution for the Write-All problem which is work optimal for any $m=O\left(\sqrt[3+\epsilon]{n/\log n}\right)$.Comment: Updated Version. A Brief Announcement was published in PODC 2011. An Extended Abstract was published in the proceeding of ICDCN 2012. A full version was published in Theoretical Computer Science, Volume 496, 22 July 2013, Pages 69 - 8

Ester Boserup’s Legacy on Sustainability

Arising from a scientific conference marking the 100th anniversary of her birth, this book honors the life and work of the social scientist and diplomat Ester Boserup, who blazed new trails in her interdisciplinary approach to development and sustainability. The contents are organized in three sections reflecting important focal points of Boserup’s own work: Long-Term Socio-Ecological Change; Agriculture, Land Use, and Development; and Gender, Population, and Economy. The diversity of the contributions to this book highlights the continuing impact of Ester Boserup’s work on scientific research today, and its likely influence on research for years to come

Chapitre 1 - Les transitions socio-métaboliques globales

La plupart des recherches socio-écologiques de long terme analysent les interrelations dynamiques entre écosystèmes et sociétés dans des contextes très localisés. Pourtant, les changements technologiques et le développement économique au niveau global ont des impacts significatifs sur les interactions nature-société ayant lieu dans des contextes régionaux spécifiques. Il est donc fondamental de comprendre comm..

Dynamic Localization in Quantum Wires

In the paper the dynamic localization of charged particle (electron) in a quantum wire under the external non-uniform time-dependent electric field is considered. The electrons are trapped in a deep 'dynamic' quantum wells which are the result of specific features of the potential imposed on 2D electron gas: the scale of spatial nonuniformity is much smaller then the electron mean free path (L_1 << \bar{l}) and the frequency is much greater then \tau^{-1}, where \tau is the electron free flight time. As a result, the effect of this field on the charged particle is in a sense equivalent to the effect of a time-independent effective potential, that is a sequence of deep 'dynamic' quantum wells were the elelctrons are confined. The possible consequeces of this effect are also discussed and similarity with the classical Paul traps are emphasized.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figur