Concrete utopianism in integrated assessment models: Discovering the philosophy of the shared socioeconomic pathways

The Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) are at the forefront of climate change science today. As an influential methodology and method, the SSPs guide the framing of numerous climate change research questions and how these are investigated. Although the SSPs were developed by an interdisciplinary group of scientists in a well-documented process, there is no apparent consensus in the literature that answers the question, "What is the philosophy of science behind the SSPs?" To investigate, the paper applies a systematic thematic qualitative content analysis to the dataset of published papers that establish the rules and expectations for using the SSPs. The research determines that there is no obvious and concise statement on the epistemological and ontological foundation of the SSPs. However, based on the evidence identified in the dataset, SSPs are implicitly, though not explicitly, consistent with a critical realist and concrete utopian philosophy as coined by Roy Bhaskar. This is the first paper to discuss the philosophical underpinning of the SSPs

Planning the Circular City: Focus on Buildings' Environmental Impact

Circular City initiatives to implement circular economy goals are expanding in Europe. This article provides the nascent Circular City movement with a rationale and motivation to target existing buildings and cultural heritage buildings. The article argues that Circular City initiatives should aim to achieve low-carbon development; less construction and demolition wastes; improving energy efficiency; and improving resource efficiency in the buildings sector in line with European Union policy goals

Low-Carbon Futures for Bioethylene in the United States

The manufacture of the chemical ethylene, a key ingredient in plastics, currently depends on fossil-fuel-derived carbon and generates significant greenhouse gas emissions. Substituting ethylene's fossil fuel feedstock with alternatives is important for addressing the challenge of global climate change. This paper compares four scenarios for meeting future ethylene supply under differing societal approaches to climate change based on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways. The four scenarios use four perspectives: (1) a sustainability-focused pathway that demands a swift transition to a bioeconomy within 30 years; (2) a regional energy-focused pathway that supports broad biomass use; (3) a fossil-fuel development pathway limited to corn grain; and (4) a fossil-fuel development pathway limited to corn grain and corn stover. Each scenario is developed using the latest scientifically informed future feedstock analyses from the 2016 Billion-Ton report interpreted with perspectives on the future of biomass from recent literature. The intent of this research is to examine how social, economic, and ecological changes determining ethylene supply fit within biophysical boundaries. This new approach to the ethylene feedstocks conundrum finds that phasing out fossil fuels as the main source of U.S. ethylene is possible if current cellulosic ethanol production expands

Ethylene Supply in a Fluid Context: Implications of Shale Gas and Climate Change

The recent advent of shale gas in the U.S. has redefined the economics of ethylene manufacturing globally, causing a shift towards low-cost U.S. production due to natural gas feedstock, while reinforcing the industry's reliance on fossil fuels. At the same time, the global climate change crisis compels a transition to a low-carbon economy. These two influencing factors are complex, contested, and uncertain. This paper projects the United States' (U.S.) future ethylene supply in the context of two megatrends: the natural gas surge and global climate change. The analysis models the future U.S. supply of ethylene in 2050 based on plausible socio-economic scenarios in response to climate change mitigation and adaptation pathways as well as a range of natural gas feedstock prices. This Vector Error Correction Model explores the relationships between these variables. The results show that ethylene supply increased in nearly all modeled scenarios. A combination of lower population growth, lower consumption, and higher natural gas prices reduced ethylene supply by 2050. In most cases, forecasted CO2 emissions from ethylene production rose. This is the first study to project future ethylene supply to go beyond the price of feedstocks and include socio-economic variables relevant to climate change mitigation and adaptation

Circular economy strategies for adaptive reuse of cultural heritage buildings to reduce environmental impacts

Circular economy strategies seek to reduce the total resources extracted from the environment and reduce the wastes that human activities generate in pursuit of human wellbeing. Circular Economy concepts are well suited to the building and construction sector in cities. For example, refurbishing and adaptively reusing underutilized or abandoned buildings can revitalize neighborhoods whilst achieving environmental benefits. Cultural heritage buildings hold a unique niche in the urban landscape. In addition to shelter, they embody the local cultural and historic characteristics that define communities. Therefore, extending their useful lifespan has multiple benefits that extend beyond the project itself to the surrounding area, contributing to economic and social development. To explore this complex issue, the research applies systematic literature review and synthesis methods. Decision makers lack knowledge of the environmental benefits of adaptive reuse of cultural heritage buildings and lack tools to implement these projects. A new comprehensive circular economy framework for the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage buildings to reduce environmental impacts intends to meet these needs. The framework integrates methods and techniques from the building and construction literature that aim to reduce lifecycle environmental impact of buildings with a circular product supply chain approach

The Energy Sector and Groundwater

No abstract available

Half in/half out: exploring the experiences of the families of prisoners in a Scottish prison visitors' centre

The research upon which this thesis is based aims to build on a rich and growing body of work about how imprisonment affects, is practiced by, and structures families with a loved one in prison. It aims to do this by contributing to knowledge on the lived experiences of prison visiting for the families of prisoners, who were until recently largely overlooked in prisons scholarship. In turn, this thesis aims to shed light on families’ overall experience of the imprisonment of a loved one(s). The research underpinning this thesis involved eliciting the experiences of families, through carrying out ethnographic observation and qualitative interviews in a unique field-site, the Visitors’ Centre at HMP Edinburgh, over a nine-month period (during 2014-2015). This thesis builds on the literature that documents the many negative effects of imprisonment for the families of those confined, particularly through its exploration of how imprisonment alters the space and time of families. This thesis notes that these myriad negative impacts require considered attention and action. Yet, this thesis also makes a key and critical argument that the experience of imprisonment for many families should be considered within the broader context of their lives. These families’ lives are often characterised by not only imprisonment(s), but by structural disadvantage, and by the presence and experience of varied and intrusive state interventions. This thesis argues that each of these too are often experienced as imprisoning, and in turn questions whether a focus exclusively on the pains specific to familial imprisonment- in scholarship, policy, and practice- risks encouraging a continuing focus on the prison as both the only cause of, and main site for finding solutions, to family difficulties

Capturing Accuracy in Second Language Performance: The Case for a Weighted Clause Ratio

As increasing numbers of research papers in applied linguistics, language learning and assessment use discourse analysis techniques to assess accuracy in performance, it is timely to examine at a detailed level the wide variety of measures employed. Ideally, measures need to capture accuracy in as valid and reliable a way as possible, but this has proved elusive. In this paper, we systematically review the variety of different measures in used in these fields, both global and local, before presenting a more finely tuned weighted clause ratio measure which classifies errors at different levels, i.e. those that seriously impede communication, those that impair communication to some degree, and those that do not impair communication at all. The problem of reliably identifying these levels is discussed, followed by an analysis of samples from written and spoken L2 performance data. This new measure, grounded in a comprehensive review of prior practice in the field, has the advantages of being relatively easy to use, of measuring accuracy rather than error, and of evaluating smaller increases in improved performance than have previously been possible