Income, inequality, and criteria air pollutants in the CAMA counties

Socioeconomic factors have long been incorporated into environmental research to examine the effects of human dimensions on coastal natural resources. Boyce (1994) proposed that inequality is a cause of environmental degradation and the Environmental Kuznets Curve is a proposed relationship that income or GDP per capita is related with initial increases in pollution followed by subsequent decreases (Torras and Boyce, 1998). To further examine this relationship within the CAMA counties, the emission of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, as measured by the EPA in terms of tons emitted, the Gini Coefficient, and income per capita were examined for the year of 1999. A quadratic regression was utilized and the results did not indicate that inequality, as measured by the Gini Coefficient, was significantly related to the level of criteria air pollutants within each county. Additionally, the results did not indicate the existence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. Further analysis of spatial autocorrelation using ArcMap 9.2, found a high level of spatial autocorrelation among pollution emissions indicating that relation to other counties may be more important to the level of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions than income per capita and inequality. Lastly, the paper concludes that further Environmental Kuznets Curve and income inequality analyses in regards to air pollutant levels incorporate spatial patterns as well as other explanatory variables. (PDF contains 4 pages

Becoming a Nun, Becoming a Man: Taiwanese Buddhist Nuns’ Gender Transformation

This paper explores apparent contradictions in the gender identifications of Taiwanese Buddhist nuns. Because the texts and teachings of their tradition provide conflicting messages about women\u27s spiritual abilities, the nuns create a complex gender cosmology as a means to accommodate textual contradictions without rejecting any textual statements. This strategy allows the nuns to assert that they have spiritual abilities equal to those of men without rejecting or contradicting textual statements that they do not. Without denying that they are women (and that they are therefore threatening to men) the nuns primarily identify with the male gender. Compartmentalizing and contextualizing gender symbols allows the nuns to see themselves both as men and as women without contradiction

Cacao’s Relationship with Mesoamerican Society

We know what we eat, but do we eat what we know? Our diet extends far beyond nutrients and food availability—we imbue food with cultural significance. The meaning and use of a particular food is subject to change over time, but the fact that it holds a place in society remains constant. Improving technologies and intensified globalization have dispersed foods across the world and through time. An excellent example of such a food is Theobroma cacao L., now commonly known as chocolate (for a brief history of the plant, see McNeil 2006:1-28). It has a long history in human culture. By examining how it was first used, we can gain insight to an evolution of its meaning and eventually larger ideas on food studies. Cacao had great religious, political, and social weight in the Mesoamerican region. There is considerable evidence for the ritual use of cacao among the Preclassic Maya, and its role as noteworthy political currency appears to increase by Late Classic times, reflected in the vessels themselves and their archaeological contexts. The Preclassic era lasted from 2000 BC-AD 200 and the Classic from AD 200-700. I argue that while the ritual use and significance of cacao remained constant throughout time, the cacao-containing vessels, or “chocolate pots”, became recognized as powerful social objects unto themselves. In order to demonstrate this idea, this paper will discuss the ecology of cacao, Mesoamerican preparation, political and social elements, cacao pots, religious and ritual contexts, and cacao as a political currency

Resistance through Transformation? The Meanings of Gender Reversals in a Taiwanese Buddhist Monastery

This chapter demonstrates that Taiwanese Buddhist nuns resist the limitations of traditional Han gender ideologies by drawing on opportunities offered within those traditional gender constructions—opportunities that allow them to define themselves in opposition to the limited female gender characteristics and roles they reject. Crane argues that we should not interpret these nuns\u27 masculine identification simply as resisting dominant Han gender ideologies. Instead, the nuns embrace the traditional, sexist Han ideologies, even to the point of exaggeration—portraying women not only as dangerous to the spiritual cultivation of others, but also of limited spiritual ability. They define the negative characteristics of women as stemming from the roles that they have within the family, and having freed themselves of these familial roles in order to become nuns, define themselves as quite different from women who exhibit these negative characteristics. As these nuns are informed by other aspects of traditional Han gender cosmology, particularly by their conceptualization of genders as correlative rather than binary, changing gender is relatively easy for them. In analyzing the nuns\u27 statements about their gender change as well as their repeated references to religious, historical and mythical figures who change from women to men and serve as role models for the nuns, Crane draws on the works of historians, philosophers, and anthropologists to show that in the correlative model, genders are fluid and defined by the embodiment of the yin and yang analogy. A female in a yang position becomes, for all intents and purposes, a man. In this way, the nuns are able to imagine themselves as men in every way that is spiritually important and reject the female constraints they perceive as hingering their religious progress. This correlative gender model provides the possibility for a woman to imagine herself to be a man, provided she adheres to certain rules and has certain statuses. In this model, gender is related (but not affixed) to the sex of one\u27s body and is more accurately thought of as a product of one\u27s relationships than as a description of what one truly is

Resisting Marriage and Renouncing Womanhood: The Choice of Taiwanese Buddhist Nuns

The traditional Chinese perception of Buddhist monastics is that they choose to renounce the world out of desperation — after failing in the world such that their only options are suicide or the monastery. That this perception of the monastic life persists in Taiwan today is evident in monastics’ own descriptions of their families’ responses to their choice as well as in several recent scandals related to monastic life. Despite the widespread negative perception of monastics, increasing numbers of women are choosing this life. Drawing on extensive fieldwork with relatively new monastics, the author explores the choice Buddhist nuns make to renounce the world they know (and the possibility of leading lives like their mothers, sisters, and friends) and instead embrace the monastic life despite its negative image. The author argues that the nuns’ choice is but a contemporary manifestation of a long-standing tradition of marriage resistance in Chinese culture and explains that, in the process of rejecting their lives as wives and mothers, Taiwanese Buddhist nuns reject their identities as women altogether

The Corporate Purpose of Social License

This Article deploys the sociological theory of social license, or the acceptance of a business or organization by the relevant communities and stakeholders, in the context of the board of directors and corporate governance. Corporations are generally treated as “private” actors and thus are regulated by “private” corporate law. This construct allows for considerable latitude. Corporate actors are not, however, solely “private.” They are the beneficiaries of economic and political power, and the decisions they make have impacts that extend well beyond the boundaries of the entities they represent. Using Wells Fargo and Uber as case studies, this Article explores how the failure to account for the public nature of corporate actions, regardless of whether a “legal” license exists, can result in the loss of “social” license. This loss occurs through publicness, which is the interplay between inside corporate governance players and outside actors who report on, recapitulate, reframe and, in some cases, control the company’s information and public perception. The theory of social license is that businesses and other entities exist with permission from the communities in which they are located, as well as permission from the greater community and outside stakeholders. In this sense, businesses are social, not just economic, institutions and, thus, they are subject to public accountability and, at times, public control. Social license derives not from legally granted permission, but instead from the development of legitimacy, credibility, and trust within the relevant communities and stakeholders. It can prevent demonstrations, boycotts, shutdowns, negative publicity, and the increases in regulation that are a hallmark of publicness — but social license must be earned with consistent trustworthy behavior. Thus, social license is bilateral, not unilateral, and should be part of corporate strategy and a tool for risk management and managing publicness more generally. By focusing on and deploying social license and publicness in the context of board decision-making, this Article adds to the discussions in the literature from other disciplines, such as the economic theory on reputational capital, and provides boards with a set of standards with which to engage and address the publicness of the companies they represent. Discussing, weighing, and developing social license is not just in the zone of what boards can do, but is something they should do, making it a part of strategic, proactive cost-benefit decision-making. Indeed, the failure to do so can have dramatic business consequences

Disclosure\u27s Purpose

The United States securities regulatory infrastructure requires disclosure of a wide array of information both by and about covered companies. The basic purpose of the disclosures is to level the playing field – for investors, for issuers, and for the public. Although investor protection is the disclosure goal often touted, this article develops the purposes of disclosure extending beyond investors to issuers and the public. Indeed, the disclosure system is designed to level the playing field for issuers— addressing confidentiality concerns, for example. In addition, the system helps to promote confidence in the markets, which, in turn, enables growth and innovation by creating access to capital – goals important to issuers. Yet, as importantly, the system also protects the public more broadly. After all, the harms of market crashes and other disruptions are not confined to investors and issuers – despite the fact that writing in this space focuses largely on them. Disclosure’s purpose, then, is to diminish asymmetries and the space for fraud, both for those within the entity and for the public affected by the entity. To achieve these purposes, the system depends on gatekeepers, like corporate directors who are assigned a role in effectively managing the purpose and consequences of disclosure. Doing so requires them take ownership of both the ensuing internal discourse between the entity, its insiders, and its owners, as well as the external discourse with the entity’s public stakeholders and the public more generally. When directors do so, the resulting discourse and candor helps to ensure the purposes of disclosure are met. This article examines the purpose and regulation of this discourse, emphasizing the role of the board of directors and its attention to public stakeholders and the public, with a particular focus on omissions. The article proceeds as follows. Part I explores the purposes of disclosure in corporate discourse and how disclosure requirements are designed to transmit information. As we will see, the securities disclosure regime aims to address a broad range of issues -- from fairness to market competitiveness. Part II develops the omissions theory in the context of the purposes of disclosure, as well as explicating their role in corporate discourse. Part III turns to the board and its responsibilities with respect to the purposes of securities disclosures and corporate discourse, with a particular emphasis on omissions and candor, and deployng some case studies to develop the theories further. Part IV analyzes the relationship between directors, disclosure (and its purpose) and omissions, and publicness, tying the information-forcing-substance theory to director gatekeeping and explicating how it can result in more thorough disclosure outcomes for investors, issuers, and the public – and thereby, fulfill disclosure’s purpose