Distributed degrowth technology: Challenges for blockchain beyond the green economy

This commentary considers the challenges and trade-offs in using blockchain as the facilitating digital infrastructure for degrowth projects. A blockchain is simply a distributed database. The technology is being used for a wide range of applications relevant to economic exchange and environmental sustainability. Many degrowth scholars wholly reject technical fixes for politically induced environmental crises, seeing blockchain projects as wasteful and counter to convivial social relations. Others highlight the technology’s potential for facilitating redistributive and regenerative economies, but without much detail. This paper argues that if blockchain is ever to prove useful for the degrowth movement it would need to overcome challenges in three important areas: 1) building democratic and (re)distributive economies, 2) regenerating the environment without commodifying it, and 3) facilitating international alliances without imposing a particular set of values. What is certain is that technology on its own will not transcend the political struggles tackled by degrowth activists. However, under certain conditions, blockchain might make those struggles more effective

Degrowth and the Blue Belt: rethinking marine conservation in the British Overseas Territories

The UK Government has developed a ‘Blue Belt’, a network of large Marine Protected Areas involving seven British Overseas Territories. The Blue Belt is now one of the world's largest enclosures of space for conservation, enclosing four million km2 of ocean in some of the most remote spaces on earth. To be economically feasible, the UK's bold conservation targets are integrated with wider tourism, fishing, and economic growth-motivated governance agendas. This commentary argues for a degrowth alternative to the Blue Belt's development. The goal of degrowth is not to prevent increases in Gross Domestic Product, nor is degrowth the equivalent to recession in a growth economy. Sustainable degrowth provides a conservation framework for ensuring a just transition from neoliberal forms of governance that places local well-being and welfare needs above the interests of state actors, private investors, and holiday makers. In the current context of the Blue Belt, the commentary considers three nascent degrowth concepts for improving things: 1) blue degrowth, 2) degrowth tourism, and 3) degrowth environmental governance. The paper argues that instead of separating the UK from other spaces where biodiversity targets are realised, these targets should be used as opportunities to reconcile the UK's colonial relationships with the territories, to build local capacity, and resilience

Assessing player performance in tactical FPS games:a proposal for an xGoals-inspired model

As the professional esports industry continues to grow, so too does the demand for sophisticated performance analysis tools. This paper proposes the development of a machine learning model called ‘xKills’ to quantitatively assess player performance in first-person shooter games (inspired by the ‘xGoals’ concept from football analytics). Our focus thus far has been creating the necessary software tools to: a) simulate spatial context for telemetric replays of professional matches in a popular esports first-person shooter game, b) analyse gameplay to identify scoring opportunities, and c) extract feature sets that describe these opportunities and their outcomes as training data. Preliminary validation of these tools confirms their efficacy in capturing detailed features that influence scoring probabilities. Although the model has not yet been trained, the groundwork laid by these tools is crucial for the forthcoming steps, which will involve supervised training via a cross-validation approach. Ultimately, the xKills model aims to enhance the esports ecosystem by enabling more effective strategy development for professional teams and enriching broadcaster analysis

Existing evidence on the use of participatory scenarios in ecological restoration: a systematic map

Background and context The scale of land degradation worldwide has led to nearly one billion hectares committed to restoration globally. However, achieving such restoration targets will necessitate complex trade-offs against limited time, competing knowledge, costs, resources and varying stakeholder and societal preferences. Participatory scenarios allow a way to identify collaborative solutions for restoration planning and implementation best suited for the local cultures and societies they are tied to. They can be used to navigate uncertainties surrounding future trajectories of restored areas by evaluating trade-offs in outcomes. This research aims to systematically map the evidence on the use of participatory scenarios in restoration planning. We use the following research question: What evidence exists on the use of participatory scenarios in ecological restoration? This is answered by examining the characteristics of the evidence base, types of study design, types of outcomes, trade-offs in outcomes, and the role of participants. Methods A comprehensive and reproducible search strategy was followed using bibliographic databases, webbased searches, and targeted searching. Search results underwent a two-step screening process according to eligibility criteria. Metadata on key areas of interest were extracted from included texts and were narratively synthesised alongside data visualisations to answer the research questions. Review findings 18,612 records were initially identified, and 106 articles were included in the final map. Most studies were conducted in Europe and North America, focusing on restoring agricultural land or forests. Most texts used mixed methods and explored multiple outcome types, but environmental outcomes were the most assessed. Within environmental outcomes, indicators for ecological function were assessed more frequently than structural or compositional indicators. The most common reason for choosing outcomes and indicators was stakeholder interest. Tradeoffs in social, ecological, and economic outcomes were mainly examined across space using mapping techniques, while far fewer studies looked at trade-offs across stakeholders and time. Participants were mostly included in the scenario creation step and were usually chosen purposefully by the research team. Conclusions It is difficult to understand how useful scenarios are for restoration planning because few texts reported how scenarios fed into the process. Despite this, the range of outcomes used and different method types adopted suggests participatory scenarios allow for integrating different knowledge and approaches, alongside facilitating the use of qualitative or semi-quantitative data when this is more appropriate or quantitative data is not widely available. To better use participatory scenarios as a tool for ecological restoration planning, decision-makers can push for greater levels and definitions of participation from the offset of restoration projects with specified, regular, and structured communication and participation channels. We also recommend more systematic methods of participant selection, such as stakeholder analysis. Further research is needed to understand the effectiveness of participatory scenarios in restoration planning and whether the participation of stakeholders was successful in meeting objectives. To improve the evidence base, future studies should clearly evaluate their effectiveness in the restoration planning process and their success in meeting their participatory objectives. Evidence synthesis, Stakeholder engagement, Collaboration, Alternative futures, Socioecological systems, Co-productionpublishedVersio

Preying on the poor? Opportunities and challenges for tackling the social and environmental threats of cryptocurrencies for vulnerable and low-income communities

The rate of adoption of some cryptocurrencies is triggering alarm from energy researchers and social scientists concerned about the industry's growing environmental and social impacts. In this paper we argue that the unsustainable trajectory of some cryptocurrencies disproportionately impacts poor and vulnerable communities where cryptocurrency producers and other actors take advantage of economic instabilities, weak regulations, and access to cheap energy and other resources. Globally, over 100 million people hold cryptocurrency, mostly as a speculative asset. The digital infrastructure behind the most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin, currently requires as much energy as the whole of Thailand, with a carbon footprint exceeding the gold mining industry. Should bitcoin's mass adoption continue, an escalating climate crisis is inevitable, disproportionately exacerbating social and environmental challenges for communities already experiencing multiple dimensions of deprivation. In mitigating these impacts, the paper considers 4 potential regulatory pathways, including: 1) promoting voluntary private-sector commitments to using only renewable energy, 2) encouraging a system of voluntary carbon offsetting, 3) using existing financial regulations and tax frameworks, and 4) imposing national and/or international bans on cryptocurrency 'mining'. The paper argues that effective environmental regulation of cryptocurrencies is urgently required, both to reduce the threat of catastrophic climate change, and to help the world's poorest towards sustainable development. However, regulating cryptocurrency mining in any context is likely to require a combination of efforts and is unlikely to result in win-win outcomes for all

Tributary

Tributary is an experimental ethnographic film that traces the movement and harnessing of natural resources within the Icelandic landscape to support our digital lives.Tributary explores covert, 'black-boxed' data centres (remote and highly secure sites) by tracking water and geothermal sources to the infrastructure required to power and house these physical locations of intensive computational processing.Created from a combination of traditional and experimental field recording techniques made within Iceland and the UK, Tributary aims to problematise the notion of 'green' data centres. It showcases the intensive energy requirements required to prop up the digital infrastructure of contemporary life. These include cryptocurrency mining, cloud storage, digital image production and media streaming.<br/

The role of participatory scenarios in ecological restoration: a systematic map protocol

Background: The scale of land degradation worldwide has led the UN to declare the Decade of Ecosystem Restoration and movements such as the Bonn Challenge (https:// www. bonnc halle nge. org/), have placed ecological restoration on the global policy agenda. Achieving such ambitious policy targets and restoration goals will necessitate complex trade-offs against limited time, competing knowledge, costs, resources, and varying societal preferences among different stakeholders. Participatory scenarios are a tool to navigate uncertainties surrounding future trajectories and simultaneously incorporate different stakeholder perspectives. They can provide a path to identify collaborative solutions best suited for the local cultures and societies they are tied to. However, there is no systematic understanding of how participatory scenarios are being used in ecological restoration planning to navigate trade-offs in restoration outcomes. We will fill this research gap by mapping the existing evidence from participatory restoration scenarios to answer the primary research question ‘How are outcomes explored in participatory ecological restoration scenarios?’. This will be done through five sub-questions focussing on characteristics of the evidence base, types of study design, how outcomes and trade-offs in those are explored, and an examination of the role of participants in the scenario process and outcome determination. Methods: This protocol outlines the methods for a systematic map to identify studies that have used participatory scenarios in restoration planning. A comprehensive and reproducible search strategy will be undertaken across bibliographic databases, web-based engines, and targeted searches in organisational online libraries. Searches will be done online in English, but results in all languages will be screened. Search results will go through a two-step screening process of against pre-determined criteria of inclusion and exclusion, for title and abstract and then full-text. Data will be extracted from eligible studies using a standardised data extraction spreadsheet where details on study characteristics, design and outcomes will be recorded. A searchable database of studies and mapping outcomes will be available upon completion of the work. The aim is to inform how scenarios can be better used as a decision-making tool to increase stakeholder participation and account for trade-offs in restoration outcomes across social, ecological, and economic dimensions. Evidence synthesis, Alternative futures, Place-based research, Socioecological systems, Trade-offs, Co-production, Stakeholder engagemen

Genomic reconstruction of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in England

AbstractThe evolution of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus leads to new variants that warrant timely epidemiological characterization. Here we use the dense genomic surveillance data generated by the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium to reconstruct the dynamics of 71 different lineages in each of 315 English local authorities between September 2020 and June 2021. This analysis reveals a series of subepidemics that peaked in early autumn 2020, followed by a jump in transmissibility of the B.1.1.7/Alpha lineage. The Alpha variant grew when other lineages declined during the second national lockdown and regionally tiered restrictions between November and December 2020. A third more stringent national lockdown suppressed the Alpha variant and eliminated nearly all other lineages in early 2021. Yet a series of variants (most of which contained the spike E484K mutation) defied these trends and persisted at moderately increasing proportions. However, by accounting for sustained introductions, we found that the transmissibility of these variants is unlikely to have exceeded the transmissibility of the Alpha variant. Finally, B.1.617.2/Delta was repeatedly introduced in England and grew rapidly in early summer 2021, constituting approximately 98% of sampled SARS-CoV-2 genomes on 26 June 2021.</jats:p