Charge Fluctuation Forces Between Stiff Polyelectrolytes in Salt Solution: Pairwise Summability Re-examined

We formulate low-frequency charge-fluctuation forces between charged cylinders - parallel or skewed - in salt solution: forces from dipolar van der Waals fluctuations and those from the correlated monopolar fluctuations of mobile ions. At high salt concentrations forces are exponentially screened. In low-salt solutions dipolar energies go as $R^{-5}$ or $R^{-4}$; monopolar energies vary as $R^{-1}$ or $\ln{R}$, where $R$ is the minimal separation between cylinders. However, pairwise summability of rod-rod forces is easily violated in low-salt conditions. Perhaps the most important result is not the derivation of pair potentials but rather the demonstration that some of these expressions may not be used for the very problems that originally motivated their derivation.Comment: 8 pages and 1 fig in ps forma

Global warming and the cosmopolitan political conception of justice

Within the literature in green political theory on global environmental threats one can often find dissatisfaction with liberal theories of justice. This is true even though liberal cosmopolitans regularly point to global environmental problems as one reason for expanding the scope of justice beyond the territorial limits of the state. One of the causes for scepticism towards liberal approaches is that many of the most notable anti-cosmopolitan theories are also advanced by liberals. In this paper, I first explain why one of the strongest expressions of liberal anti-cosmopolitanism cannot simply be dismissed because it may fail to support desired environmental ends. The political conception of justice represents one of the most important challenges to cosmopolitanism generally and is thus a serious challenge to viewing global environmental problems in terms of cosmopolitan justice. Second, I will show through the case of anthropogenic global warming that the political conception of justice under current conditions does have clear cosmopolitan implications despite its proponents' claims

Two shades of Green? The electorates of GreenLeft and the Party for the Animals

The Netherlands has two electorally significant parties that might be considered to be part of the Green' family: GreenLeft and the Party for the Animals. These two parties appeal to different niches of the Green electorate, identified on the basis of issue dimensions, demographics, and their trust in government. GreenLeft tends to attract voters from the traditional Green niche: those with egalitarian, cosmopolitan, environmentalist, and libertarian values. The Party for the Animals attracts another type of Green voter: significantly less cosmopolitan and evincing lower levels of political trust.</p

Animal Ethics and the Political

Some of the most important contributions to animal ethics over the past decade or so have come from political, as opposed to moral, philosophers. As such, some have argued that there been a ‘political turn’ in the field. If there has been such a turn, it needs to be shown that there is something which unites these contributions, and which sets them apart from previous work. We find that some of the features which have been claimed to be shared commitments of the turn are contested by key theorists working in the field. We also find that the originality of the turn can be exaggerated, with many of their ideas found in more traditional animal ethics. Nonetheless, we identify one unifying and distinctive feature of these contributions: the focus on justice; and specifically, the exploration of how political institutions, structures and processes might be transformed so as to secure justice for both human and nonhuman animals

Reducing Asymmetries in Intergenerational Justice: Descent from Modernity or Space Industrialization?

Normally, contractual conceptions of intergenerational justice regard the responsibility held by each generation as symmetrical. This article argues that the late modern society has created an asymmetry because of its unprecendented instrumental and destructive capacity. Historically unique risks such as thermonuclear destruction, global ecological deprivation, and resource depletion all point at this asymmetry and unequal distribution of responsibility between generations. Extending one contractual device used by John Rawls in line with what Brian Barry has suggested, this article analyzes the roots of the asymmetry and presents two political strategies to end it. The first strategy resembles the traditional deep ecological programme whereas the second holds an imaginative vision of a human future in space. Both strategies seek to reduce the influence present generations exercise on the level of opportunity available to future generations. The key normative argument is that intergenerational justice requires spatial and temporal limits on political action