Hot Topics: Globalization and Climate Change

Considering climate change and globalization together as a research topic can illuminate the structures and processes of both. Globalization and climate change theories can be categorized as economic, political, and cultural on one dimension, and on another dimension as emphasizing the conflicts between the global and national/local levels, the dominance of the global, or the hybrids and pastiches created by mixing the global and local. Climate change, as an issue that creates and is created by a global sense of the world, is bound up in both its analysis and its policy proposals with the same issues that confront globalization theorists. The proliferation of theories and analyses in globalization and climate change reflects the emerging nature of both areas of social scientific thought. Activities and flows are changing too rapidly to be satisfactorily categorized and mapped. Moreover, there are no clear advantages to one form of action, since all phenomena are multifaceted, with bundled positive, neutral, and negative characteristics. However, the very explosion of ideas and proposals reflects the energy and willingness to seek future directions that will bring increased well-being for both humans and the environment

Rhetorical Analysis of Arguments Made in the Climate Change Debate: Argument Families and Social Network LInks as Potential Bases for Agreement

The issue of climate change brings together some of the most important sociological issues of the age, including global governance, the role of industrialization and capitalism in degrading the environment, the relationship between humans and non-human nature, and the inequality of nations. However, it is an open question whether societies and countries of the world can come to agreement about the meaning of climate change and actions (or no action) that should be taken to address it. To avoid privileging one or another of the issue's aspects, this study used a discursive and rhetorical approach to include all the arguments made in the debate on an equal footing. First, 100 documents that make arguments about climate change were analyzed to characterize the arguments made and to distinguish four rhetorical elements: the personal and organizational sources of authority for the rhetor, the type(s) of evidence used for the claims made, the worldview(s) expressed, and the actions proposed. This analysis provided the basis for categorizing the documents into "families," coherent arguments made about the climate change issue; and performing a social network analysis to discern linkages formed by the argument families and rhetorical elements that might be the basis for coming to agreement about climate change issues. The study found coherence within families as well as multiple links across families, indicating that rhetors in the climate change debate form a dense network of ties that could be used to build agreement

transformations in the nuclear and bioenergy sectors in Sweden, Brazil, and the United States

Most of the controversies surrounding how to structure climate change mitigation and adaptation – including financing, what counts as action, and how to measure progress against uncertain goals – have technological change as an underlying assumption. Technological transformation is at the heart of mitigation in the energy system, and technological change (cultivars and management) will be a prime contributor to mitigation and adaptation in agriculture and water. Therefore, the issue of governing the diffusion of GEC- related technology is critically important. The standard analyses that assume we just need to “get the prices right” are insufficient in a world where markets are at best imperfect and equitable well-being is as much a goal as efficiency. Our research examines the ways in technological change is guided by such governance factors as governments (regulation and policy), firms with existing expertise and infrastructure, international and national needs for security, innovation networks, and leadership. We will illustrate the determinative nature of these governance factors through case studies of two major energy technologies – nuclear power and biofuels – in three countries – Brazil, Sweden, and the United States. Primary data comes from interviews with policymakers and firm managers who have been involved in these changes in the three countries. Open-ended and structured questions about a range of driving or enabling factors allow us to establish one or more configurations of factors that can inform the governance of future technological change related to mitigation and serve as the basis for further research into technological change related to adaptation

Collaboration - It\u27s a Good Thing!: A multi-faceted role analysis in graduate student education as faculty-in-training .

“Collaboration appears to play a unique role in science and science education today,” and serves as a rite of passage for new graduate students that indicates acceptance and achievement in research (Hara et. al. 2003). Collaboration is a crucial skill for faculty and students, helping advance knowledge and exploit the results of research effectively. In this project a group of six new Ph.D. students worked together with one faculty member and one post-doctoral researcher to develop a new course in Environmental Information Science. This poster is a report on the successes and barriers to collaboration encountered during the course of the project

Climate Change Vulnerability and Resilience: Current Status and Trends for Mexico

Climate change alters different localities on the planet in different ways. The impact on each region depends mainly on the degree of vulnerability that natural ecosystems and human-made infrastructure have to changes in climate and extreme meteorological events, as well as on the coping and adaptation capacity towards new environmental conditions. This study assesses the current resilience of Mexico and Mexican states to such changes, as well as how this resilience will look in the future. In recent studies (Moss et al. 2000, Brenkert and Malone 2005, Malone and Brenket 2008, Ibarrarán et al. 2007), the Vulnerability-Resilience Indicators Model (VRIM) is used to integrate a set of proxy variables that determine the resilience of a region to climate change. Resilience, or the ability of a region to respond to climate variations and natural events that result from climate change, is given by its adaptation and coping capacity and its sensitivity. On the one hand, the sensitivity of a region to climate change is assessed, emphasizing its infrastructure, food security, water resources, and the health of the population and regional ecosystems. On the other hand, coping and adaptation capacity is based on the availability of human resources, economic capacity and environmental capacity

Energy efficiency campaign for residential housing at the Fort Lewis army installation

In FY1999, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory conducted an energy efficiency campaign for residential housing at the Fort Lewis Army Installation near Tacoma, Washington. Preliminary weather-corrected calculations show energy savings of 10{percent} from FY98 for energy use in family housing. This exceeded the project's goal of 3{percent}. The work was funded by the U.S. DOEs Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The project adapted FEMP's national ``You Have the Power Campaign'' at the local level, tailoring it to the military culture. The applied research project was designed to demonstrate the feasibility of tailored, research-based strategies to promote energy conservation in military family housing. In contrast to many energy efficiency efforts, the campaign focused entirely on actions residents could take in their own homes, as opposed to technology or housing upgrades. Behavioral change was targeted because residents do not pay their own utility bills; thus other motivations must drive personal energy conservation. This campaign augments ongoing energy savings from housing upgrades carried out by Fort Lewis. The campaign ran from September 1998 through August 1999. The campaign strategy was developed based on findings from previous research and on input from residents and officials at Fort Lewis. Energy use, corrected to account for weather differences, was compared with the previous year's use. Survey responses from 377 of Fort Lewis residents of occupied housing showed that the campaign was moderately effective in promoting behavior change. Of those who were aware of the campaign, almost all said they were now doing one or more energy-efficient things that they had not done before. Most people were motivated by the desire to do the right thing and to set a good example for their children. They were less motivated by other factors

Locomotor adaptability in persons with unilateral transtibial amputation

Background Locomotor adaptation enables walkers to modify strategies when faced with challenging walking conditions. While a variety of neurological injuries can impair locomotor adaptability, the effect of a lower extremity amputation on adaptability is poorly understood. Objective Determine if locomotor adaptability is impaired in persons with unilateral transtibial amputation (TTA). Methods The locomotor adaptability of 10 persons with a TTA and 8 persons without an amputation was tested while walking on a split-belt treadmill with the parallel belts running at the same (tied) or different (split) speeds. In the split condition, participants walked for 15 minutes with the respective belts moving at 0.5 m/s and 1.5 m/s. Temporal spatial symmetry measures were used to evaluate reactive accommodations to the perturbation, and the adaptive/de-adaptive response. Results Persons with TTA and the reference group of persons without amputation both demonstrated highly symmetric walking at baseline. During the split adaptation and tied post-adaptation walking both groups responded with the expected reactive accommodations. Likewise, adaptive and de-adaptive responses were observed. The magnitude and rate of change in the adaptive and de-adaptive responses were similar for persons with TTA and those without an amputation. Furthermore, adaptability was no different based on belt assignment for the prosthetic limb during split adaptation walking. Conclusions Reactive changes and locomotor adaptation in response to a challenging and novel walking condition were similar in persons with TTA to those without an amputation. Results suggest persons with TTA have the capacity to modify locomotor strategies to meet the demands of most walking conditions despite challenges imposed by an amputation and use of a prosthetic limb

Evidence-Based Background Material Underlying Guidance for Federal Agencies in Implementing Strategic Sustainability Performance Plans - Implementing Sustainability: The Institutional-Behavioral Dimension

This document is part of a larger, programmatic effort to assist federal agencies in taking action and changing their institutions to achieve and maintain federal sustainability goals, while meeting their mission goals. FEMP is developing guidance for federal agency efforts to enable institutional behavior change for sustainability, and for making sustainability “business as usual.” The driving requirement for this change is Executive Order (EO) 13514, Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance. FEMP emphasizes strategies for increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy utilization as critical components of attaining sustainability, and promotes additional non-energy action pathways contained in EO 13514. This report contributes to the larger goal by laying out the conceptual and evidentiary underpinnings of guidance to federal agencies. Conceptual frameworks focus and organize the development of guidance. We outline a series of progressively refined conceptual frameworks, including a multi-layer approach, key steps in sustainability implementation, a process view of specific approaches to institutional change, the agency Strategic Sustainability Performance Plans (SSPPs), and concepts related to context-specific rules, roles and tools for sustainability. Additionally, we tap pertinent bodies of literature in drawing eight evidence-based principles for behavior change. These principles are important foundations upon which to build in selecting strategies to effect change in organizations. Taken together, this report presents a suite of components that inform the training materials, presentations, web site, and other products that provide guidance to federal agencies