Financing reef destruction

The “big four” Australian banks—ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB and Westpac—have played an integral role, together lending almost $4 billion to coal and gas projects in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area since 2008.   Deals are becoming larger and more complex. While the role of Australian banks remains critical, projects now require a host of international lenders participating in a deal and support from government-backed institutions.   Australian and overseas banks alike are contravening principles and initiatives that promote environmentally responsible investment. Several major new fossil fuel export projects are seeking to meet investment deadlines in 2013.   Australians have a brief window of opportunity to intervene and prevent these projects securing the investment required to proceed

Fracking finance

Coal seam gas (CSG) is an unconventional gas source that often requires highly invasive extraction methods, including horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking). While CSG has made up a small part of Australia’s gas supply mix since the late 90s, production has increased drastically in the past few years, and with it the threat of many more CSG projects going ahead in the near future.   At the end of 2013, Queensland was home to approximately 5,500 CSG producing wells, however this number is projected to grow to over 14,000 by the end of 2020. Similarly, NSW CSG production is expected to increase dramatically if two major proposed projects go ahead. AGL’s Gloucester gas project is expected to produce up to 30 petajoules (PJ) per annum over its 30-year lifespan, and Santos’ Narrabri project up to 73PJ per annum over 25 years. Together, these two NSW projects’ annual production would amount to around 40% of the total CSG produced in Queensland during the 2013-14 financial year.   The massive increase in CSG production is largely due to the development of three liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities on Curtis Island in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area near Gladstone, Queensland, which are to be supplied with gas from unconventional sources in eastern Australia

Fueling the fire

Since the global financial crisis, tens of billions of dollars have been loaned to the Australian fossil fuel industry. Many of these projects have been responsible for horrific environmental damage, including the destruction of prime agricultural land and nature reserves, contamination of aquifers, declining air quality and the industrialisation of iconic sites including the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.   Fossil fuels are also the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Fossil fuels make up over 85% of global energy consumption, producing more than 30 Gt CO2 (billion tonnes of carbon dioxide) each year. The increasing concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere is causing global warming, which is already delivering dangerous impacts that are set to become catastrophic without an urgent reduction in emissions.   Funding decisions made by banks to support fossil fuel projects have massive impacts on our climate, environment, health, communities and economy. It is incumbent on these institutions to withdraw their support for the destructive and dangerous activities of the fossil fuel industry

East Midlands life and work survey 2003: themed summary report - social capital and active citizenship

Themed report from the 2003 East Midlands regional household survey, 'The Life and Work Survey', undertaken to inform a range of partner organisations, including emda and the Learning and Skills Council. Themed report summarises findings from a number of questions designed to examine social capital and active citizenship, such as involvement in community activities

X-ray spectral evolution of the extragalactic Z-source, LMC X-2

We present the results obtained by a detailed study of the extragalactic Z source, LMC X-2, using broad band Suzaku data and a large ($\sim 750$ ksec) data set obtained with the proportional counter array (PCA) onboard RXTE. The PCA data allows for studying the complete spectral evolution along the horizontal, normal and flaring branches of the Z-track. Comparison with previous study show that the details of spectral evolution (like variation of Comptonizing electron temperature), is similar to that of GX 17+2 but unlike that of Cyg X-2 and GX 349+2. This suggests that Z sources are heterogeneous group with perhaps LMC X-2 and GX 17+2 being member of a subclass. However non monotonic evolution of the Compton y-parameter seems to be generic to all sources. The broad band {\it Suzaku} data reveals that the additional soft component of the source modelled as a disk blackbody emission is strongly preferred over one where it is taken to be a blackbody spectrum. This component as well as the temperature of seed photons do not vary when source goes into a flaring mode and the entire variation can be ascribed to the Comptonizing cloud. The bolometric unabsorbed luminosity of the source is well constrained to be $\sim 2.23 \times 10^{38}$ ergs/sec which if the source is Eddington limited implies a neutron star mass of 1.6 M$_\odot$. We discuss the implications of these results.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, accepted for the publicatin in MNRA

Survey of the Labor Market for New Ph.D. Hires in Economics 2020-2021

This year, the survey questionnaire was sent to 367 organizations. Questionnaires were returned by 141 organizations (38.4 percent). Of this year’s responses, 66 (46.8 percent) were from those who responded to the last survey conducted for the 2019-20 academic year. Among the academic institutions responding, the distribution of highest degrees offered was as follows: Ph.D.—50.4 percent; Master’s—9.9 percent and Bachelor’s—38.3 percent. The responses are reported for all respondents, and separately for Ph.D. Degree granting institutions and for schools whose highest degree offered is the Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree. Data for the top 30 institutions in the revised National Research Council’s Research Doctorate Report, 2011, are reported as a subset of Ph.D. Degree grantingschools. They are referred to as the Top 30

Survey of the Labor Market for New Ph.D. Hires in Economics 2021-2022

This year, the survey questionnaire was sent to 368 organizations. Questionnaires were returned by 144 organizations (39.1 percent). Of this year’s responses, 53 (36.8 percent) were from those who responded to the last survey conducted for the 2020-21 academic year. Among the academic institutions responding, the distribution of highest degrees offered was as follows: Ph.D.—51.4 percent; Master’s—11.8 percent and Bachelor’s—35.4 percent. The responses are reported for all respondents, and separately for Ph.D. Degree granting institutions and for schools whose highest degree offered is the Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree. Data for the top 30 institutions in the revised National Research Council’s Research Doctorate Report, 2011, are reported as a subset of Ph.D. Degree granting schools. They are referred to as the Top 30

Survey of the Labor Market for New Ph.D. Hires in Economics 2014-2015

This year, the survey questionnaire was sent to 378 organizations. Questionnaires were returned by 122 organizations (32.3 percent). Of this year’s responses, 80 (65.6 percent) were from those who responded to the last survey conducted for the 2011-12 academic year; 42 (34.4 percent) came from new respondents. Among the academic institutions responding, the distribution of highest degrees offered was as follows: Ph.D.—55.7 percent; Master—13.9 percent and Bachelor—28.7 percent. The responses are reported for all respondents, and separately for Ph.D. degree granting institutions and for schools whose highest degree offered is the Bachelor or Master degree. Data for institutions in the revised National Research Council’s Research Doctorate Report, 2011, are reported as a subset of Ph.D. degree granting schools. They are referred to as the Top 30. Previous labor market reports used rankings from the 2010 Research Doctorate Report. While the survey was not conducted for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 academic years, the current survey captures some of the information that was not collected during those years

Vida y concepción de mundo. Un texto olvidado de Karl Ernst von Baer (1860)

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