Publics, complexity and social futures::blackouts, infrastructuring and maintenance

In order to create futures that are resilient and allow for the incorporation of a ‘bottom-up’ perspective, transition is dependent on citizen engagement. This thesis presents a study of this engagement during moments of disruption, past and future electrical blackouts. Today, citizens are designing and self-organising community resilience and emergency ‘services’, partly out of necessity in austerity economies and partly due to a new sense of emerging sociability and solidarity. This thesis explores how publics engage with the future, deal with complexity and use modes of infrastructuring to maintain and create practices and action. This thesis provides novel methodological tools for the study of futures and public engagement in our increasingly risky societies. A conceptual and methodological framework developed from empirical material; case studies of electrical blackouts in 1974 and 2015, alongside a co-creation workshop, pioneers a novel combination of disciplinary perspectives and insights. This methodological mix of orchestrating collaboration with diverse stakeholders and public engagement in research allows for new modes of futures literacy, not only for engaging with the challenges and opportunities of transition to low carbon energy systems but also how to approach other complex and potentially disruptive moments in the future. Bringing together multiple perspectives and timescales in the same thesis for thinking about Social Futures allows a way of engaging with post-disciplinary future forming research and begin to develop a futures toolkit

The impact of national systems of innovation on therapeutic cloning: A comparison between the UK and China in the clinical area of diabetes

Since the discovery of genetic inheritance by Mendel (1890) and the identified role of DNA in cell division (Crick/Watson 1950), scientists have worked to advance stem cell technologies to treat and cure human disease. The broad techniques of therapeutic cloning are gene therapy, stem cells growth and pharmacogenetics together constitute a complex and demanding science. Each involves the alternating and growth of new cells including the use of human embryos undifferentiated cells and a potential to grow into any organ and tissue type. This work explores the national context in which stem cell science is advancing in a case study between the UK and China using National Systems of Innovation (NSI) as a theoretical structure. NSI is defined by the literature, which includes economic performance, political and legislative structure, research investment, and societal values (Freeman 1997; Fagerberg 2004). Using ethnographic and statistical analysis, it compares the effect each National System of Innovation is having on the advance of therapeutic cloning. Diabetes is chosen as the clinical model because of its global prevalence, affecting over 200m people (BHF 2004) and accounting for 9% of mortality (WHO 2002). and the prediction that it will become the world's most major non- communicable cause of death by 2025 (Atlas 2004).During this study, China experienced unprecedented economic growth underpinned by strong research investment, which is now three times the size of that in the UK (Wilsden 2006). It has a permissive social culture for stem cell research (Mann 2003), having adapted much of the European legislation (Salter 2007) with much of its research led by doctors, enabling a quicker advance of stem cell therapies to the clinic (Prescott). The UK is, in comparison, a global leader in stem cell science, having a prestigious record of achievements including the final mapping of the human genome (Goodfellow 2001), the cloning of Dolly the Sheep (PHGU 2002), and being first to legislate for such embryo research (HFA 1990). The UK's economic performance is also strong during this study, but well behind that of China, and neither does it enjoy the relaxed ethical stance of the Chinese structure. This is evidenced in its research investment, which has fallen as a proportion of GDP from 2.24 in 1990 to 1.78 in 2005 (National Statistics 2007), whereas China has increased from 0.7 to 1.31 (Wilsdon 2006).There is evidence in the literature of the importance of innovation to economic growth (OECDa 2004) and the relationship of this to GDP performance. This research explores the impact the National System of Innovation is having on the advance of stem cell research in the UK and China, using diabetes as a clinical model

The future is already here; it’s just not very evenly distributed

The future is always created on an uneven foundation. In order to understand how we can create futures that do not exclude, isolate or exploit we have to understand how the future is ‘written’ in the present. So, whilst there is some interest in looking at how, in the language of socio-technical transitions, the niche becomes part of the landscape, here we are more interested in how these minority elements are at the moment unequally distributed; how those inequalities are likely to be reproduced or altered in the future; and how those inequalities may actually determine what future or futures we arrive at. Through exploring how existing differences create unequal futures, we can begin to understand how to look forward in a way which is beneficial to those who are often excluded from official narratives of change

Feeding success of harbor seals in relation to hunting technique at Whatcom Creek

Factors that influence hunting success of seals and sea lions are underrepresented in studies of animal behavior. This is a critical interaction to understand when evaluating the top-down effects of pinnipeds on endangered Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.). In the Pacific Northwest, harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) consume a very large number of individual salmon, species that are a valuable resource and the subject of costly restorative efforts. A salmon hatchery in Whatcom Creek estuary of downtown Bellingham, Washington, attracts harbor seals that prey on returning adult Pacific salmon. The convenient location and small size of the site allows consistent observation of hunting behavior. I will describe the success of individual seals relative to the hunting technique that they employ by recording behavioral events and states and taking photos of seals for identification of individuals. When hunting behavior is observed, the specific hunting technique employed will be noted as resulting in a successful or unsuccessful catch and subsequently tied to an individual seal. I will then evaluate which hunting techniques allow a seal to catch prey with higher success, which individuals are more skillful in capturing prey, and whether they prefer specific hunting technique. This study will provide estimates of salmon consumption by harbor seals in Whatcom Creek. Further, by describing the foraging success of individual harbor seals relative to hunting technique, it will enhance our understanding of pinniped foraging behavior

Does money grow on trees? : the role of climate change finance in South Africa.

Rapid, human-forced climate change as a result of greenhouse gases is threatening the fabric of human civilisation itself. It is clear that we need to alter our development and poorer countries will need to develop while limiting their emissions, but it is not clear what sustainable development would entail. Climate change policy solutions have pivoted on carbon trading, under the auspices of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), but this too has failed to limit growth in carbon emissions. This report looks at the operations of the CDM in South Africa as a source of climate finance meant to facilitate sustainable development. Though South Africa has emphasised its commitment towards a low-carbon transition, in practice its national planners seek to preserve energy-intensive mineral and industrial sectors. This research draws on both primary and secondary documents as well as interviews with carbon professionals to conclude that CDM projects have played a limited role in South Africa, but has tended to reproduce the existing minerals and energy complex within the country