Water-Energy Sector Collaboration in the United States: Benefits, Barriers, and Climate-Change Implications

The purpose of this report is to examine the impact of the water-energy nexus in the United States, and identify opportunities for increased collaboration between water and energy utilities. Through reviewing the regulatory history of both sectors, I explore how regulations on utilities align with the Porter Hypothesis, and the impacts the water-energy nexus will have moving forward, including under climate-change scenarios. The extent of collaboration between sectors has been relatively limited to states with progressive energy and water efficiency policies. This report identifies existing barriers and benefits to collaboration, and utilizes two case studies; California and Massachusetts. Results are used to explore how lessons can be applied to other parts of the United States

Accounting for military human resource costs

The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1080/0743017870840531

Absence of Magnetic Fluctuations in the Ferromagnetic/Topological Heterostructure EuS/Bi2_{2}Se3_{3}

Heterostructures of topological insulators and ferromagnets offer new opportunities in spintronics and a route to novel anomalous Hall states. In one such structure, EuS/Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$ a dramatic enhancement of the Curie temperature was recently observed. We performed Raman spectroscopy on a similar set of thin films to investigate the magnetic and lattice excitations. Interfacial strain was monitored through its effects on the Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$ phonon modes while the magnetic system was probed through the EuS Raman mode. Despite its appearance in bare EuS, the heterostructures lack the corresponding EuS Raman signal. Through numerical calculations we rule out the possibility of Fabry-Perot interference suppressing the mode. We attribute the absence of a magnetic signal in EuS to a large charge transfer with the Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$. This could provide an additional pathway for manipulating the magnetic, optical, or electronic response of topological heterostructures.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Written with seed: the political ecology of memory in Madagascar

In this article, I bring together work in political ecology and environmental anthropology to examine how smallholder farmers in Madagascar articulate and embody political and economic histories through the everyday interactions with the commodities cultivated in their fields and forests. I ask: how does the work of cultivating land connect with the art of cultivating memory? In considering this question, I draw from ethnographic research in the agrarian village of Imorona, located in Northeastern Madagascar. In Imorona, smallholder farmers turn towards the materials in their agroforestry fields to reference the more painful political epics of their collective pasts – memories that otherwise remain largely silent within everyday realms of Malagasy culture. I show how the stories people tell of their shifting relationships to commodities including rosewood, vanilla and cloves bring together political and economic 'histories writ large' with more personal and intimate 'histories writ small.' Overall, I argue that the analytical approach of a 'political ecology of memory' offers the productive capacity to look both outward towards others, and inwards towards self. In the process, it elucidates the ways that people render global histories personal. Key words: Political ecology; memory; agroforestry; commodities; Madagascar; Indian Ocean

Impacts of Carbonate Mineral Weathering on Hydrochemistry of the Upper Green River Basin, Kentucky

Kentucky’s Upper Green River Basin has received significant attention due to the area’s high biodiversity and spectacular karst development. While carbonate bedrock is present throughout the watershed, it is more extensive and homogenous along the river between Greensburg and Munfordville than upstream from Greensburg where the geology is more heterogeneous. This research quantitatively evaluated how lithological differences between the two catchment areas impact hydrochemistry and inorganic carbon cycling. This first required correcting catchment boundaries on previous US Geological Survey Hydrologic Unit Maps to account for areas where the boundaries cross sinkhole plains. Basin boundaries using existing Kentucky Division of Water dye trace data differed from the earlier versions by as much as three kilometers. The river at the downstream site is more strongly influenced by carbonate mineral dissolution, reflected in higher specific conductance (SpC) and pH. The SpC at Munfordville ranges from 0.9 to 4.8 times that at Greensburg, averaging 2.0 times higher. Although rainfall is impacted by sulfuric acid from coal burning, river pH is buffered at both sites. The pH is higher at Munfordville 91% of the time, by an average of 0.28 units. Diurnal, photosynthetic pH variations are damped out downstream suggesting interactions between geologic and biological influences on river chemistry. River temperature differences between the two sites are at least 4oC higher at Greensburg under warm season conditions, but there is a clear trend of temperature differences diminishing as the river cools through the fall and winter. This results from a relatively stable temperature at Munfordville, impacted by large spring inputs of groundwater within the karst region downstream. Although weak statistical relationships between SpC and HCO3 - create uncertainties in high resolution carbon flux calculations, measurement of these fluxes is more highly impacted by discharge variations than concentration variations, which resulted in average daily atmospheric flux estimates within 34% between the two basins using weekly concentration data (3.3x108 vs. 2.2x108 gkm-2 d-1, where km2 is the outcrop area of carbonate rocks), and within only 12% using 15-minute concentration data from regressions (2.6x108 vs. 2.3x108 gkm-2 d-1) for Greensburg and Munfordville, respectively

Mob Justice and ‘The Civilized Commodity’

Our theory of ‘the civilized commodity' examines ‘mob violence' affecting high-value commodities, including the vanilla boom of Madagascar. We illustrate producers' labor under fraught conditions of violence and contradictory claims of ‘street justice.' Specifically we ask, what counts as justice and to whom? We highlights broader arguments around ‘moral hyper-proximity' of producer-consumer relations, and the strategies of state and market actors to circulate ‘civilized' visions for systemic and future governance over commodity landscapes. State and market calls for ‘law and order,' however, obscure the structural inequities faced by smallholders in their ‘everyday’ production of commodities under periodic crisis