Climate geoengineering: issues of path-dependence and socio-technical lock-in

As academic and policy interest in climate geoengineering grows, the potential irreversibility of technological developments in this domain has been raised as a pressing concern. The literature on socio-technical lock-in and path dependence is illuminating in helping to situate current concerns about climate geoengineering and irreversibility in the context of academic understandings of historical socio-technical development and persistence. This literature provides a wealth of material illustrating the pervasiveness of positive feedbacks of various types (from the discursive to the material) leading to complex socio-technical entanglements which may resist change and become inflexible even in the light of evidence of negative impacts. With regard to climate geoengineering, there are concerns that geoengineering technologies might contribute so-called ‘carbon lock-in’, or become irreversibly ‘locked-in’ themselves. In particular, the scale of infrastructures that geoengineering interventions would require, and the issue of the so-called ‘termination effect’ have been discussed in these terms. Despite the emergent and somewhat ill-defined nature of the field, some authors also suggest that the extant framings of geoengineering in academic and policy literatures may already demonstrate features recognizable as forms of cognitive lock-in, likely to have profound implications for future developments in this area. While the concepts of path-dependence and lock-in are the subject of ongoing academic critique, by drawing analytical attention to these pervasive processes of positive feedback and entanglement, this literature is highly relevant to current debates around geoengineering

Pathways to Sustainable Industrial Transformations: Co-optimizing Competitiveness, Employment and Environment

Pathways to Sustainable Industrial Transformations: Co-optimizing Competitiveness, Employment and Environment1-1

Severe hypercortisolism:A medical emergency requiring urgent intervention

Objectives: To illustrate the importance of recognizing symptoms of severe hypercortisolism in the intensive care unit and key emergency measures to reduce this extreme hypercortisolism. Design: Case report. Setting: Intensive care unit in a university hospital. Patient: A 55-yr-old woman was admitted to the intensive care unit with multiorgan failure after perforation of the sigmoid. Recent-onset hypertension, spontaneous hypokalemia, and diabetes mellitus suggested severe Cushing's syndrome as the underlying disease. Markedly increased serum cortisol (5900 nmol/L) and adrenocorticotropic hormone (302 ng/L) levels were found, highly suggestive for ectopic adrenocorticotropic hormone secretion. Imaging studies failed to unequivocally establish a solitary source of ectopic adrenocorticotropic hormone secretion. The deteriorating condition of the patient urged rapid intervention. Interventions: Etomidate was infused continuously to reduce endogenous adrenal cortisol secretion. Subsequently, a rescue bilateral adrenalectomy was undertaken. Measurements and Results: Etomidate effectively reduced the cortisol level. Serial blood samples were obtained during the bilateral adrenalectomy. Plasma adrenocorticotropic hormone markedly decreased immediately after resection of the right adrenal gland. Histopathological examination revealed a tumor of the right adrenal gland identified as a pheochromocytoma and hyperplasia of the left adrenal gland, but no signs of malignancy. The patient recovered slowly. Conclusion: This case illustrates that severe hypercortisolism is a medical emergency and that specific and prompt combined medical and surgical intervention can be life-saving. (Crit Care Med 2010; 38:1598-1601

Systems of Sustainable Consumption and Production

With the global population projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050, and in view of finite resource availability and resilience of the Earth system, current patterns of global development are not socially or environmentally sustainable. Solutions to address the underlying challenges are urgent and necessary, but to be effective they need to be accompanied by reductions in the total volume of consumption and production of goods and services. This determination is based on three compelling reasons. First, private consumption and its associated production are among the key drivers of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, especially among high-emitting industrialized economies. There is little evidence that decoupling of the economy from GHG emissions is occurring at anywhere near the scale and speed required. Second, investments in more sustainable infrastructure—including renewables—that are needed in coming decades will themselves require extensive amounts of energy, largely from fossil sources. This demand will expend a significant share of the global carbon budget established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and codified in the Paris Agreement. Finally, improving the standard of living of the world’s poor will appropriate another major portion of the available allowance