A bushel Half Full: Reforming the Canadian Wheat Board

The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) has been earning poor financial returns for farmers over the last three years, based on our benchmarking analysis. Reforms are required, including more transparency in reporting financial returns to farmers, and greater accountability on the part of CWB management to the farmer-elected board of directors.governance and public institutions, Canadian Wheat Board, Daily Price Contract (DPC)

Pulling the Plug on Monopoly Power: Reform for the Canadian Wheat Board

Change is in store for the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), which has the legal authority to purchase all Western Canadian wheat and barley produced for export and for domestic human consumption. The CWB defends the continuation of this legal authority on the premise that by selling together, Western Canadian farmers exert more market power in wheat markets and receive higher returns than they could if competing against each other. However, the declining global market share of Canadian wheat makes it increasingly unlikely that the CWB is able to exert market power: the CWB is a price taker in many markets. In the absence of strong evidence that the CWB is able to achieve its policy goal of higher returns to farmers because of the compulsory purchase of grains, its monopoly over Western Canadian wheat and most barley sales should be reconsidered with an eye to ending it.Governance & Public Institutions, Canadian Wheat Board (CWB), monopoly

Advancing the development and use of climate-change scenarios : A multi-scale analysis to explore socio-economic European futures

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time and requires unprecedented changes to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate-change impacts. Different viewpoints and definitions are used by scientists, decision makers and stakeholders to meaning of this challenge. The complexity of this diversity is amplified by the lack of a clear goal and methodology for the exploration of alternative futures in the form of future climate-change scenarios. Such scenarios need, at the same time, to be scientifically credible (credibility) and to reflect different viewpoints (legitimacy) in order to be generalised enough while representing contextual diversity (consistency) to be relevant for decision-making (salience). This thesis develops and analyse European and Central Asian socio-economic scenarios based on the global Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) to evaluate their credibility, legitimacy, consistency and relevance, with novel analytical methodologies. State-of-the-art scenario methodologies are framed on grounds of the objectives (exploratory and normative) and their links across scales (tight and loose links) and types (qualitative and quantitative). The first methodology is based on a fuzzy-set methodology to link qualitative (narratives) and quantitative (input variables to integrated assessment modelling) scenarios by assessing the different uncertainties resulting from their inherent complexities. In the second and third methodologies, a quantitative pan-European urbanisation model, stakeholder-led narratives and a qualitative concept of archetype are used discuss both the quantitative and qualitative scalability of the scenarios in a multi-scale approach. The fourth methodology combines a capital-capacities framework to link the goal of exploratory scenarios in relation to their relevance to decision-making by assessing their potential to achieve a (normative) desirable future. Overall, results suggest that linking directly the uncertainties contributes to more transparent qualitative and quantitative conversion and therefore yield more credible scenarios. When analysed across scales, global and European scenarios are consistent with both downscaled scenarios and local stakeholder-led narratives contribute to the creation of holistic and more legitimate scenarios. However, important divergences have emerged too. For instance, the scenario with high challenges to mitigation and low challenges to adaptation (SSP5) varies hugely across the European continent. The local versions of SSP5 tend to diverge from the global archetype more than the other SSPs. This divergence reflects different worldviews that challenge state-of-the-art knowledge and can ultimately question the role of global scenarios in guiding local scenario versions with a nested approach. I recommend the role of both narratives and quantifications to be equally important in capturing different uncertainties, stakes and worldviews, as well as a reframing of SSP uncertainty space as one of challenges to societal transformation, rather than one of challenges to mitigation and adaptation.</p

Um suspiro de esperança. Recensão do livro Dicotomias religiosas : ensaio de sociologia da religião, de Francisco Cartaxo Rolim. (Petrópolis : Vozes, 1997.)

Book reviewResenha do livr

A PERCEPÇÃO DOS FIÉIS PENTECOSTAIS QUANTO AO ENVOLVIMENTO DE SUAS DENOMINAÇÕES NA ATIVIDADE POLÍTICA

https://seer.ufrgs.br/debatesdoner/article/view/2738/162

EDITORIAL

Editoria

Understanding nutrient loading and sources in the Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem

Inputs of nitrogen, phosphorous and dissolved silica from watersheds draining into the Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem are calculated for the present day and predictions made for 2030 and 2050 are presented. The major sources are identified and the Indicator of Coastal Eutrophication (ICEP) is calculated

Air Pollution Epidemiology to Support Environmental Regulations and Policies

Research shows that air pollutants such as particulate matter (PM) are associated with heart and lung disease and other adverse health effects. A primary way the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reduces air pollutant concentrations is by setting National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), which regulate the maximum pollutant levels allowed in ambient air. The EPA also establishes source-specific emissions standards and pollution-reduction policies. Currently, the NAAQS regulates PM2.5 (2.5). Yet, the EPA has not done so, deciding that there was inadequate information on the causal impacts of PM10-2.5 on health. The limited amount of PM10-2.5 health research is largely due to insufficient availability of exposure data. However, data from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellites creates opportunities to estimate PM10-2.5 levels for assessing PM10-2.5 health impacts. The first two aims of this dissertation were designed to inform the science used by the EPA to set a PM10-2.5 NAAQS. In Aim 1, we estimated PM10-2.5 exposure using highly resolved satellite data and advanced spatiotemporal statistical modeling in six US metropolitan areas. In Aim 2, we paired these PM10-2.5 estimates with the detailed health data in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) to estimate cross-sectional associations between long-term PM10-2.5 exposure and levels of inflammation and coagulation, which are subclinical markers of cardiovascular disease. Aim 3 was designed to inform the EPA in its setting of a source-specific emissions reduction program. We focused on a diesel school bus program since they transport more than 25 million children – a highly sensitive subpopulation – in the US each year. The EPA developed the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA) School Bus Rebate Program, which randomly awards funding to replace older, more polluting diesel school buses with cleaner buses. In Aim 3 I quantified the attendance impacts of this EPA program. In Aim 1, our final predictions captured the long-term spatial patterns of PM10-2.5 very well in four of our study areas, and well to modestly in the others. Additionally, it outperformed two alternative exposure prediction methods spatially in all six areas. In Aim 2, we found no evidence that long-term PM10-2.5 exposure was associated with greater levels of inflammation and coagulation in the MESA cohort. In fact, contrary to our hypothesis, we found greater inflammation and coagulation with lower PM10-2.5, although results were sensitive to adjustment for chronic health conditions. In Aim 3, we found suggestive evidence that receiving rebate funds to replace or retrofit older school buses with cleaner buses was associated with increases in school district attendance. The attendance effects were strongest when larger proportions of students were impacted and when the oldest, most polluting buses were replaced. This dissertation provides evidence that using satellite data in spatiotemporal prediction modeling can successfully generate long-term average spatially resolved PM10-2.5 estimates. It also highlights the strengths and limitations of using satellite-based predictions to study the health impacts of PM10-2.5 exposure. Additionally, it provides evidence that a source-specific emissions reduction program, such as the EPA’s DERA School Bus Rebate Program, can have measurable impacts based on the suggestive evidence we saw of the program’s role in improving school district attendance.PHDEpidemiological ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/169624/1/mpedde_1.pd