The Campaign: a case study in identity construction through performance

This article undertakes a detailed case study of The Campaign, a teaching and learning innovation in media and communications that uses an online educational role-play. The case study draws on the qualitative analysis of classroom observations, online communications and semi-structured interviews, employing an interpretive approach informed by models drawn from social theory and sociotechnical theory. Educational authors argue that online educational role-plays engage students in authentic learning, and represent an improvement over didactic teaching strategies. According to this literature, online role-play systems afford students the opportunity of acting and doing instead of only reading and listening. Literature in social theory and social studies of technology takes a different view of certain concepts such as performance, identity and reality. Models such as performative self constitution and actor network theory ask us to consider the constructed nature of identity and the roles of all of the actors, including the system itself. This article examines these concepts by addressing a series of research questions relating to identity formation and mediation, and suggests certain limitations of the situationist perspective in explaining the educationalvalue of role-play systems

Keeping the Government Whole: The Impact of a Cap-and-Dividend Policy for Curbing Global Warming on Government Revenue and Expenditure

When the United States puts a cap on carbon emissions as part of the effort to address the problem of global climate change, this will increase the prices of fossil fuels, significantly impacting not only consumers but also local, state, and federal governments. Consumers can be “made whole,” in the sense that whatever amount the public pays in higher fuel prices is recycled to the public, by means of a cap-and dividend policy: individual households will come out ahead or behind in monetary terms depending on whether they consume above-average or below-average amounts of carbon. In this paper, we consider policy options for “keeping the government whole,” too; that is, policies to ensure that additional revenues to government compensate adequately for the additional costs to government as a result of the carbon cap. We compare the distributional impacts of two policy alternatives: (i) setting aside a portion of the revenue from carbon permit auctions for government, and distributing the remainder of the revenue to the public in the form of tax-free dividends; or (ii) distributing all of the carbon revenue to households as taxable dividends. The policy of recycling 100% of carbon revenue to the public as taxable dividends has the strongest progressive impact, yielding the biggest net monetary benefits for the largest majority of the people.Global warming; fossil fuels; climate change; carbon permits; cap-and-dividend

Cap and Dividend: How to Curb Global Warming while Protecting the Incomes of American Families

This essay examines the distributional effects of a “cap-and-dividend" policy for reducing carbon emission in the United States: a policy that auctions carbon permits and distributes the revenue to the public on an equal per capita basis. The aim of the policy is to reduce U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, the main pollutant causing global warming, while at the same time protecting the real incomes of middle-income and lower-income American families. The number of permits is set by a statutory cap on carbon emissions that gradually diminishes over time. The sale of carbon permits will generate very large revenues, posing the critical question of who will get the money. The introduction of carbon permits – or, for that matter, any policy to curb emissions – will raise prices of fossil fuels and have a regressive impact on income distribution, since fuel expenditures represent a larger fraction of income for lower-income households than for upper-income households. The net effect of carbon emission-reduction policies depends on who gets the money that households pay in higher prices. We find that a cap-and-dividend policy would have a strongly progressive net effect. Moreover, the majority of U.S. households would be net winners in purely monetary terms: that is, their real incomes, after paying higher fuel prices and receiving their dividends, would rise. From the standpoints of both distributional equity and political feasibility, a cap-and-dividend policy is therefore an attractive way to curb carbon emissions.Global warming; fossil fuels; climate change; carbon permits; cap-and-rebate; cap-and-auction; cap-and-trade

A Chinese Sky Trust? Distributional Impacts of Carbon charges and Revenue Recycling in China

The introduction of carbon charges on the use of fossil fuels in China would have a progressive impact on income distribution. This outcome, which contrasts to the regressive distributional impact found in most studies of carbon charges in industrialized countries, is driven primarily by differences between urban and rural expenditure patterns. If carbon revenues were recycled on an equal per capita basis via a ‘sky trust,’ the progressive impact would be further enhanced: low-income (mainly rural) households would receive more in sky-trust dividends than they pay in carbon charges, and high-income (mainly urban) households would pay more than they receive in dividends. Thus a Chinese sky trust would contribute to both lower fossil fuel consumption and greater income equality.carbon charges, fossil fuels, China, income distribution, carbon revenues, fuel consumption, income equality

Cap and Dividend: How to Curb Global Warming While Protecting the Incomes Of American Families

This essay examines the distributional effects of a “cap-and-dividend” policy for reducing carbon emission in the United States: a policy that auc-tions carbon permits and rebates the revenue to the public on an equal per capita basis. The aim of the policy is to reduce U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide, the main pollutant causing global warming, while at the same time protect-ing the real incomes of middle-income and lower-income American families. The number of permits is set by a statutory cap on carbon emissions that gradually diminishes over time. The sale of carbon permits will generate very large revenues, posing the critical question of who will get the money. The introduction of car-bon permits – or, for that matter, any policy to curb emissions – will raise prices of fossil fuels, and have a regressive impact on income distri-bution, since fuel expenditures represent a lar-ger fraction of income for lower-income households than for upper-income households. The net effect of carbon emission-reduction policies depends on who gets the money that households pay in higher prices. We find that a cap-and-dividend policy would have a strongly progressive net effect. Moreover, the majority of U.S. households would be net winners in purely monetary terms: that is, their real incomes, af-ter paying higher fuel prices and receiving their dividends, would rise. From the standpoints of both distributional equity and political feasibil-ity, a cap-and-dividend policy is therefore an attractive way to curb carbon emissions

Phosphorus leaching from Swedish arable organic soils

Organic soils account for 9% or ~225,000 ha of Sweden’s 2.5 million ha of agricultural land, with around half being intensively cultivated. This thesis examines the role of chemical and physical properties of arable organic soils in leaching of phosphorus (P) and whether these losses can be reduced by employing a metal-oxide coated biochar mitigation strategy. These issues were investigated by analysing two organic soils (organic 1 and organic 2) and two P-rich mineral soils (sand and loam) using laboratory and field-based methods. In a rainfall simulation study using short soil columns from four 20-cm soil layers to 80-cm depth, the main location of P release and the concentrations of P leached from the selected organic and mineral soils were identified. The highest concentrations of P were found to be released from the 0- to 20-cm layer in both organic and mineral soils, with 70-90% in phosphate-P form. The highest losses occurred from organic 2, followed by the sand. Soil test total-P correlated well with total-P and phosphate-P in leachate from the rainfall simulation study. A 17-month follow-up study using 90-cm long lysimeters with intact soil revealed that losses were highest from the organic soils, while the sand, known for its high P leaching, had relatively low leaching losses. The amount of total-P leached during the 17-month period decreased in the order: organic 2 (1.2 kg ha-1) > organic 1 (1.0 kg ha-1) > sand (0.3 kg ha-1) > loam (0.2 kg ha-1). Higher P losses from the organic soils were attributed to fewer sorption sites, humic matter competition with phosphate for those same sites and presence of preferential flow pathways (organic 1). Evaluation of ‘Skogens kol’, a wood biochar coated with iron (Fe3O4; magnetite) and ‘Ecoera’, an agricultural residue biochar coated with magnesium (MgO/Mg(OH)2; periclase/brucite) under laboratory conditions revealed a maximum sorption capacity of 3.38 and 65.4 mg P g-1, respectively. Results from the 90-cm lysimeter study also showed greater reductions in P leaching using Mg-coated biochar, with phosphate concentration in leachate being reduced by up to 74% in one organic soil. Magnesium-coated biochar performance was worse in the mineral soils, probably due to greater numbers of sorption sites already being present in those soils. Efficiency of P removal in relation to Fe applied on the biochar was shown to be good in laboratory studies, but poor at field scale. The two organic soils studied leached sufficiently high P concentrations and potential loads to contribute to eutrophication of surface waters. However, due to complex chemical and redox interactions with P, larger field-scale monitoring is required to identify whether the P losses measured in lysimeters are representative of those reaching surface drains

An indoor freeze/thaw lysimeter study of phosphorus leaching from soils with four catch crops

Catch crops have been found to decrease leaching of nitrates into surface and ground waters, but they also have the potential to increase phosphorus (P) loadings to natural waters as well, due to plant cell destruction caused during natural freezing and thawing events. An indoor lysimeter experiment was carried out using a clay and a sand soil with the application of four different plant species: perennial ryegrass cultivar ‘Helmer’ (Lolium perenne L.), honey herb, cultivar ‘Stala’ (Phacelia tanacetifolia L.), chicory, cultivar ‘Puna’ (Cichoium intybis L.), and oilseed radish, cultivar ‘Adios’ (Raphanus sativus L.). These plants were exposed to four simulated rainfall and three freezing events in two separate experiments, one using topsoil monoliths with applied plant material and one with plant material only. Sand and clay soils had significantly different leaching loads after 1 and 2 freezing events with total P contents in leachate equivalent to 0.71 kg ha‐1 for clay and 0.20 kg ha‐1 (P=0.0018) for sand soil, and after the second event 0.54 kg ha‐1 for clay and 0.30 kg ha‐1 for sand (P=0.0026). The combined total P leaching loads from the clay soil were significant for many of the plants and were in the order of chicory (2.6 kg ha‐1) > ryegrass (2.3 kg ha‐1) > oilseed radish (2.2 kg ha‐1) > honey herb (1.3kgha‐1), taken from the plant and soil experiment. Losses were of a magnitude greater from the plant only experiment with chicory (51.7 kg ha‐1) > oilseed radish (43.2kgha‐1) > honey herb (18.4 kg ha‐1) > ryegrass (10 kg ha‐1). A total P analysis of plant tissue from before the first lysimeter experiment and after the second plant only experiment showed that chicory lost 84%, oilseed radish 76%, ryegrass 74% and honey herb 39% of total initial biomass P. The results indicate that soil texture and plant choice can have a large impact on leaching loads that could potentially enter natural waters

Spaces for knowledge generation. Final report

The Spaces for knowledge generation: a framework for designing student learning environments for the future project has been funded via an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Priority Projects Grant and aims to address the need to create learning spaces that are based on strong design principles, informed by student needs, with the aim of producing forward-looking, flexible and sustainable Learning Spaces. Integral to the process is fostering the adoption of teaching practices to support student-directed learning and knowledge production. Longer-term outcomes include strategic cultural change to university practices and physical changes to campuses to advance learning and teaching

A Program for Reform

The Government undertook a far-reaching revision of the individual income tax in January 1986. The purpose here is to present the analysis that led to the reform, to review and evaluate selected elements of the reform, and to report the results of the first year\u27s experience with the new system. This chapter closes with an agenda of unfinished business, i.e., a statement of what is yet to be done to complete the structural reform of the individual income tax