Socio-Ecological Regime Transitions in Austria and the United Kingdom

We employ the concepts of socio-ecological regime and regime transition to better understand the biophysical causes and consequences of industrialization. For two case studies, the United Kingdom and Austria, we describe two steps in a major transition from an agrarian to an industrial socio-ecological regime and the resulting consequences for energy use, land use and labour organization. As the first step, the coal based industrial regime co-existed with an agricultural sector remaining within the bounds of the old regime. In the second step, the oil/electricity based industrial regime, agriculture was integrated into the new pattern and the socio-ecological transition had been completed. Industrialization offers answers to the input and growth related sustainability problems of the agrarian regime but creates new sustainability problems of a larger scale. While today?s industrial societies are stabilizing their resource use, albeit at an unsustainable level, large parts of the global society are in the midst of the old industrial transition. This poses severe problems for global sustainability.socio-ecological regimes, metabolic profiles, transition, social metabolism, energy flows, land use, labour, industrialization, United Kingdom, Austria

Pilgrimage as cultural technique of ecstasy. Flow-experiences on the way to Mariazell

Ausgangslage dieses Artikels ist die Feststellung, dass die heutige Gesellschaft von der Suche nach ekstatischer Erfahrung gekennzeichnet ist. Obwohl diese vielfach mit religiöser Erfahrung assoziiert oder gar gleichgesetzt wird, zeige ich in diesem Artikel auf, dass ekstatische Erfahrungen erst zu religiösen Erfahrungen werden, wenn sie mit einer transzendenten Bedeutung versehen werden, die sich auf eine andere Wirklichkeit bezieht. Als empirisches Fallbeispiel dient mir das Pilgern zu Fuß zum katholischen Wallfahrtsort Mariazell in Österreich. Ich werde einen ethnographischen Einblick in die ekstatischen Erfahrungen des Pilgerns geben und eine zentrale Form ekstatischer Erfahrung, die während des Pilgerns von zentraler Bedeutung ist, hervorheben: die sogenannte flow-Erfahrung. Ich argumentiere erstens, dass Pilgern als eine Kulturtechnik der Ekstase zu begreifen ist, die zu ekstatischen flow-Zuständen führt und zweitens, dass die Deutung von flow (als religiös oder nicht religiös) auf dem basiert, was der Soziologie Pierre Bourdieu als ‚Habitus‘ bezeichnet.The starting point for this article is the observation that contemporary society is characterized by the search for ecstatic experience. Although ecstatic experience is often associated or even equated with religious experience, I argue that it only becomes religious if it is given a transcendental meaning which refers to an alternative reality. My argumentation is based on an empirical example: contemporary pilgrimages on foot to the Catholic pilgrimage site Mariazell in Austria. I will give an ethnographic account of ecstatic experiences on pilgrimages and identify one special form of ecstatic experience many pilgrims have on their way to Mariazell: the so-called flow experience. I argue that pilgrimages on foot can be considered as cultural techniques of ecstasy which generate flow experiences and that their interpretation (as religious or not religious) depends mainly on what according to the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu is called ‘habitus’

Nach dem Gefängnis: Alltag und unsichtbare Bestrafungen

Was bedeutet es, aus dem Gefängnis entlassen zu werden? Und wie sehen die Lebensrealitäten haftentlassener Menschen aus? Die Autorin geht diesen Fragen nach und gibt einen anschaulichen Einblick in die kreativen, taktischen Versuche von Männern, sich nach ihrer Entlassung wieder ein bedeutungsvolles Leben aufzubauen. Dabei gilt es, mit den häufigen Handicaps von gesellschaftlicher Stigmatisierung und moralischer Verurteilung zurechtzukommen. Im Mittelpunkt der Analyse stehen die Lebensrealitäten einzelner Menschen - so ergibt sich ein dichtes Bild des Post-Gefängnis-Lebens abseits aller Stereotype und Vorurteile

Zurück zur düsteren Wissenschaft?

Vor gut 200 Jahren bedeutete das von Thomas Maithus aufgestellte Bevölkerungsgesetz einen tiefen Einschnitt in die vom Aufbruch der französischen Revolution geprägte politische und ökonomische Diskussion. Dass sich Maithus pessimistische Vorhersagen letzlich nicht erfüllten, hing auch mit dem zeitgleich stattfindenden wirtschaftlichen Epochenwechsel vom solaren Agrar- zum fossilen Industriesystem zusammen. Angesichts dessen Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit stellt sich jedoch die Frage, ob die Ökonomie nicht wieder zur "düsteren Wissenschaft" wird

Spengler's Prussian Socialism

Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) was one of the most significant thinkers of the Weimar Republic, Germany’s first democracy. His work, notably the two-volume, 1200-page Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Decline of the West, 1918/22), had a profound influence on the intellectual discourses of the time in Germany and beyond. 1 Yet, despite the high esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries, his thought has been seriously under-researched. In English, only four major studies have appeared in the last 70 years. 2 This is all the more surprising in that the historical period in which he wrote has been extensively covered by both English- and German-language scholars and that some of the thinkers who drew critically on his ideas, such as Heidegger and Adorno, have become household names in Germany intellectual history

Management of evidence and conflict of interest in guidelines on early childhood allergy prevention and child nutrition: study protocol of a systematic synthesis of guidelines and explorative network analysis [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]

Background With the rising prevalence of allergic diseases in children, prevention of childhood allergies becomes an important public health issue. Recently, a paradigm shift is taking place in the approach to preventing allergies, and clinical practice guidelines (CPG) and food-based dietary guidelines (FBDG) play an important role in providing practitioners with the latest evidence and reliable guidance. However, concern about the methodological quality of the development of FBDGs and CPGs, including limitations in the systematic reviews, lack of transparency and unmanaged conflicts of interest (COI), reduce the trust in these guidelines. Methods We aim to synthesize the available guidance on early childhood allergy prevention (ECAP) through a systematic search for national and international CPGs and FBDGs concerning ECAP and child nutrition (CN) and to assess the quality of the guidelines and management of COI. Additionally, we will analyse the content and the evidence base of the recommendation statements. We aim to quantify the COI in guideline panellists and explore possible associations between COI and recommendations. Through a social network analysis, we expect to elucidate ties between panellists, researchers, institutions, industry and other sponsors. Guidelines are an important tool to inform healthcare practitioners with the newest evidence, but quality and reliability have to be high. This study will help identify potential for further improvement in the development of guidelines and the management of COI. If the social network analysis proves feasible and reveals more information on COI in comparison to disclosed COI from the previous analyses, the methodology can be developed further to identify undisclosed COIs in panelists. Ethics and dissemination This research does not require ethical approval because no human subjects are involved. Results will be published in international peer-reviewed open access journals and via presentations at scientific conferences

Fossil energy in economic growth: A study of the energy direction of technical change, 1950-2012

Climate change mitigation challenges national economies to increase productivity while reducing fossil energy consumption. Fossil energy-saving technical change has been assumed to accomplish this, yet empirical evidence is scarce. This paper investigates the long-run relationship between the rate and direction of technical change with respect to fossil energy and labor in the world economy. Growth rates of labor productivity and the fossil energy-labor ratio are examined for more than 95 of world output between 1950 and 2012. The average elasticity of the energy-labor ratio with respect to labor productivity is close to one, implying highly energy-using technical change, but no trade-o between factor productivity growth rates. This stylized fact suggests the importance of a cheap, abundant energy supply for robust global growth, and a more important role for renewable energy. Integrated assessment models do not incorporate this restriction which may result in poorly speci ed baseline scenarios

Ecological distribution conflicts as forces for sustainability : an overview and conceptual framework

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552Centre: ICTA Digital object identifier for the 'European Research Council' (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000781) Digital object identifier for 'Horizon 2020' (http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100007601).Can ecological distribution conflicts turn into forces for sustainability? This overview paper addresses in a systematic conceptual manner the question of why, through whom, how, and when conflicts over the use of the environment may take an active role in shaping transitions toward sustainability. It presents a conceptual framework that schematically maps out the linkages between (a) patterns of (unsustainable) social metabolism, (b) the emergence of ecological distribution conflicts, (c) the rise of environmental justice movements, and (d) their potential contributions for sustainability transitions. The ways how these four processes can influence each other are multi-faceted and often not a foretold story. Yet, ecological distribution conflicts can have an important role for sustainability, because they relentlessly bring to light conflicting values over the environment as well as unsustainable resource uses affecting people and the planet. Environmental justice movements, born out of such conflicts, become key actors in politicizing such unsustainable resource uses, but moreover, they take sometimes also radical actions to stop them. By drawing on creative forms of mobilizations and diverse repertoires of action to effectively reduce unsustainabilities, they can turn from 'victims' of environmental injustices into 'warriors' for sustainability. But when will improvements in sustainability be lasting? By looking at the overall dynamics between the four processes, we aim to foster a more systematic understanding of the dynamics and roles of ecological distribution conflicts within sustainability processes