SOME REFLECTIONS ON CLIMATE CHANGE, GREEN GROWTH ILLUSIONS AND DEVELOPMENT SPACE

Many economists and policy makers advocate a fundamental shift towards “green growth” as the new, qualitatively-different growth paradigm, based on enhanced material/resource/energy efficiency and drastic changes in the energy mix. “Green growth” may work well in creating new growth impulses with reduced environmental load and facilitating related technological and structural change. But can it also mitigate climate change at the required scale (i.e. significant, absolute and permanent decline of GHG emissions at global level) and pace? This paper argues that growth, technological, population-expansion and governance constraints as well as some key systemic issues cast a very long shadow on the “green growth” hopes. One should not deceive oneself into believing that such evolutionary (and often reductionist) approach will be sufficient to cope with the complexities of climate change. It may rather give much false hope and excuses to do nothing really fundamental that can bring about a U-turn of global GHG emissions. The proponents of a resource efficiency revolution and a drastic change in the energy mix need to scrutinize the historical evidence, in particular the arithmetic of economic and population growth. Furthermore, they need to realize that the required transformation goes beyond innovation and structural changes to include democratization of the economy and cultural change. Climate change calls into question the global equality of opportunity for prosperity (i.e. ecological justice and development space) and is thus a huge developmental challenge for the South and a question of life and death for some developing countries (who increasingly resist the framing of climate protection versus equity).

Prioritisation in medicine – discussion of a reality

Welche gesellschaftlichen Zwänge wirken auf die Medizin und ihre Anwender ein? Wie ist das Verhältnis von Ökonomie und medizinisch Gebotenem? Wie steht es mit der Finanzierung der nicht evidenzbasierten Behandlung? Stellen Rationierung und Rationalisierung die möglichen Prinzipien der Priorisierung dar? Führt die Priorisierung zur Qualitätsminderung oder gar Sorgfaltsverletzung? Diese Fragen behandelte der 4. Ärztetag am Dom in Frankfurt am Main. ...Which social constraints have an effect on medical care and its users? What is the relationship between economy and what is medically indicated? What about the financing of non-evidence-based treatment? Are rationing and rationalisation the possible principles of prioritisation? Does prioritisation lead to diminished quality or even to gross negligence? All of these questions were addressed at the "4. Ärztetag am Dom" in Frankfurt/Main. ..

Emerging from the war: Gold Standard mentality, current accounts and the international business cycle 1885-1939

We study international business cycles and capital flows in the UK, the United States and the Emerging Periphery in the period 1885-1939. Based on the same set of parameters, our model explains current account dynamics under both the Classical Gold Standard and during the Interwar period. We interpret this as evidence for Gold Standard mentality: the expectation formation mechanism with respect to major macroeconomic variables driving the current account – output, exchange rates and interest rates – has remained fundamentally stable between the two periods. Nonetheless, the macroeconomic environment changed: Volatility increased generally, but less so for international capital flows than for GDP. This pattern is consistent with shocks in the Interwar period becoming more persistent and more global.Current accounts, capital flows, business cycles, Great Depression, Gold Standard, emerging markets, present-value models

A discrete version of the Darboux transform for isothermic surfaces

We study Christoffel and Darboux transforms of discrete isothermic nets in 4-dimensional Euclidean space: definitions and basic properties are derived. Analogies with the smooth case are discussed and a definition for discrete Ribaucour congruences is given. Surfaces of constant mean curvature are special among all isothermic surfaces: they can be characterized by the fact that their parallel constant mean curvature surfaces are Christoffel and Darboux transforms at the same time. This characterization is used to define discrete nets of constant mean curvature. Basic properties of discrete nets of constant mean curvature are derived.Comment: 30 pages, LaTeX, a version with high quality figures is available at http://www-sfb288.math.tu-berlin.de/preprints.htm

Can Green Growth Really Work and what are the True (Socio-)Economics of Climate Change?

Many economists and policy makers advocate a fundamental shift towards "green growth" as the new, qualitatively-different growth paradigm, largely based on enhanced material/resource/energy efficiency, structural changes towards a service-dominated economy and a switch in the energy mix favouring renewable forms of energy. "Green growth" may work well in creating new growth impulses with reduced environmental load and facilitating related technological and structural change. But can it also mitigate climate change at the required scale (i.e. significant, absolute and permanent decline of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at global level) and pace (i.e. in no more than two decades)? This paper argues that growth, technological, population-expansion and governance constraints as well as some key systemic issues cast a very long shadow on the "green growth" hopes. One should not deceive oneself into believing that such an evolutionary (and often reductionist) approach will be sufficient to cope with the complexities of climate change. It may rather give much false hope and excuses to do nothing really fundamental that should bring about a U-turn of global GHG emissions. The proponents of a resource efficiency revolution, re-structuring of economies and a drastic change in the energy mix need to scrutinize the historical evidence, in particular the arithmetic of economic and population growth. Furthermore, they need to realize that the required transformation goes far beyond innovation and structural changes to include better distribution of income and wealth, limitation of market power of economic agents that promote biased approaches to GHG reduction, and a culture of sufficiency. Climate change calls into question the global equality of opportunity for prosperity (i.e. ecological justice and development space) and is thus a huge developmental challenge for all countries, but particularly for the global South and a question of life and death for some developing countries

Reclaming Food Systems: Agroecology and Trade

In the light of climate-change-induced volatility of production volumes and declining growth dynamics of agricultural productivity, the international agro-food trade is likely to increase in importance in the future, especially in developing countries with a high rate of population growth. The rules governing international trade (WTO disciplines and the WTO+ rules enshrined in bilateral, regional and mega trade liberalization agreements) have a critical influence on – and impinge upon – national sovereignty over agricultural policies Even so, the existing flexibility mechanisms in the WTO Agreement on Agriculture and those currently being negotiated in the WTO Doha Round could enable interested and determined governments to pursue policies that create the conditions for, or strengthen, food security and sustainable rural development, and to promote the truly sustainable transformation of agriculture, including agroecological production. The main precondition in this regard is that the clear political will exists to move in this direction, and that this is translated into a realistic strategy that incorporates appropriate flanking and supportive trade measures. It is therefore pertinent to conduct a detailed review of the existing WTO rules, and of those trade and agriculture policy measures introduced after the 2008 food price crisis which aim to use agro ecological/eco-functional intensification (i.e. more quality than volume) to foster food security, sovereignty and sustainable rural development, as well as the concomitant enhanced resilience. Such an analysis would also scrutinize the problematic general incentives in the trade rules which foster excessive specialization, factory-like mass production and the enormous cost-related pressures

Internationaler Handel gegen Hunger

Der internationale Agrarhandel bleibt bedeutsam. Er gleicht Produktionsschwankungen und abnehmende Erträge aus, wie sie etwa durch den Klimawandel verursacht werden. Er hilft bei der Lebensmittelversorgung von Regionen mit hohem Bevölkerungswachstum. Das Regelwerk des internationalen Handels greift zwar tief in die Souveränität der Staaten bei der Gestaltung der Agrarpolitik ein. Dennoch gestatten die bestehenden WTO-Regeln sowie die in der laufenden Doha-Runde diskutierten Vorschläge den Regierungen, Massnahmen zu ergreifen, die die Ernährungssicherheit und eine nachhaltige, ländliche Entwicklung ermöglichen. Eine tatsächlich nachhaltige Landwirtschaft basierend auf ökologischer Intensivierung kann so realisiert werden. Voraussetzung dafür ist allerdings, dass der politische Wille dazu besteht und dieser in eine realistische Strategie mit flankierenden Handelsmassnahmen mündet. Internationaler Handel muss einen konstruktiven Beitrag zur Gewährleistung von Ernährungssicherheit und der Förderung nachhaltiger, ländlicher Entwicklung leisten. Diese Forderungen sind in den letzten beiden Jahren ins Zentrum der Verhandlungen der WTO-Doha-Runde gerückt. Ohne eine Einigung in diesen Fragen wird es kaum wesentliche Fortschritte bei den WTO-Verhandlungen geben. Es wäre daher angebracht, von der Nahrungsmittelkrise 2008 zu lernen und wie auch Olivier De Schutter fordert, sinnvolle handels- und agrarpolitische Massnahmen in das existierende WTO-Reglement einzubauen sowie gewisse Regeln in der Grünen Box zu präzisieren

Nitric oxide enhances de novo formation of endothelial gap junctions

Objective: Gap junctions (formed by connexins, Cx) are important for functional coordination of cells in the vascular wall. However, little is known about their physiological regulation in this tissue. We examined the effects of nitric oxide (NO), an important mediator of vasomotion, wound healing and angiogenesis, on the formation of gap junctions in endothelial cells (human umbilical vein endothelial cells, HUVEC). Methods: Flow cytometry was used to determine dye transfer through newly formed gap junctions between acutely coincubated HUVECs. Parallel experiments in wild-type HeLa cells (no connexins) and transfected HeLa cells exclusively expressing Cx43, Cx40 or Cx37 were performed to determine the specific role of Cx subtypes. The intracellular distribution of Cx40 was examined after fractionation with triton by Western blotting. Intracellular levels of cGMP and cAMP were measured by radioimmunoassay. Results: The NO donor SNAP (1 μM) enhanced gap-junctional coupling in HUVECs by about 40%. This was associated with an enhanced incorporation of Cx40 into the membrane. Both effects were restricted to Cx40 as analyzed in experiments with Cx-selective HeLa cells. The NO-induced increase in cell coupling was elicited by a corresponding rise of cGMP, which secondarily increased intracellular cAMP levels. The latter was an integral part of the signal cascade, since the protein kinase A (PKA) inhibitor H89 blocked the SNAP-induced incorporation of Cx40 into the plasma membrane. Conclusions: We conclude that NO is a potent modulator of gap-junctional coupling in endothelial cells. It enhances de novo formation of endothelial gap junctions by increasing incorporation of Cx40 into the plasma membrane due to PKA activation