Is Meat the New Tobacco? Regulating Food Demand in the Age of Climate Change

Switching from a meat-heavy to a plant-based diet is one of the highest-impact lifestyle changes for climate mitigation and adaptation. Conventional demand-side energy policy has focused on increasing consumption of efficient machines and fuels. Regulating food demand has key advantages. First, food consumption is biologically constrained, thus switching to more efficient foods avoids unintended consequences of switching to more efficient machines, like higher overall energy consumption. Second, food consumption, like smoking, is primed for norm- shifting because it occurs in socially conspicuous environments. While place-based bans and information regulation were essential in lowering the prevalence of smoking, the same strategies may be even more effective in reducing meat demand. Several policy reforms can be implemented at the federal level, from reform of food marketing schemes to publicly subsidized meal programs

Property Theory, Land Use Law, and Climate Change

We use rules to decide what to do with scarce resources. Questions about rules matter insofar as we live primarily on the surface of the earth, relying on each other and non-human entities for food, habitation, and other essential goods and services. I argue over three separate but related papers that theories of property rules and other environmental management strategies sourced from normative ethics, economics, and political theory and their applications must engage with the natural sciences. By abstracting from biology and ecology in particular, these theories will fail to capture promising solutions for our most pressing environmental problems to the detriment of the present and future generations they are meant to serve. The first chapter presents an interpretation of John Locke’s labor-based theory of property rights in the broader context of Locke’s moral philosophy and scientific empiricism. I argue that contrary to conventional libertarian and utilitarian interpretations, Lockean property theory actually prescribes weak substantive prescriptions for the content of property rights but strong normative and epistemic constraints on property transitions in order to deal with the novel social inequities imposed by shifting resource pressures. The second chapter presents a qualified defense for the use of carbon offsets in public and private climate policy, contrary to the blanket rejection of their use among philosophers and environmental law scholars based on their inadequacy in mitigating climate change. I reframe the normative challenge of climate change as an integration of mitigation and adaptation—climate resilience—rather than the narrower goal of climate mitigation and explain how these newfangled carbon rights can be reappropriated for this broader goal. The third chapter argues that diversified resource use offers a missing response to the tragedy of the commons. By abstracting from the ecosystem properties of natural resources, tragedy of the commons points toward a narrow set of institutional solutions focused on use restriction and exclusion. I show how this missing response might instead recommend application of a nondiscrimination rule for urban zoning regulations and farm subsidies in order to encourage agroecological diversification.PhDPhilosophyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/178111/1/lingxic_1.pd

Throughput Optimization for NOMA Cognitive Relay Network with RF Energy Harvesting Based on Improved Bat Algorithm

Due to the shortcomings of the standard bat algorithm (BA) for multi-parameter optimization, an improved bat algorithm is proposed. The benchmark function test shows that the proposed algorithm has better realization of high-dimensional function optimization by introducing multiple flight modes, adopting adaptive strategy based on group trend, and employing loudness mutation flight selection strategy based on Brownian motion. Aiming at the characteristics of complex networks structure and multiple design variables of energy harvesting non-orthogonal multiple access cognitive relay networks (EH-NOMA-CRNs), we utilize the proposed hybrid strategy improved bat algorithm (HSIBA) to optimize the performance of EH-NOMA-CRNs. At first, we construct a novel two-hop underlay power beacon assisted EH-NOMA-CRN, and derive the closed-form expressions of secondary network’s outage probability and throughput. Then, the secondary network performance optimization is formulated as the throughput maximation problem with regard to EH ratio and power allocation factors. Subsequently, the HSIBA is employed to optimize the above parameters. Numerical results show that the proposed HSIBA can achieve optimization to the constructed EH-NOMA-CRN with faster convergence speed and higher stability

Throughput Optimization for NOMA Cognitive Relay Network with RF Energy Harvesting Based on Improved Bat Algorithm

Due to the shortcomings of the standard bat algorithm (BA) for multi-parameter optimization, an improved bat algorithm is proposed. The benchmark function test shows that the proposed algorithm has better realization of high-dimensional function optimization by introducing multiple flight modes, adopting adaptive strategy based on group trend, and employing loudness mutation flight selection strategy based on Brownian motion. Aiming at the characteristics of complex networks structure and multiple design variables of energy harvesting non-orthogonal multiple access cognitive relay networks (EH-NOMA-CRNs), we utilize the proposed hybrid strategy improved bat algorithm (HSIBA) to optimize the performance of EH-NOMA-CRNs. At first, we construct a novel two-hop underlay power beacon assisted EH-NOMA-CRN, and derive the closed-form expressions of secondary network’s outage probability and throughput. Then, the secondary network performance optimization is formulated as the throughput maximation problem with regard to EH ratio and power allocation factors. Subsequently, the HSIBA is employed to optimize the above parameters. Numerical results show that the proposed HSIBA can achieve optimization to the constructed EH-NOMA-CRN with faster convergence speed and higher stability