Transitioning to sustainability in Saskatchewan power production

This paper hypothesizes the future of Saskatchewan power production based on the theory of transition management. Power generation law and policy in Saskatchewan over the last century to the present is analyzed as a key component of a socio-technical regime. Understanding the legacy of law and policy is important given sustainability concerns and the realization that significant changes will be required in trajectories of development putting less strain on natural capital and ecosystem services. This paper examines the critical relationship between governance strategies at the macro socio and political landscape level and the particular policy mix that is found in the socio-technical regime of power generation in Saskatchewan. This exercise is informed by transition management theory and also the alternative explanations of path dependency. Switch points critical to the trajectory of power generation development are identified and used to illustrate and assess the plausibility of these theoretical concepts. Current landscape developments in Saskatchewan, including the emergence of concerns for human-induced climate change, the development of wind power and even the re-emergence of nuclear power generation as a policy option, may facilitate a transition towards greater sustainability. These sustainability paths are juxtaposed against the development of Saskatchewan’s oil sands and the development of carbon capture sequestration technology. Possible future alternative pathways to sustainable power production are outlined and critiqued in the current Saskatchewan governance context

Diverse community energy futures in Saskatchewan, Canada

Abstract: This research explores peoples’ place attachment and context surrounding power production and energy futures. Facilitated, deliberative focus groups were conducted as comparative case studies in three fossil fuel-dependent cities in Saskatchewan Canada: Estevan (situated next to the provincial centers of coal, oil and gas production), Saskatoon (situated more northerly and furthest from coal, oil and gas production) and the capital city of Regina. (situated between the other two communities). This study supports the conclusions: (1) participants believed the focus groups improved their knowledge surrounding power production; (2) although there is strong support for wind and solar power production, there is a gap in implementation; and (3) place-based location impacts perceptions of power production sources. Participants were surveyed before and after focus group meetings to explore the perceptions and preferences of power productions sources. All three communities favored renewables in the order of solar and wind. Estevan, supported carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) to a greater degree and perceived much lower risk surrounding CCS than the other two communities. This may be explained by information gaps in this community. Participants were far less likely to believe a climate crisis is occurring, and while recognizing health concerns surrounding coal, they spent considerably more time discussing the loss of coal and its impact on their economy. Saskatoon, the community furthest from coal oil and gas production, spent considerable time discussing renewables, and when asked about coal, oil and gas identified the need to transition and retrain dependent workers. Although the uranium sector is present in Saskatchewan and in closer proximity to Saskatoon, there was little knowledge or support for new small modular nuclear reactors. Graphic abstract

'Transformations towards sustainability':Emerging approaches, critical reflections, and a research agenda

Over the last two decades researchers have come to understand much about the global challenges confronting human society (e.g. climate change; biodiversity loss; water, energy and food insecurity; poverty and widening social inequality). However, the extent to which research and policy efforts are succeeding in steering human societies towards more sustainable and just futures is unclear. Attention is increasingly turning towards better understanding how to navigate processes of social and institutional transformation to bring about more desirable trajectories of change in various sectors of human society. A major knowledge gap concerns understanding how transformations towards sustainability are conceptualised, understood and analysed. Limited existing scholarship on this topic is fragmented, sometimes overly deterministic, and weak in its capacity to critically analyse transformation processes which are inherently political and contested. This paper aims to advance understanding of transformations towards sustainability, recognising it as both a normative and an analytical concept. We firstly review existing concepts of transformation in global environmental change literature, and the role of governance in relation to it. We then propose a framework for understanding and critically analysing transformations towards sustainability based on the existing ‘Earth System Governance’ framework (Biermann et al., 2009). We then outline a research agenda, and argue that transdisciplinary research approaches and a key role for early career researchers are vital for pursuing this agenda. Finally, we argue that critical reflexivity among global environmental change scholars, both individually and collectively, will be important for developing innovative research on transformations towards sustainability to meaningfully contribute to policy and action over time

Restoring Degraded Lands

Land degradation continues to be an enormous challenge to human societies, reducing food security, emitting greenhouse gases and aerosols, driving the loss of biodiversity, polluting water, and undermining a wide range of ecosystem services beyond food supply and water and climate regulation. Climate change will exacerbate several degradation processes. Investment in diverse restoration efforts, including sustainable agricultural and forest land management, as well as land set aside for conservation wherever possible, will generate co-benefits for climate change mitigation and adaptation and morebroadly for human and societal well-being and the economy. This review highlights the magnitude of the degradation problem and some of the key challenges for ecological restoration. There are biophysical as well as societal limits to restoration. Better integrating policies to jointly address poverty, land degradation, and greenhouse gas emissions and removals is fundamental to reducing many existing barriers and contributing to climate-resilient sustainable development

Exploring the governance and politics of transformations towards sustainability

AbstractThe notion of ‘transformations towards sustainability’ takes an increasingly central position in global sustainability research and policy discourse in recent years. Governance and politics are central to understanding and analysing transformations towards sustainability. However, despite receiving growing attention in recent years, the governance and politics aspects of transformations remain arguably under-developed in the global sustainability literature. A variety of conceptual approaches have been developed to understand and analyse societal transition or transformation processes, including: socio-technical transitions, social-ecological systems, sustainability pathways, and transformative adaptation. This paper critically surveys these four approaches, and reflects on them through the lens of the Earth System Governance framework (Biermann et al., 2009). This contributes to appreciating existing insights on transformations, and to identifying key research challenges and opportunities. Overall, the paper brings together diverse perspectives, that have so far remained largely fragmented, in order to strengthen the foundation for future research on transformations towards sustainability

Earth System Law: Exploring New Frontiers in Legal Science

The Anthropocene requires of us to rethink global governance challenges and effective responses with a more holistic understanding of the earth system as a single intertwined social-ecological system. Law, in particular, will have to embrace such a holistic earth system perspective in order to deal more effectively with the Anthropocene’s predicaments. While a growing number of scholars have tried to reimagine law and legal scholarship in a more holistic way, these attempts remain siloed. What is required is a shared epistemic framework to enable and enhance collaborative intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary research and co-learning that go hand in hand with thorough transdisciplinary stakeholder engagement. We argue that the nascent concept of earth system law offers such an overarching epistemic framework. This article serves as an invitation to fellow explorers from various legal fields, other disciplines, and from a wide range of stakeholders to explore new frontiers in earth system law. Our aim is to further stimulate the study of earth system law, and to encourage collaboration and co-learning in a fertile epistemic space that we share

Impacts of meeting minimum access on critical earth systems amidst the Great Inequality

The Sustainable Development Goals aim to improve access to resources and services, reduce environmental degradation, eradicate poverty and reduce inequality. However, the magnitude of the environmental burden that would arise from meeting the needs of the poorest is under debate—especially when compared to much larger burdens from the rich. We show that the ‘Great Acceleration’ of human impacts was characterized by a ‘Great Inequality’ in using and damaging the environment. We then operationalize ‘just access’ to minimum energy, water, food and infrastructure. We show that achieving just access in 2018, with existing inequalities, technologies and behaviours, would have produced 2–26% additional impacts on the Earth’s natural systems of climate, water, land and nutrients—thus further crossing planetary boundaries. These hypothetical impacts, caused by about a third of humanity, equalled those caused by the wealthiest 1–4%. Technological and behavioural changes thus far, while important, did not deliver just access within a stable Earth system. Achieving these goals therefore calls for a radical redistribution of resources

Limitations of Water Resources Infrastructure for Reducing Community Vulnerabilities to Extremes and Uncertainty of Flood and Drought

Debate and deliberation surrounding climate change has shifted from mitigation toward adaptation, with much of the adaptation focus centered on adaptive practices, and infrastructure development. However, there is little research assessing expected impacts, potential benefits, and design challenges that exist for reducing vulnerability to expected climate impacts. The uncertainty of design requirements and associated government policies, and social structures that reflect observed and projected changes in the intensity, duration, and frequency of water-related climate events leaves communities vulnerable to the negative impacts of potential flood and drought. The results of international research into how agricultural infrastructure features in current and planned adaptive capacity of rural communities in Argentina, Canada, and Colombia indicate that extreme hydroclimatic events, as well as climate variability and unpredictability are important for understanding and responding to community vulnerability. The research outcomes clearly identify the need to deliberately plan, coordinate, and implement infrastructures that support community resiliency.Fil: McMartin, Dena W.. University of Regina; CanadáFil: Hernani Merino, Bruno H.. University of Regina; CanadáFil: Bonsal, Barrie. Environment Canada; CanadáFil: Hurlbert, Margot. University of Regina; CanadáFil: Villalba, Ricardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Regional de Investigaciones Cientifícas y Tecnológicas; ArgentinaFil: Ocampo, Olga L.. Universidad Autónoma de Manizales; ColombiaFil: Upegui, Jorge Julián Vélez. Universidad Nacional de Colombia; ColombiaFil: Poveda, Germán. Universidad Nacional de Colombia; ColombiaFil: Sauchyn, David J.. University of Regina; Canad

Biological Characterisation of Haliclona (?gellius) sp.: Sponge and Associated Microorganisms

We have characterised the northern Pacific undescribed sponge Haliclona (?gellius) sp. based on rDNA of the sponge and its associated microorganisms. The sponge is closely related to Amphimedon queenslandica from the Great Barrier Reef as the near-complete 18S rDNA sequences of both sponges were identical. The microbial fingerprint of three specimens harvested at different times and of a transplanted specimen was compared to identify stably associated microorganisms. Most bacterial phyla were detected in each sample, but only a few bacterial species were determined to be stably associated with the sponge. A sponge-specific β- and γ-Proteobacterium were abundant clones and both of them were present in three of the four specimens analysed. In addition, a Planctomycete and a Crenarchaea were detected in all sponge individuals. Both were closely related to operational taxonomic units that have been found in other sponges, but not exclusively in sponges. Interestingly, also a number of clones that are closely related to intracellular symbionts from insects and amoeba were detected

Environmental Shaping of Sponge Associated Archaeal Communities

Archaea are ubiquitous symbionts of marine sponges but their ecological roles and the influence of environmental factors on these associations are still poorly understood.We compared the diversity and composition of archaea associated with seawater and with the sponges Hymeniacidon heliophila, Paraleucilla magna and Petromica citrina in two distinct environments: Guanabara Bay, a highly impacted estuary in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the nearby Cagarras Archipelago. For this we used metagenomic analyses of 16S rRNA and ammonia monooxygenase (amoA) gene libraries. Hymeniacidon heliophila was more abundant inside the bay, while P. magna was more abundant outside and P. citrina was only recorded at the Cagarras Archipelago. Principal Component Analysis plots (PCA) generated using pairwise unweighted UniFrac distances showed that the archaeal community structure of inner bay seawater and sponges was different from that of coastal Cagarras Archipelago. Rarefaction analyses showed that inner bay archaeaoplankton were more diverse than those from the Cagarras Archipelago. Only members of Crenarchaeota were found in sponge libraries, while in seawater both Crenarchaeota and Euryarchaeota were observed. Although most amoA archaeal genes detected in this study seem to be novel, some clones were affiliated to known ammonia oxidizers such as Nitrosopumilus maritimus and Cenarchaeum symbiosum.The composition and diversity of archaeal communities associated with pollution-tolerant sponge species can change in a range of few kilometers, probably influenced by eutrophication. The presence of archaeal amoA genes in Porifera suggests that Archaea are involved in the nitrogen cycle within the sponge holobiont, possibly increasing its resistance to anthropogenic impacts. The higher diversity of Crenarchaeota in the polluted area suggests that some marine sponges are able to change the composition of their associated archaeal communities, thereby improving their fitness in impacted environments