Is carbon dioxide pricing a driver in concrete mix design?

The global cement industry is responsible for 7% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions and, as such, has a vital role to play in the transition to a low carbon dioxide economy. In recent years, this has been achieved by technological advances and increased use of supplementary cementitious materials, but the authors have recently shown that there are other means of achieving comparable carbon dioxide savings, for example, by reducing workability. However, price remains a considerable barrier to the widespread implementation of low carbon dioxide concrete. Using the same model for concrete mix design as was used to determine embodied carbon dioxide (ECD), variations in the cost of the components of concrete have now been considered. Considering 24 different mix designs, each spanning a range of characteristic strengths from 20 to 100 MPa, measures to reduce the carbon dioxide footprint were also found to reduce the material cost of the concrete. As such, it may be considered that the construction industry is already encouraged to reduce its ‘carbon footprint’. However, the concept of the carbon footprint was then considered in a more nuanced fashion, considering the ECD per unit strength. On such a basis, the cheapest mixes did not have the lowest ECD. Therefore, the impact of levying a charge on the carbon footprint was considered. To ensure low carbon dioxide concrete is also the cheapest, carbon dioxide emissions would have to be priced approximately one to two orders of magnitude higher than current market value. This would become the dominant factor in construction, with serious consequences for the industry. Furthermore, such charges may pose ethical problems, being viewed as a ‘licence to pollute’ and therefore undermining society's efforts to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of the construction industry

Bovine Tuberculosis Policy in England: Would a Virtuous Government Cull Mr Badger?

Bovine tuberculosis (bovine TB) is the most important animal health and welfare policy issue in Britain. Badgers are a wildlife reservoir of disease, although the eight-year Independent Scientific Group (ISG) Randomised Badger Culling Trial concluded with a recommendation against culling. The report advised government that bovine TB could be controlled, and ultimately eradicated, by cattle-based measures alone. Despite the ISG recommendation against culling, the farming and veterinary industries continued to lobby government for a badger cull. The 2005–2010 Labour government followed the ISG advice and decided against a cull. The 2010–2015 Coalition and the 2015-present Conservative governments have followed a badger culling policy. This paper investigates whether a virtuous government would cull badgers. It provides an overview of virtue theory in the context of government animal health and welfare policy. Bovine TB and badger control policy options are then analysed in the context of the virtues of justice, wisdom, integrity, loyalty, curiosity, trust, empathy, compassion and aesthetics. Justice is the first virtue of government, and badger culling is seriously problematic from a virtue perspective given that five badgers are culled per cow that avoids slaughter as a result. Analysis based on other virtues strongly suggests that government should not cull badgers. The paper concludes that a virtuous government would not cull badgers as part of policy to control bovine TB in cattle

Articulating ‘public interest’ through complexity theory

The ‘Public interest’, even if viewed with ambiguity or scepticism, has been one of the primary means by which various professional roles of planners have been justified. Many objections to the concept have been advanced by writers in planning academia. Notwithstanding these, ‘public interest’ continues to be mobilised, to justify, defend or argue for planning interventions and reforms. This has led to arguments that planning will have to adopt and recognise some form of public interest in practice to legitimise itself.. This paper explores current debates around public interest and social justice and advances a vision of the public interest informed by complexity theory. The empirical context of the paper is the poverty alleviation programme, the Kudumbashree project in Kerala, India

Widespread range expansions shape latitudinal variation in insect thermal limits

I thank the authors of previous studies on global variation in insect thermal tolerances who have generously provided open access use of their data sets.Peer reviewedPostprin

Organisational justice:new insights from behavioural ethics

Both organizational justice and behavioural ethics are concerned with questions of 'right and wrong' in the context of work organizations. Until recently they have developed largely independently of each other, choosing to focus on subtly different concerns, constructs and research questions. The last few years have, however, witnessed a significant growth in theoretical and empirical research integrating these closely related academic specialities. We review the organizational justice literature, illustrating the impact of behavioural ethics research on important fairness questions. We argue that organizational justice research is focused on four reoccurring issues: (i) why justice at work matters to individuals; (ii) how justice judgements are formed; (iii) the consequences of injustice; and (iv) the factors antecedent to justice perceptions. Current and future justice research has begun and will continue borrowing from the behavioural ethics literature in answering these questions

Are Better Workers Also Better Humans? On Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement in the Workplace and Conflicting Societal Domains

The article investigates the sociocultural implications of the changing modern workplace and of pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE) as a potential adaptive tool from the viewpoint of social niche construction. We will attempt to elucidate some of the sociocultural and technological trends that drive and influence the characteristics of this specific niche, and especially to identify the kind of capabilities and adaptations that are being promoted, and to ascertain the capabilities and potentialities that might become diminished as a result. In this context, we will examine what PCE is, and how and why it might be desirable as a tool for adaptation within the workplace. As human beings are, or at least should be allowed to be, more than merely productive, able-bodied and able-minded workers, we will further examine how adaptation to the workplace niche could result in problems in other domains of modern societal life that require the same or other cognitive capabilities. In this context we will also focus on the concept of responsibility and how it pertains to PCE and the modern workplace niche. This will shed some light on the kind of trends related to workplace niche construction, PCE and capability promotion that we can expect in the future, and on the contexts in which this might be either beneficial or detrimental to the individual as a well-rounded human being, and to other members of society