In this paper I discuss a popular position in the climate justice literature concerning historical accountability for climate change. According to this view, historical high-emitters of greenhouse gases—or currently existing individuals that are appropriately related to them—are in possession of some form of emission debt, owed to certain of those who are now burdened by climate change. It is frequently claimed that such debts were originally incurred by historical emissions that violated a principle of fair shares for (...) the world’s natural resources. Thus, a suitable principle of natural resource justice is required to render this interpretation of historical accountability complete. I argue that the need for such a principle poses a significant challenge for the historical emission debt view, because there doesn’t appear to be any determinate answer to the question what a fair share of climate sink capacity would have been historically. This leaves the historical emission debt view incomplete and thus unable to explain a powerful intuition that appears to motivate the view: namely, that there is something unjust about how the climate sink has historically been used. I suggest an alternative explanation of this common intuition according to which historically unequal consumption of climate sink capacity, whether or not wrongful in and of itself, is a symptom of broader global injustice concerning control over and access to the world’s natural resources. This broader historical injustice will be harder to quantify and harder to repair than that which the historical emission debt purports to identify. (shrink)

It is often assumed that in order to avoid the most severe consequences of global anthropogenic climate change we have to preserve our existing carbon sinks, such as for instance tropical forests. Global carbon sink conservation raises a host of normative issues, though, since it is debatable who should pay the costs of carbon sink conservation, who has the duty to protect which sinks, and how far the duty to conserve one’s carbon sinks actually extends, especially if (...) it conflicts with other duties one might have. According to some, forested states like Ecuador have a duty to preserve their tropical forests while the rich states of the global North have a duty of fairness to compensate states like Ecuador for the costs they incur. My aim in this paper is to critically analyse this standard line of argument and to criticise its validity both internally and externally. As I will argue, the duty to conserve one’s forests is only a particular instantiation of a wider, more general duty to contribute towards global climate justice for which the context in which one operates matters significantly. (shrink)

A central task of climate justice is to agree upon a just distribution of the right to emit greenhouse gases. According to the equal per capita shares view, the right to emit should be divided equally between every inhabitant of Earth, since to emit is to use up the resource of atmospheric absorptive capacity, and this is a resource to which no one person has any stronger claim than any other. The fact that a significant proportion of the Earth’s (...) ability to absorb and sequester greenhouse gases actually comes not from the atmosphere, but from terrestrial climate sinks that are located within national borders, and that are therefore plausibly subject to legitimate territorial claims, poses a serious challenge to the intuitive egalitarian simplicity of the equal per capita shares view. A defence of this view, then, is tantamount to a defence of the redistribution of terrestrial sink capacity, and therefore must involve either (1) an argument against the legitimacy of territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity, or (2) an argument for why legitimate territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity should nevertheless be ignored in favour of an equal per capita distribution of emissions shares. One strategy for doing so involves applying Charles Beitz’s resource redistribution principle to terrestrial sink capacity. Some authors have argued that this strategy will fail due to important differences between the nature of ‘conventional’ natural resources, and the nature of a resource link climate sink capacity. In this paper, I consider five arguments to this effect that seek to establish the legitimacy of territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity. Respectively, they appeal to attachment, identity, self-determination, improvement and fairness in order to do so. I argue that each one either fails to establish the legitimacy of territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity, or, where they do plausibly establish legitimacy, they do so in a way that renders them vulnerable to type-(2) objections that suggest territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity should nevertheless be ignored. I conclude that, if one is willing to adopt the resource redistribution principle, a just distribution of emissions shares need not respect territorial claims to terrestrial sink capacity. (shrink)

Rising sea levels may sink entire countries. Individualistic solutions to this climate catastrophe, such as those proposed by Meisels and Risse, are inadequate on both Kantian and Lockean criteria. This article concurs with Cara Nine's recent argument that such ‘ecological refugee states’ are entitled to territorial remedies. But Nine's proposal, founded on Locke's ‘sufficiency’ proviso and Nozick's famous application of it to waterholes in the desert, is instructively incorrect. Careful consideration of the distinction between land and territory, and (...) of the structure of Proviso arguments, supports a new theory of how territorial claims can be positive‐sum — how the amount of territory can increase even as the land base remains constant or decreases. This normative conception of territory as the ratio of justice to land use provides a better foundation for a political solution to the problem of ecological refugee states and also generates deeper insight into the nature of territory itself. The article thus contributes not only to our thinking about redress for ecological refugees, but also to the burgeoning literatures on territory and on the Lockean Provisos. (shrink)

If rising seas render small islands uninhabitable, will displaced islanders become stateless? The modern intellectual and legal tradition tells us that states must have defined, habitable territory. If so, small islands will cease to be states, and their inhabitants will accordingly become stateless. Against this, leading scholars have recently argued that the principle of presumption of continuity of state existence implies that island states continue to be states even after becoming uninhabitable. We argue to the contrary: the principle of presumption (...) of continuity of state existence implies no such thing. If nothing is done to prevent the loss of their territory, small islands will lose their statehood, making displaced islanders stateless. (shrink)

Anthropogenic climate change is an existential threat to the people of sinking island states. When their territories inevitably disappear, what, if anything, do the world's remaining territorial st...

Rising sea levels may sink entire countries. Individualistic solutions to this climate catastrophe, such as those proposed by Meisels and Risse, are inadequate on both Kantian and Lockean criteria. This article concurs with Cara Nine's recent argument that such ‘ecological refugee states’ are entitled to territorial remedies. But Nine's proposal, founded on Locke's ‘sufficiency’ proviso and Nozick's famous application of it to waterholes in the desert, is instructively incorrect. Careful consideration of the distinction between land and territory, and (...) of the structure of Proviso arguments, supports a new theory of how territorial claims can be positive-sum — how the amount of territory can increase even as the land base remains constant or decreases. This normative conception of territory as the ratio of justice to land use provides a better foundation for a political solution to the problem of ecological refugee states and also generates deeper insight into the nature of territory itself. The article thus contributes not only to our thinking about redress for ecological refugees, but also to the burgeoning literatures on territory and on the Lockean Provisos. (shrink)

Scholars concerned with abuses of the “resource privilege” by the governments of developing states sometimes call for national sovereignty over the natural resources that lie within its borders. While such claims may resist a key driver of the “resource curse” when applied to mineral resources in the ground, and are often recognized as among a people’s territorial rights, their implications differ in the context of climate change, where they are invoked on behalf of a right to extract and combust (...) fossil fuels that is set in opposition to global climate change mitigation imperatives. Moreover, granting full national sovereignty over territorial carbon sinks may conflict with commitments to equity in the sharing of national mitigation burdens, since much of the planet’s carbon sink capacity lies within territorial borders to which peoples have widely disparate access. In this paper, I shall explore this tension between a global justice principle that is often applied to mineral resources and its tension with contrary principles that are often applied to carbon sink access, developing an analysis that seeks to reconcile what would otherwise appear to be fundamentally incompatible aims. (shrink)

In discussions about responsibility for climate change, it is often suggested that the historical use of natural resources is in some way relevant to our current attempts to address this problem fairly. In particular, both theorists and actors in the public realm have argued that historical high-emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) – or the beneficiaries of those emissions – are in possession of some form of debt, deriving from their overuse of a natural resource that should have been shared (...) more equitably. These accounts of what might be termed ‘natural debt’ generally focus on one particular natural resource (global GHG sink capacity); invoke a principle of justice by which rights to consume this resource should have been allocated (most commonly, equal per capita shares); and then argue that historical violations of this principle give rise to certain rectificatory duties in the present (generally, duties on the part of those who have historically consumed an excessive amount of the world’s GHG sink capacity, or who have benefitted from such excess consumption, to offer some form of compensation to those who have not – such compensation usually taking the form of emission credits or cash). Though many seem to find it intuitively plausible that historical high-emissions have incurred some form of debt, significant challenges arise in rendering the concept of natural debt both coherent and defensible. Such problems are not, however, my focus in this piece. Instead, I here suggest that discussions about historical responsibility for climate change commonly fail to recognise certain other past injustices concerning natural resources that appear to hold contemporary relevance. In particular, I argue that it is not just the unequal consumption of global GHG sink capacity that may be of moral significance here; but also the way in which the world’s resources have more generally been governed. (shrink)

To address climate change fairly, many conflicting claims over natural resources must be balanced against one another. This has long been obvious in the case of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas sinks including the atmosphere and forests; but it is ever more apparent that responses to climate change also threaten to spur new competition over land and extractive resources. This makes climate change an instance of a broader, more enduring and - for many - all too familiar (...) problem: the problem of human conflict over how the natural world should be cared for, protected, shared, used, and managed. -/- This work develops a new theory of global egalitarianism concerning natural resources, rejecting both permanent sovereignty and equal division, which is then used to examine the problem of climate change. It formulates principles of resource right designed to protect the ability of all human beings to satisfy their basic needs as members of self-determining political communities, where it is understood that the genuine exercise of collective self-determination is not possible from a position of significant disadvantage in global wealth and power relations. These principles are used to address the question of where to set the ceiling on future greenhouse gas emissions and how to share the resulting emissions budget, in the face of conflicting claims to fossil fuels, climate sinks, and land. It is also used to defend an unorthodox understanding of responsibility for climate change as a problem of global justice, based on its provenance in historical injustice concerning natural resources. (shrink)

Inhabitants of low-lying islands flooded due to anthropogenic climate change will lose their territory and thereby their ability to exercise their right to political self-determination. This paper addresses the normative questions which arise when climate change threatens territorial rights. It explores whether the loss of statehood supports a claim to territorial compensation, and if so, how it can be satisfied. The paper concludes that such claims are well founded and that they should be met by providing compensatory territories. (...) After introducing a differentiation between land rights and territorial rights, previous theoretical responses to the problem of sinking islands are criticized. It is argued that states may be required to give up parts of their territory as compensation. The paper develops criteria of sufficiency for compensatory territories and proposes to base their selection process on a negative auction. Since it is unlikely that unsettled compensatory territories that meet the specified requirements are available, the rights of their original inhabitants are discussed. (shrink)

This article examines the centrality of Brazil within the future of climate policy and politics. The state of the carbon sink of the Amazon rainforest has long been an iconic marker of the condition of the Earth. Brazil has been innovative in developing many non-carbon forms of energy generation and use and it has played a major role in international debates on global warming since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. We examine various ways in which climate (...) change has come to be centrally important in Brazilian public opinion. Survey evidence shows that Brazilians are the most concerned about issues of climate change – with less climate change scepticism as compared with more ‘advanced’ societies. Through using techniques of corpus linguistics we examine how Brazilian media has engendered and stabilized such a high and striking level of climate change concern. We show that the media helped to fix a ‘climate change framing’ of recent often strange weather. The article analyses the newly constructed Brazilian Corpus on Climate Change, presenting data on a scale and reach that is unique in this area of research. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Lockean proviso can be utilized as a relevant principle of justice for food security under global climate change. Since reducing GHG emissions is key to enhancing food security, we suggest a global food security scheme that systematically allots, among all people, access to GHG sinks in food systems impacted by global climate change. For consideration of the scheme, it is important to have a principle of justice. Furthermore, it should incorporate the value of (...) fairness. A relevant principle of climate justice for food security should meet the following criteria: (1) the parties concerned under the scheme are states; (2) fairness does not undermine the requirement that the basic needs of all people must be met; (3) when determining fair burdens, a fair distribution of the rights to use GHG sinks should be sensitive both to each state’s responsibility for its GHG emissions and to (4) each state’s effort to reduce such emissions. With them in mind, first, we argue that the Lockean proviso can provide legitimate guidance for each state. Second, the Lockean proviso reasonably enjoins that a state has a right to a food system that secures its citizens’ basic needs, and a duty to meet the basic needs of other people. Third, the Lockean proviso can be deployed as a principle of both global justice and intergenerational justice for food security. Finally, the Lockean proviso enables us to count the reduction of GHG emissions by each state as “the fruits of its labors”. (shrink)

This chapter turns to the question of historical responsibility for unavoided climate impacts. It introduces the climate debt claim, according to which certain wealthy or industrialized states owe a debt of compensation to some of those suffering from the unavoided impacts of climate change; where the notion of a debt indicates that the obligation in question falls within the domain of rectificatory justice. The Historical Emissions Debt view, according to which climate debts arise when parties emit (...) more than their fair share of greenhouse gases, is rejected on the basis that there is no fair shares principle for historical use of the climate sink considered in isolation. Two interpretations of the beneficiary pays principle are found to face similar problems. Since none of these accounts appear defensible, it is concluded that those seeking to substantiate a climate debt claim would do better to attempt this by other means. (shrink)

This chapter concerns how the global emissions budget should be shared, critiquing the equal per capita emissions view (EPC). First, it is explained how theorists have used claims about natural resource rights to formulate the atmospheric commons argument for EPC. Then, drawing on the assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Elinor Ostrom’s work on common-pool resources, it is shown that these arguments invoke a misleading analysis of climate change as a global commons problem. Accurate (...) understanding of how climate change results from overuse of a global commons suggests that proponents of the commons argument for EPC overlook potential territorial claims to the climate sink. Two options for EPC theorists who wish to maintain the view in the face of this critique are identified, but both turn out to necessitate deeper engagement with the question of how rights to the world’s resources should be assigned. (shrink)

Ocean biology helps regulate global climate by fixing atmospheric CO2 and exporting it to deep waters as sinking detrital particles. New observations demonstrate that particle fragmentation is the principal factor controlling the depth to which these particles penetrate the ocean's interior, and hence how long the constituent carbon is sequestered from the atmosphere. The underlying cause is, however, poorly understood. We speculate that small, particle‐associated copepods, which intercept and inadvertently break up sinking particles as they search for attached protistan (...) prey, are the principle agents of fragmentation in the ocean. We explore this idea using a new marine ecosystem model. Results indicate that explicitly representing particle fragmentation by copepods in biogeochemical models offers a step change in our ability to understand the future evolution of biologically‐mediated ocean carbon storage. Our findings highlight the need for improved understanding of the distribution, abundance, ecology and physiology of particle‐associated copepods. (shrink)

If dangerous climate change is to be avoided, it is vital that carbon sinks such as tropical rainforests are protected. But protecting them has costs. These include opportunity costs: the potential economic benefits which those who currently control rainforests have to give up when they are protected. But who should bear those costs? Should countries which happen to have rainforests within their territories sacrifice their own economic development, because of our broader global interests in protecting key carbon sinks? This (...) essay develops an argument from the “principle of fairness,” which seeks to establish that outsiders should pay states with rainforests so as to share the costs of protection. If they do not, they can be condemned for free-riding on forest states. The argument is, I suggest, compelling and also capable of enjoying support from adherents of a wide variety of positions on global justice. (shrink)

Land-based climate mitigation schemes such as REDD+ imply the creation of ‘rights to carbon’ for actions that enhance carbon sinks. In many cases, the legal and normative foundations of such rights are unclear. This article focuses on special rights on the basis of improvement. Considering improvement in relation to carbon sinks requires asking what it means to ‘improve’ an environmental resource. Our answer departs in two significant respects from the standard conception of improvement, namely by reconceiving action in relation (...) to ecosystem services, and accordingly, making the case for a counterfactual baseline to be used to compare an improved and unimproved state. Our modifications potentially allow for a variety of agents to claim special carbon rights on the basis of beneficial interactions with land-based carbon sinks. We give three archetypical examples of agents who may claim pro tanto special rights to carbon based on their interaction with carbon sinks. (shrink)

We need a new philosophy of the earth. Geological time used to refer to slow and gradual processes, but today we are watching land sink into the sea and forests transform into deserts. We can even see the creation of new geological strata made of plastic, chicken bones, and other waste that could remain in the fossil record for millennia or longer. Crafting a philosophy of geology that rewrites natural and human history from the broader perspective of movement, Thomas (...) Nail provides a new materialist, kinetic ethics of the earth that speaks to this moment. Climate change and other ecological disruptions challenge us to reconsider the deep history of minerals, atmosphere, plants, and animals and to take a more process-oriented perspective that sees humanity as part of the larger cosmic and terrestrial drama of mobility and flow. Building on his earlier work on the philosophy of movement, Nail argues that we should shift our biocentric emphasis from conservation to expenditure, flux, and planetary diversity. Theory of the Earth urges us to rethink our ethical relationship to one another, the planet, and the cosmos at large. (shrink)

The issue of wiping over socks is part of the more general issue of wiping over leather socks (khuffayn) for ablution (wuḍū’). Washing feet or wiping over them is a debate whose sides bases their claims on the verses of the Qur’an and supports these claims with narrations. When performing ablution, if shoes or socks are on the feet, whether one can wipe over them without taking these off and the qualities that these clothes should have is a debate based (...) on hadith narrations. Most Muslims except for the Ja’farite are of the opinion that either washing the feet or wiping over a khuff or similar clothing that was put on while a person already had ablution can be done during ablution, while the Ja’farite think that wiping over bare feet is enough but wiping over khuff is not. There is a consensus that shoes, boots, buskins and other leather footwear qualify as khuff. However, there is disagreement over whether clothing from materials like cotton, linen, wool, and felt -usually referred to as socks- qualify as khuff. For this reason, some Muslims of the world wipe over socks while others do not. There are contemporary fatwas (legal opinion) that are supportive of either of the positions. However, there are those who treat this issue beyond choosing a side in an ijtihad (process of juristic legal reasoning) and some who wipe on socks are censured strongly. In this research based on an examination of the fiqh heritage, the goal is to contribute to making this issue better understood and its fiqh ruling clearer.Summary: The sixth verse of Surah Ma’idah in the Qur’an clearly states that wuḍū’ requires washing the face, arms up until elbows, and wiping over the head. However, when it comes to the fourth element of wuḍū’, the feet, there has been disagreement about whether it should be wiped or washed. Arabic grammar rules and narrations have been interpreted in ways that support both views; in general Sunni sects, Zaydis, and Kharijites argue the feet should be washed while Shia Ja’farites are in favor of wiping over bare feet. There have also been efforts among faqihs (jurists) to reconcile washing and wiping; washing slightly; choosing the better one between the two; washing when not covered, wiping when covered; washing if there is dirt, wiping if it is clean; viewing at least wiping as fard (obligatory), washing as a Sunna (recommended) that includes the fard as a way to unify the two approaches have also been proposed.According to widely accepted narrations, the prophet and his companions washed their feet when performing wuḍū’ and once they put on their shoes having had wuḍū’, the next time they only wiped over the shoes without taking them off. In less commonly accepted narrations, which some hadith authorities regard as authentic, the Prophet is said to have wiped over his socks. In narration sources, it has been narrated that about fifteen faqih companions, among them ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, ʿAbdallāh Ibn Masʿūd, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbbās, ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar, saw wiping over socks as appropriate. However, there are no narrations about the companions disapproving of wiping over socks. Among those who approved of wiping over socks are tābiʿūn (successors) faqihs like Saʿīd b. D̲j̲ubayr, Saʿīd b. al-Musayyab, Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī, ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī ve al-Aʿmash, and Mujtahid Imams like Zufar, Sufyan al-Thawri, al-Ḥasan b. Ṣāliḥ, Ibn al-Mubārak, Abū Yūsuf, Muḥammad al-Shaybānī, Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh. Considering their most prominent positions, we can say that Ḥanafis and Shafis allow wiping over socks that are thick and opaque, Hanbalis allow it over socks that cover the foot even if thin, while Mālikīs do not allow wiping over socks at all.As far as it is understood from narrations from the Prophet’s time, due to both climate conditions and weaving possibilities, socks were used only rarely. Also, footwear like shoes or slippers made of leather were very hard to find and narrations suggest that prayers were performed at houses and the masjids over soil base on either bare foot or with shoes. For these reasons, the issue of wiping over socks did not arise at the time and at later periods different opinions on the issue led to disagreements. When carpets were placed on the ground at later periods, performing the prayer with shoes was abandoned and a second layer of shoes (khuff) was placed inside the shoes as khuff. Since removing the shoes would invalidate wuḍū’ performed over that shoe, those who wanted to avoid the difficulty of having to wash their feet each time they needed wuḍū’ have instead wiped over this second layer once they put them on after performing wuḍū’.Ḥanafīs and Shāfiʿīs, who tend to approach the issue of wiping over socks with hesitation and make this conditional on some strict rules, emphasize that the socks to be wiped over should be similar to shoes in terms of thickness, based on the idea that it is certain that the Prophet has wiped over shoes made of leather but his wiping over socks is weaker and that the qualities of those socks are not clear. Among the thickness criteria expressed for the socks are being waterproof, the ability to walk for at least a league with it, and its ability to hold on to feet without being tied at the wrists. Due to these criteria, which have been developed to protect the wuḍū’ and whose boundaries are not well specified, especially among Ḥanafis the idea that wiping over socks is not allowed has gained popularity. As opposed to this, in circles dominated by Ḥanbalīs opinions allowing wiping over any type of socks have been expressed.At times when the Prophet had his shoes on and did not want to take off his shoes, he used to wipe over the shoes. The equivalent of this act today is to wipe over socks since prayer with shoes on is not common any more. While nowadays wiping over socks is an ease for everybody when performing wuḍū’, it is something that is especially needed under certain circumstances. Cold weather and the lack of drying possibilities for the feet leading catching cold and illness, socks that are put on when feet are wet leading to bad smell and fungus on feet, the hardship of elevating the feet high enough to the sink and of changing socks on one foot when there are no special wuḍū’ places, the fact that at societies distant from Islamic culture it is seen against the etiquette to wash feet in the sink are among the reasons why this need arises. Because most of the time we are not in a position to determine the circumstances of our work and travels at modern times, it can be said that today this need is more than it was in the past.Some scholars of today use a precautionary principle and argue that the Qur’an commands to wash the feet, and the only narration powerful enough to make an exception to this rule is about masts made of leather, and extending this to include socks would go against the precaution principle and some other principles of uṣūl al-fiqh (Islamic legal theory). However, some other scholars who use the ease in religion principle argue that the permission to wipe over masts also include wiping over socks and that they are of the same nature, that there are authentic narrations that show wiping over socks are allowed and that one can even talk of an ijmāʿ (consensus) among the companions on this issue, and that seeking additional qualities socks on which one is to wipe over, such as thickness, ability to walk with it, its ability to hold on to the feet, being waterproof, have no merit in the sharīʿa. Jamaleddīn Qāsimī, who wrote a special research book on the topic, and scholars like Abū l-Aʿlā Mawdūdī, Yūsuf al-Qaradāwī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Bāz, Ibn al Uthaymeen think that one can wipe over daily socks that do not show the skin beneath it, while scholars predominantly of the Ḥanafi opinion hold that one cannot wipe over the thin daily socks. (shrink)

Commoditization seems immutable and unstoppable but, like other social processes, its prevalence is context dependent. The enabling context for commoditization has been cheap fossil fuels, economic growth, and ever-increasing energy and material throughput. In fact, the scientific findings of ecological, climate, footprint, and material flow studies all point in the same direction—excess throughput. We cannot grow our way out of growth-driven crisis; new technologies will not create new sources of energy or new waste sinks. Counter-commoditization measures can take the (...) form of formal policies or of informal social change processes, including processes now under way. Three social change processes are relational decision making, ecological language, and localization. The common thread is relations (between humans and between human systems—especially the economy—and natural systems), context (spatial and temporal, ecological and social). Applied to fossil fuels it is clear that the end of the hydrocarbon era must be accelerated. The normative imperative to support and invest in the “economy of care and connection” becomes ever stronger. (shrink)

Understanding terrestrial carbon metabolism is critical because terrestrial ecosystems play a major role in the global carbon cycle. Furthermore, humans have severely disrupted the carbon cycle in ways that will alter the climate system and directly affect terrestrial metabolism. Changes in terrestrial metabolism may well be as important an indicator of global change as the changing temperature signal. Improving our understanding of the carbon cycle at various spatial and temporal scales will require the integration of multiple, complementary and independent (...) methods that are used by different research communities. Tools such as air sampling networks, inverse numerical methods, and satellite data allow us to study the strength and location of the global- and continental-scale carbon sources and sinks. Bottom-up studies provide estimates of carbon fluxes at finer spatial scales and examine the mechanisms that control fluxes at the ecosystem, landscape, and regional scales. Bottom-up approaches include comparative and process studies that provide the necessary mechanistic information to develop and validate terrestrial biospheric models. An iteration and reiteration of top-down and bottom-up approaches will be necessary to help constrain measurements at various scales. We propose a major international effort to coordinate and lead research programs of global scope of the carbon cycle. (shrink)

Despite some principal similarities, there is no systematic comparison between the different types of synesthesia . This comprehensive review compares the three principal types of synesthesia and focuses on their phenomenological features and their relation to different etiological models. Implications of this comparison for the validity of the different etiological models are discussed.Comparison of the three forms of synesthesia show many more differences than similarities. This is in contrast to their representation in the literature, where they are discussed in many (...) respects as being virtually similar. Noteworthy is the much broader spectrum and intensity with the typical drug-induced synesthesias compared to genuine and acquired synesthesias. A major implication of the phenomenological comparison in regard to the etiological models is that genuine and acquired synesthesias point to morphological substrates, while drug-induced synesthesia appears to be based on functional changes of brain activity. (shrink)

The claim that theoretical entities are not real, that they are merely convenient fictions, has been defended and attacked in diverse ways. This paper is concerned with only one defense of the fictionalist thesis and with a certain realist attack on it. The defense in question is that theories which prima facie make reference to theoretical entities can be revised in such a way that no such apparent reference is made by eliminating all occurrences of theoretical expressions. It will be (...) argued here that there is a procedure for revising theories which meets certain minimal criteria of adequacy, contrary to arguments in the literature. Further, it will be argued that the existence of this procedure provides neither sufficient nor necessary support for the fictionalist thesis, that this procedure is not of significance in the dispute between the fictionalist and the realist. Whether or not the theoretical-nontheoretical distinction is viable is another story which will not be told here. It will be assumed for the sake of argument that such a distinction can be drawn. (shrink)

This article seeks to draw out the links between systems thinking and the philosophy of John Macmurray. In fact, while systems theory is a growing trend in a number of disciplines, including counselling and psychotherapy, the narrative describes its ancient roots. Macmurray’s insistence that humans exist as interdependent rather than independent beings is supported by systems theory. Moreover, Macmurray’s critique of institutionalized religion and his favouring of inclusive religious community is akin to a model of spirituality that, in positive psychology, (...) is conceived of as an open system. (shrink)

Somatic muscle formation is an unusual process as it requires the cells involved, the myoblasts, to relinquish their individual state and fuse with one another to form a syncitial muscle fiber. The potential use of myoblast fusion therapies to rebuild damaged muscles has generated continuing interest in elucidating the molecular basis of the fusion process. Yet, until recently, few of the molecular players involved in this process had been identified. Now, however, it has been possible to couple a detailed understanding (...) of the cellular basis of the fusion process with powerful classical and molecular genetic strategies in the Drosophila embryo. We review the cellular studies, and the recent genetic and biochemical analyses that uncovered interacting extracellular molecules present on fusing myoblasts and the intracellular effectors that facilitate fusion. With the conservation of proteins and protein functions across species, it is likely that these findings in Drosophila will benefit understanding of the myoblast fusion process in higher organisms. BioEssays 24:591–601, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

We describe a patient LS, profoundly deaf in both ears from birth, with underdeveloped superior temporal gyri. Without hearing aids, LS displays no ability to detect sounds below a fixed threshold of 60 dBs, which classifies him as clinically deaf. Under these no-hearing-aid conditions, when presented with a forced-choice paradigm in which he is asked to consciously respond, he is unable to make above-chance judgments about the presence or location of sounds. However, he is able to make above-chance judgments about (...) the content of sounds presented to him under forced-choice conditions. We demonstrated that LS has faint sensations from auditory stimuli, but questionable awareness of auditory content. LS thus has a form of type-2 deaf hearing with respect to auditory content. As in the case of a subject with acquired deafness and deaf hearing reported on a previous occasion, LS’s condition of deaf hearing is akin in some respects to type-2 blindsight. As for the case of type 2 blindsight the case indicates that a form of conscious hearing can arise in the absence of a fully developed auditory cortex. (shrink)

Engagement in marine science has historically been the privilege of a small number of people with access to higher education, specialised equipment and research funding. Such constraints have often limited public engagement and may have slowed the uptake of ocean science into environmental policy. Recognition of this disconnect has spurred a growing movement to promote ocean literacy, defined as one’s individual understanding of how the ocean affects people and how people affect the ocean. Over the last 2 decades, this concept (...) has gained significant traction in marine biology and environmental education circles and now plays a prominent role in the UN’s Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Here, we argue that the ocean literacy agenda has largely been shaped and discussed by marine scientists and educators but needs to be expanded to a much larger constituency to be more effective, accessible and inclusive. We discuss diverse cultural settings from around the world and provide examples of indigenous, spiritual, art, ocean user and other groups that are already deeply engaged with the ocean and could provide a variety of perspectives to enrich the ocean literacy concept beyond an understanding of marine science. We suggest that such inclusiveness could remove the historic barriers that have surrounded the field, transform our collective awareness of and relationship with the ocean and help support ongoing efforts to restore marine biodiversity. (shrink)

Interdisciplinarity and Climate Change is a major new book addressing one of the most challenging questions of our time. Its unique standpoint is based on the recognition that effective and coherent interdisciplinarity is necessary to deal with the issue of climate change, and the multitude of linked phenomena which both constitute and connect to it. In the opening chapter, Roy Bhaskar makes use of the extensive resources of critical realism to articulate a comprehensive framework for multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity (...) and cross-disciplinary understanding, one which duly takes account of ontological as well as epistemological considerations. Many of the subsequent chapters seek to show how this general approach can be used to make intellectual sense of the complex phenomena in and around the issue of climate change, including our response to it. Among the issues discussed, in a number of graphic and compelling studies, by a range of distinguished contributors, both activists and scholars, are: The dangers of reducing all environmental, energy and climate gas issues to questions of carbon dioxide emissions The problems of integrating natural and social scientific work and the perils of monodisciplinary tunnel vision The consequences of the neglect of issues of consumption in climate policy The desirability of a care-based ethics and of the integration of cultural considerations into climate policy The problem of relating theoretical knowledge to practical action in contemporary democratic societies Interdisciplinarity and Climate Change is essential reading for all serious students of the fight against climate change, the interactions between governmental bodies, and critical realism. (shrink)

When I was five, a pond and thicket area down the street from my house was filled in and leveled while I was away. I remember coming home and finding my beloved ecosystem denuded of all greenery, and completely empty of the beavers and their dam, the minnows, the birds, and the countless rabbits and squirrels that had been a comforting and valued presence. I was devastated. Consumed and overcome by grief and loss. I did not want to eat, or (...) play, or go to school. I felt as though I had lost something deeply important, and intimately a part of the fabric of my life. It was the first time in my short life that I became aware of the fragility of life—mine and others—and from that moment, I found myself in a different .. (shrink)

Abstract‘[T]he “mainstream” of global governance has changed course’ and in so doing, might well have ‘outrun the standard tools of critical, progressive, and reform-minded international lawyers’, Fleur Johns wrote in 2019. It is especially the critical tools of ‘appeals to history, context, language [and] the grassroots’ in response to universalist planning that Johns sees absorbed in the turn to prototyping as a new ‘style’ of governance. In this article, we take on this observation and explore how the ‘lean start-up mentality’ (...) that Johns described has taken hold of tech-based climate governance. We base our reflections on the ‘Tech for Our Planet’ challenge that took place over 2021 and was showcased at the UNFCCC COP26 in Glasgow. While a turn ‘from planning to prototypes’ is observable, we question how exactly this ‘change of course’ affects the high modernist style of global governance and its critique by international lawyers. The ‘digital solutions for climate challenges’ that were showcased in Glasgow are indeed based on localized experiments with data science, thereby seemingly overcoming high modernist impulses towards universalist ideals. Yet, these experimental prototypes are developed with the ambition of being replicable and scaled up, to become a stack of tools deployable in any given scenario. This form of scaling up neither breaks with modernist aspirations based on technologically-mediated replicability—of moving the same logic inscribed in code to different sites and contexts—nor with a modernist understanding of knowledge as universal in its application. In our analysis, the determining feature is then not so much a matter of planning or prototyping in ideal type forms, but of replicability of knowledge production and scalability of technological know-how that underpin both planning and prototyping. Prototyping in the start-up space does not depart from, but rather reinscribes, a modernist representation of the human subject that forces its epistemological lens onto a world of nonhuman objects amenable to governance. Critical international lawyers’ toolkits must therefore be reconfigured with a focus on a governance style of disembodied knowledge production that runs through both planning and prototyping. (shrink)

Economics takes an individualistic approach to human behaviour. This is reflected in the use of 'contingent valuation' surveys to conduct cost benefit analysis for economic policy evaluation. An individual's valuation of a policy is assumed to be unaffected by the burdens it places on others. We report a survey experiment to test this supposition in the context of climate change policy. Willingness to pay for climate change mitigation was higher when richer individuals were to bear higher costs than (...) when, as is usual, no explicit information was provided about cost distribution. This result is inconsistent with the usual interpretation of contingent valuation data. It also suggests that the data may be biased indicators of policy acceptance. Additional survey questions suggest that a collective mode of reasoning is common. (shrink)

This study examined the drivers of climate change innovations and the effects of these innovations on firm outcomes in a sample of 203 firms in the South Australian wine cluster. The results of structural equation modeling analysis suggest that absorptive capacity has a direct effect on climate change innovations, and stimulates knowledge exchanges between firms in the cluster. KEs between firms in the cluster in turn directly affect the climate change innovations. The findings suggest a perhaps counterintuitive (...) interrelationship between firm- and cluster-level impacts, in which KEs between firms in the cluster play a partial mediating role in the innovation process. The study further finds that climate change innovations are related to firm performance and reductions in greenhouse gases : mitigative innovations lead to greater GHG reductions while adaptive innovations impact on FP. Contributions of the findings are discussed, as are future research directions. (shrink)

In the climate ethics debate, scholars largely agree that individuals should promote institutions that ensure the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper aims to establish that there are individual duties beyond compliance with and promotion of institutions. Duties of individuals to reduce their emissions are often objected to by arguing that an individual’s emissions do not make a morally relevant difference. We challenge this argument from inconsequentialism in two ways. We first show why the argument also seems to (...) undermine the case for duties to promote institutions that the arguments’ proponents endorse. Second, we argue that individuals ought to cut emissions if they exceed their fair share of emissions entitlements and, by emitting, contribute to climate-related harm. In response to inconsequentialism, we specify the notion of ‘contribution’ via the so-called NESS theory, according to which an act is causally relevant for and contributes to an outcome if it is a Necessary Element of a Set of conditions that is Sufficient for the outcome. After refuting two objections to our approach, we conclude by discussing how to deal with possible conflicts between duties to promote institutions and to reduce one’s emissions. (shrink)

With the challenge of communicating climate science in the United States and making progress in international negotiations on climate change there is a need for other approaches. The moral issues of ecological degradation and climate justice need to be integrated into social consciousness, political legislation, and climate treaties. Both science and religion can contribute to this integration with differentiated language but shared purpose. Recognizing the limits of both science and religion is critical to finding a way (...) forward for addressing the critical challenges of climate change. How we value nature and human–Earth relations is crucial to this. We need a broader environmental ethics in dialogue with the science of climate change. (shrink)