a legitimate approach to account for social aspects in environmental governance?

While initially hailed to be the silver bullet for tackling climate change, reducing oil dependency and providing an opportunity for rural development especially in poorer regions, severe criticism concerning the environmental and social performance of bioenergy has been raised recently. One potential solution for this problem that is increasingly discussed now is the certification of bioenergy. In the wake of this discussion, a broad range of certification initiatives emerged during the last years. However, this issue is predominantly debated in terms of the environmental implications. Accordingly, governmental approaches to this issue often neglect the need for including social aspects into sustainability principles and criteria, most prominently here the EU Renewable Energies Directive (RED). Non-state voluntary certification initiatives, by accounting for the social implications of increased bioenergy production, could therefore be seen as complementary governance instruments that are able to fill the void left by state regulations in this respect. After briefly addressing the reasons why state regulations tend to neglect social aspects concerning this matter, this paper seeks to explore whether voluntary bioenergy certification schemes could really be able to fulfill these hopes and provide the solution for the missing consideration of social criteria for sustainable bioenergy. And how could these private non-state initiatives do so in a politically and democratically legitimate way? So as to deal with these issues from a scientific perspective, a distinct analytical framework to evaluate the legitimacy of private governance is presented. Based on this framework, five voluntary bioenergy certification schemes are selected and their consideration given to its social dimension is examined. In order to address the characteristics of our conception of non-state legitimacy, the actor constellations behind these certification initiatives are analyzed with a view to determine the structural representation of social interests. Furthermore, we also give attention to the control and accountability mechanisms incorporated into the certification schemes that are supposed to safeguard the common welfare-orientation of the initiatives. The results of this analysis shed some light on the particular challenges and bottlenecks of ensuring social sustainability via non-state voluntary certification systems in the bioenergy sector. In the concluding chapter, these results are put into perspective and a more general discussion on the potential of non-state voluntary governance approaches regarding the social dimension of environmental governance are presented.early draf

The production of scientific evidence on indirect land use change and its role in EU biofuels policy

One of the most heatedly debated aspects of EU’s policy on biofuels in recent times concern indirect land use change (ILUC) induced by the production of biofuels. However, when the EU Renewable Energies Directive (RED) adopted in 2008, regulating ILUC was not considered for the time being. Ever since, the fundamental conflicts on biofuels regarding their social and ecological effects crystallize in the debates on ILUC, which is underpinned by the wide range of results of scientific research on the topic. Starting from explaining the concept of ILUC and from conceptual considerations regarding new ways of knowledge production and its use in the policy process, we firstly trace the policy process on biofuels’ ILUC with a special focus on the actors and their stances in this context. Subsequently, mainly by document analysis, we give a detailed overview of the research on biofuels’ ILUC, focusing on which actors are related to the various ILUC studies and on what the relationship between these actors and the studies’ orientations (methodologies, etc.) and outcomes is. The analysis shows how the increase in ILUC research and its characteristics can be related to the societal problems arising from biofuels production, to the actors involved in it, and to their stakes in the issue. This points to the social embeddedness of ILUC research into societal as well as political practices and therefore – at least partly – qualifies it as a new mode of knowledge production. Furthermore, it points to special role scientific evidence plays regarding the policy process on the regulation of ILUC in the EU. In this respect, our observations suggest that, on the one hand, the scientific evidence on biofuels’ ILUC as well as the uncertainty and complexity has been well perceived and taken up in the policy process. On the other hand, however, its role has eventually been reduced to an instrumental one, serving to legitimize and rationalize decisions agreed upon elsewhere beforehand

Grüne Grenzen für den Welthandel: Eine ökologische Reform der WTO als Herausforderung an eine Sustainable Global Governance

Vom 10. bis zum 14. September diesen Jahres verhandelt die Ministerkonferenzder Welthandelsorganisation (WTO) über eine weitere Liberalisierung desWelthandels. Dabei steht für die Umwelt eine Menge auf dem Spiel. Zwar wurdenmit der Doha Deklaration in der gegenwärtigen Verhandlungsrunde einigeVerhandlungen mit Umweltbezug vereinbart. Dies täuscht aber darüber hinweg,dass die WTO noch weit entfernt davon ist, ökologische Aspekte in ihrer Politikangemessen zu berücksichtigen. Vorliegendes Papier analysiert zunächst dieDiskussion über Umweltthemen in der WTO, welche seit über zehn Jahren vorallem im Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) der WTO geführt wird.Die Analyse zeigt auf, dass zahlreiche Umwelteffekte von Handelsliberalisierungen gar nicht diskutiert wurden, Interessengegensätze zwischen Mitglieds-staaten der WTO eine tief gehende Diskussion vereiteln und Ansätze einerökologischen Reform der WTO bislang keine Chance hatten. Vor dem Hinter-grund dieser Analyse wird sodann eine doppelte Strategie entwickelt. Erstens wirddargelegt, warum die WTO aufgrund ihrer umweltpolitischen Defizite denjenigenInstitutionen ihren Handlungsspielraum lassen sollte, die sich aktiv mit Umwelt-politik beschäftigen. Hierzu wird das Konfliktverhältnis multilateraler Umweltab-kommen und der WTO untersucht. Zunächst erfolgt eine Klassifizierung inunbedenkliche und potentiell kritische Konfliktfälle. Dann wird aufgezeigt, wieeinerseits eine Begrenzung der Zuständigkeiten des Streitschlichtungsorgans der WTO sowie andererseits kooperative, politisch-rechtliche Prozesse zur Lösungder Konflikte zwischen den betroffenen Institutionen eine Lösung bieten und zueiner größeren institutionellen Gleichheit in der globalen politischen Arena führenkönnten. Zweitens wird erörtert, wie ökologische Aspekte Schritt für Schritt in dieWTO integriert werden könnten. Hierzu werden Instrumente der strategischenFolgenabschätzung untersucht. Nach einer eingehenden Analyse der Potenzialeund Grenzen von strategischen Folgenabschätzungen werden Empfehlungen zu ihrer Weiterentwicklung formuliert. Anschließend werden Möglichkeiten darge-stellt, wie strategische Folgenabschätzung in die institutionellen Strukturen derWTO integriert werden könnten, um ökologische Aspekte systematisch in die politischen Entscheidungsprozesse einfließen zu lassen und eine verbessertePartizipation der Öffentlichkeit an der Politik der WTO zu gewährleisten. Dabeiwird einerseits eine Integration strategischer Folgenabschätzungen in den Trade Policy Review Mechanism der WTO und andererseits die Einrichtung eines neuenStrategic Impact Assessment Body innerhalb der WTO diskutiert. --

Quantitative analysis of wide-field specular microscopy. II. Precision of sampling from the central corneal endothelium

The precision of the measurement of mean endothelial cell area obtained by sampling with small-field and wide-field specular microscopy from the central 4 mm of human corneal endothelium was studied by comparing endothelial cell parameters from individual specular micrographs in vivo to the results obtained by montaging the micrographs from the entire central 4 mm of the same corneas. The small samples were at least 10% from the true mean cell size of all cells of the central 4 mm in any endothelium other than that with the most homogeneous pattern. A new algorithm for sampling with these two specular microscopes will need to be derived to permit a more precise measure of the mean area of endothelial cells in the central 4 mm of the human corneal endothelium

A Compendium of Motzkin-Like Path Generating Functions

We catalog fifteen types of Motzkin-like paths with various restrictions and use the symbolic method to determine their generating functions, several of which are new. We also introduce a new type of Motzkin path corresponding to a walk on a circle, rather than on a line

Understanding the bioeconomy through its instruments: standardizing sustainability, neoliberalizing bioeconomies?

Sustainability standards have been one of the hopefuls for decades when it comes to ensuring the sustainability of biomass for the bioeconomy, especially in the wake of their evolvement from voluntary, non-governmental to hybrid, public–private governance instruments in recent years. In addition to doubts regarding their legitimacy and effectiveness, however, they have also been associated with a neoliberalization of nature that integrates natural resources into a free market logic. Drawing on a conceptual framework that builds on political ecology and the political sociology of policy instruments, this paper challenges this notion. To this end, it examines sustainability standards in three countries/regions particularly prominent for the bioeconomy—the EU, Brazil, and Indonesia—to illustrate how these can be differentiated in terms of their neoliberal orientation, and what can be inferred from this for the orientation and state of the respective bioeconomies. The results show that the introduction of sustainability standards is not necessarily accompanied by a neoliberalization of nature. Rather, it is shown that the standards and their specific designs—and thus also their intrinsic understanding of sustainability as integration—are primarily intended to serve the material interests of the state and the respective industrial factions, for which neoliberal configurations are sometimes seen as rather obstructive, sometimes as rather useful. The sustainability standards, and thus the bioeconomies for which they stand, therefore, rather serve as instruments to stay on the path of modernization and industrial development already taken or envisaged, or, put differently, as strategies to avoid social–ecological transformation.Peer Reviewe

A Legacy of Labor: Maternity Narratives in 1960s and 1970s North American Life Writing

Abstract A Legacy of Labor: Maternity Narratives in 1960s and 1970s North American Life Writing Katelynn Ann Vogelpohl The phenomenon of maternity has been repeatedly described as an event that shakes the very foundations of social and physical identity. As the flesh of the pregnant person literally divides to produce new life, one subject becomes enclosed within another, dramatically affecting the pregnant person’s sense of self and causing a confluence of intense, and often conflicting, feelings. In North America, there are two dominant, and seemingly opposing, discourses on pregnancy and childbirth: the institutional medical discourse and the natural childbirth discourse. These two discourses have perpetuated the myth of a homogenous, monolithic maternity experience and generally ignore the myriad of intersectional diversities that affect maternity and mothering. This dissertation explores North American maternity life writing from the 1960s and 1970s—a time period heavily influenced by the second women’s movement, Black Power movement, women’s health movement, and natural childbirth movement. These narratives destabilize the concepts of a universal maternity or mothering experience and create discursive room to address the cultural taboos that permeate the realities of pregnancy and birth. In Chapter 1, I explore how the dominant discourses of the mid-twentieth century create and utilize metaphorical language to describe the physical processes and sensations of pregnancy and childbirth. This chapter introduces the public language and ideologies associated with maternity in the 1960s and 1970s that the authors in my subsequent chapters negotiate. In Chapter 2, I discuss three pieces that center splitting or multiplying maternal subjectivities and feelings of maternal ambivalence: Margaret Atwood’s “Giving Birth,” Doris Betts’s “Still Life with Fruit,” and Maxine Chernoff’s “A Birth.” In this chapter, I purposefully focus on writing from white, married, heterosexual, middle-class, cisgender female authors to explore the diversity of maternity experiences within a relatively homogenized and culturally idealized group. In Chapter 3, I turn to Black revolutionary Assata Shakur’s memoir, Assata, to discuss the tenets of Black maternal theory and mythology that view Black motherhood as a source of strength, resistance, and cultural revolution. Finally, in Chapter 4, I extend the understanding of maternity life writing to include stories of reproductive loss and abortion. Looking to Sylvia Plath’s “Three Women: A Poem for Three Voices” and Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, I discuss the value of polyphony as a writing technique to further foreground the complexities and diversities of maternity experiences. This chapter highlights an overarching theme of the dissertation: the value of storytelling as a source of connection for individuals whose experiences have been essentially erased from public discourse

The bioeconomy in Germany: A failing political project?

Almost two decades ago, the OECD and the EU kickstarted the development of bioeconomy strategies. In Germany, like in many other countries, policy development gained momentum in the 2010s, resulting in three consecutive policy strategies to date. And yet the bioeconomy concept remains largely unknown to a wider public and there are hardly any tangible outcomes in terms of transforming the economy towards sustainability as proposed in these strategies. Against this background, the German bioeconomy is characterized in this article as a political project aiming at a technological fix to problems like supply security and climate change in order to stabilize the social order of neoliberalized capitalism. Evaluating the different dimensions of the project’s characteristics as well as its impacts, however, we find that the bioeconomy neither succeeds in universalizing its ideas and attracting a broader range of societal actors to them, nor in delivering the promised pathway to a socioecological transformation. Still, the analysis also reveals successes of certain actors in securing funds and advancing their agendas related to the bioeconomy. It can be argued that the bioeconomy succeeded in this way in stabilizing the existing unsustainable social order

Cell Lysis and Detoxification of Cyanotoxins Using a Novel Combination of Microbubble Generation and Plasma Microreactor Technology for Ozonation

There has been a steady rise in the incidences of algal blooms globally, and worryingly, there is increasing evidence that changes in the global climate are leading to a shift toward cyanobacterial blooms. Many cyanobacterial genera are harmful, producing several potent toxins, including microcystins, for which there are over 90 described analogues. There are a wide range of negative effects associated with these toxins including gastroenteritis, cytotoxicity, hepatotoxicity and neurotoxicity. Although a variety of oxidation based treatment methods have been described, ozonation and advanced oxidation are acknowledged as most effective as they readily oxidise microcystins to non-toxic degradation products. However, most ozonation technologies have challenges for scale up including high costs and sub-optimum efficiencies, hence, a low cost and scalable ozonation technology is needed. Here we designed a low temperature plasma dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactor with an incorporated fluidic oscillator for microbubble delivery of ozone. Both technologies have the potential to drastically reduce the costs of ozonation at scale. Mass spectrometry analysis revealed very rapid (<2 min) destruction of two pure microcystins (MC-LR and MC-RR), together with removal of by-products even at low flow rate 1 L min−1 where bubble size was 0.56–0.6 mm and the ozone concentration within the liquid was 20 ppm. Toxicity levels were calculated through protein phosphatase inhibition assays and indicated loss of toxicity as well as confirming the by-products were also non-toxic. Finally, treatment of whole Microcystis aeruginosa cells showed that even at these very low ozone levels, cells can be killed and toxins (MC-LR and Desmethyl MC-LR) removed. Little change was observed in the first 20 min of treatment followed by rapid increase in extracellular toxins, indicating cell lysis, with most significant release at the higher 3 L min−1 flow rate compared to 1 L min−1. This lab-scale investigation demonstrates the potential of the novel plasma micro reactor with applications for in situ treatment of harmful algal blooms and cyanotoxins

Visual Pollution Classification using Convolutional Neural Networks

Visual pollution is an impairment on an individual\u27s ability to enjoy their surroundings. It usually takes the form of a messy and chaotic environment that can cause overstimulation of the visual senses. This includes trash, advertisements, construction, electric cables, and similar objects. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are a form of artificial intelligence that use supervised learning to process and classify images. In this research, a CNN processed images of city streets and classified them as polluted or not polluted based on the visual characteristics that it learned from during its training period. The CNN achieved a training accuracy of 98% and a validation accuracy of 80%.https://scholarworks.moreheadstate.edu/celebration_posters_2023/1040/thumbnail.jp