Projections of when temperature change will exceed 2°C above pre-industrial levels

Climate change projections are usually presented as 'snapshots' of change at a particular time in the future. Instead, we consider the key question 'when will specific temperature thresholds will be exceeded?'. Framing the question as "when might something happen (either permanently or temporarily)?" rather than "what might happen?" demonstrates that lowering future emissions will delay the crossing of temperature thresholds and buy valuable time for planning adaptation. For example, in higher greenhouse gas emission scenarios, a global average 2°C warming threshold is likely to be crossed by 2060, whereas in a lower emissions scenario, the crossing of this threshold is delayed up to several decades. On regional scales, however, the 2°C threshold will probably be exceeded over large parts of Eurasia, North Africa and Canada by 2040 if emissions continue to increase- well within the lifetime of many people living now.

British public policy and multinationals during the “Dollar Gap” era, 1945–1960

This article examines the role of British exchange and import controls in stimulating the dramatic increase in overseas (particularly American) multinationals in Britain from the end of the Second World War to the late 1950s, together with the ways in which the government used controls to regulate the foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow. Exchange controls were both an important stimulus to inward investment and a powerful and flexible means of regulating its volume and character. Government was relatively successful in using these powers to maximize the dollar balance and industrial benefits of FDI to Britain, given initially severe dollar and capacity constraints, and in liberalizing policy once these constraints receded and competition from other FDI hosts intensified.

Public policy and foreign-based enterprises in Britain prior to the Second World War

This article examines the early evolution of British policy, prior to the Second World War. The British government adopted an ‘open’ policy towards foreign direct investment (FDI), despite periodic fears that some foreign acquisitions of UK firms in key sectors might be detrimental to the national interest, and a few ad hoc attempts to deal with particular instances of this kind. During the 1930s, when the inflow of foreign firms accelerated following Britain's adoption of general tariff protection, the government developed a sophisticated admissions policy, based on an assessment of the likely net benefit of each applicant to the British economy. Its limited regulatory powers were used to maximize the potential of immigrant firms for technology transfer, enhanced competition, industrial diversification, and employment creation (particularly in the depressed regions), while protecting British industries suffering from excess capacity.

Recent trends in UK Government policy on the provision and management of leisure facilities

Since the first election victory of the Thatcher administration in 1979, Britain has witnessed a cultural transformation from the municipal socialism of the post-World War 2 Welfare State to a form of post-industrial entrepreneurialism. This has had a profound effect on all aspects of civil society, not least the redefinition of the role of active leisure from the 1950s evocation of 'Sport For All' to the market rationality of the 1980s. The transformation has signalled a shift from government support for active leisure as an element of citizen rights to the use of leisure to promote the government's interest in legitimating a new social order based not on rights but on means. Thus access to active living is no longer a societal goal for all, but a discretionary consumer good, the consumption of which signifies 'active' citizenship. It furthermore signifies differentiation from the growing mass of 'deviants' who are unwilling or unable to embrace this new construction of citizenship and are, therefore, increasingly denied access to active living and, hence, active citizenship.

EU enlargement and consequences for FDI-assisted industrial development

Many of the new member states as well as candidate and accession countries of the EU are confident that membership will result in substantially increased inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in manufacturing. This paper discusses the policy issues and challenges that cohesion and accession countries face, applying lessons that by now have become mainstream in the parallel discussion of FDI-assisted development in the developing economies. We argue that globalisation has attenuated the benefits that accrue from EU membership for latecomers, and they must now compete for FDI not just with other European countries but also with non- EU emerging economies. We posit that they should not base their industrial development strategy on mere passive reliance of FDI flows without considering how to concatenate their industrial development and the nature of the MNE activities they attract.

A semiotic approach of multi-agent simulation for policy evaluation

Nowadays the changing environment becomes the main challenge for most of organizations, since they have to evaluate proper policies to adapt to the environment. In this paper, we propose a multi-agent simulation method to evaluate policies based on complex adaptive system theory. Furthermore, we propose a semiotic EDA (Epistemic, Deontic, Axiological) agent model to simulate agent's behavior in the system by incorporating the social norms reflecting the policy. A case study is also provided to validate our approach. Our research present better adaptability and validity than the qualitative analysis and experiment approach and the semiotic agent model provides high creditability to simulate agents' behavior.

Invisible and visible language planning: ideological factors in the family language policy of Chinese immigrant families in Quebec

This ethnographic inquiry examines how family languages policies are planned and developed in ten Chinese immigrant families in Quebec, Canada, with regard to their children’s language and literacy education in three languages, Chinese, English, and French. The focus is on how multilingualism is perceived and valued, and how these three languages are linked to particular linguistic markets. The parental ideology that underpins the family language policy, the invisible language planning, is the central focus of analysis. The results suggest that family language policies are strongly influenced by socio-political and economical factors. In addition, the study confirms that the parents’ educational background, their immigration experiences and their cultural disposition, in this case pervaded by Confucian thinking, contribute significantly to parental expectations and aspirations and thus to the family language policies.