Swiss Policies for more Food Security

Resource-poor yet blissful Switzerland is also one of the most food-secure countries in the world: there are abundant food supplies, relatively low retail prices in terms of purchasing power parity, with few poverty traps. Domestic production covers 70% of net domestic consumption. A vast and efficient food reserve scheme insures against import disruptions. Nonetheless, the food security contribution by the four sectoral policies involved is mutually constrained: our agriculture is protected by the world’s highest tariffs. Huge subsidies, surface payments, and some production quotas substitute market signals with rent maximisation. Moreover, these inefficiencies also prevent trade and investment policies which would keep markets open, development policies which would provide African farmers with the tools to become more competitive, and supply policies which would work against speculators. The paralysing effect of Swiss agricultural policies is exacerbated by new “food security subsidies” in the name of “food sovereignty” while two pending people’s initiatives might yet increase the splendid isolation which in effect reduce Swiss farmer competitiveness and global food security. Is there a solution? Absent a successful conclusion of the Doha Round (WTO) or a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP) further market openings and a consequent “recoupling” of taxpayer support to public goods production remain highly un-likely. To the very minimum Switzerland should resume the agricultural reform process, join other countries trying to prevent predatory behaviour of its investors in developing countries, and regionalise its food reserve.

Political Sociology of Islam Integration: the Role of Liberal Law

In Europe and North America, migration and integration has become a busy subfield of political sociology. Of particular interest in this respect is the integration of Muslims and Islam, which has dominated the debate in Europe. Broadly conceived «political opportunity structures» have received much attention in this context. But the role of liberal law in the integration of Islam has been largely ignored, not by lawyers of course, but by political sociologists who have thus delivered far too negative and truncated pictures of Muslims and Islam in Europe. This is the deficit we sought to redress in Legal Integration of Islam; A Transatlantic Comparison (2013) (co-authored with John Torpey). Some of this study’s main ideas and findings are presented in the following.

Differences in published characteristics of GLE60 and their consequences on computed radiation dose rates along selected flight paths

The radiation dose rates at flight altitudes can increase by orders of magnitude for a short time during energetic solar cosmic ray events, so called ground level enhancements (GLEs). Especially at high latitudes and flight altitudes, solar energetic particles superposed on galactic cosmic rays may cause radiation that exceeds the maximum allowed dosage limit for the general public. Therefore the determination of the radiation dose rate during GLEs should be as reliable as possible. Radiation dose rates along flight paths are typically determined by computer models that are based on cosmic ray flux and anisotropy parameters derived from neutron monitor and/or satellite measurements. The characteristics of the GLE on 15 April 2001 (GLE60) were determined and published by various authors. In this work we compare these results and investigate the consequences on the computed radiation dose rates along selected flight paths. In addition, we compare the computed radiation dose rates with measurements that were made during GLE60 on board two transatlantic flights.

"An attentive Ear, a watchful Eye, and a Calm judicious Pen": William Samuel Johnson, the Colonial Agents, and the Transformation of the British Atlantic World

By looking at Great Britain and the American colonies in conjunction with the larger British Atlantic Empire, historians can better understand the political, social, and cultural transformations that occurred when transatlantic actors met. William Samuel Johnson is an example of an "ordinary" agent who nonetheless had extensive contacts with numerous British and American thinkers. While acting on Connecticut's behalf in London between 1767 and 1771, he sent reports back to Connecticut governors Jonathan Trumbull and William Pitkin on parliamentary proceedings while corresponding with the people who traveled around the Atlantic world during this critical period-merchants, seafarers, emigrants, soldiers, missionaries, radicals and conservatives, reformers, and politicians. He is also representative of the late eighteenth-century empire writ large. Agents, who had once been a source of stability in the far-flung colonies, became a destabilizing force as confusion and conflict grew over conceptual ideas of what constituted "the empire" and who was included in it. Johnson was a sane observer in the midst of the ideological and administrative upheaval of the 1760's and 1770's. His subsequent loyalism and political obscurity during the war years was in many ways a result of his attempts to reconcile various factional interests during his tenure as an agent. Although he did his best to resolve these divisions and provide an accurate account of the powerful nationalistic forces gathering on both sides of the Atlantic on the eve of the American Revolution, the agents' collective failures as transatlantic mediators helped bring about the collapse of an imperial community. This disintegration had dramatic effects on the whole of the Atlantic world.

(Table 1) U and Th isotope analyses of pyrite and anhydrite of ODP Site 158-957

Hydrothermal circulation at oceanic spreading ridges causes sea water to penetrate to depths of 2 to 3 km in the oceanic crust where it is heated to ~400 °C before venting at spectacular 'black smokers'. These hydrothermal systems exert a strong influence on ocean chemistry (Edmond et al., 1979, doi:10.1016/0012-821X(79)90061-X), yet their structure, longevity and magnitude remain largely unresolved (Elderfield and Schultz., 1996, doi:10.1146/annurev.earth.24.1.191). The active Transatlantic Geotraverse (TAG) deposit, at 26° N on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, is one of the largest, oldest and most intensively studied of the massive sulphide mounds that accumulate beneath black-smoker fields. Here we report ages of sulphides and anhydrites from the recently drilled (Humphris et al., 1995, doi:10.1038/377713a0) TAG substrate structures -determined from 234U-230Th systematics analysed by thermal ionization mass spectrometry. The new precise ages combined with existing data (Lalou et al., 1993, doi:10.1029/92JB01898; 1998, doi:10.2973/odp.proc.sr.158.214.1998) show that the oldest material (11,000 to 37,000 years old) forms a layer across the centre of the deposit with younger material (2,300-7,800 years old) both above and below. This stratigraphy confirms that much of the sulphide and anhydrite are precipitated within the mound by mixing of entrained sea water with hydrothermal fluid (James and Elderfield, 1996, doi:10.1130/0091-7613(1996)024<1147:COOFFA>2.3.CO;2). The age distribution is consistent with episodic activity of the hydrothermal system recurring at intervals of up to 2,000 years.

Abundance of Cnidaria and Ctenophora in the North Atlantic sampled during the G. O. Sars Cruise in May 2013

In recent years a global increase in jellyfish (i.e. Cnidarians and Ctenophores) abundance and a rise in the recurrence of jellyfish outbreak events have been largely debated, but a general consensus on this matter has not been achieved yet. Within this debate, it has been generally recognized that there is a lack of reliable data that could be analyzed and compared to clarify whether indeed jellyfish are increasing throughout the world ocean as a consequence of anthropogenic impact and hydroclimatic variability. During the G.O. Sars cruise jellyfish were collected at different depths in the 0-1000m layer using a standard 1 m**2 Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System (MOCNESS) (quantitative data), Harstad and macroplankton trawls (qualitative data). The comparison of records collected with different nets during the G.O. Sars transatlantic cruise shows that different sampling gears might provide very different information on jellyfish diversity. Indeed, the big trawls mostly collect relatively large scyphozoan and hydrozoan species such as Atolla, Pelagia, Praya, Vogtia, while small hydrozoans (e.g. Clytia, Gilia, Muggiaea) and early stages of ctenophora are only caught by the smaller nets.

Tritium concentrations of hydrography in the North Atlantic around 40°N

We report, numerically and in graphical form, meaured tritium concentrations from five hydrographic stations in the North Atlantic. Fairly homogeneous concentrations are observed in a surface layer typically 400 m deep. In the thermocline, concentrations decrease steadily down to the sigma-theta = 27.3 density horizon, and are more variable further down. The tritium in the lower part of the thermocline originates from the Subarctic Intermediate Water and the Mediterranean Water. There is a relative tritium maximum associated with the Mediterranean Water on the easternmost station of the section. In the deep water (sigma-theta > 27.8), concentrations east of the Midatlantic Ridge are close to the limit of detection down to 2500m, and undetectable further down, while west of the ridge tritium is found throughout the water column. The deep water tritium is associated with the deep-water advective cores of Arctic origin. The present tritium data can serve as northern boundary values in attempts to use tritium in studies of the North Atlantic main thermocline dynamics. The present data together with data from the literature point to a general division of the North Atlantic main thermocline into two layers separated by an isopycnal surface near sigma-theta = 27.3.