Price of unsustainability. Economic impacts of climate change

Global problems, rapid and massive regional changes in the 21st century call for genuine long-term, awareness, planning and well focused actions from both national governments and international organizations. This book wishes to contribute to building an innovative path of strategic views in handling the diverse challenges, and more emphatically, the economic impacts of climate change. Although the contributors of this volume represent several approaches, they all rely on some common grounds such as the costbenefit analysis of mitigation and adaptation, and on the need to present an in-depth theoretical and practical dimension. The research accounted for in this book tried to integrate and confront various types of economics approaches and methods, as well as knowledge from game theory to country surveys, from agricultural adaptation to weather bonds, from green tax to historical experience of human adaptation. The various themes and points of views do deserve the attention of the serious academic reader interested in the economics of climate change. We hope to enhance the spread of good solutions resulting from world wide disputes and tested strategic decisions. WAKE UP! It is not just the polar bears' habitat that is endangered, but the entire human form of life.

Géniuszok párharca. Milton Friedman és J. M. Keynes vitája Tim Congdon és Robert Skidelsky előadásában = War of the geniuses. The debate between Milton Friedman and J. M. Keynes as presented by Tim Congdon and Robert Skidelsky

Tavaly ünnepelte a közgazdász-társadalom Milton Friedman Nobel-díjas közgazdász születésének századik évfordulóját. A jubileumi megemlékezésnek különös aktualitást ad, hogy a 2008 óta tartó pénzügyi világválság hátterében ismét fellobbant a 20. századi közgazdaságtan két meghatározó irányzata - a Friedman nevével fémjelzett monetarizmus és a Keynes és követői által követett keynesizmus - közötti vita. E szerteágazó vitasorozat egyik "gyöngyszeme" két nemzetközileg ismert és elismert közgazdász, Tim Congdon és Robert (Lord) Skidelsky, összecsapása a Standpoint hasábjain 2009-ben. A szerző megmutatja, hogy a vita valójában nem a pénz fontosságáról vagy a mennyiségi pénzelmélet igazságáról folyt, hanem egyrészt egy sokkal elvontabb fogalomról: a bizonytalanság közgazdasági szerepéről, másrészt gyakorlati, gazdaságpolitikai kérdésekről: a monetáris és a fiskális politika lehetséges hatékonyságáról. A máig is tartó vitában "az inga többször kilengett", hol a keynesiánusok, hol a monetaristák javára, de még semmi nem dőlt el. ____ Last year economists marked the centenary of the birth of genius among them, Milton Friedman. The commemoration was especially topical because the world financial crisis that erupted in 2008 has brought sharply into focus again the old division in 20th-century economics between monetarism and Keynesianism. One highlight in this series of disputes was the 2009 clash between two internationally known and appreciated economists Tim Congdon and Robert (Lord) Skidelsky in the columns of Standpoint. The central element in the discussion is the role of money: what kind of economic policy to pursue, monetary or fiscal, to pull troubled economies out of crisis. The question closely resembles a decisive dilemma for Keynes in the 1930s. Though Keynes turned against some basic propositions of neoclassical economics, he never challenged the importance of money to the functioning of the economy, or the validity of the quantity theory of money. The author argues here that the issue is not about the formal category of money or demand for it, but about the far deeper economic concept of the role of uncertainty in economics. Another aspect concerns the relative efficiency of various kinds of economic policy, i. e. the strengths and weaknesses of monetary and fiscal policies.

Towards the formation of a sustainable South Florida: An analysis of conflict resolution and consensus building in the South Florida Everglades Ecosystem Restoration Initiative

This dissertation examines the sociological process of conflict resolution and consensus building in South Florida Everglades Ecosystem Restoration through what I define as a Network Management Coordinative Interstitial Group (NetMIG). The process of conflict resolution can be summarized as the participation of interested and affected parties (stakeholders) in a forum of negotiation. I study the case of the Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida (GCSSF) that was established to reduce social conflict. Such conflict originated from environmental disputes about the Everglades and was manifested in the form of gridlock among regulatory (government) agencies, Indian tribes, as well as agricultural, environmental conservationist and urban development interests. The purpose of the participatory forum is to reduce conflicts of interest and to achieve consensus, with the ultimate goal of restoration of the original Everglades ecosystem, while cultivating the economic and cultural bases of the communities in the area. Further, the forum aim to formulate consensus through envisioning a common sustainable community by providing means to achieve a balance between human and natural systems. ^ Data were gathered using participant observation and document analysis techniques to conduct a theoretically based analysis of the role of the Network Management Coordinative Interstitial Group (NetMIG). I use conflict resolution theory, environmental conflict theory, stakeholder analysis, systems theory, differentiation and social change theory, and strategic management and planning theory. ^ The purpose of this study is to substantiate the role of the Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida (GCSSF) as a consortium of organizations in an effort to resolve conflict rather than an ethnographic study of this organization. Environmental restoration of the Everglades is a vehicle for recognizing the significance of a Network Management Coordinative Interstitial Group (NetMIG), namely the Governor's Commission for a Sustainable South Florida (GCSSF), as a structural mechanism for stakeholder participation in the process of social conflict resolution through the creation of new cultural paradigms for a sustainable community. ^

Una sociedad legalista: Abogados, procuradores de causas y la creación de una cultura legal colonial en Lima y Potosí, 1540–1670

This study deals with the formation, reproduction, and the role in litigation of two branches of the legal profession, lawyers and procurators. They were the experts in charge of civil, criminal, and ecclesiastical litigation during the Old Regime. While the lawyers provided erudite legal advice, procurators oriented and drove the procedure as legal representatives of their clients. The European legal revolutions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries forged a new legal culture in which the lawsuit was reputed to be the best way to settle disputes. Likewise, that legal culture conferred an important place to specialists as legal facilitators of the contending parties. When Castilians exported their legal system to the New World, they spread a complex and bureaucratic framework, contributing to the reproduction of a class of experts in urban spaces. Lima and Potosi, two urban centers created in the sixteenth century, quickly became significant ‘legal cities’. This dissertation explores how the legal markets of these cities operated, the careers of their specialists, their professional options, social images regarding them, and litigation costs. This study examines the careers of 267 facilitators and demonstrates that they constituted a class of distinctive legal professionals. Legal culture embodies the representation and use of law. The closeness of specialists with litigants, in particular of procurators familiarized the parties with litigation and its complex processes. These specialists forged dominant legal discourses and manipulated juridical order. Litigants were not passive agents of their specialists. Caciques and members of the Hispanicized communities appropriated the law in a visible way as the growing litigiousness illustrates. Colonial law (of a pluralistic basis) was an arena of assertion and discussion of rights by different social actors, encomenderos, leading citizens, widows, native chieftains, artisans, and commoners. This study concludes that this struggle and manipulation served to legitimate the role of those legal experts and gave birth to a complex legalistic society in the Andes under Spanish Habsburg rule.

Pirates, exiles, and empire: English seamen, Atlantic expansion, and Jamaican settlement, 1558–1658

A life of piracy offered marginal men a profession with a degree of autonomy, despite the brand of "outlaw" and the fear of prosecution. At various times throughout history, governments and crowned heads suspended much of their piracy prosecution, licensing men to work as "privateers" for the state, supplementing naval forces. This practice has a long history, but in sixteenth-century England, Elizabeth I (1558-1603) significantly altered this tradition. Recognizing her own weakness in effectively prosecuting these men and the profit they could contribute to the government, Elizabeth began incorporating pirates into the English naval corps in peacetime—not just in war. This practice increased English naval resources, income, and presence in the emerging Atlantic World, but also increased conflict with the powerful Spanish empire. By 1605, making peace with Spain, James VI/I (1603-1625) retracted Elizabeth's privateering promotion, prompting an emigration of English seamen to the American outposts they had developed in the previous century. Now exiles, no longer beholden to the Crown, seamen reverted back to piracy. The Carolinas and Jamaica served as bases for these rover communities. In 1650, the revolutionary leader Oliver Cromwell (1649-1658) once again recognized the merits of such policies. Determined to demonstrate his authority and solidify his rule, Cromwell offered citizenship and state support to Caribbean exiles in exchange for their aiding of his navy in the taking of Spanish Jamaica. Official chartering of Port Royal, Jamaica served as reward for these men's efforts and as the culmination of a century-long cycle of piracy legislation, creating one of England's most lucrative colonies in the middle of a traditionally Spanish Caribbean empire. Through legal and diplomatic records, correspondence, and naval and demographic records from England and Spain, this dissertation explores early modern piracy/privateering policy and its impact on the development of the Atlantic World. European disputes and imperial competition converged in these piracy debates with significant consequences for the definitions of criminality and citizenship and for the development of Atlantic empire.

A Land That Has Yet to Heal: The Burmese Civil War (1948 – present)

Since its independence from Great Britain in 1948, the state of Burma has been at war with itself. Ethnic and religious tension fuel the conflict and has led to territorial disputes while no resolution to this strife is expected under a fragile and corrupt central government. Additionally, proxy wars have delayed any peaceful negotiations. The combinations of failing social welfare programs and prolonged peace talks have led many Burmese people join the military as soldiers in either the Burmese military or any one of the numerous ethnic paramilitary groups in the country. Human rights violations are common in Burma, including rape, pillaging, and ethnic cleansing. Essentially, Burma has had the longest ongoing civil war due to combination of grievances, many of which predate the 21st century.

Identity, Ideology, and Cinema: Making Sense of Japan's Foreign and Security Policies in the 1950s and 2000s

Japan is an important ally of the United States–the world’s third biggest economy, and one of the regional great powers in Asia. Making sense of Japan’s foreign and security policies is crucial for the future of peace and stability in Northeast Asia, where the possible sources of conflict such as territorial disputes or the disputes over Japan’s war legacy issues are observed. This dissertation explored Japan’s foreign and security policies based on Japan’s identities and unconscious ideologies. It employed an analysis of selected Japanese films from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, as well as from the late 1990s to the mid-2000s. The analysis demonstrated that Japan’s foreign and security policies could be understood in terms of a broader social narrative that was visible in Japanese popular cultural products, including films and literatures. Narratives of Japanese families from the patriarch’s point of view, for example, had constantly shaped Japan’s foreign and security policies. As a result, the world was ordered hierarchically in the eyes of the Japan Self. In the 1950s, Japan tenaciously constructed close but asymmetrical security relations with the U.S. in which Japan willingly subjugated itself to the U.S. In the 2000s, Japan again constructed close relations with the U.S. by doing its best to support American responses to the 9/11 terrorist attacks by mobilizing Japan’s SDFs in the way Japan had never done in the past. The concepts of identity and unconscious ideology are helpful in understanding how Japan’s own understanding of self, of others, and of the world have shaped its own behaviors. These concepts also enable Japan to reevaluate its own behaviors reflexively, which departs from existing alternative approaches. This study provided a critical analytical explanation of the dynamics at work in Japan’s sense of identity, particularly with regard to its foreign and security policies.

Impact of the Afghan refugees on Pakistan

There was a massive influx of Afghan refugees into Pakistan following the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979. An attempt has been made here to analyze the political, ethnic, economic and social ramifications of the Afghan refugees on Pakistan. Among the consequences of the presence of Afghan refugees are: 1. A heavy burden on Pakistan's resources on account of sustaining the 2.8 million Afghan refugees 2. Friction between Afghan refugees and the Pakistani population, due to land, employment, animal grazing-pasture and water-supply disputes, and 3. A direct threat to Pakistan's internal security and political stability, which is made evident by numerous violations of Pakistan's western borders by Soviet-Afghan air and ground forces in pursuit of the refugees and Afghan Mujahidin. The political talks on the Afghan crisis are deadlocked on the question of a Soviet troop withdrawal. The Soviets and Afghans insist on the stoppage of foreign support to the Afghan counterrevolutionaries. The refugees in Pakistan will not return to their homes unless they are insured a safe and honorable life by the Afghan government.

The United States and the politics of trade: the banana war with Europe and the Caribbean

This thesis examines the involvement of the United States in the decade-long trade dispute before the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the European Union's preferential banana regime. Washington's justification for bringing this case to the WTO comes from Section 301 of the U.S. trade act, which allows for disputes to be undertaken if U.S. "interests" are violated; however, this is the first case ever undertaken by the United States that does not directly threaten any American banana industry, nor affect any American jobs. Why, then, would the United States involve itself in this European-Caribbean-Latin American dispute? It is the contention of this thesis that the United States thrust itself headlong into this debate for two reasons: domestically, the United States Trade Representative came under pressure, via the White House and Congress, from Chiquita CEO Carl Lindner, who in the past decade donated more than $7.1 million to American politicians to take the case to the WTO. Internationally, the United States used the case as an opportunity to assert its power over Europe, with the Eastern Caribbean islands being caught in the economic crossfire. According to existing literature, in undertaking this case, the United States did as any nation would: it operated within both domestic and international levels, satisfying at each level key interests, with the overall goal of maintaining the nation's best interests.

Território, Criminalidade e tráfico de drogas ilícitas em Montes Claros/MG

Urban violence, manifestly public and free, has changed the standard of sociability of townspeople. The city is an increasingly private space of hopes of reducing the risk of victimization, due to the fear of violence that separates and distances the classes in expectation of concealing this behavior. However, violence has many facets and, in one way or another, will always be present as a product of social friction. It is in the urban context and using drug trafficking as a backdrop that this work raises questions about the territorial violence in Montes Claros - MG. The objective was to analyze the dynamics of illicit drug trafficking from the concepts of territory, observing to what extent the appropriation of space contributes to the use of violence, especially in interpersonal disputes. Methodologically, it seeks from quantitative and qualitative techniques make the spatial distribution of criminal indicators, defining and creating hierarchy territories of violence in urban areas. From the qualitative approach seeks to organize and analyze data together to the Civil and Military Police, Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics -IBGE, João Pinheiro Foundation and the System of the Ministry of Health Mortality Information - SIM. The opportunity of miscegenation between the knowledge of the survey respondents and the official data has introduced qualitative part. The city of Montes Claros has been taken as an object of observation due to a set of conditions, which stood its medium size, your importance in the regional context and their socioeconomic disparities. The results point to the existence of multiple territoriality of violence involving the trafficking of illicit drugs in urban space. Territorial disputes by the traffickers have victimized people with socioeconomic characteristics and urban spatial origin similar. The dynamism of the established boundaries from the cohesion and / or rupture of the interests of those involved creates and destroys territories in the power struggle.

JORNALISMO DIVERSIONAL: função, contornos e práticas na imprensa brasileira

Há, dentre os gêneros jornalísticos, especialmente os praticados na imprensa brasileira, um agrupamento a que José Marques de Melo atribui o nome de “jornalismo diversional”. Diferenciado por sua finalidade afeita à diversão e por abranger matérias reveladoras de histórias interessantes, a estrutura de seus formatos assimila elementos da literatura e da antropologia. Mas que motivações levam repórteres a desenvolver tal gênero e em quais circunstâncias? Quais métodos são adotados para sua feitura? Que forças agem aí? O estudo apresentado nesta tese buscou compreender como se dá esse processo, observando e comparando os modos de fazer adotados por nove jornalistas brasileiros, escolhidos por se submeterem a dois critérios inter-relacionados: 1) serem reconhecidos pelo meio jornalístico e/ou pelo mercado editorial como figuras que se destacam nesse exercício; e 2) terem produzido textos – com as características mencionadas – para jornais e/ou revistas e que, posteriormente, foram compilados em livro. A metodologia empregada tem vínculo estreito com a perspectiva teórica do newsmaking, valendo-se da técnica apropriada para uma observação que considera diferentes momentos da história (década de 1950 para cá): a entrevista, no seu tipo semiestruturado. O quadro de jornalistas entrevistados é formado por Audálio Dantas, Carlos Wagner, Consuelo Dieguez, Daniela Pinheiro, Eliane Brum, João Moreira Salles, José Hamilton Ribeiro, Ricardo Kotscho e Zuenir Ventura. Como resultado, defendemos que o gênero aqui posto como tema de pesquisa é cultivado por um seleto grupo de profissionais, capazes de direcionar olhares sensíveis sobre a realidade, para dela extrair detalhes e enredos que toquem nos sentimentos dos leitores, divertindo-os, ao propiciar gratificação estética, em contraponto à alienação que se costuma presumir. Trata-se de produção dependente de criatividade e curiosidade, de talento para redigir textos agradáveis e de métodos de apuração e de escrita altamente subjetivos, mas que aparecem como questão bem resolvida no agir profissional desses sujeitos. Essa capacidade também é que os possibilita conquistar espaço, em meio a embates com editores e diretores de redação, para elaborar matérias em que a autoria se sobressai. Por fim, a função de divertir, atribuída ao gênero, é confirmada pelos profissionais, ainda que de modo implícito

Tierra y revolución : La campaña salteña en las primeras décadas del siglo XIX

La formación de la Junta de Gobierno en Buenos Aires en 1810 dio inicio a un proceso político que adquirió derroteros diversos en el interior del extenso territorio perteneciente al Virreinato del Río de la Plata. Al igual que en las provincias del Alto Perú, la jurisdicción de Salta fue escenario de una guerra de recursos de la cual participó la población rural integrando las milicias provinciales o "Escuadrones Gauchos". Interesa entonces observar en qué medida el conflicto bélico agudizó y puso en evidencia las tensiones existentes por los derechos de propiedad y usufructo de la tierra ya manifestadas a fines del siglo XVIII, particularmente en el valle de Lerma, y su incidencia en las disputas en torno a la tierra que tuvieron lugar luego de concluida la guerra en la provincia de Salta.

La profesionalización de la enfermería en Argentina : Disputas políticas e institucionales durante el peronismo

Nuestra investigación pretende visualizar el proceso de profesionalización de las enfermeras durante el peronismo desde dos ámbitos profundamente emparentados con espacios políticos peronistas: la Escuela de Enfermas de la Secretaría de Salud Pública (1947) y la Escuela de Enfermeras "7 de mayo" de la Fundación Eva Perón (1950). Conscientes de que este recorte excluye otras escuelas que funcionaron durante este período, los objetivos de este trabajo justifican el acotamiento dado que el interés está centrado en las disputas institucionales entre entidades embanderadas en las nuevas lógicas políticas peronistas

El proceso de integración latinoamericana : Claves, conflictos y perspectivas de análisis

Los procesos de integración latinoamericana vienen siendo estudiados desde hace tiempo, y su abordaje plantea múltiples dimensiones para la investigación social. En el presente trabajo se indagan algunas de las características de la territorialidad en la región suramericana para preguntarse por algunos de los procesos de integración que atañen a Suramérica, particularmente respecto del bloque UNASUR, poniendo especial énfasis en las transformaciones que han operado en las últimas décadas. El enfoque territorial será la lupa a través de la cual se intentará tener un primer acercamiento al fenómeno atravesado por dinámicas de poder más amplias y más complejas. Se comienza con una reflexión inicial en torno a los modos de concebir analíticamente el territorio, que está invadido por múltiples lógicas y mecanismos de poder. El recorrido por los debates sobre las modalidades de inserción internacional, así como por las etapas de regionalismo en Latinoamérica, contribuirá a la descripción de las nuevas condiciones que se dan en la región a la hora de analizar el surgimiento de nuevos bloques de poder. Así, podremos preguntarnos si el bloque de Unasur es estructurado sobre nuevas lógicas de construcción de poder. Su estudio permitirá también indagar en los desafíos que su conformación plantea y en las tensiones y en los conflictos de intereses que los distintos propósitos de integración que conviven en Unasur conllevan

Conflictos entre laicos y eclesiásticos, poder y relaciones sociales en el Reino de León : Revisión crítica de un modelo

El presente trabajo realiza una revisión crítica del modelo formulado por Patrick Geary para la interpretación de los procesos conflictuales en la sociedad medieval, tomando como caso de estudio el Reino de León. A partir del análisis de los conflictos que enfrentaron al monasterio benedictino de Sahagún con los laicos en los siglos XI y XII, se examinan dos nociones que atraviesan este modelo. Por un lado, la concepción del conflicto como mecanismo de regulación de las relaciones sociales. Por otro, su carácter ahistórico, desvinculado de los procesos de cambio social dentro de los que se inscribe.