Investing in the future: Norway, climate change, and fossil fuel divestment

The fossil fuel divestment movement has undergone explosive growth over the last few years - expanding from encouraging educational institutions to adopt ethical investment policies to focusing upon cities, pension funds and philanthropic charities. The fossil fuel divestment movement has attained global ambitions - challenging sovereign wealth funds and national governments to engage in fossil fuel divestment, and pushing for fossil fuel divestment at international climate talks - such as the Paris Climate Summit in 2015. By exploring and analysing a key campaign to 'Divest Norway', this chapter considers the efforts to globalise and internationalise the fossil fuel divestment campaign. Part 1 explores the origins of the fossil fuel divestment movement, and the application of such strategies in a variety of contexts. Part 2 looks at the campaign to divest Norway's sovereign wealth fund of fossil fuel investments. There has been much discussion as to whether the bold decision of Norway to engage in coal divestment will encourage and inspire other sovereign wealth funds to engage in fossil fuel divestment. The conclusion considers the efforts to introduce fossil fuel divestment as a policy initiative for nation states as a policy option in international climate law.

Reservoir performance under uncertainty in hydrologic impacts of climate change

Relatively few studies have addressed water management and adaptation measures in the face of changing water balances due to climate change. The current work studies climate change impact on a multipurpose reservoir performance and derives adaptive policies for possible futurescenarios. The method developed in this work is illustrated with a case study of Hirakud reservoir on the Mahanadi river in Orissa, India,which is a multipurpose reservoir serving flood control, irrigation and power generation. Climate change effects on annual hydropower generation and four performance indices (reliability with respect to three reservoir functions, viz. hydropower, irrigation and flood control, resiliency, vulnerability and deficit ratio with respect to hydropower) are studied. Outputs from three general circulation models (GCMs) for three scenarios each are downscaled to monsoon streamflow in the Mahanadi river for two future time slices, 2045-65 and 2075-95. Increased irrigation demands, rule curves dictated by increased need for flood storage and downscaled projections of streamflow from the ensemble of GCMs and scenarios are used for projecting future hydrologic scenarios. It is seen that hydropower generation and reliability with respect to hydropower and irrigation are likely to show a decrease in future in most scenarios, whereas the deficit ratio and vulnerability are likely to increase as a result of climate change if the standard operating policy (SOP) using current rule curves for flood protection is employed. An optimal monthly operating policy is then derived using stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) as an adaptive policy for mitigating impacts of climate change on reservoir operation. The objective of this policy is to maximize reliabilities with respect to multiple reservoir functions of hydropower, irrigation and flood control. In variations to this adaptive policy, increasingly more weightage is given to the purpose of maximizing reliability with respect to hydropower for two extreme scenarios. It is seen that by marginally sacrificing reliability with respect to irrigation and flood control, hydropower reliability and generation can be increased for future scenarios. This suggests that reservoir rules for flood control may have to be revised in basins where climate change projects an increasing probability of droughts. However, it is also seen that power generation is unable to be restored to current levels, due in part to the large projected increases in irrigation demand. This suggests that future water balance deficits may limit the success of adaptive policy options. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Trade wars in the TRIPS Council: Intellectual property, technology transfer, and climate change

This Chapter considers the geopolitical conflicts in respect of intellectual property, trade, and climate change in the TRIPS Agreement 1994 under the World Trade Organization (WTO). In particular, it focuses upon debates in the TRIPS Council on the topic of patent law and clean energy in 2013 and 2014. The chapter highlights the development agenda of a number of developing countries who are keen for access to clean energy to combat climate change and global warming. It also considers the mixed contributions of members of the BRICS/ BASIC group – including Brazil, India, China, and South Africa. This chapter highlights the intellectual property maximalist position of a number of developed countries on intellectual property, climate change, and trade. Seeking to overcome this conflict and stalemate, this Chapter puts forward both procedural and substantial reform options in respect of intellectual property, trade, and climate change in the TRIPS Council and the WTO. It also flags that the TRIPS Agreement 1994 could well be displaced by the rise of mega-regional trade agreements – such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Slogans of Change : Three Outlooks on Finnish Television

The study Slogans of Change. Three Outlooks on Finnish Television Contents is concerned with alleged changes of television contents during the 1990s and 2000s, such as dumbing down, tabloidisation, entertainisation , and the like. Specifically, the focus is on the ways these changes might manifest in Finnish television. The aim of the study has been threefold: 1. To operationalise public and academic discussions about changes via specific slogans emerging from the debates; 2. Consequently, to study the slogans empirically and reflect on the findings with earlier research, including studies on institutional and audience-related aspects; 3. Finally, to suggest what the findings might mean regarding discussions about television s role, and what kinds of slogans or concepts might best serve future discussions and research. The empirical outlooks presented in this study offer analyses with three different sets of opposing slogans of change. The outlooks also follow three different traditions of the study of television. The first outlook focuses on quantity, as it gives a longitudinal (1993-2004), macro-level view on programme structures. The methodological approach is derived from media economic and policy studies. The claims that frame the analysis are convergence versus diversification of programme structures. The second outlook provides quantitative and qualitative views on the characteristics and quality  the term signifying essence as well as worth  of Finnish television journalism during sample weeks from the years 2002 and 2003. This outlook follows the traditions of quantitative content analysis found in journalism studies coupled with descriptive qualitative content analyses. The slogans reflected in this section are the lightening or widening of journalism. The third outlook narrows down the material and focuses at a micro-level on form; that is, communicative conventions in a small array of selected programmes in 1993, 2000 and during 2002-2004. The analyses have been inspired by the method of conversation analysis of verbal interaction, and coupled with qualitative close readings, with the focus of different communicative situations in the programmes. The catchphrases employed in this part are emotainment versus democratainment, coupled with more specific claims of discursive hybridisation and conversationalisation. The findings depict that, empirically, changes in Finnish television contents are not clear linear trends and cannot easily be moulded into neat slogans. The quantitative outlook on programme output during 1993-2004 depicts a tendency towards differentiation of channels, paving the way for the multi-channel digital system. The change in programme structures, however, is not dramatic on the level of total output. The second outlook suggests that the dualistic concepts, such as the pair information-entertainment, are not sufficient in understanding the array and changes of programmes that could be called journalism. The outlook on communicative conventions highlights hybridisation in the manner of television talk and its relation to broader debates on contents. Despite the three dissimilar empirical approaches, unifying aspects emerge. The outlooks suggest, albeit in different ways, tendencies toward distinction and polarisation. This study proposes that in order to facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the changes in television contents, dualistic slogans should be replaced with a multi-dimensional understanding of the concept of diversity.

Hard Custom, Hard Dance : Social Organisation, (Un)Differentiation and Notions of Power in a Tabiteuean Community, Southern Kiribati

Hard Custom, Hard Dance: Social Organisation, (Un)Differentiation and Notions of Power in a Tabiteuean Community, Southern Kiribati is an ethnographic study of a village community. This work analyses social organisation on the island of Tabiteuea in the Micronesian state of Kiribati, examining the intertwining of hierarchical and egalitarian traits, meanwhile bringing a new perspective to scholarly discussions of social differentiation by introducing the concept of undifferentiation to describe non-hierarchical social forms and practices. Particular attention is paid to local ideas concerning symbolic power, abstractly understood as the potency for social reproduction, but also examined in one of its forms; authority understood as the right to speak. The workings of social differentiation and undifferentiation in the village are specifically studied in two contexts connected by local notions of power: the meetinghouse institution (te maneaba) and traditional dancing (te mwaie). This dissertation is based on 11 months of anthropological fieldwork in 1999‒2000 in Kiribati and Fiji, with an emphasis on participant observation and the collection of oral tradition (narratives and songs). The questions are approached through three distinct but interrelated topics: (i) A key narrative of the community ‒ the story of an ancestor without descendants ‒ is presented and discussed, along with other narratives. (ii) The Kiribati meetinghouse institution, te maneaba, is considered in terms of oral tradition as well as present-day practices and customs. (iii) Kiribati dancing (te mwaie) is examined through a discussion of competing dance groups, followed by an extended case study of four dance events. In the course of this work the community of close to four hundred inhabitants is depicted as constructed primarily of clans and households, but also of churches, work co-operatives and dance groups, but also as a significant and valued social unit in itself, and a part of the wider island district. In these partly cross-cutting and overlapping social matrices, people are alternatingly organised by the distinct values and logic of differentiation and undifferentiation. At different levels of social integration and in different modes of social and discursive practice, there are heightened moments of differentiation, followed by active undifferentiation. The central notions concerning power and authority to emerge are, firstly, that in order to be valued and utilised, power needs to be controlled. Secondly, power is not allowed to centralize in the hands of one person or group for any long period of time. Thirdly, out of the permanent reach of people, power/authority is always, on the one hand, left outside the factual community and, on the other, vested in community, the social whole. Several forms of differentiation and undifferentiation emerge, but these appear to be systematically related. Social differentiation building on typically Austronesian complementary differences (such as male:female, elder:younger, autochtonous:allotochtonous) is valued, even if eventually restricted, whereas differentiation based on non-complementary differences (such as monetary wealth or level of education) is generally resisted, and/or is subsumed by the complementary distinctions. The concomitant forms of undifferentiation are likewise hierarchically organised. On the level of the society as a whole, undifferentiation means circumscribing and ultimately withholding social hierarchy. Potential hierarchy is both based on a combination of valued complementary differences between social groups and individuals, but also limited by virtue of the undoing of these differences; for example, in the dissolution of seniority (elder-younger) and gender (male-female) into sameness. Like the suspension of hierarchy, undifferentiation as transformation requires the recognition of pre-existing difference and does not mean devaluing the difference. This form of undifferentiation is ultimately encompassed by the first one, as the processes of the differentiation, whether transformed or not, are always halted. Finally, undifferentiation can mean the prevention of non-complementary differences between social groups or individuals. This form of undifferentiation, like the differentiation it works on, takes place on a lower level of societal ideology, as both the differences and their prevention are always encompassed by the complementary differences and their undoing. It is concluded that Southern Kiribati society be seen as a combination of a severely limited and decentralised hierarchy (differentiation) and of a tightly conditional and contextual (intra-category) equality (undifferentiation), and that it is distinctly characterised by an enduring tension between these contradicting social forms and cultural notions. With reference to the local notion of hardness used to characterise custom on this particular island as well as dance in general, it is argued in this work that in this Tabiteuean community some forms of differentiation are valued though strictly delimited or even undone, whereas other forms of differentiation are a perceived as a threat to community, necessitating pre-emptive imposition of undifferentiation. Power, though sought after and displayed - particularly in dancing - must always remain controlled.

Survival in the Rainforest : Change and Resilience among the Punan Vuhang of Eastern Sarawak, Malaysia

This dissertation concerns the Punan Vuhang, former hunter-gatherers who are now part-time farmers living in an area of remote rainforest in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. It covers two themes: first, examining their methods of securing a livelihood in the rainforest, and second looking at their adaptation to a settled life and agriculture, and their response to rapid and large-scale commercial logging. This study engages the long-running debates among anthropologists and ecologists on whether recent hunting-gathering societies were able to survive in the tropical rainforest without dependence on farming societies for food resources. In the search for evidence, the study poses three questions: What food resources were available to rainforest hunter-gatherers? How did they hunt and gather these foods? How did they cope with periodic food shortages? In fashioning a life in the rainforest, the Punan Vuhang survived resource scarcity by developing adaptive strategies through intensive use of their knowledge of the forest and its resources. They also adopted social practices such as sharing and reciprocity, and resource tenure to sustain themselves without recourse to external sources of food. In the 1960s, the Punan Vuhang settled down in response to external influences arising in part from the Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation. This, in turn, initiated a series of processes with political, economic and religious implications. However, elements of the traditional economy have remained resilient as the people continue to hunt, fish and gather, and are able to farm on an individual basis, unlike neighboring shifting cultivators who need to cooperate with each other. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Punan Vuhang face a new challenge arising from the issue of rights in the context of the state and national law and large-scale commercial logging in their forest habitat. The future seems bleak as they face the social problems of alcoholism, declining leadership, and dependence on cash income and commodities from the market.

Volume change behaviour of fine grained solis

Soils in and and semi-arid zones undergoes volume changes due to wetting. Depending upon the type of clay minerals present, degree of saturation, externally applied load and bonding, the fine grained soils either swells or compresses. One of the parameter that affects the volume change behaviour is the primary clay mineral present in their clay size fraction. A simple method of identifying the same has been presented. It has been brought out that in an expansive unsaturated undisturbed soil, the diffuse double layer repulsion, the stress state and the bonding play significant role in their volume change behaviour. In non-expansive fine grained unsaturated undisturbed soils, the shearing resistance at particle level (including the matrix suction and bonding) and fabric play a significant role in influencing the volume change behaviour. While both the mechanism co-exist, one of them play a dominant role depending upon the primary clay mineral is swelling or non swelling.

How Kings are Made, How Kingship Changes : A Study of Ritual and Ritual Change in Pre-Colonial Owamboland, Namibia

This study discusses the legitimacy basis of political power and its changes in historical African societies. It starts from Luc de Heusch s tenet that political power required a legitimacy basis of a spiritual kind, often formulated as sacred kingship. In ancient and pre-literate societies such kings were held to be responsible for the fertility of man, land and cattle. The king was a paradoxical figure, symbolising society, but standing above it, while simultaneously being its victim by being ritually killed at old age. This was also how Owambo sacred kings were conceived. De Heusch suggested that African kings derived their power over fertility from having been made sacred monsters in the rituals of installation. With the example of Owambo kingship, this study argues that the transgressive and monstrous aspect is only one of several dimension of a king s sacredness and brings out the nurturing and symbolically female aspect, identified but not analysed further by de Heusch. In the Owambo kingly installation a king-elect was made sacred, and part of it was that a link was ritually created to the early owners of the land. Their consent made it possible for the king to promote fertility and to appropriate power emblems needed for ruling. In the kingdom of Ondonga the early owners of the land were the spirits of early Bushman inhabitants and those of an early kingly clan, both neglected in public memory. The sacred dimension of kingship was further augmented when kings manipulated and appropriated rain rituals and initiation rituals, both of which were related to fertility. The study argues that even though there were aspects of the sacred monster in Owambo kingship, its manifestation was, in part, a distortion of the reciprocal aspect of kingship that was expressed in the homage paid to various ancestor spirits. A change in succession practices from ritual regicide to political assassination took place concomitant with the introduction of firearms, and this broke the sacrificial aspect of sacred kingship paving the way for a more predatory form of kingship while the sacred status of the king was retained.

Yliopisto-opetuksen yhteistoiminnallinen kehittäminen

The main aim of this work is to study the possibility of applying the cooperative learning approach to develop academic learning and teaching culture. In this work cooperative learning refers to a pedagogical approach that applies social psychological knowledge of group dynamics and small group teaching. Furthermore, theories of collaborative learning and organization development have been applied. Based on these theories a model of developing learning and teaching culture was developed. The model was tested in the development project that was carried out in the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry of Helsinki University. The research questions were: How were the theories of cooperative and collaborative learning and organization development applied in the project? What kind of effects did the development project have on the learning and teaching culture? Through which kind of mechanisms did the project influence this culture? How should the development model be revised after the empirical test? The project lasted five years and the major part of the project consisted of a one-year pedagogical training course. Altogether 145 people (teachers, researchers, library staff, and students) participated in the training, two to three departments at a time. In the pedagogical training cooperative learning methods were widely used. A questionnaire was used to study effects of the development project. The questionnaire was sent to 87 people and 65.5 % answered it. Both the answers to the questionnaire and a sample of learning diaries (n=61) were used to study the mechanism of the project. A sample of the learning diaries consisted of two pedagogical training group members diaries. The frequency distributions were calculated as extrapolations from the answers to the structured questions. Furthermore the answers were classified by the main background variables. The analysis of the open answers to the questionnaire and the learning diaries were data-based. According to the answers to the questionnaire, the effects of the pedagogical training were as follows: The participants consider learning more as an active process of constructing knowledge. Furthermore they considered the individual learning styles and strategies, cooperation and motivation as more important part of the learning process than before the pedagogical training. The role of the teacher was viewed more challenging than before. Additionally the cooperation between teachers, other staff members and students had projected to increase. After the project had ended the teaching methods in the whole faculty were viewed to become varied and the teaching was considered to be more valued than before. According to the answers to the questionnaire, the project influenced through the following ways: the project stimulated the change process, provided new methods for learning and teaching, had an effect on conceptions of learning and teaching and facilitated meaningful communication with others (staff and students). The analysis of the learning diaries supported these findings. In addition, the analysis of the learning diaries deepened the understanding of how the cooperative learning methods supported positive learning atmosphere and reduced the negative effect of the status differences between the members of the group. The critical comments in the learning diaries could be interpreted as collision between cooperative and traditional teaching culture. Cooperative learning gives theory-based methods to develop academic learning and teaching culture. The approach helps the developer to create positive collaborative learning environment and gives ways to support learning in small groups, which can promote cultural change. On the other hand, to understand the whole process of organization development and promote change the theories of organizations and more sosioconstructivist theory of learning are needed. Cooperative learning, collaborative learning, higher education, group dynamics, social constructionism, organisational culture, organisation development

Climate change and agriculture: theory and application of mitigation policies

Agriculture’s contribution to climate change is controversial as it is a significant source of greenhouse gases but also a sink of carbon. Hence its economic and technological potential to mitigate climate change have been argued to be noteworthy. However, social profitability of emission mitigation is a result from factors among emission reductions such as surface water quality impact or profit from production. Consequently, to value comprehensive results of agricultural climate emission mitigation practices, these co-effects to environment and economics should be taken into account. The objective of this thesis was to develop an integrated economic and ecological model to analyse the social welfare of crop cultivation in Finland on distinctive cultivation technologies, conventional tillage and conservation tillage (no-till). Further, we ask whether it would be privately or socially profitable to allocate some of barley cultivation for alternative land use, such as green set-aside or afforestation, when production costs, GHG’s and water quality impacts are taken into account. In the theoretical framework we depict the optimal input use and land allocation choices in terms of environmental impacts and profit from production and derive the optimal tax and payment policies for climate and water quality friendly land allocation. The empirical application of the model uses Finnish data about production cost and profit structure and environmental impacts. According to our results, given emission mitigation practices are not self-evidently beneficial for farmers or society. On the contrary, in some cases alternative land allocation could even reduce social welfare, profiting conventional crop cultivation. This is the case regarding mineral soils such as clay and silt soils. On organic agricultural soils, climate mitigation practices, in this case afforestation and green fallow give more promising results, decreasing climate emissions and nutrient runoff to water systems. No-till technology does not seem to profit climate mitigation although it does decrease other environmental impacts. Nevertheless, the data behind climate emission mitigation practices impact to production and climate is limited and partly contradictory. More specific experiment studies on interaction of emission mitigation practices and environment would be needed. Further study would be important. Particularly area specific production and environmental factors and also food security and safety and socio-economic impacts should be taken into account.

Mahanadi streamflow: climate change impact assessment and adaptive strategies

Impacts of climate change on hydrology are assessed by downscaling large scale general circulation model (GCM) outputs of climate variables to local scale hydrologic variables. This modelling approach is characterized by uncertainties resulting from the use of different models, different scenarios, etc. Modelling uncertainty in climate change impact assessment includes assigning weights to GCMs and scenarios, based on their performances, and providing weighted mean projection for the future. This projection is further used for water resources planning and adaptation to combat the adverse impacts of climate change. The present article summarizes the recent published work of the authors on uncertainty modelling and development of adaptation strategies to climate change for the Mahanadi river in India.

The change of complete symmetry of the crystals during the phase transitions in ferroelectrics and ferromagnetics

The extension of the superposition principle of the symmetries (P. Curie principle of symmetry) for the case of complete symmetry is given. The enumeration of all crystallographical groups of complete symmetry is presented, the number of elements having complete symmetry for each class of the crystals being indicated. The change of complete symmetry of the crystals under the phase transitions is obtained by superimposing the elements of complete symmetry of polar or axial vectors on the one hand, and the elements of complete symmetry of the crystals on the other. The tables of complete symmetry changes for the cubic, rhombic, monoclinic and triclinic crystals during the ferroelectric and ferromagnetic phase transitions are given.

Effect of impulsive change of wall velocity and wall temperature in viscous heat-conducting gas

A study of compression waves produced in a viscous heat-conducting gas by the impulsive start of a one-dimensional piston and by the inpulsive change of piston wall temperature is made using Laplace Transform Technique for Prandt1 number unity. Expressions for velocity, temperature and density have also been obtained using small-time expansion procedure in this case. For arbitrary Prandt1 number solutions have been developed using large-time expansion procedure. A number of graphs exhibiting the distribution of the fluid velocity, temperature and density have been drawn.