There is an overall scientific consensus that no new coal mines can be developed, if the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rises is to be met. Yet in December 2022, following a lengthy ...Public Inquiry, the UK Government approved the development of Woodhouse Colliery in Cumbria. In doing so, it accepted the claim that the coal mine would be 'zero carbon' and could even result in lower global emissions overall. As this paper demonstrates, there is no independent evidence to support these claims, whilst a large body of independent evidence comes to the opposite conclusion. This paper uses the example of Woodhouse Colliery to examine the use of evidence and expertise in climate governance processes. It finds that the nature of expertise and evidence is not properly considered, and that there is ambiguity and confusion surrounding the implementation of the UK's climate legislation, particularly the Climate Change Act. It also finds that the ways in which the decision-making process solicited and assessed evidence was flawed, promoting a 'false balance'. This ambiguity and false balance provide scope for developers to argue the case for destructive developments, even while claiming adherence to climate ambitions. The paper concludes by suggesting reforms to governance processes, to provide a more transparent and credible implementation of policies to achieve the UK's net zero target. Suggested reforms include clearer rules governing fossil fuel phase-out; greater transparency and better handling of conflicts of interest in decision-making; and devolution of climate responsibilities to local areas.
This research note describes the use of composite narratives to present interview data. A composite narrative uses data from several individual interviews to tell a single story. In the research ...discussed here, investigating how politicians consider climate change, four composites were created from fourteen interviews with Members of the UK Parliament. A method for creating composite narratives is described. Three, linked, benefits of the technique are discussed. First, they allow researchers to present complex, situated accounts from individuals, rather than breaking data down into categories. Second, they confer anonymity, vital when reporting on private deliberations, particularly if interviewees are public figures. Third, they can contribute to ‘future-forming’ research, by presenting findings in ways that are useful and accessible to those outside academia. The main limitation of composite narratives is the burden of responsibility upon the researcher, to convey accurate, yet anonymized, portrayals of the accounts of a group of individuals.
Pharmacological cognitive enhancements nontherapeutically improve cognitive functioning, though recent critics have challenged their use by claiming that cognitive success, aided by the use of ...cognitive enhancement, is less valuable than otherwise. We criticize two recent responses to this objection, due to Carter and Pritchard and Wang, and propose a different response on behalf of proponents of cognitive enhancement that is shown to be more promising.
Negative emissions techniques (NETs) promise to capture greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and sequester them. Since decarbonisation efforts have been slow, and the climate crisis is intensifying, ...it is increasingly likely that removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere will be necessary to meet internationally-agreed targets. Yet there are fears that pursuing NETs might undermine other mitigation efforts, primarily the reduction (rather than removal) of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper discusses the risk of this phenomenon, named ‘mitigation deterrence’. Some of us have previously argued that a cultural political economy framework is needed for analysing NETs. Such a framework explains how promises of future NETs deployment, understood as defensive spatio-temporal fixes, are depoliticised and help defend an existing neoliberal political regime, and its inadequate climate policy. Thus they risk deterring necessary emissions reductions. Here we build on that framework, arguing that to understand such risks, we need to understand them as the result of historically situated, evolving, lived practices. We identify key contributing practices, focussing in particular but not exclusively on climate modelling, and discuss how they have been reproduced and co-evolved, here likened to having dug a hole for ourselves as a society. We argue that understanding and reducing deterrence risks requires phronetic knowledge practices, involving not just disembodied, dispassionate technoeconomic knowledge-making, but also strategic attention to political and normative issues, as well as emotional labour. Reflecting on life in the hole hurts.
Action on climate change, to meet the targets set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, requires strong political support at the national level. Whilst the political and governance challenges of climate ...change have been discussed at length, there is little understanding of how politicians, as influential individuals within the political system, understand or respond to climate change. This article presents findings from 14 qualitative interviews with Members of the UK Parliament, to discuss how politicians conceptualise climate change, and their deliberations on whether or how to act on the issue. First, it reviews an interdisciplinary literature from sociology, political theory and science and technology studies, to investigate how politicians navigate their work and life. Second, it presents ‘composite narratives’ to provide four different MPs’ stories. Last, it draws conclusions and implications for practice. It highlights three crucial factors: identity, or how politicians consider the climate issue in the context of their professional identity and the cultural norms of their workplace; representation, how politicians assess their role as a representative, and whether proposed political action on climate is seen as compatible with this representative function; and working practices, how day-to-day work rituals and pressures influence the aims, ambitions and engagement of politicians with climate change.
Although trachoma causes more cases of preventable blindness than any other infectious disease, a combination of strategies is reducing its global prevalence. As a district moves toward eliminating ...trachoma as a public health problem, national programs conduct trachoma impact surveys (TIS) to assess whether to stop preventative interventions and trachoma surveillance surveys (TSS) to determine whether the prevalence of active trachoma has rebounded after interventions have halted. In some contexts, programs also conduct trachomatous trichiasis (TT)-only surveys. A few costing studies of trachoma prevalence surveys exist, but none examine TIS, TSS, or TT-only surveys.
We assessed the incremental financial cost to the national program of TIS, TSS, and TT-only surveys, which are standardized cluster-sampled prevalence surveys. We conducted a retrospective review of expenditures and grant disbursements for TIS and TSS in 322 evaluation units in 11 countries between 2011 and 2018. We also assessed the costs of three pilot and five standard TT-only surveys in four countries between 2017 and 2018. The median cost of TIS and TSS was $8,298 per evaluation unit interquartile range (IQR): $6,532-$10,111, 2017 USD. Based on a linear regression with bootstrapped confidence intervals, after controlling for country, costs per survey did not change significantly over time but did decline by $83 per survey implemented in a single round (95% CI: -$108 --$63). Of total costs, 80% went to survey fieldwork; of that, 58% went towards per diems and 38% towards travel. TT-only surveys cost a median of $9,707 (IQR: $8,537-$11,635); within a given country, they cost slightly more (106% IQR: 94%-136%) than TIS and TSS.
The World Health Organization requires trachoma prevalence estimates for validating the elimination of trachoma as a public health problem. This study will help programs improve their planning as they assemble resources for that effort.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The politics of climate change is much discussed, but there has been little investigation into how politicians themselves understand or articulate the issue. Corpus analysis, a method developed ...within linguistics, is used to investigate how UK politicians talk about climate change, using the example of the 2008 Climate Change Bill. Corpus techniques, including keyword analysis, collocation and semantic tagging, are used, alongside critical reading of the text. The analysis shows that politicians frame climate change as an economic and technical issue, and neglect discussion of the human and social dimensions. They are selective in their use of scientific evidence, with little mention of abrupt or irreversible change. In doing so, they attempt to 'tame' climate change, rather than confronting difficult realities. While this strategy has the benefit of political acceptability, it does not allow for discussion of the full political and social implications of climate change, and precludes more radical responses.
Facial cleanliness and sanitation are postulated to reduce trachoma transmission, but there are no previous data on community-level herd protection thresholds. We characterize associations between ...active trachoma, access to improved sanitation facilities, and access to improved water sources for the purpose of face washing, with the aim of estimating community-level or herd protection thresholds.
We used cluster-sampled Global Trachoma Mapping Project data on 884,850 children aged 1-9 years from 354,990 households in 13 countries. We employed multivariable mixed-effects modified Poisson regression models to assess the relationships between water and sanitation coverage and trachomatous inflammation-follicular (TF). We observed lower TF prevalence among those with household-level access to improved sanitation (prevalence ratio, PR = 0.87; 95%CI: 0.83-0.91), and household-level access to an improved washing water source in the residence/yard (PR = 0.81; 95%CI: 0.75-0.88). Controlling for household-level water and latrine access, we found evidence of community-level protection against TF for children living in communities with high sanitation coverage (PR80-90% = 0.87; 95%CI: 0.73-1.02; PR90-100% = 0.76; 95%CI: 0.67-0.85). Community sanitation coverage levels greater than 80% were associated with herd protection against TF (PR = 0.77; 95%CI: 0.62-0.97)-that is, lower TF in individuals whose households lacked individual sanitation but who lived in communities with high sanitation coverage. For community-level water coverage, there was no apparent threshold, although we observed lower TF among several of the higher deciles of community-level water coverage.
Our study provides insights into the community water and sanitation coverage levels that might be required to best control trachoma. Our results suggest access to adequate water and sanitation can be important components in working towards the 2020 target of eliminating trachoma as a public health problem.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Meeting internationally-agreed climate goals will require the involvement of people, in various roles: as members of families and communities, as voting citizens, as employees and as consumers. Yet ...to date, energy and climate policy enacted by governments has tended to sidestep this issue, treating the challenge as primarily a technical or economic, rather than social, undertaking. This research examines how people have been conceptualized in energy and climate governance in the United Kingdom, through corpus analysis of key documents by government and regulatory bodies, and qualitative interviews with policy stakeholders. The research finds that governance is seen primarily as a technical or economic challenge, with little mention of people. Where people are discussed, an economic framing tends to be used. Policy stakeholders understand the problems of this approach, and argue for a more comprehensive understanding of people in governance. They see the technical and economic framing as a consequence of market-based energy policy, and centralized governance, as well as the training, processes and culture of governance organizations. Evidence from this study suggests that reforms are needed to policy and governance, including better use of social research, reforms to consultation processes, limits to marketized approaches to energy, greater deliberative engagement, and more localized energy and climate strategies. Including people is an essential part of building robust governance processes for decarbonization. Finally, this study points to the need to learn from the embedded knowledge of policy practitioners.
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