Highly insulated building envelopes have become more commonplace as environmental imperatives require reduction of building carbon footprints. Whilst increased insulation levels reduce operational ...energy demand, the additional embodied energy investment can increase the buildings' overall environmental impact. The embodied energy consideration can determine whether, and to what extent, additional insulation is justified. The following paper investigates the impact of uncertainties of embodied energy data on the cumulative operational and embodied energy analyses and holistically appraises its implications for different stakeholders involved with the construction sector. Limitations in current life cycle assessment (LCA) calculation methods and high uncertainty of available data are recognized and reflected in the analyses through studying available environmental product declarations of various types of insulation materials and by modelling a typical semi-detached residential building in the UK as the case study. The results of such approach illustrate 'optimum insulation thicknesses' beyond which the embodied energy penalty outweighs operational energy savings. These essentially represent idealized levels of building envelope insulation that can inform the development of future standards for low energy/carbon buildings and support the adoption of LCAs as decision-making tools in informing the urgent debate of optimal insulation requirements of buildings.
With the emergence of utopia as a cultural genre in the sixteenth century, a dual understanding of alternative societies, as either political or literary, took shape. InUtopia, Carnival, and ...Commonwealth in Renaissance England, Christopher Kendrick argues that the chief cultural-discursive conditions of this development are to be found in the practice of carnivalesque satire and in the attempt to construct a valid commonwealth ideology. Meanwhile, the enabling social-political condition of the new utopian writing is the existence of a social class of smallholders whose unevenly developed character prevents it from attaining political power equivalent to its social weight.
In a detailed reading of Thomas More'sUtopia, Kendrick argues that the uncanny dislocations, the incongruities and blank spots often remarked upon in Book II's description of Utopian society, amount to a way of discovering uneven development, and that the appeal of Utopian communism stems from its answering the desire of the smallholding class (in which are to be numbered European humanists) for unity and power. Subsequent chapters on Rabelais, Nashe, Marlowe, Bacon, Shakespeare, and others show how the utopian form engages with its two chief discursive preconditions, carnival and commonwealth ideologies, while reflecting the history of uneven development and the smallholding class.Utopia, Carnival, and Commonwealth in Renaissance Englandmakes a novel case for the social and cultural significance of Renaissance utopian writing, and of the modern utopia in general.
Environmental changes associated with the Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum (PETM, ∼56Ma) have not yet been documented in detail from the North Sea Basin. Located within proximity to the North ...Atlantic igneous province (NAIP), the Kilda Basin, and the northern rain belt (paleolatitude 54°N) during the PETM, this is a critical region for testing proposed triggers of atmospheric carbon release that may have caused the global negative carbon isotope excursion (CIE) in marine and terrestrial environments. The CIE onset is identified from organic matter δ13C in exceptional detail within a highly expanded sedimentary sequence. Pollen and spore assemblages analysed in the same samples for the first time allow a reconstruction of possible changes to vegetation on the surrounding landmass. Multiproxy palynological, geochemical, and sedimentologic records demonstrate enhanced halocline stratification and terrigenous deposition well before (103yrs) the CIE, interpreted as due to either tectonic uplift possibly from a nearby magmatic intrusion, or increased precipitation and fluvial runoff possibly from an enhanced hydrologic cycle. Stratification and terrigenous deposition increased further at the onset and within the earliest CIE which, coupled with evidence for sea level rise, may be interpreted as resulting from an increase in precipitation over NW Europe consistent with an enhanced hydrologic cycle in response to global warming during the PETM. Palynological evidence indicates a flora dominated by pollen from coastal swamp conifers before the CIE was abruptly replaced with a more diverse assemblage of generalist species including pollen similar to modern alder, fern, and fungal spores. This may have resulted from flooding of coastal areas due to relative sea level rise, and/or ecologic changes forced by climate. A shift towards more diverse angiosperm and pteridophyte vegetation within the early CIE, including pollen similar to modern hickory, documents a long term change to regional vegetation.
► We identify the carbon isotope excursion from the North Sea in exceptional detail. ► We document changes to ocean stratification well before atmospheric carbon release. ► Precursor stratification may be associated with the trigger for carbon release. ► Increased precipitation and runoff likely occurred along with carbon release. ► We document a rapid change to regional vegetation during carbon release.
This study reports the concentrations of 18 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) from managed burning of moorland vegetation and compares them to PAH in catchment vegetation, underlying peats, head ...water suspended sediment (HSS), stream water and reservoir sediment cores. Total PAH ranged from 203 to 11,112μg/kg in the blanket peats, 101–290μg/kg in the fresh moorland vegetation, 4186μg/kg at the burnt site, 17,439μg/kg in the HSS, 56ng/L in the stream water and 987 to 7346μg/kg in the reservoir sediments. No total or individual PAH concentrations exceeded the published sediment quality guidelines. The perylene content of selected moorland vegetation (sphagnum, heather and bilberry) ranged from 10 to 18% as compared to only 2% for the sediment hosted PAH. A comparison of whole and <250μm fractions from the burnt surface layer revealed a near threefold increase in PAH concentration in the fine fraction and a change in the PAH distribution such that naphthalene>>phenanthrene>2-methylnaphthalene. Elevated total PAH contents were observed close to the blanket peat sediment surface (0–10cm) and then declined at greater depths. The high PAH content of the HSS was attributed to the high sorption capacity of the organic-rich particles (TOC 25.8% (wt/wt)). The distribution of individual PAH in reservoir cores and HSS was consistent and the results of the principal component analysis and isomeric ratios suggest mainly pyrolytic inputs, from either vegetation burning and coal combustion. A comparison of the reservoir core PAH profiles shows that the source(s) have remained largely unchanged since the reservoir construction in 1929A.D. reflecting consistent moorland management practices.
Display omitted
► We report PAH from source (burning of moorland heather) to sink (reservoir core). ► PAH from managed burns differs from that from wildfires or agricultural debris. ► Perylene comprised 10–18% of moorland vegetation PAH but only 2% of sediment PAH. ► PAH were transferred from upland-source to reservoir-sink via suspended sediment. ► Reservoir sediment PAH source(s) have remained unchanged since 1929AD.
Abrasi yang terjadi pada Kabupaten Brebes pada bulan Februari 2020, berdasarkan data dari Badan Penanggulangan Bencana Daerah (BPBD) Kabupaten Brebes, menimbulkan dampak yang luar biasa. Sekian ...banyak tanah yang hilang disebabkan oleh abrasi pantai yang menyebabkan hilangnya luas tanah yang dimiliki oleh masyarakat. Masyarakat Kabupaten Brebes yang memiliki hak atas tanah yang hilang tersebut membutuhkan perlindungan hukum atas tanah nya yang musnah. Status hukum atas tanah yang musnah karena terkena abrasi pun musnah. Negara tidak dapat memberikan perlindungan hukum terhadap tanah yang musnah. Dalam Pasal 27 UUPA huruf b tentang hapusnya hak atas tanah, tanah yang musnah berarti tanahnya hapus. Oleh sebab itu, hilangnya tanah karena faktor alam, seperti abrasi tidak dapat dimintai pertanggungjawaban terhadap negara, terkecuali jika pemerintah terbukti tidak melakukan upaya-upaya pencegahan yang semestinya. Upaya yang dilakukan oleh pemerintah dapat dilihat sebagai bentuk tanggung jawab public pemerintah. Pemerintah dalam hal ini semestinya dapat melakukan upaya pencegahan dalam menjaga kondisi alam sekaligus hak-hak masyarakat terhadap tanah yang dimiliki rakyat. Namun, apabila masyarakat merasa tindakan pencegahan tersebut kurang tepat dalam mencegah bencana abrasi maka masyarakat setempat dapat mengajukan gugatan Class Action melalui Pengadilan Negeri setempat.
The development of large ice sheets across the Northern Hemisphere during the late Pliocene and the emergence of the glacial‐interglacial cycles that punctuate the Quaternary mark a significant ...threshold in Earth's climate history. Although a number of different mechanisms have been proposed to initiate this cooling and the onset of major Northern Hemisphere glaciation, reductions in atmospheric concentrations of CO2 likely played a key role. The emergence of a stratified (halocline) water column in the subarctic northwest Pacific Ocean at 2.73 Ma has often been interpreted as an event which would have limited oceanic ventilation of CO2 to the atmosphere, thereby helping to cool the global climate system. Here diatom carbon isotopes (δ13Cdiatom) are used to reconstruct changes in regional carbon dynamics through this interval. Results show that the development of a salinity stratification did not fundamentally alter the net oceanic/atmospheric flux of CO2 in the subarctic northwest Pacific Ocean through the late Pliocene/early Quaternary. These results provide further insights into the long‐term controls on global carbon cycling and the role of the subarctic Pacific Ocean in instigating global climatic changes.
Key Points
Subarctic Pacific Ocean carbon dynamics is reconstructed using diatom carbon isotopes
Net ocean‐atmosphere CO2 flux does not alter over the onset of major Northern Hemisphere Glaciation (circa 2.75–2.73 Ma)
PDF
