Will Australian Carbon Tax Affect the Resources Boom? Results from a CGE Model

The resources sectors have been the engine of Australian economic growth in recent years, but there is a tremendous fear currently that the carbon tax policy introduced in July 2012 will kill this resources boom. By employing a computable general equilibrium model and an environmentally extended social accounting matrix, this article simulates the effects of Australian carbon tax on the resources sectors. The modelling results show that all resources sectors will be affected negatively but to different degrees. The brown coal sector will be hit dramatically with 25.36% decrease in output, 52.79% decrease in employment and 89.12% decrease in profitability. However, the other resources sectors are only mildly affected. Under the carbon tax, the resources sectors contribute significantly to the total emission reductions in Australia, especially in terms of activity emissions. Given the fact that brown coal accounts only for a small portion of the output of natural resources and is not export-oriented, it is reasonable to suggest that a carbon tax will not significantly affect the overall performance of the resources sectors.     

Will It Play in Peoria?

The election of Donald Trump as the president of the United States has provided a final chance for geographers to intellectually engage with the public. Geographers should do this through our niche—the clear understanding of the importance of location—and connect the local with the global. In doing so, it is our responsibility to make the case to the public, without diluting the academic rigor. Although there are many challenges in such a venture outside academe, especially given geography's lack of recognition among the U.S. public, it is our civic duty to engage via public intellectualism.     

Will Glacier No.1 Tianshan exist in the 22nd century?

Mountains have been described as the water towers of the world. Almost all major rivers have their sources in mountains; glaciers are important water resources that contribute meltwater to river discharge. Glaciers participate in the global water cycle and, with their solid water storage, are an important component of the water balance. As solid reservoirs, glaciers continue to receive the mass nourishment of solid precipitation from the atmosphere, and their meltwater feed and regulate river discharge. Physical changes in glaciers are an indicator of climate change. Over the past half century, the global temperature has increased by 1–2 °C, which emphasizes the urgent task of monitoring glaciers and predicting their trend. As an example, we have investigated, researched, and surveyed Glacier No.1 in the Urumqi River source, Tianshan (abbr. Glacier No.1 Tianshan or Glacier No.1) for half a century. We have found an increase by degrees of the glacial regression during the last 400 years and discovered a terminal moraine which is forming today. The global temperature is rising continually, while the local glacial temperature is 0.4 times that of the global temperature change. Thus, we forecast that Glacier No.1 Tianshan will disappear during the late 21^st Century (2074–2100 A.D.).     

Trump's America or the People's America? A View from the Periphery

My overarching argument in this article is that the United States is no different than any other country in the world in that its population has elected good leaders and bad. As in other places, global and national neoliberal economic reforms have affected the U.S. economy, hallowing out the manufacturing sector, shrinking government and social safety nets, and fostering income inequality. This has left various U.S. publics struggling to make ends meet and vulnerable to demagoguery. Although the country prides itself on the strength of its institutions, institutions are no more than social contracts that need to be assiduously maintained by civil society. Although there is a strong “ivory tower” tradition in U.S. academe, the republic needs scholars—acting as public intellectuals—to fully participate in civic debates if it is to have a sufficiently robust civil society that maintains and defends its democracy and institutions. This article is divided into three sections. First, I briefly review the Trump administration's proposals for international development and diplomacy, giving particular attention to these issues in the African context. Second, I present an argument for why the United States needs public intellectuals now more than ever. Third, I share some concrete advice on how geographers might better connect with various publics.     

Will Contextual Factors and Providing the Maximum Price Information Affect People’s Actual Willingness-to-pay in BDM Auctions? Evidence from Three Asian Countries

The purpose of this study was to measure the effect of maximum price information and contextual factors on people’s bidding behaviors in a controlled Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) experimental auctions. 354 respondents from three Asian countries (China, Cambodia and the Philippines) participated in this study. In each country, both households with piped water connection and households without piped water connection were investigated. The sample in each country was then randomly assigned to two groups: one group was provided with a maximum price of a water filter and the other group was not provided with the maximum price information. The results show that the treatment group with maximum price information had a higher actual willingness-to-pay than the control group without maximum price information, but they were not significantly different. Our results also indicate that contextual and socioeconomic factors did play a role in participants’ bid results for the water filter.     

Gentrification in the American heartland? Evidence from Oklahoma City

Past research on gentrification has focused overwhelmingly on older, postindustrial cities, bypassing urban areas with other morphologies and demographic characteristics. In this paper, we address this gap by applying the analytical tools used to examine gentrification in postindustrial cities to a less conventional setting: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, a younger, sprawling, mid-sized American city. In 1993, voters passed a sales tax initiative designed to transform Bricktown, a depopulated rail and manufacturing neighborhood near the city’s center. This study examines the subsequent physical and cultural makeover of the area surrounding Bricktown by analyzing traditional gentrification variables, like income, household size, property values, and education. To these indicators, we add several additional variables, including business and restaurant types, which help illustrate shifting consumer preferences and the spatial change in businesses aimed at people in different income brackets.     

Are ferns in arid environments underestimated? Contribution from the Saharan Mountains

Although ferns are able to colonize dry regions through specific adaptations, they are suggested to be rare in arid environments. By comparing recent observations in the South-Saharan Mountains with existing data from the whole Sahara, we re-evaluated the distribution of the understudied Saharan fern diversity. Observations in the Aïr Mountains (Niger) from 2003 to 2006 identified six ferns species, among which three were new records for the Aïr and for Niger. A total of 17 species are currently known from the Sahara. The desiccation tolerant Actiniopteris radiata and Cheilanthes coriacea were located in habitats with abiotic refuges providing shade, whereas the drought avoiding Ophioglossum polyphyllum was found in a sandy highland plain. All were growing in isolated populations at elevations above 1600 m. These results, combined with data from the Hoggar and the Tibesti mountains, indicate that ferns are more frequent than initially thought in arid environments thanks to efficient dispersal, elevation refuges, physiological adaptations, and the presence of local abiotic refuges. The three newly recorded species most likely radiated from the Ethiopian highlands. Their deep isolation, their rarity, and their successful adaptation to drought suggest that their conservation status might be particularly high.     

Will the ‘Real’ Samoans Please Stand Up? Issues in Diasporic Samoan Identity

This paper examines the circumstances in which ethnic labels and identities are constructed and the conditions that are producing socio-cultural divergence within them. Using Samoan identities as an example, it is argued firstly that categories based on descent will not necessarily reflect socio-cultural realities within them and, secondly, that Samoan identities constructed at various times for particular purposes may have given an impression of ethnic unity which masked considerable internal divergence. Finally, it is argued that it may be increasingly difficult for migrant Samoans to agree on symbols of Samoan identity, much less to agree on whether or not these might be building blocks of a national identity. This fluid reality raises fundamental issues about the significance of the apparently fixed descent categories with which we all routinely work.     

How many seasonal workers from the Pacific have been employed in New Zealand since the RSE scheme began?

This Research Note provides the first reliable figures on the numbers of seasonal workers from the Pacific Islands who participated in the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme between July 2007 and June 2022. The method for deriving these figures is explained briefly before examining the frequency of return by men and women for employment in subsequent seasons from the nine participating Pacific states. Clarification of the numbers of seasonal workers involved in the scheme, as distinct from work visas issued each year for RSE employment, is timely for two reasons. Firstly, the RSE scheme is under review in March 2023 by Immigration New Zealand. Secondly, the three major sources of Pacific seasonal labour are raising questions in 2023 about the impact of the scheme on their domestic labour markets and economies. Robust data on numbers of Pacific seasonal workers during the scheme's first 15 years contributes important information in both these contexts.     

What can we learn about changing ethnic diversity from the distributions of mixed-race individuals?

It is hypothesized that self-defined mixed-race persons live in residentially mixed areas in the largest metropolitan areas in California. The hypothesis is tested by examining the distribution of mixed-race persons among ethnically and racially diverse and nondiverse neighborhoods in the San Francisco and Los Angeles Metropolitan Areas. The research confirmed that mixed-race individuals are more likely to live in areas with ethnic diversity and that the tendency is greater for the mixed-race population in the San Francisco–Oakland Metropolitan Areas than in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. Mixed-race individuals live in neighborhoods which are diverse with mixes of all four major ethnic and racial groups, and in “well-off” (but not the most affluent) neighborhoods. The study also shows that the mixed-race population is youthful. The association of mixed-race individuals and racially integrated neighborhoods will have important implications for the evolving nature of spatial integration in California specifically, and the United States more generally.     

Can gains in efficiency offset the resource demands and CO2 emissions from constructing and operating the built environment?

Urbanization is a demographic, economic, and land transformation process. Building construction and operation are integral aspects of urban land use change and contribute to material and energy resources consumption and the resulting carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in urban areas. In this paper, we ask two questions regarding the urbanization process: 1) Do the land, material, and energy use efficiencies associated with the construction and operation of buildings increase over time? 2) Do the gains in resource use efficiencies offset the increases in resource demands due to the magnitude of urbanization? To answer these questions, we use a systematic approach similar to a material flow analysis and apply it to the Pearl River Delta, a rapidly urbanizing region in China. We use a combination of satellite data and official statistics to evaluate changes in urban population density and building density from 1988 to 2008. Both density measures decrease from 1988 to 2003; after 2003, building density increases while population density continues to decline. We also track the indirect impacts of urban land expansion on material and energy demands and associated CO₂ emissions using concrete and heating/cooling as proxies for building construction and operation, respectively. Throughout the study period, structural changes and efficiency gains decrease the demand per unit floor area for both building materials and energy. However, the efficiency gains are outstripped by the magnitude of urban expansion, therefore leading to an increase in the demand for resources and CO₂ emissions per capita. Our results show that focusing only on gains in efficiency for individual buildings without considering the scale of urban expansion results in underestimate of the cumulative energy, material, and greenhouse gas emissions impacts of urbanization. We emphasize the distinction between the rates versus the accumulations of these impacts over spatial and temporal scales. We discuss the relevance of the Environmental Kuznets approaches to tackling environmental impacts that are cumulative in nature and may lead to irreversible changes in the environment. We conclude that tracking the energy, materials, and emissions impacts of urbanization requires a multi-scale approach that ranges from the individual building to the urban region.     

A paleolimnological record of rainfall and drought from East Java, Indonesia during the last 1,400?years

Variations in the location and strength of convection in the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) have a profound impact on the distribution and amount of global rainfall. Much of the variability in WPWP convection is attributed to variations in the El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation, for which the long-term trends and forcing mechanisms remain poorly understood. Despite the importance of WPWP convection to global climate change, we have very few paleohydrological reconstructions from the region. Here we present a new paleolimnologic and paleohydrologic record spanning the past 1,400 years using a multi-proxy dataset from Lake Logung, located in East Java, Indonesia that provides insights into centennial-scale trends in warm pool hydrology. Organic matter δ¹³C data indicate that East Java became wetter over the last millennium until ca. 1800 Common Era (CE), consistent with evidence for the southward migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) during this time. Superimposed on this long-term trend are four decade- to century-scale droughts, inferred from organic matter δ¹³C and calcite abundance data. They are centered at 1030, 1550, 1830, and 1996 CE. The three more recent droughts correlate with hydrologic anomalies documented in other proxy records from the WPWP region on both sides of the equator, and the two most recent droughts correlate in time with historically documented periods of multiple, intense El Ni?o events. Thus, our record provides strong evidence that century-scale hydrologic variability in this region relates to changes in the Walker Circulation. Human activity within the lake catchment is apparent since 1860 CE.     

Environmental quality indicators: where to from here?

Environmental or land quality indicators are being developed internationally as a means whereby the ‘State of the Environment’ (SoE) can be assessed and trends monitored. In Australia, the use of indicators in SoE reporting is in its early stages of development. Indicators have been developed, in relation to agriculture, for flora and fauna, soil, chemical contamination, surface waters and groundwater. Internationally, the World Bank has listed ‘indicators of pressure’ on the land, ‘indicators of state and impact’, and ‘indicators of response’ for each of seven major issues of land degradation. Late in 1996, an ‘indicators of catchment health’ workshop in Australia identified a relatively small number of key indicators relating to farm productivity, soil health, water quality and ‘landscape integrity’, later adding social indicators, and also distinguishing between indicators at farm and catchment scales. A broad range of other indicators was also considered by various participants in the workshop, which concluded by supporting a nationally co‐ordinated effort and the establishment of a national steering committee. Although most indicators are static measures, those from which predictions can be made require a greater emphasis on the functioning of the system. This implies that indicators are only one aspect of system modelling, and that environmental or land assessment needs to progress further than the search for quality indicators. Since this involves both biophysical and human processes, geographers should be playing a central role.     

State‐led talent return migration programme and the doubly neglected ‘Malaysian diaspora’: Whose diaspora,what citizenship,whose development?

This paper questions the assumptions of ‘diaspora’, ‘citizenship’ and ‘development’ underlying diaspora strategies targeting a specific pool of overseas Malaysian ‘talent’ migrants. I examine the Malaysian state's discursive attempts to construct a carefully contained economic ‘diaspora'—the ‘Malaysian diaspora'—through its talent return migration programme. In this process, there is a portion of the ‘Malaysian diaspora’, especially non‐bumiputeras (sons of soil), who are doubly neglected and excluded: first, from access to full and equal citizenship (which arguably contributed to their emigration in the first place); and second, from eligibility and recognition to participate in Malaysia's talent return migration programme. However, recent political activism calling for electoral reform and overseas voting rights challenges state‐constructed visions of the ‘diaspora’ and their expected roles in advancing ‘development’. This paper concludes by highlighting questions raised by the Malaysian case, linking these explicitly to how diaspora strategies—as they have been conceived, practised and contested—challenge the broader Migration and Development paradigm.     

Where's the Fire? Co-Constructing Bushfire in the Everyday Landscape

This research studied factors that residents of a fire-prone Victorian community used when deciding whether to leave their homes on a day officially declared “Catastrophic,” the highest Fire Danger Rating. Taking a social constructivist perspective, we explore how the expert view of bushfire risk, represented by Fire Danger Ratings, is interpreted within the context of local understandings of the landscape and social memory of bushfire. Residents perceive a disconnection between the Fire Danger Rating and local reality. Their social construction of bushfire is related to social and ecological memory, which comprises physical experience of the landscape and local fire knowledge narratives. The exclusion of this social complexity from Fire Danger Ratings diminished their utility as a way of helping people make meaning of bushfire. We propose that fire management agencies work with communities to develop a co-constructed view of bushfire risk that incorporates local bushfire knowledge into Fire Danger Ratings.     

Can vegetation productivity be derived from greenness in a semi-arid environment? Evidence from ground-based measurements

Trends of biomass production and land processes in the Sahel have been widely studied since the droughts of 1970s. Satellite data have been an important source of information because of limited in situ data. Previous studies relied on the assumed existence of a relationship between vegetation productivity and the NDVI, in particular the annually integrated NDVI (iNDVI). This study examines this assumption and its limitations, based on in situ time series measurements of biomass, species composition, NDVI and soil moisture at the Dahra test site in northern Senegal. It is shown that, there are large differences between the NDVI – vegetation productivity relationships, and these differences can be linked to species composition. There is moderate correlation between NDVI and above-ground net primary productivity (ANPP) at the peak season (r² = 0.39). In particular, the species Zornia glochidiata is characterized by high peak NDVI and low ANPP, compared to other common species such as Cenchrus biflorus and Aristida adscensionis. It is concluded that spatial and temporal variations in species dominance is likely to add noise to the relationship between NDVI and biomass. However, the seasonal cyclic fraction of the NDVI – “small seasonal integral” – reduces such noise.