On the coattails of climate? Opportunities and threats of a warming Earth for biodiversity conservation

The relationship between climate change and biodiversity was a central issue at the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In this paper we draw from participant observation data collected at COP 10, and related policy documentation, to examine how concerns about climate change are shaping the conservation policy landscape – in terms of the knowledge and rationales used as inputs, networks of actors involved, objectives sought, and actions proposed. We find that debates at the intersection of climate and biodiversity were overwhelmingly framed in relation to, or through the lens of carbon. Through a discussion of four core Climate-Motivated Responses, we illustrate how “carbon-logic”, and the initiatives that it generates, simultaneously creates threats to the objectives sought by some actors, and opportunities for the objectives sought by others. We situate our observations in the context of some of the historical dilemmas that have faced conservation, and discuss this current moment in the dynamic trajectory of conservation governance: a moment when decisions about conserving biodiversity are becoming entangled with carbon-logic and the market. In this case, while some actors seek opportunities for biodiversity ends by riding the coattails of the climate agenda, the threats of doing so may undermine the biological and social objectives of the CBD convention itself.     

The smallest particles in Saturn’s A and C Rings

Radio occultations of Saturn’s main rings by spacecraft suggest a power law particle size-distribution down to sizes of the order of 1 cm (Marouf, E.A., Tyler, G.L., Zebker, H.A., Simpson, R.A., Eshleman, V.R. [1983]. Icarus 54, 189–211; Zebker, H.A., Marouf, E.A., Tyler, G.L. [1985]. Icarus 64, 531–548.). The lack of optical depth variations between ultraviolet and near-IR wavelengths indicate a lack of micron-sized particles. Between these two regimes, the particle-size distribution is largely unknown. A cutoff where the particle-size distribution turns over must exist, but the position and shape of it is not clear from existing studies.     

Exploring Agroecological Sustainability: Unearthing Innovators and Documenting a Community of Practice in Southeast Australia

In this article we describe a movement to regenerate and sustainably use native grasslands using innovative grazing and cropping strategies. We find that this movement has the essential characteristics of a “community of practice” (COP) and is a strong example of a bottom-up transition toward a sustainable agroecological farming system. This COP was identified and described using participatory rural appraisals followed by biophysical and sociocultural studies with active COP members. Using these multiple mixed-method approaches helped characterize the COP’s many layers, revealing how and why it is driven and fashioned by innovators who collaborate via joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and shared repertoire. Holistic Management, Grazing for Profit, and Stipa Native Grasses Association were the key enabling programs/associations for the COP, which, like other agroecological movements, exists on the margins of conventional agri-innovation systems and endures with little public acknowledgment or support. It is a potent grass-roots example of adaptive farm management that generates optimism in the farming families involved, and challenges existing research and extension paradigms regarding both innovation and practice change.     

Introducing new feminist political ecologies

Political Ecology is firmly established as an important area of enquiry within Geography that attends to many of the most important questions of our age, including the politics of environmental degradation and conservation, the neoliberalisation of nature and ongoing rounds of accumulation, enclosure and dispossession, focusing on access and control of resources, and environmental struggles around knowledge and power, justice and governance. This short introductory paper considers how feminists working in this field of enquiry consider the gender dimension to such issues, and how political ecologies might intersect with a feminist objectives, strategies and practices: a focus for early iterations of a promising sub-field, labelled Feminist Political Ecology. It considers a number of epistemological, political and practical challenges that together may account for the relatively limited number of works that self-identify as feminist political ecology. Whilst this has made it difficult for Feminist Political Ecology to gain purchase as a sub-field within the political ecology cannon, this introductory piece highlights fruitful new ways that developments in feminist thinking enrich work in this field, evident in a flowering of recent publications.     

Estimation of heat flux through the eastern Bering Strait

We estimated the northward heat flux through the eastern channel of the Bering Strait during the ice-free seasons between 1999 and 2008. This is likely about half of the total heat flux through the strait. The net volume transport and heat flux through the eastern channel of the strait were estimated from multiple linear regression models with in-situ/satellite remotely sensed datasets and NCEP reanalysis 10 m wind. The net volume transport was well explained by the west-east slope of sea level anomaly and NNW wind component at the strait. On the heat flux, the contributions of both barotropic and baroclinic components were taken into account. Estimated volume transport and vertical profile of temperature were used to calculate northward heat flux through the eastern channel of the strait. The magnitude of the estimated heat flux is comparable to estimates from in-situ measurements. Averaged heat flux in the eastern Bering Strait between 2004 and 2007 was about 1.9 times larger than that between 2000 and 2003. Maximum heat flux occurred in 2004, and same magnitude of heat flux was estimated from 2005 to 2007. This resulted not only from the increase in northward volume transport but also anomalous warm water intrusion from the Bering Sea. Our results suggest a candidate among the important parameters controlling heat budget, which contributes to the Arctic sea ice reduction, whereas more studies are required to confirm that this mechanism is actually responsible for the interannual and longer timescale variability.     

Dark energy constraints on masses and sizes of large scale cosmic structures

The requirement that their gravitational binding self-energy density must at least equal the background repulsive dark energy density for large scale cosmic structures implies a mass-radius relation of \({M} / {R^{2}} \approx 1~\mbox{g}/{\mbox{cm}^{2}}\), as pointed out earlier. This relation seems to hold true for primeval galaxies as well as those at present epoch. This could set constraints on the nature and evolution of dark energy. Besides, we also set constraints on the size of galaxy clusters and superclusters due to the repulsive cosmological dark energy. This could indicate as to why large scale cosmic structures much larger than ～200 Mpc are not seen.