Sexual violence is a driver of women's political mobilization

 by Göteborgs universitet

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Sexual violence in armed conflict does not necessarily silence women. On the contrary, sexual violence can be a driver of women's political mobilization for peace and women's rights, a dissertation from the University of Gothenburg shows.

"The findings are encouraging for Sweden's feminist foreign policy, which emphasizes gender-sensitive approaches to armed conflict and women's empowerment," says the author of the thesis Anne-Kathrin Kreft.

As the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad reminds us, sexual violence in armed conflict remains a global threat to peace and security, especially for women and girls. It spreads fear and causes unthinkable physical and emotional harms to its victims.

For these reasons, previous research has generally assumed that sexual violence in conflict inhibits women's political participation. But this paints a misleading picture. A new dissertation reveals a previously unexamined link between gendered conflict violence and gains in women's agency.

"My analyses reveal that women mobilize in civil society at higher levels during conflicts with widespread sexual violence compared to conflicts with no or few reports of sexual violence," says Anne-Kathrin Kreft, Ph.D. student in political science.

To examine the implications for women´s agency, she carried out four months of fieldwork in Colombia, a priority country in Swedish development cooperation. Colombia has been in a state of internal armed conflict since the 1960s, and sexual violence perpetrated by the military, different rebel groups and paramilitary forces has been widespread. At its highest, 2,500 cases were reported for the year 2003 alone, most of them against women.

Anne-Kathrin Kreft interviewed 33 activists representing 24 women's organizations and victims' associations in different parts of the country. Several of these operate with financial or technical support provided by the Swedish government.

"The activists saw sexual violence perpetrated by armed actors as deeply gendered. For them, sexual violence is closely linked to, and an expression of, patriarchal norms that devalue, oppress and disadvantage women in society. This is why they are convinced that wide-ranging transformations in gender norms and relations are necessary to make Colombia safer for women, including from conflict-related sexual violence," says Anne-Kathrin Kreft.

Some women's organizations and victims' associations formed specifically in response to this violence, while many existing organizations took on conflict-related sexual violence as a priority issue.

"Reflecting the gendered threat sexual violence poses, much of the civil society activism also extends to a broader fight for women's rights and gender equality."

Women's widespread inequality and rape as a weapon of war

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More information: Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict: Threat, Mobilization and Gender Norms. An abstract is digitally published: gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/59909

Victims of mass atrocities often portrayed as disempowered in international law

by Pekka Rautio, University of Helsinki

Doctoral Student Nadia Valentina Tapia Navarro, Faculty of Law,

 University of Helsinki. Credit: University of Helsinki.

According to a doctoral thesis completed by Nadia Valentina Tapia Navarro, victims of mass atrocities are often portrayed as disempowered, passive, defenceless and docile in discourses pertaining to international law.

"This prevents parties active in international law from assessing the potential of domestic practices that emphasise the agency of victims," the doctoral candidate summarises.

The study indicates that victims who use the language of international law not only adopt it as such. In addition, they also affect, through their actions, the formation of an identity associated with the category of victim in international law.

"A stereotypical image of the disempowerment of victims is also often highlighted by the fact that instead of representing themselves, they are represented by others," Tapia Navarro says.

In her thesis, Tapia Navarro examines both the judicial practice of the International Criminal Court related to victims of international crimes and domestic examples of victims's groups using the language of the law from Colombia.

"For example, the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, which I investigated, identifies itself as a group of victims of widespread atrocities without behaving as traditionally expected of victims. The community is composed of peasants living in the Urabá region of Colombia.

"In place of passivity and docility, they have at times oppose governmental measures aimed at alleviating their suffering. For instance, the peace community has turned down compensation paid to individuals, as they consider them to be against their communal way of life and community projects," Tapia Navarro adds.

Another group investigated by Tapia Navarro has named itself the Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE). The group wishes to highlight the origin of the crimes targeted at them: in Colombia, the state employs violent means not only against guerrilla groups, but also against the civilian population as a form of political persecution.

"The victims of state crimes are pointing out the connection between the state and paramilitary violence, a notion not widely accepted, in Colombia" Tapia Navarro describes.

According to the doctoral candidate, the groups above are apt examples of victims whose alternative narratives challenge the stereotypical portrayal of passively docile victims prevalent in international law.

"The groups have adopted the category of victim found in the language of law. However, through precisely this kind of action, they are taking advantage of that status in their politically motivated activities. In doing so, they are imprinting specific meanings to the categories of international law.

"Better consideration of such actions could allow us to understand how victims' actions promote the development of international law," Tapia Navarro assesses.

Does restorative justice help or harm victims?

Economic growth and environmental sustainability

by Steve Cohen, Earth Institute, Columbia University
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

There are political and business leaders who do not care if economic growth causes environmental damage, and there are environmental advocates who do not believe you can have economic growth without causing environmental damage. In a New York Times piece on the climate and economics discussions at Davos, Mark Landler and Somini Sengupta reported that:

"Critics pointed to a contradiction that they said the corporate world had been unable to resolve: how to assuage the appetite for economic growth, based on gross domestic product, with the urgent need to check carbon emissions. 'It's truly a contradiction,' said Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. 'It's difficult to see if the current G.D.P.-based model of economic growth can go hand-in-hand with rapid cutting of emissions,' he said."

I find this dialog a little amazing since it completely ignores the history of America's success in decoupling the growth of GDP and the growth of environmental pollution. This fact of American environmental and economic life began around 1980, a decade after the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and continues today. It's really quite simple- with public policies ranging from command-and-control regulations to direct and indirect government subsidies, businesses and governments developed and applied technologies that reduced pollution while allowing continued economic growth. This is not a fantasy, it is history. In the 1960s you could not see the mountains from downtown Los Angeles, today you can. In the 1960s you could not ride a bike on a path next to the Hudson River, today you can. Until 1985, we New Yorkers dumped raw sewage into the Hudson River. Today, with rare exceptions, we treat our sewage waste. And both Los Angeles and New York City have larger economies in 2020 than they had in 1980. In case you believe this progress was due to deindustrialization, the two largest sources of air pollution are power plants and motor vehicles and we have many more of them today than we had in 1980. Both utilize pollution control technology required by regulation under the law.

Environmental protection itself contributes to economic growth. Somebody makes and sells the air pollution control technologies we put on power plants and motor vehicles. Somebody builds the sewage and water treatment facilities. Just as someone makes money off of solar cells and windmills and whoever invents the 1,000-mile high capacity battery that will power electric cars someday will become very, very rich. And environmental amenities are worth money. The cleaner Hudson made the waterfront more suitable for housing development. And the building boom on New York's west side followed the clean-up of the Hudson River. An apartment across the street from a park will bring a higher price than the same apartment a block away. The revival of New York's Central Park raised the value of the already high-end real estate bordering the park. Clean air and water, healthy food and preserved nature all benefit human health and result in far more economic benefit than economic cost.

The climate problem is not caused by economic growth, but by the absence of effective public policy designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is nothing incompatible with capitalism and environmental protection as long as rules are in place that control the environmental impacts of the products and services we make and use. With those rules in place, a concern for environmental sustainability can and will permeate everyday decision-making in the private, nonprofit and governmental organizations we all benefit from.

I've written often about the evolution of the field of management over the past century or so and that a concern for sustainability is the newest trend in the development of more sophisticated organizational management. In the 20th century, we saw the field of management absorb the development of mass production, social psychology, accounting, information management, satellite and cellular communications, globalization and now a concern for the physical dimensions of environmental sustainability. Sustainability managers continue to lead an organization's marketing, strategy, finance and work processes but they also seek to assess their use of energy, water and other materials and work to reduce waste and environmental impacts. Just as finance staff, reinforced by the Security and Exchange Commission rules learned to identify and reduce self-dealing, conflict of interest and fraud; sustainability staff reinforced by EPA rules look to identify and reduce organizational practices that damage the environment.

On the production side, organizational managers work to increase environmental sustainability, but on the consumption side, consumers are not only buying green but changing patterns of consumption that also help reduce environmental damage. Going to a gym, riding a bike or eating a salad are all activities that add to the GDP. But so does taking your private jet to your ski lodge, driving in your SUV to the ski slopes, and eating a steak. All consumption behaviors are not created equal and do not have the same impact on environmental sustainability. More sustainable lifestyles are emerging and they can be detected in consumption patterns. For example, young Americans seem less interested in owning cars than their older siblings and parents did. Ride-sharing, bike sharing and other transit options have become feasible due to the development of the smartphone. But sitting in an Uber or driving your own car are both economic activities that are counted in the GDP.

These consumption trends are more influenced by changing cultural norms than by public policy, and typically should not be subjects of policymaking. Exceptions might include consumption that has a direct negative impact on others such as driving while intoxicated or smoking in a public space. The environmental impact of consumption can also be reduced by new technologies. For example, streaming music and video has far less environmental impact than videos and discs that used to be manufactured, packaged and shipped before they were used.

It is ironic that some environmentalists along with some climate deniers share the belief that we must trade off economic growth and environmental protection. We can and must accomplish both. A reason that we cannot abandon economic development is that most people in the developed world like the way they live and will not give up their way of life. Asking them to do so dooms environmental advocates to political marginalization and failure. Due to the internet, even very poor people in the developing world see the way we live here, want it, and are demanding that their political regimes help them achieve their dreams. The absence of economic development leads to political instability and the potential for violence. Climate scientists often mention the impact of climate change on political instability and the phenomenon of climate refugees is well documented. But the path to climate mitigation is not through slower economic growth, but through economic growth that is steered toward environmental sustainability and away from gratuitous environmental destruction.

One of the first sustainability books I ever read was Ian McHarg's "Design with Nature." McHarg developed cluster development as an alternative to suburban sprawl. The idea was that rather than providing every home with a quarter acre of land and their own large yard, you would build the housing in the one area of the building site that would cause the least damage to natural drainage and ecosystems and preserve the rest of the land as a parkland for hiking and viewing. It turned out that most of the outdoor access people used in their homes was on their patios, and that suburban yards were not simply ecological disasters, but a burdensome waste for most homeowners. (This past June a wonderful piece summarizing McHarg's ideas and influence appeared on the City Lab website and it is well worth reading.) McHarg demonstrated that with care, humans could build urban developments that might minimize rather than maximize environmental damage.

Sloppy management, the hunger for easy money and short-term profits, and ideological rigidity lead some to believe the environment must be sacrificed for economic growth. The belief that capitalism is evil and inevitably causes environmental destruction leads others to believe that sustainable economic development is not feasible. My view is that with enlightened design, sustainability management and cutting-edge technology we can harness human ingenuity to the practical problems of environmentally sustainable economic development. We can build and live in sustainable cities and end the climate and ecological crises that seem so overwhelming today.

Climate change and economic consumption

Provided by Earth Institute, Columbia University

This story is republished courtesy of Earth Institute, Columbia University http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu.

GET RID OF THE MANAGERS

How employees' rankings disrupt cooperation and how managers can restore it

by Bocconi University

COOPERATION IS THE TEAM IS COLLECTIVE SELF MANAGEMENT

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

"First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, second prize a set of steak knives, third prize you're fired." What Alec Baldwin introduces in a famous "Glengarry Glen Ross" scene is a particularly crude form of performance ranking and what follows in the movie is a story of cheating, betrayal, and infighting as actors attempt to get ahead in the ranking.

In real life, the risks with performance rankings are not too far off. Rankings can help attract and retain top talent who thrive in competitive environments, improve the speed of group decision-making, and have been known to reduce biases in performance evaluations. But, rankings have a dark side—they often enhance competitive pressures, making them potentially problematic for the maintenance of continued cooperation. Despite these potential drawbacks, rankings are still widely used to incentivize employees, and successful companies are able to rank employees while managing to achieve high levels of cooperation.

Making use of an experiment, Cassandra Chambers, an Assistant Professor at Bocconi University's Department of Management and Technology, highlights on the one hand that performance rankings do in fact dramatically reduce levels of cooperation in groups and, on the other, that sharing reputational information (individuals' histories of pro-social contributions) almost completely offsets the disruptive effect of performance ranks.

In her experimental setting, the introduction of performance rank information reduced the odds that a participant would cooperate to 0.36 times those in the control condition who did not receive any information. However, the odds of cooperating for participants who received reputation information (i.e., how much others gave in the past) alongside rank information were 1.87 times that of participants who just received information about their rank.

In the lab experiment, 592 people (students, lecturers and staff of an American university), divided into 74 groups, were asked to decide whether or not to give points with other participants in an extended period of decision-making. After some rounds, when an organic routine of cooperation was established, a ranking system was introduced and participants were provided with information about their own rank.

The propensity to give to others plummeted, due to concerns about losing one's rank position or perceptions of unfairness. Furthermore, the drop was larger in the groups that had proved to be more generous in the first stage of the game, suggesting that performance rankings can be particularly disruptive in the most cooperative cultures.

However, it turns out that this disruptive effect of rank can be largely offset by the introduction of information about others' rates of giving. After a brief disruption in cooperation levels, groups that received both types of information restored cooperation to almost pre-disruption levels.

"Our key finding is that displaying prosocial reputations—giving recognition to helpers—is a mechanism that allows systems of cooperation to withstand disruptive forces created by performance rankings. In a way, managers may be able to have the best of both worlds—a thriving system of cooperation without sacrificing a ranking system that motivates high levels of effort," Prof. Chambers says.

"Put differently," she continues, "our research suggests that managers should be very careful utilizing performance rankings, if they don't want to disrupt a cooperative culture, but that minor efforts to provide recognition for prosocial activities may greatly shore up cooperative cultures. For example, managers can make a special effort to offer public recognition for employees' prosocial contributions, use peer-to-peer bonus systems that enable employees to recognize and reward helpers, and create formal performance reviews that explicitly focus on rewarding helpful behaviors."

Predicting future sports rankings from evolving performance

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More information: Cassandra R. Chambers et al, Robust Systems of Cooperation in the Presence of Rankings: How Displaying Prosocial Contributions Can Offset the Disruptive Effects of Performance Rankings, Organization Science (2020). DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2019.1296

Journal information: Organization Science 

Northeast governors slow to embrace regional climate pact

by Michael Casey

WHILE THE NORTHWEST GOVERNORS HAVE CREATED EFFECTIVE CLIMATE LEGISLATION

In this April 10, 2019, file photo, rush-hour traffic heads east, left, and west, right, along the Schuylkill Expressway in Philadelphia. A spokesman for Pennsylvania's governor said the state was committed to being a part of Transportation and Climate Initiative conversations. But a growing number of Northeast governors have concerns the TCI could increase gas prices, and raise doubts about how effective it would be in capping pollution. The initiative is aimed at a dozen Northeast and mid-Atlantic states and would take effect in 2022. (AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma, File)

Supporters of a regional pact that would tackle transportation emissions are struggling to win over several New England governors concerned that the climate change initiative will increase gas prices.

After the Transportation and Climate Initiative was announced last month, New Hampshire's Republican Gov. Chris Sununu said the state won't join, citing fears of a gas price hike. Vermont's Republican Gov. Phil Scott said he couldn't support the initiative if it amounts to a tax on carbon. A spokesman for Maine's Democratic Gov. Janet Mills said the state has yet to sign a draft memorandum of understanding for the TCI, citing the unique challenges of addressing transportation in a rural state.

The initiative is aimed at a dozen Northeast and mid-Atlantic states and would take effect in 2022. It would address pollution from transportation—which represents 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in the region, the largest source of emissions. The area has tens of millions of registered vehicles.

New Jersey has not committed to implementing the initiative while a spokesman for Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont said his administration was still examining it. Virginia is also reviewing the draft memorandum.

"I am happy to see that other Governors are following my lead in rightfully sounding the alarm on this new gas tax," Sununu said in a statement. "New Hampshire is proof that the best environmental stewardship can be achieved without massive tax schemes."

Many of the states are already part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which covers 10 states in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic and targets emissions from the power sector.

Under the agreement, wholesale fuel companies would be required to purchase pollution allowances at auction. The sale of those allowances could generate billions for states to invest in carbon-reducing transportation options—like electric buses, electric car charging stations, bike lanes and sidewalks.

The initiative could lead to emissions reductions in the region by as much as 25% by 2032. But the opposition appears be around a potential gas price hike. If fuel companies pass the cost of the allowances onto consumers, the price of gas in the region could climb by five cents to 17 cents per gallon in 2022, when the pact would take effect.

Among the pact's opponents is Americans for Prosperity, the advocacy group founded by the billionaire Koch brothers. The group's New Hampshire chapter came out against the TCI the same day as Sununu, calling the initiative a top-down government mandate that would "punish hardworking Granite Staters."

Supporters of the TCI said the fears over gas prices are overblown and ignore the initiative's potential benefits.

"Personally I think this is political grandstanding," said Timmons Roberts, a professor of environmental studies at Brown University. "This is the incremental change, it would be over 12 years. This is just using a well-meaning effort as a whipping boy."

But Roberts and others acknowledge that the pact needs to address the concerns of low-income and working families who must drive long distances for work or school.

"Some people positively opt into this lifestyle, but many don't. They live where they live because of family, lack of economic mobility, or other factors," said Jason Veysey, the deputy director for the Stockholm Environment Institute's energy modeling program.

"People who have to drive may be negatively affected by an increase in fuel prices," he said. "However, it's worth underlining that TCI is supposed to be a cap-and-dividend program, in which higher costs for the most vulnerable are mitigated by the dividends."

The pact has been praised by many of the region's business, health and environmental leaders, including Massachusetts Republican Gov. Charlie Baker. He touted the pact in his State of the Commonwealth address last week as part of his plan for the state to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Other governors also appear supportive.

J.J. Abbott, press secretary for Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, said the state was "committed to being a part of the TCI conversations," but would make no decision on joining "until the program is fully designed." Josh Block, a spokesman for Rhode Island's Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo, said she is "fully committed to the goals of the Transportation Climate Initiative," but that the specific statutory and regulatory changes needed to meet those goals "will be the source of public discussion and input over the coming year."

Jordan Stutt, the carbon programs director of the Acadia Center, an environmental research and advocacy nonprofit, said states understand the need to address transport emissions. The initiative could also help improve air quality, boost economies and improve transport, especially in rural areas, he said.

According to information on the TCI website, modeling has showing public health benefits of as much as $10 billion annually by 2032, including over 1,000 fewer premature deaths. It would also generate up to $7 billion annually that could be invested into expanding transport choices for rural, urban and suburban communities.

"Without any viable alternative to this program, the states will not be able to achieve their climate goals," Stutt said.

A regional push to clean up cars, trucks and mass transit

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© 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Another reason to reduce man-made ozone: To cool a warming planet

by Lehigh University

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

While elected officials in the U.S. debate a proposed "Green New Deal" and U.S. President Donald Trump derides "prophets of doom" in Davos, environmental scientists continue to gather evidence about how changes to industry could mitigate the harms of climate change.

In a News and Views article in Nature Climate Change ("Cleaner Air is a Win-Win," 10.1038/s41558-019-0685-4) Lehigh University Professor of Earth and Environmental Science, Benjamin S. Felzer, highlights the importance of a new analysis based on Earth system modelling, showing that cleaning up ozone precursors within specific economic sectors can increase the mitigation potential of the land carbon sink by enhancing the ability of vegetation to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Global climate models, he notes, indicate that ozone limits photosynthesis and vegetation growth in polluted regions such as the eastern United States, eatern China and Europe which, in turn, limits the ability of these regions to act as carbon sinks.

Felzer writes: "The study [by Nadine Unger et al]...assesses the effect of reducing ozone precursors in seven different economic emission sectors, the most important of which turn out to be energy (electricity and heat production from fossil fuel burning), industry (fossil fuels burned on site), road transportation and agriculture.

Unger et al. ran an Earth system model, linking climate to atmospheric chemistry, to explore the global effects on photosynthesis of reducing emissions from these sectors by 50%. Ozone pollution resulted in 9-13% reductions in photosynthesis in the aforementioned polluted regions. Cleaning up ozone precursors in the transportation, energy, industrial or agricultural sectors led to 13-16% gains in photosynthesis in eastern China, and 16-23% gains in the eastern United States and Europe due to the transportation and energy sectors. Benefits were 2-3 times larger in croplands and grasslands than forests. A 50% reduction in ozone pollution from just the transportation and energy sectors resulted in an increase in photosynthesis equivalent to the amount of carbon lost by fire each year."

According to Felzer, Unger and colleagues ultimately conclude that the mitigation potential resulting from addressing ozone pollution would result in a 15% increase in the size of the current land sink for carbon.

How reducing ozone precursors could slow down the impacts of climate change

From the perspective of human health impacts, there is "good" ozone and "bad" ozone. Natural ozone in the second major layer of Earth's atmosphere has a protective effect for humans, blocking the sun's harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays. Man-made ozone, a byproduct of fossil fuel production and other industrial processes, gets trapped in the atmospheric layer closest to earth and has been shown to be harmful to human health, as well as to plants, trees and crops.

Man-made ozone at ground-level inhibits plant photosynthesis by directly damaging some of the plant cells responsible for it.

"It affects different plants differently, for example doing more damage to crops than to trees at similar doses...," he writes. "Global climate models indicate that ozone limits photosynthesis and vegetation growth in polluted regions such as the eastern United States, eastern China, and Europe...This then reduces the carbon sequestration potential of these regions..."

Reducing ozone, concludes Felzer, will help vegetation to grow better and take up more Carbon Dioxide, while also reducing unhealthy pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Political debates and rhetoric aside, it is a conclusion that supports reducing man-made ozone for the health of humans, as well as the planet on which all life depends.

Explore furtherCutting road transport pollution could help plants grow

More information: "Cleaner Air is a Win-Win," Nature Climate Change, DOI: 10.1038/s41558-019-0685-4

Unger, N., Zheng, Y., Yue, X. & Harper, K. L. Nat. Clim. Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0678-3

Journal information: Nature Climate Change

Buildings made of wood instead of cement and steel could be important global carbon sinks

by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A material revolution replacing cement and steel in urban construction with wood can have double benefits for climate stabilization, a new study shows. First, it can avoid greenhouse gas emissions from cement and steel production. Second, it can turn buildings into carbon sinks as they store the CO2 taken up from the air by trees that are harvested and used as engineered timber. However, while the required amount of timber harvest is available in theory, such an upscaling would clearly need careful, sustainable forest management and governance, the international team of authors stresses.

"Urbanization and population growth will create a vast demand for the construction of new housing and commercial buildings—hence the production of cement and steel will remain a major source of greenhouse gas emissions unless appropriately addressed," says the study's lead-author Galina Churkina who is affiliated to both the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in the U.S. and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany (PIK). "Yet, this risk for the global climate system could be transformed into a powerful means to mitigate climate change by substantially increasing the use of engineered timber for construction worldwide. Our analysis reveals, that this potential can be realized under two conditions. First, the harvested forests are sustainably managed. Second, wood from demolished timber buildings is preserved on land in various forms."

Four scenarios of timber use to help climate stabilization

Four scenarios have been computed by the scientists for the next thirty years. Assuming business as usual, just 0.5 percent of new buildings are constructed with timber by 2050. This could be driven up to 10 percent or 50 percent, if mass timber manufacturing increases accordingly. If countries with current low industrialization level also make the transition, even 90 percent timber is conceivable, the scientists say. This could result in storing between 10 million tons of carbon per year in the lowest scenario and close to 700 million tons in the highest scenario. In addition, constructing timber buildings reduces cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases from steel and cement manufacturing at least by half. This might seem not so much compared to the current amount of roughly 11000 million tons of carbon emissions per year, yet the shift to timber would make quite a difference for achieving the climate stabilization targets of the Paris agreement.

Assuming a continued building with concrete and steel and assuming an increase in the floor area per person, following past trends, the cumulative emissions from mineral-based construction materials might reach up to one fifth of the CO2 emissions budget up to 2050—a budget that should not be exceeded if we want to keep warming at well below 2°C as promised by governments in the Paris agreement. Importantly, to reach net zero emissions by mid-century, societies need some kind of CO2 sinks to balance remaining hard-to-avoid emissions namely from agriculture.

Buildings could be such a sink—if made from timber. A five-story residential building structured in laminated timber can store up to 180 kilos of carbon per square meter, three times more than in the above ground biomass of natural forests with high carbon density. Still, even in the 90 percent timber scenario the carbon accumulated in timber cities over thirty years would sum up to less than one tenth of the overall amount of carbon stored aboveground in forests worldwide.

"Protecting forests from unsustainable logging is key"
"Protecting forests from unsustainable logging and a wide range of other threats is thus key if timber use was to be substantially increased," co-author Christopher Reyer from PIK emphasizes. "Our vision for sustainable forest management and governance could indeed improve the situation for forests worldwide as they are valued more."

The scientists summarize multiple lines of evidence from official harvest statistics to complex simulation modeling to find that, theoretically, unexploited wood harvest potentials would cover the demand of the 10 percent timber scenario. It might even cover the demand of the 50 and 90 percent timber scenario if the floor area per person in buildings worldwide would not increase but stay at the current average. "There's quite some uncertainty involved, yet it seems very worth exploring," says Reyer. "Additionally, plantations would be needed to cover the demand, including the cultivation of fast-growing Bamboo by small-scale landowners in tropical and subtropical regions."

Reducing the use of roundwood for fuel—currently roughly half of the roundwood harvest is burnt, also adding to emissions—would make more of it available for building with engineered timber. Moreover, re-using wood from demolished buildings can add to the supply.

The technology of trees—"to build ourselves a safe home on Earth"

Timber as a building material comes with a number of interesting features detailed out in the analysis. For instance, large structural timbers are comparatively fire resistant—their inner core gets protected by a charring layer if burnt, so it is hard for a fire to really destroy them. This is in contrast to popular assumptions fostered by fires in light-frame buildings. Many national building codes already recognize these properties.

"Trees offer us a technology of unparalleled perfection," Hans Joachim Schellnhuber says, co-author of the study and Director Emeritus of PIK. "They take CO2 out of our atmosphere and smoothly transform it into oxygen for us to breathe and carbon in their trunks for us to use. There's no safer way of storing carbon I can think of. Societies have made good use of wood for buildings for many centuries, yet now the challenge of climate stabilization calls for a very serious upscaling. If we engineer the wood into modern building materials and smartly manage harvest and construction, we humans can build ourselves a safe home on Earth."

Exploring the potential of tall timber buildings

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More information: Buildings as a global carbon sink, Nature Sustainability, DOI: 10.1038/s41893-019-0462-4 , https://nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0462-4

Research suggests benefits of conservation efforts may not yet be fully visible

by Newcastle University

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The time it takes for species to respond to conservation measures—known as an 'ecological time lag' - could be partly masking any real progress that is being made, experts have warned.

Global conservation targets to reverse declines in biodiversity and halt species extinctions are not being met, despite decades of conservation action.

Last year, a UN report on global biodiversity warned one million species are at risk of extinction within decades, putting the world's natural life-support systems in jeopardy.

The report also revealed we were on track to miss almost all the 2020 nature targets that had been agreed a decade earlier by the global Convention on Biological Diversity

But work published today in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution offers new hope that in some cases, conservation measures may not necessarily be failing, it is just too early to see the progress that is being made.

Led by Forest Research together with the University of Stirling, Natural England, and Newcastle University, the study authors highlight the need for 'smarter' biodiversity targets which account for ecological time-lags to help us better distinguish between cases where conservation interventions are on track to achieve success but need more time for the conservation benefits to be realised, and those where current conservation actions are simply insufficient or inappropriate.

Lead researcher Dr. Kevin Watts of Forest Research said:

"We don't have time to wait and see which conservation measures are working and which ones will fail. But the picture is complicated and we fear that some conservation actions that will ultimately be successful may be negatively reviewed, reduced or even abandoned simply due to the unappreciated delay between actions and species' response.

"We hope the inclusion of time-lags within biodiversity targets, including the use of well-informed interim indicators or milestones, will greatly improve the way that we evaluate progress towards conservation success.

"Previous conservation efforts have greatly reduced the rate of decline for many species and protected many from extinction and we must learn from past successes and remain optimistic: conservation can and does work, but at the same time, we mustn't be complacent. This work also emphasises the need to acknowledge and account for the fact that biodiversity may still be responding negatively to previous habitat loss and degradation."

'Rebalancing the system'

Ecological time-lags relate to the rebalancing of a system following a change, such as the loss of habitat or the creation of new habitat.

Dr. Watts added: "The system is analogous to a financial economy: we are paying back the extinction 'debt' from past destruction of habitats and now waiting for the 'credit' to accrue from conservation actions. What we're trying to avoid now is going bankrupt by intervening too late and allow the ecosystem to fail."

Using theoretical modelling, along with data from a 'woodland bird' biodiversity indicator, the research team explored how species with different characteristics (e.g. habitat generalists vs specialists) might respond over time to landscape change caused by conservation actions.

The authors suggest the use of milestones that mark the path towards conservation targets. For instance, the ultimate success of habitat restoration policies could be assessed firstly against the amount of habitat created, followed by the arrival of generalist species. Then, later colonisation by specialists would indicate increased habitat quality. If a milestone is missed at any point, the cause should be investigated and additional conservation interventions considered.

Philip McGowan, Professor of Conservation Science and Policy at Newcastle University and Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Post-2020 Biodiversity Targets Task Force, said we need to "hold our nerve."

"Ultimately, ten years is too short a time for most species to recover.

"There are many cases where there is strong evidence to suggest the conservation actions that have been put in place are appropriate and robust—we just need to give nature more time.

"Of course, time isn't something we have. We are moving faster and faster towards a point where the critical support systems in nature are going to fail.

Almost 200 of the world's governments and the EU, signed the Convention on Biological Diversity, a 10-year plan to protect some of the world's most threatened species which was launched in 2010.

"A new plan is being negotiated during 2020 and it is critical that negotiators understand the time that it takes to reverse species declines and the steps necessary to achieve recovery of species on the scale that we need," says Professor McGowan.

"But there is hope."

Simon Duffield, Natural England, adds:

"We know that natural systems takes time to respond to change, whether it be positive, such as habitat creation, or negative such as habitat loss, degradation or increasingly climate change. How these time lags are incorporated into conservation targets has always been a challenge. We hope that this framework takes us some way towards being able to do so."

The research was conducted as part of the Woodland Creation and Ecological Networks (WrEN) project.

Professor Kirsty Park, co-lead for the WrEN project, said:

"This research is timely as there is an opportunity to incorporate time-lags into the construction of the Convention on Biological Diversity Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. We need to consider realistic timescales to observe changes in the status of species, and also take into account the sequence of policies and actions that will be necessary to deliver those changes"

Global policy-makers must take a more ambitious approach to reversing biodiversity loss

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More information: Ecological time lags and the journey towards conservation success, Nature Ecology and Evolution (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-019-1087-8 , https://nature.com/articles/s41559-019-1087-8

Journal information: Nature Ecology & Evolution 

Cutting road transport pollution could help plants grow

by University of Exeter

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Cutting emissions of particular gases could improve conditions for plants, allowing them to grow faster and capture more carbon, new research suggests.

A cocktail of gases—including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and methane—combines in the atmosphere to form ozone.

Ozone at the Earth's surface limits photosynthesis, reducing plants' ability to grow.

University of Exeter researchers say cutting emissions of ozone-forming gases offers a "unique opportunity" to create a "natural climate solution".

A 50% cut in emissions of these gases from the seven largest human-made sources—including road transport (the largest emitter) and energy production—would help plants contribute to "negative carbon emissions", the study says.

"Ecosystems on land currently slow global warming by storing about 30% of our carbon dioxide emissions every year," said Professor Nadine Unger, of the University of Exeter.

"This carbon capture is being undermined by ozone pollution.

"Our findings suggest the largest losses of plant productivity are in the eastern United States, Europe and eastern China, which all have high levels of surface ozone pollution.

"The impact on plant growth in these areas is estimated to be 5-20% annually."

Ozone is not emitted directly but forms in the atmosphere during complex chemical reactions of carbon monoxide, methane, non-methane volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides.

The seven areas of human activity that emit the largest amounts of these gases are agriculture, residential, energy, industry, road transportation, waste/landfill and shipping.

The study says a target of cutting these specific emissions by 50% is "large but plausible", citing examples of cuts already made in some industries.

"Deep cuts in air pollutant emissions from road transportation and the energy sector are the most effective mitigation measures for ozone-induced loss of plant productivity in eastern China, the eastern United States, Europe and globally," said Professor Unger.

"Our results suggest mitigation of ozone vegetation damage is a unique opportunity to contribute to negative carbon emissions, offering a natural climate solution that links fossil fuel emission abatement, air quality and climate.

"However, achieving these benefits requires ambitious mitigation efforts in multiple sectors."

The paper, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, is entitled: "Mitigation of ozone damage to the world's land ecosystems by source sector."

Suffocating ozone—policies that stem emission of precursor chemicals save lives and crops

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More information: Mitigation of ozone damage to the world's land ecosystems by source sector, Nature Climate Change (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-019-0678-3 , https://nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0678-3

GOOD NEWS

Most young people do not vape, and even fewer vape regularly

VAPING SCARE IS AN FDA FALSE FLAG

by New York University

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

While youth vaping rates have increased in recent years, most middle and high school students don't vape or smoke and very few vape or smoke daily, finds a study led by researchers at NYU School of Global Public Health.

The study, published this month in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research, finds that over 80 percent of youth do not use any tobacco and over 86 percent don't vape—and among the minority who do vape, most are not regular users. In addition, the study reveals that most youth who are vaping are also current or former smokers.

"Our findings underscore the importance of examining the full context of how youth are using vaping and tobacco products," said Allison Glasser, an assistant research scientist at NYU School of Global Public Health and the study's lead author. "The key to protecting youth in the United States is determining the patterns of frequency of use and co-use of vaping and tobacco products, which will give public health decision makers the best possible information to protect the public's health."

While the FDA and CDC's National Youth Tobacco Survey has shown a concerning increase in youth vaping in recent years, little is known about the frequency with which youth use e-cigarettes—if it's an occasional occurrence or a daily habit—as well as whether they also use more harmful smoked tobacco products like cigarettes and inexpensive cigars or cigarillos.

In this study, the researchers analyzed the 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey in which more than 20,000 middle and high school students were asked about their use of various tobacco and vaping products in the past 30 days. The analysis was conducted on the 2018 survey, the latest available full data set; the 2019 National Youth Tobacco Survey, which showed that youth vaping continued to grow from 2018 to 2019, has not yet been made available for public analysis.

A critical finding across all surveys from 2013 to 2019 is that smoking actually decreased much more rapidly to a record low during the very same years vaping increased. From 2015 to 2018, daily cigarette smoking among youth declined from 1.2 percent to 0.9 percent, while regular vaping (20 or more out of the past 30 days) increased from 1.7 percent to 3.6 percent.

"The faster drop in smoking suggests vaping is helping displace youth use of much more deadly smoking—a net harm reduction benefit to the population as a whole," said David Abrams, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at NYU School of Global Public Health and a study coauthor.

The researchers also found that while youth vaping increased from 2017 to 2018, the increase was driven by infrequent e-cigarette use rather than regular use: in 2018, while 13.8 percent of students had vaped in the 30 days, more than half of them vaped five days or fewer.

Critically, the majority of youth vapers also use or have used more deadly tobacco products (60 to 88.9 percent, depending on the frequency of vaping). While there has been fear that e-cigarettes are introducing nicotine to many young people who otherwise would not have smoked, the data show otherwise—only a small proportion of tobacco-naïve youth report vaping.

"Examining tobacco and e-cigarette use patterns in youth is informative about the risk of continued use in adulthood. While in a perfect world young people would not be smoking or vaping, if the vast majority of youth who vape are already current or former smokers, vaping could offer them a safer alternative than cancer-causing cigarettes," said Ray Niaura, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at NYU School of Global Public Health and a study coauthor.

"This study provides us with a better understanding of youth vaping patterns, which is critical for creating effective public health policies around nicotine and tobacco. Reacting too quickly to reports of youth vaping without considering the full context could do more harm than good," added Abrams. "We need to avoid prohibitionist regulations like banning e-cigarettes—while leaving much more deadly cigarettes and cigars in corner stores—and instead should consider strong enforcement of age 21 sales restrictions. Prohibition creates a black market for vaping products or inadvertently pushes individuals back to smoking tobacco."

Three quarters of teens who vape report using nicotine, marijuana, or multiple substances

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More information: Allison M Glasser et al, Youth Vaping and Tobacco Use in Context in the United States: Results from the 2018 National Youth Tobacco Survey, Nicotine & Tobacco Research (2020). DOI: 10.1093/ntr/ntaa010

Journal information: Nicotine & Tobacco Research 

Provided by New York University