Scaling just transitions: Legitimation strategies in coal phase-out commissions in Canada and Germany

Climate change mitigation triggers both spatial and moral complexities, as demonstrated by the contentious issue of phasing out coal power. The success of the Paris Agreement depends on, among other things, the acceptability of climate policy measures and thus, from a moral perspective, on the ability to organize transition processes in ways that do not damage the livelihoods of workers, communities, and entire regions. Spatially, the unequal distributions of burdens and advantages of both climate change and respective mitigation measures provoke struggles over their legitimacy in contexts ranging from local to global. Phasing out coal mining and the respective power generation capacity thus triggers processes of structural transformation that cut across geographic scales, vertical levels of policy and politics, as well as sectoral boundaries.In light of the urgency of the climate crisis, countries such as Canada and Germany have established stakeholder-driven commissions to develop proposals for just transition pathways for phasing out coal production and consumption. We argue that these commissions are arenas in which spatial, moral, and sectoral (re-)negotiations materialize. Comparing the Canadian and German stakeholder commissions through expert interviews with their members, the article traces how governments use commissions to legitimize their transition policies. Expectations at different levels and from different actors in turn place commission members under pressure to justify their involvement and the outputs of the commissions. We find that the Canadian task force showed greater commitment to collecting and reflecting the needs of communities in its coal regions, and to communicating these to the federal government. In the German coal commission, legitimation strategies focused mainly on a broad representation of interests, and on government spending for affected regions, workers, and industries. In that case, a compromise was reached that satisfied most, but not all, of the diverse requirements.     

Contesting scale: A space of the political in a post-disaster context

Disasters create spaces for the political to unfold. This paper contributes to the recurring debates on space and the political in geography by providing a novel empirical focus: following a fire in Lærdal, Norway in 2014, contesting discourses on how emergency services should be spatially organized revealed themselves. A scalar discourse of the local, situated in discourses on periphery and rurality in Norway, emerged to contest a neoliberal discourse promoted by the government. I illustrate the scalar discourse of the local through four identified narratives in Norwegian newspapers that emphasize different aspects of the local. This demonstrates how scalar categories are meshed with everyday vocabulary, and hence are important to study. Although a space of the political was realized following the fire, in the last part of the paper I reflect on why the scalar discourse of the local has not gained recognition as legitimate contestation, as reforms aiming to centralize and/or merge continue to be rolled out in Norway.     

A place to remember: scaling the walls of Angel Island immigration station

This paper considers the restoration and presentation of Angel Island Immigration Station, a federal facility in the San Francisco Bay that between 1910 and 1940 worked to prevent the arrival of Chinese laborers to the United States in accordance with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. The production of Angel Island Immigration Station as a national historic landmark is delineated through the social construction of scale. I discuss efforts to achieve a leap in the scale of the site's significance and how this brings forth new management regimes that change the format of the interpretation there. In particular, narrative construction, landscape design, and revised tours, insert a standardized story of Chinese exclusion into the national memory. This paper shows how the imperative to increase the scope of recognition—to petition nationally for status and funds—requires a repackaging of stories to affirm popular American ideals of freedom over those that challenge the nation's persecution of Chinese immigrants.     

Modelling of hydrology and potential population levels at Bronze Age Jawa,Northern Jordan: a Monte Carlo approach to cope with uncertainty

An annual water balance model for Wadi Rajil, in Northern Jordan, is used to simulate the ancient water supply system for the Early Bronze Age site of Jawa. The model includes: water delivery from the catchment; local pond storage; and water demand for people, animals and irrigation. A Monte Carlo approach is used to incorporate the uncertainty associated with a range of factors including rainfall, evaporation, water losses and use. The stochastic simulation provides estimates of potential population levels sustainable by the water supply system. Historical precipitation estimates from a Global Circulation Model, with uncertainty bounds, are used to reconstruct the climate at Jawa in the Early Bronze Age (EBA). Model results indicate that the population levels in the predicted wetter conditions during parts of the EBA could have risen to ∼6000 and may have been higher in wet years. However, palaeoclimatic proxies also suggest prolonged droughts in the EBA; and during these periods the water management system was unable to provide adequate supply for a population of 6000. The utility of Monte Carlo based hydrological modelling as a tool within archaeological science is discussed.     

Resource abundance constraints on the early post-contact Cherokee population

We present the combination of an analysis of resource demand by the early post-contact (1721) Cherokee population with spatially explicit estimates of production for five key resources: architectural land, agricultural land, firewood, hard mast, and white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). We combine a recent synthesis of village location and population, a map of recognized Cherokee territory, digital terrain data, estimates of per capita demand, and productive capacity for each resource. Average, high, and low demands were estimated for each resource and assigned based on a weighted function of terrain and distance from each village. We conclude that Cherokee demands for architectural and agricultural land, hard mast, and fuelwood were easily met within a short proximity to each town under all combinations of production and demand. These resources were likely not limiting, and were satisfied for the entire Cherokee population by less than 1% of the entire recognized Cherokee territory in 1721. These resources likely exceeded demand even when sources were restricted to the convex hull of the Cherokee territory, or to near stream, flat regions. Deer resources were likely harvested over a much larger area and to a much greater extent. Our best estimate of deer resource demand was 32% of annual sustainable production in the Cherokee territory, with from 16 to 48% of estimated sustainable production harvested for low and high demand estimates, respectively. Our estimates vary in response to uncertainties in deer production, harvest proportion, deer density, and sustainable harvest rates. Deer demand was substantially higher under all combinations of conditions than that available within the convex hull of Cherokee villages, indicating significant travel was needed to furnish deer requirements. Spatially explicit models that consider terrain- and distance-related tradeoffs suggest that Cherokee demand for deer drove harvest over areas consisting of over half the recognized Cherokee territory.     

The relationship between children's perceptions of the natural environment and their subjective well-being

The overarching aim of the study was to ascertain the relationship between children's perceptions of the natural environment and their subjective well-being. More specifically the study aimed to fit a structural model depicting the nature of the relationship between children's environmental views and their global, and domain-specific life satisfaction. The sample included 1004 twelve-year-old participants randomly selected from 15 primary schools in Cape Town, South Africa. The measuring instrument included the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale for children, the Students' Life Satisfaction Scale and the Personal Well-Being Index-School Children. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the validity of the NEP Scale which showed appropriate fit structure. A good fit structure was also found for the overall structural equation model. However, the overall model showed that children's environmental views were not related to their global life and domain-specific life satisfaction. At a foundational level, more research is required to allow for a better understanding of how children in differing circumstances construct and assign meaning to nature, and what their perceptions of nature are before we can begin to ask them when, how or why they engage in nature.     

中国人口地理学研究的回顾与展望

中国人口地理学直至20世纪30年代前后才形成。新中国成立后,开始得以发展。自党的十一届三中全会后,因贯彻改革开放的方针,促进了人口地理学的蓬勃发展。文章最后,展望了人口地理学的发展趋势。     

加拿大人回发展与人回迁移

本文简析加拿大人口发展与人口迁移过程,以及人口迁移对加拿大人口增长、种族、语言构成、人口分布及未来人口增长的影响。     

城市体系规模结构预测方法应用研究——以内江市为例

本文利用城市体系规模分布模型对内江市城市体系分形特征及规模结构进行了分析预测,指出了内江城市体系发展规律及促进其快速发展规律及促进其快速发展的对策措施。