Author: Latest Results

CMIP6 precipitation and temperature projections for Chile

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Abstract

Precipitation and near-surface temperature from an ensemble of 36 new state‐of‐the‐art climate models under the Coupled Model Inter‐comparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) are evaluated over Chile’s climate. The analysis is focused on four distinct climatic subregions: Northern Chile, Central Chile, Northern Patagonia, and Southern Patagonia. Over each of the subregions, first, we evaluate the performance of individual global climate models (GCMs) against a suit of precipitation and temperature observation-based gridded datasets over the historical period (1986–2014) and then we analyze the models’ projections for the end of the century (2080–2099) for four different shared socioeconomic pathways scenarios (SSP). Although the models are characterized by general wet and warm mean bias, they reproduce realistically the main spatiotemporal climatic variability over different subregions. However, none of the models is best across all subregions for both precipitation and temperature. Moreover, among the best performing models defined based on the Taylor skill score, one finds the so-called “hot models” likely exhibiting an overestimated climate sensitivity, which suggests caution in using these models for accessing future climate change in Chile. We found robust (90% of models agree in the direction of change) projected end-of-the-century reductions in mean annual precipitation for Central Chile (~ − 20 to ~ − 40%) and Northern Patagonia (~ − 10 to ~ − 30%) under scenario SSP585, but changes are strong from scenario SSP245 onwards, where precipitation is reduced by 10–20%. Northern Chile and Southern Patagonia show non-robust changes in precipitation across the models. Yet, future near-surface temperature warming presented high inter-model agreement across subregions, where the greatest increments occurred along the Andes Mountains. Northern Chile displays the strongest increment of up to ~ 6 °C in SSP585, followed by Central Chile (up to ~ 5 °C). Both Northern and Southern Patagonia show a corresponding increment by up to ~ 4 °C. We also briefly discuss about the environmental and socio-economic implications of these future changes for Chile.

Identifying public trust building priorities of gene editing in agriculture and food

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Abstract

Gene editing in agriculture and food (GEAF) is a nascent development with few products and is unfamiliar among the wider US public. GEAF has garnered significant praise for its potential to solve for a variety of agronomic problems but has also evoked controversy regarding safety and ethical standards of development and application. Given the wake of other agribiotechnology debates including GMOs (genetically modified organisms), this study made use of 36 in-depth key interviews to build the first U.S. based typology of proponent and critic priorities for shaping public trust in GEAF actors and objects. Key organizational actors provide early and foundational messaging, which is likely to contribute heavily to public salience, comprehension, and decision-making as potential consumers reflect upon their experiences, envision future outcomes, and consider the reputation of those trying to influence them. As is documented in our results, the trust-building priorities of these groups often stand in opposition to one another and are influenced by distinct motivations for how the public will come to trust or distrust GEAF actors and objects as more products are developed and enter the market.

Cultural Theory, Wildfire Information Source, and Agency Public Trust: A Central Oregon Case Study

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Abstract

With the increasing occurrence and severity of wildfires in the U.S., and especially in the forests and rangelands of the western U.S., it is important to know which wildfire information sources are trusted by households and the amount of trust placed on natural resources agencies to manage for wildfire. The Theory of Motivated Reasoning suggests that people will trust and use those information sources that conform to their own value and ideological orientations. Similarly, trust in natural resource agencies’ ability to manage wildfire may also be the result of cultural traits. This study uses Cultural Theory as a theoretical perspective to determine those value systems, and how cultural traits motivate people to use and trust various wildfire information sources and the agencies tasked with managing wildfire. Using random sample surveys of Wildland-Urban-Interface (WUI) households in fire-prone Deschutes County in central Oregon, the study finds that egalitarians are significantly more likely than those with other cultural traits to use and trust natural resource agency information sources, while individualists are more likely to use and trust family members and neighbors for their information. Similarly, egalitarians are trusting of natural resource managers to use prescribed fire, manage naturally ignited fires, and to thin forests to reduce fuels. Individualists are less trusting of government agencies to use the same approaches to reduce fuels. The study concludes with some suggestions for how wildfire policy makers and managers can use these findings to communicate more effectively important wildfire information to audiences with differing cultural traits and differing levels of natural resource agency trust.

Agroecological management of spontaneous vegetation in Bachajón’s Tseltal Maya milpa: a preventive focus

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Abstract

In recent years, a great deal of evidence has accumulated on the health risks and environmental impacts of some herbicides. Both conventional agriculture and agroecology are searching for alternatives to address the challenges posed by the consequences of herbicide use. In this search, peasant and indigenous agroecosystems have much to contribute since their crops evolved thousands of years ago together with diverse communities of weeds, and farmers have carried out sophisticated strategies to manage them. Through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, free lists, and botanical collection, we document a milpa design that integrates and manages spontaneous vegetation to take advantage of its presence and minimize risks of crop loss. The objective of this article is to critically contrast agroecological mechanisms in this milpa design which matches the prevention principle with a set of recommendations recognized as preventive in conventional weed science.

Easier said than defined? Conceptualising justice in food system transitions

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Abstract

The transition towards sustainable and just food systems is ongoing, illustrated by an increasing number of initiatives that try to address unsustainable practices and social injustices. Insights are needed into what a just transition entails in order to critically engage with plural and potentially conflicting justice conceptualisations. Researchers play an active role in food system transitions, but it is unclear which conceptualisations and principles of justice they enact when writing about food system initiatives. To fill this gap this paper investigates: Which conceptualisations of justice emerge from the literature related to food system initiatives and which principles of justice do authors use? We developed an initial framework for which we drew on political philosophy literature. We then undertook an extensive review of the food system transitions literature using this framework and were able to identify a range of recognition, distributive, and procedural justice conceptualisations and associated principles of justice. Recognised as subjects of justice were those with a particular role in the food system, people who are marginalised, Indigenous communities, those with experiences of negative consequences of the food system, future generations, and nonhumans. The identified conceptualisations and the developed framework can be used by those involved in food system initiatives to reflect on how they conceptualise justice. We challenge them to be more explicit about who they do and do not recognise as subjects of justice and which principles of justice they use. Such clarity is needed to reflexively enact a just transition towards sustainable and just food systems.

Crisscrossing scapes in the global flow of elite mainland Chinese students

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Abstract

This paper applies Appadurai’s notion of scapes in globalisation to study international student mobility. Thirty mainland Chinese students were interviewed; the majority of whom studied at prestigious institutions in the West before enrolling in their current PhD programmes at a research-intensive university in Hong Kong (HK) in the immediate aftermath of HK’s large-scale social protests and amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. We seek to understand why these students relocated to HK to further their studies given these turbulent circumstances and how their mainlander identity and sojourns in the West influence their perceptions of HK’s social movements from the perspectives of ethnoscape and ideoscape, respectively. Our findings reveal that HK represented the ‘best’ compromise for our participants, mitigating their nostalgia for home (i.e. mainland China) whilst offering a superior education to the Chinese mainland. Most participants perceived HK as a nationalistic ideoscape, wherein HK people’s pursuit of autonomy is subordinated to the putative Chinese national interests. Moreover, ethnoscape and ideoscape dynamics were found to crisscross other scapes. Generous scholarships (i.e. financescape) provided additional incentives driving student relocations. The persistent consumption of Chinese social media (techno-mediascape) was found to have resulted in worldview conformity between our participants and the Chinese state.

Exposure to Violence and Migration from Mexico to the United States

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Abstract

Longitudinal data from the Mexican Family Life Survey, in conjunction with aggregated vital statistics and census data, are used to examine how Mexican adults’ experiences of violent victimization and perceptions of personal safety, as well as the homicide rate in their local community, are associated with the likelihood that they migrate to the USA. Multilevel logistic regression analyses provide suggestive evidence that Mexicans who report being recent victims of violence and who perceive a recent deterioration in their personal safety are more likely than others to migrate to the USA. The association between perceived deterioration in personal safety and the probability of migrating to the USA is particularly strong among residents of urban areas. We find no evidence that a generalized fear of crime or exposure to a high municipality-level homicide rate is associated with USA-bound migration.

Aid Worker’s Perceptions of Psychological First Aid amid Border Externalization in Mexico

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Abstract

This study examines how aid workers in nongovernmental migrant shelters across Mexico conceptualize the relationship between Psychological First Aid (PFA) and border externalization. PFA is an early intervention approach to providing information, support, and comfort to survivors of recent traumas. Unlike “psychological debriefing,” PFA discourages processing of recent traumas, which has been critiqued for exacerbating psychological distress. As the U.S. government has “externalized” immigration enforcement by pressuring the Mexican to intensify immigration enforcement along transit corridors throughout Mexico, shelters that emerged originally to provide short-term humanitarian aid to transit migrants increasingly provide aid to people over the course of several weeks and months as they pursue humanitarian status regularization in Mexico. These processes require migrants to render recent traumas legible to state authorities, the very thing PFA aims to avoid. This study aimed to make sense of this apparent tension through 15 in-depth qualitative interviews with frontline humanitarian aid workers. Interviewees described PFA as a framework that attunes aid workers to what level of aid is feasible for organizations that were founded as volunteer-driven operations that provide short-term bodily aid to transit migrants but have become increasingly professionalized operations that provide longer-term aid to people seeking humanitarian recognition in Mexico.

Whereas prior studies have considered the impact of PFA for individuals, results indicate that for aid workers, PFA may provide a framework for coping with contradictory organizational logics of care and control that characterize border externalization in Mexico.

Potential exposure and vulnerability to broader climate-related trade regulations: an illustration for LAC countries

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Abstract

Analyzing the effects on Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries of recently proposed European Union (EU) and United States (US) carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAs) and bans on the import of non-deforestation-free products (DFPs), we ask: What share of LAC exports could be affected? What would be the consequences of the EU and US broadening these regulations to other commodities, or of other countries adopting similar regulations? How vulnerable are LAC countries, in terms of emissions intensity, deforestation risk, and export concentration risks? What policies could they adopt in response? Using data from the World Integrated Trade Solutions, we find that, as the region’s productive profile is agricultural rather than industrial, CBAs have a milder effect than DFPs. Less than 0.5% of LAC exports are exposed under the EU-CBA, compared to 17% under the EU-DFP and around 6% under the US-DFP. A broader EU-CBA would impact up to 14% of LAC country exports, while expanding the consequences of the EU-DFP would be marginal. The impact of other countries adopting CBA plans would also be small, because the EU and US are the main LAC export destinations. LAC products are vulnerable for several reasons, from having higher embedded emissions—and therefore costs—than European producers’, to having regional competitors with lower emissions intensity or deforestation risk, and lacking alternative export markets. The LAC private sector could adapt its strategies to accommodate these risks, and there is also room for public action.

Complex harms of migration externalisation: EU policy ‘creep’ processes into domestic counterterrorism at the Turkey-Iran border

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Abstract

This article examines the overlap between European Union migration controls and internal counter-terror measures in the Kurdish populated region at the Turkey-Iran border. It highlights the development of an ‘externalisation creep’ in the context of this overlap. We discuss how the EU’s external measures aimed at people classed as ‘irregular migrants and smugglers’ creep into local internal border security, leading to the prioritisation, on the ground, of measures against people broadly labelled as supporting ‘terrorism’. This development has resulted in the expansion of borderwork, which is associated with unexpected border control outcomes beyond those originally intended by the EU. The article draws upon an ethnographic data collection at the Turkey-Iran border, a geographical area that has seldom featured in EU-supported border controls studies. Our analysis seeks to contribute to the academic literature on externalisation by moving away from an EU-centric perspective, and instead focusing on border governance dynamics that are situated in the local histories and domestic sites of conflict, as understood by diverse border crossing survivors. This approach allows us to foreground how EU migration externalisation co-opts domestic practices in the context of borders with pre-existing forms of insecurity, and targets migrants as well as residents.