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Rethinking Private Land Conservation in the Face of Climate Change: A California Case Study & Future Options
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This Article looks at how private land conservation may need to be rethought in the face of climate change, with a particular emphasis on the protection of biodiversity.
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Expanding options for habitat conservation outside protected areas in Kenya: The use of environmental easements
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This paper examines wildlife conservation in Kenya on land outside protected areas. It presents a context within which environmental easements as a mechanism to conserve wildlife habitat outside protected areas can be considered based on property rights over land and the management of wildlife resources and their implication for habitat conservation. This paper also describes easements, the legal environment needed in Kenya for adopting environmental easements and makes specific legislative recommendations. A sample environmental easement, adapted for Kenyan circumstances from an American model, is presented. Also outlined are methods of valuing environmental easements, a critical link in establishing a solid framework and process for having an environmental easement granted.
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Warming caused by cumulative carbon emissions towards the trillionth tonne
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We find that the peak warming caused by a given cumulative carbon dioxide emission is better constrained than the warming response to a stabilization scenario. Furthermore, the relationship between cumulative emissions and peak warming is remarkably insensitive to the emission pathway (timing of emissions or peak emission rate). Hence policy targets based on limiting cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide are likely to be more robust to scientific uncertainty than emission-rate or concentration targets. Total anthropogenic emissions of one trillion tonnes of carbon (3.67 trillion tonnes of CO2), about half of which has already been emitted since industrialization began, results in a most likely peak carbon-dioxide- induced warming of 2 6C above pre-industrial temperatures, with a 5–95% confidence interval of 1.3–3.9 6C.
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Creation of a Gilded Trap by the High Economic Value of the Maine Lobster Fishery
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Unsustainable fishing simplifies food chains and, as with aquaculture, can result in reliance on a few economically valuable species. This lack of diversity may increase risks of ecological and economic disruptions. Centuries of intense fishing have extirpated most apex predators in the Gulf of Maine (United States and Canada), effectively creating an American lobster (Homarus americanus) monoculture. Over the past 20 years, the economic diversity of marine resources harvested in Maine has declined by almost 70%. Today, over 80% of the value of Maine’s fish and seafood landings is from highly abundant lobsters. Inflation- corrected income from lobsters in Maine has steadily increased by nearly 400% since 1985. Fisheries managers, policy makers, and fishers view this as a success. However, such lucrative monocultures increase the social and ecological consequences of future declines in lobsters. In southern New England, disease and stresses related to increases in ocean temperature resulted in more than a 70% decline in lobster abundance, prompting managers to propose closing that fishery. A similar collapse in Maine could fundamentally disrupt the social and economic foundation of its coast. We suggest the current success of Maine’s lobster fishery is a gilded trap. Gilded traps are a type of social trap in which collective actions resulting from economically attractive opportunities outweigh concerns over associated social and ecological risks or consequences. Large financial gain creates a strong reinforcing feedback that deepens the trap. Avoiding or escaping gilded traps requires managing for increased biological and economic diversity. This is difficult to do prior to a crisis while financial incentives for maintaining the status quo are large. The long-term challenge is to shift fisheries management away from single species toward integrated social-ecological approaches that diversify local ecosystems, societies, and economies.
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Social traps and environmental policy
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I argue that all the environmental problems mentioned above (and many other social problems) belong to a category of phenomenon called social traps (Platt 1973). Like animal traps, social traps lead an unwary victim into the jaws of disaster with a tempting bit of bait, and, once the victim is caught, make escape extremely difficult. By studying the features real-world social traps have in common, and by experimenting with some simple laboratory examples of social traps, we can learn more about their general nature and the nature of effective escapes from them. A broad ecological perspective can be effective in understanding, avoiding, and escaping from some social traps, but it must be coupled with effective public policy. Effective policy involves a range of activities from education to regulation to correcting the misleading short-term incentives (the bait) that create traps in the first place.
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The 2 °C dream
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Countries have pledged to limit global warming to 2 °C, and climate models say that is still possible. But only with heroic — and unlikely — efforts.
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A ‘perfect’ agreement in Paris is not essential
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Success at the latest climate talks will be a recognition by the world’s nations that incremental change will not do the job, says Johan Rockström.
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After the talks
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The real business of decarbonization begins after an agreement is signed at the Paris climate conference, argue David G. Victor and James P. Leape.
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Social Traps
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A new area of study is the field that some of us are beginning to call social traps. The term refers to situations in society that contain traps formally like a fish trap, where men or whole societies get themselves started in some direction or some set of relationships that later prove to be unpleasant or lethal and that they see no easy way to back out of or to avoid.
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A SOCIAL TRAP ANALYSIS OF THE LOS ANGELES STORM DRAIN SYSTEM: A RATIONALE FOR INTERVENTIONS
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The principles of analyzing social traps can be used to devise intervention strategies for the problems of toxic and solid waste dumping into the Los Angeles storm water drain system. Both problems readily fit into the social trap model. Intervention strategies center on 1) bringing long-term negative consequences to bear on behavioral choices of offenders, 2) increasing short-term positive consequences for correct behaviors, 3) decreasing short-term negative consequences that prevent correct behaviors, 4) increasing short-term negative consequences for environmentally destructive behaviors, 5) decreasing short-term positive consequences that support inappropriate behaviors, and 6) educating the public on the long-term positive consequences of appropriate behaviors.
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