Democracy at Risk: From Citizen Activism to Techno-Environmentalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Fischer
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Decision Processes ◽  
Technical Expertise ◽  
Citizen Activism ◽  
Technical Solutions ◽  
Climate Crisis

The climate crisis has led various prominent writers to call for greater reliance on experts. Not only have they called on experts for technical solutions, but also for a greater role in the policy decision processes. If central governments step in with strong measures, even more authoritarian forms of rule, the turn to technocratic experts will undoubtedly be a part of the strategy. The chapter seeks to sort out the issues and questions posed by this appeal to technical expertise. It begins by looking at the evolution of techno-managerial expertise in modern environmental politics, before examining the technocratic mode of reason and the depoliticization of the policymaking that it advocates. The discussion then moves from the realm of theory to examine specific contemporary technocratic arguments and concludes with a discussion of the nature of technocratic power.

scholarly journals Climate change is a major stressor causing poor pregnancy outcomes and child development

F1000Research ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 1222
Author(s):  
David M. Olson ◽  
Gerlinde A.S. Metz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Pregnancy Outcomes ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes ◽  
Ecological Resilience ◽  
Adverse Pregnancy ◽  
Climate Crisis

The climate crisis is the existential threat of our times and for generations to come. This is no longer a threat but a reality affecting us, our children, and the generations that follow. Pregnant mothers, their fetuses, and their children are among those at greatest risk in every population and every jurisdiction. A timely consideration is the health of racialized groups who are particularly vulnerable owing to the confluence of several risk factors that are compounded by climate change. Included among these are Indigenous communities that are the most directly threatened by climate change. This review discusses the main health challenges faced by mothers, fathers, and their children during the climate crisis, focusing on mental health as a causal factor. Exploration of this topic includes the role of prenatal maternal and paternal stresses, allostatic load, and the effect of degradation of the environment and ecosystems on individuals. These will be examined in relation to adverse pregnancy outcomes and altered developmental trajectories of children. The climate crisis is a health threat multiplier that amplifies the health inequities of the most at-risk populations and individuals. It accelerates the increase in allostatic load of those at risk. The path of tragedy begins with an accumulating allostatic load that overwhelms both individual and socio-ecological resilience. This can lead to worse mental health including depression and anxiety and, in the case of pregnant women and their children, more adverse pregnancy outcomes and impaired developmental trajectories for their newborn children. We argue that there is an urgent need to develop new (or re-discover or re-purpose existing) tools that will predict communities and individuals who are experiencing the highest levels of climate-related hazards and intervene to reduce stress and increase resilience in pre-conceptual women and men, pregnant and post-partum women, and their young children.

Children as a new climate precariat: A conceptual proposition

2021 ◽  
pp. 001139212097546
Author(s):  
Arita Holmberg ◽  
Aida Alvinius
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
At Risk ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Potential Loss ◽  
Taking Action ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Present World ◽  
Urgent Action

This article proposes that children constitute a new climate precariat. This conceptualization contributes to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of the vulnerability of children in relation to the climate crisis. Previous literature tends to treat climate change in an abstract fashion that renders today’s children invisible. Climate precarity consists of three main elements of vulnerability: temporality problems, insecurity and an identity vacuum. In relation to temporality and security, children are suffering from the potential loss of a sustainable future, which spurs the need for urgent action and constant consciousness – in the present. World leaders’ inaction creates an uncertainty regarding whom should be held responsible for taking action in guaranteeing children the future which climate change is at risk of depriving them. The concept of climate precarity could be used to explain children’s collective action in relation to the climate crisis. Children’s concerns in relation to the climate crisis suggest that agency and empowerment are spurred through their resistance towards these vulnerabilities.

scholarly journals Algoritmo Exato de Avaliação de uma Política Estacionária para CVaR MDP

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis Pais ◽  
Valdinei Freire ◽  
Karina Valdivia-Delgado
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Markov Decision Processes ◽  
Value At Risk ◽  
Decision Processes ◽  
Conditional Value At Risk ◽  
Markov Decision

Processos de decisão Markovianos (Markov Decision Processes -- MDPs) são amplamente utilizados para resolver problemas de tomada de decisão sequencial. O critério de desempenho mais utilizado em MDPs é a minimização do custo total esperado. Porém, esta abordagem não leva em consideração flutuações em torno da média, o que pode afetar significativamente o desempenho geral do processo. MDPs que lidam com esse tipo de problema são chamados de MDPs sensíveis a risco. Um tipo especial de MDP sensível a risco é o CVaR MDP, que inclui a métrica CVaR (Conditional-Value-at-Risk) comumente utilizada na área financeira. Um algoritmo que encontra a política ótima para CVaR MDPs é o algoritmo de Iteração de Valor com Interpolação Linear chamado CVaRVILI. O algoritmo CVaRVILI precisa resolver problemas de programação linear várias vezes, o que faz com que o algoritmo tenha um alto custo computacional. Neste trabalho, é proposto um algoritmo que avalia uma política estacionário para CVaR MDPs de custo constante e que não precisa resolver problemas de programação linear, esse algoritmo é chamado de PECVaR. Além disso, foram realizados experimentos usando o custo total esperado e o custo usando o algoritmo PECVaR de uma política neutra para inicializar o algoritmo CVaRVILI. Os resultados mostram que utilizando essas inicializações é possível diminuir o tempo de convergência do CVaRVILI na maioria dos casos.

Modeling of fire dynamics when making judicial normative fire-technical expertise

2020 ◽  
pp. 47-54
Author(s):  
Ирек Равильевич Хасанов ◽  
Софья Федоровна Лобова ◽  
Наталья Вячеславовна Петрова ◽  
Татьяна Дмитриевна Теплякова
Keyword(s):  
Fire Safety ◽  
Technical Expertise ◽  
Fire Dynamics ◽  
Case File ◽  
Safety Requirements ◽  
Field Modeling ◽  
Technical Examination ◽  
Design Values ◽  
Technical Solutions ◽  
The Impact

Проанализирована нормативная база, регламентирующая проведение расчетов по оценке параметров срабатывания автоматической установки пожарной сигнализации (АУПС), а также компьютерных программ моделирования динамики пожара и математических моделей, описывающих срабатывание пожарных извещателей. Сформулированы и структурированы вопросы нормативного характера, для решения которых необходимо применение компьютерного моделирования динамики пожара с учетом работы АУПС. Предложен алгоритм компьютерного моделирования пожара в ходе проведения пожарно-технической экспертизы с учетом возможных расчетных ошибок и получения неоднозначных результатов. It is often necessary to assess the parameters of fire development taking into account the influence of fire protection systems by making the regulatory fire-technical expertise. It may also be necessary to carry out an expert examination of the technical solutions adopted at the site for their compliance with fire safety requirements. These practical studies, in particular, are necessary to analyse the consequences of fire safety violations and establish causal links between violations of requirements and the consequences of fire, both past and theoretically possible. A modern way to estimate fire parameters is by field modeling. Field modeling of fire dynamics can be used to answer questions in two expert situations: after fire and before fire (in particular, within the framework of supervisory measures). When making fire-technical expertise on the fire occurred, the expert needs to restore the pre-fire situation and model the real fire dynamics taking into account the established fire information contained in the case file. In a situation before a fire, the expert needs to model a potentially possible fire under the most unfavourable conditions. In accordance with fire safety requirements, each object of protection must have a fire safety system aimed at preventing fire, ensuring the safety of people and property in case of fire. Compliance of design values and characteristics of the building or structure with safety requirements shall be justified by calculations or tests performed according to certified technique. On the basis of the analysis of the regulatory framework and the formulated groups of regulatory questions there have been developed the procedure of the expert‘s actions and the algorithm for simulating fire dynamics when answering questions related to automatic fire alarm. The impact of input data on the possibility of forming categorical or probabilistic outputs was evaluated. The proposed detailed algorithm of field simulation of fire dynamics during the regulatory fire-technical examination is drawn up taking into account possible calculated errors and obtaining ambiguous results.

Climate Crisis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin R. Graham
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Regime ◽  
Global Environmental Politics ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Climate Crisis

International relations scholarship on climate change exists primarily in the field of Global Environmental Politics (GEP) and outside the substantive purview of mainstream International Political Economy (IPE). This chapter argues that the climate crisis is fundamentally an IPE problem, and it requires attention from IPE scholars as a primary subject of interest. To facilitate engagement, the chapter reviews a diverse literature at the intersection of IPE and climate across three substantive areas: the global climate regime, trade, and renewable energy transitions. Each section offers avenues for research, and provides ideas on how to put concepts and ideas from IPE to work in climate crisis scholarship.

scholarly journals Reverse Mortgage Risks. Time Evolution of VaR in Lump-Sum Solutions

Mathematics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 2043
Author(s):  
Iván de la Fuente ◽  
Eliseo Navarro ◽  
Gregorio Serna
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Value At Risk ◽  
House Price ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Simulation Method ◽  
Capital Requirements ◽  
Reverse Mortgage ◽  
Female Population ◽  
Lump Sum ◽  
Reverse Mortgages

In this study, we analyzed the risk faced by the reverse mortgage provider in the case of the lump-sum solution, which is increasingly becoming one of the most popular types of reverse mortgages. The risk faced by the mortgage provider was estimated by means of a value at risk (VaR) procedure that involves a Monte Carlo simulation method and an ARMA-EGARCH assumption for modeling house price returns in the United Kingdom from 1952 to 2019. The results showed that the reverse mortgage provider faced higher risk and consequently needed to allocate more funds to meet its regulatory capital requirements in the case of relatively young borrowers, especially when they reached their life expectancy and had high roll-up rates. The risk was even higher in the case of the female population. Furthermore, care must be taken when the rental yield rate is higher than the risk-free rate, as is currently the case, as the value of the no-negative-equity guarantee (NNEG) is relatively high and results in higher value at risk (VaR) and expected shortfall (ES) values. These results have important implications in terms of policy decision making when determining the countercyclical buffer for reverse mortgages in Basel III, as well as from a managerial perspective when determining the economic capital needed to support the risk taken by the lender.

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