Climate justice and sustained transnational mobilization

ABSTRACT

Samir Amin’s final essay called for the creation of a new international organization of progressive social forces. Here I review evidence from twenty-first century transnational movements germane for understanding the likelihood of the emergence of such an international organization and the issues and sectors most likely to facilitate coalitional unity. More specifically, the ecological crises identified by Amin in the form of global warming and climate change have created an unprecedented global environmental threat capable of unifying diverse social strata across the planet. The climate justice movement has already established a global infrastructure and template to coordinate a new international organization for confronting neoliberal forms of globalization. Pre-existing movement organizing around environmental racism, climate justice in the global South, and recent intersectional mobilizations serve as promising models for building an enduring international organization that will represent subaltern groups and have a substantial impact on world politics.     

Bioaccessibility and Risk of Exposure to Metals and SVOCs in Artificial Turf Field Fill Materials and Fibers

To reduce maintenance costs, municipalities and schools are starting to replace natural grass fields with a new generation synthetic turf. Unlike Astro‐Turf, which was first introduced in the 1960s, synthetic field turf provides more cushioning to athletes. Part of this cushioning comes from materials like crumb rubber infill, which is manufactured from recycled tires and may contain a variety of chemicals. The goal of this study was to evaluate potential exposures from playing on artificial turf fields and associated risks to trace metals, semi‐volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) by examining typical artificial turf fibers (n = 8), different types of infill (n = 8), and samples from actual fields (n = 7). Three artificial biofluids were prepared, which included: lung, sweat, and digestive fluids. Artificial biofluids were hypothesized to yield a more representative estimation of dose than the levels obtained from total extraction methods. PAHs were routinely below the limit of detection across all three biofluids, precluding completion of a meaningful risk assessment. No SVOCs were identified at quantifiable levels in any extracts based on a match of their mass spectrum to compounds that are regulated in soil. The metals were measurable but at concentrations for which human health risk was estimated to be low. The study demonstrated that for the products and fields we tested, exposure to infill and artificial turf was generally considered de minimus, with the possible exception of lead for some fields and materials.     

The distinct role of group-central and group-peripheral norms in taxpaying behaviour

In recent years, a social identity approach has been used to help understand why people do or do not pay tax [see Taylor, 2003; Wenzel, M., 2002. The impact of outcome orientation and justice concerns on tax compliance: the role of taxpayers’ identity. Journal of Applied Psychology 87, 629–645; Wenzel, M., 2004. An analysis of norm processes in tax compliance. Journal of Economic Psychology 25, 213–228; Wenzel, M., 2005. Misperception of social norms about tax compliance: from theory to intervention. Journal of Economic Psychology 26, 862–883; Wenzel, M., 2007. The multiplicity of taxpayer identities and their implications for tax ethics. Law & Policy 29, 31–50]. This research, which has focused almost exclusively on national identity, indicates that the more people identify with a group, the more likely they are to adhere to its tax norms and values. However, conformity to group norms may be more nuanced than this, and depend on (a) the meaning or content of the identity in question [e.g., Turner, J.C., 1999. Some current themes in research on social identity and self-categorization theories. In: Ellemers, N., Spears, R., Doojse, B. (Eds.), Social Identity: Context, Commitment, Content. Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 6–34] and (b) whether the norms and values are central or peripheral to the content of that identity. In line with this idea, two studies explored whether the concept and act of taxpaying are more central to what it means to be a member of one's nation than of one's occupational group. Both studies confirm this expectation. Importantly, the findings also suggest that although occupational groups have different norms and values in relation to pre-tax behaviours (e.g., how to deal with extra income), these too can be peripheral to what it means to a group member. If norms are peripheral to identity content, conformity to such norms may be independent of group identification.     

Adaptable Careers: Maximizing Less and Exploring More

Today, young adults are expected to decide between educational, vocational, and job options and to make the best choice possible. Career literatures emphasize the importance of young adults' career decision making but also acknowledge the problems related to making these decisions. The authors argue that career counselors could support clients' intuitive processing of career information and help their clients to develop a positive and flexible view of the self and the environment while diminishing concerns about accountability for and irreversibility of career decisions. The authors argue that career adaptability rather than decision making should become the focal concept of career theory and practice.     

A Dynamic Model of Demand for Houses and Neighborhoods

This paper develops a dynamic model of neighborhood choice along with a computationally light multi‐step estimator. The proposed empirical framework captures observed and unobserved preference heterogeneity across households and locations in a flexible way. We estimate the model using a newly assembled data set that matches demographic information from mortgage applications to the universe of housing transactions in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1994 to 2004. The results provide the first estimates of the marginal willingness to pay for several non‐marketed amenities—neighborhood air pollution, violent crime, and racial composition—in a dynamic framework. Comparing these estimates with those from a static version of the model highlights several important biases that arise when dynamic considerations are ignored.     

Efficiency or Competition? A Structural Econometric Analysis of Canada's AWS Auction and the Set‐Aside Provision

In 2008, Industry Canada auctioned 105 MHz of spectrum to a group of bidders that included incumbents and potential new entrants into the Canadian mobile phone market, raising $4.25 billion. In an effort to promote new entry, 40 MHz of spectrum was set‐aside for new entrants. In order to estimate the implicit cost of the set‐aside provision, we estimate the parameters of the bidders' profit function via a maximum match estimator based on the notion of pairwise stability in matches. We find that all telecommunications firms valued both geographic complementarities across auction licenses as well as absolute spectrum. Under a reasonable alternative scenario, our results indicate that the set‐aside led to a total profit loss of approximately 10%.     

On evaluating how well a biomarker can predict treatment response with survival data

One of the objectives of personalized medicine is to take treatment decisions based on a biomarker measurement. Therefore, it is often interesting to evaluate how well a biomarker can predict the response to a treatment. To do so, a popular methodology consists of using a regression model and testing for an interaction between treatment assignment and biomarker. However, the existence of an interaction is not sufficient for a biomarker to be predictive. It is only necessary. Hence, the use of the marker‐by‐treatment predictiveness curve has been recommended. In addition to evaluate how well a single continuous biomarker predicts treatment response, it can further help to define an optimal threshold. This curve displays the risk of a binary outcome as a function of the quantiles of the biomarker, for each treatment group. Methods that assume a binary outcome or rely on a proportional hazard model for a time‐to‐event outcome have been proposed to estimate this curve. In this work, we propose some extensions for censored data. They rely on a time‐dependent logistic model, and we propose to estimate this model via inverse probability of censoring weighting. We present simulations results and three applications to prostate cancer, liver cirrhosis, and lung cancer data. They suggest that a large number of events need to be observed to define a threshold with sufficient accuracy for clinical usefulness. They also illustrate that when the treatment effect varies with the time horizon which defines the outcome, then the optimal threshold also depends on this time horizon.     

Using Panel Data to Understand the Dynamics of Human Behavior in Response to Flooding

Insights into the dynamics of human behavior in response to flooding are urgently needed for the development of effective integrated flood risk management strategies, and for integrating human behavior in flood risk modeling. However, our understanding of the dynamics of risk perceptions, attitudes, individual recovery processes, as well as adaptive (i.e., risk reducing) intention and behavior are currently limited because of the predominant use of cross-sectional surveys in the flood risk domain. Here, we present the results from one of the first panel surveys in the flood risk domain covering a relatively long period of time (i.e., four years after a damaging event), three survey waves, and a wide range of topics relevant to the role of citizens in integrated flood risk management. The panel data, consisting of 227 individuals affected by the 2013 flood in Germany, were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA and latent class growth analysis (LCGA) to utilize the unique temporal dimension of the data set. Results show that attitudes, such as the respondents’ perceived responsibility within flood risk management, remain fairly stable over time. Changes are observed partly for risk perceptions and mainly for individual recovery and intentions to undertake risk-reducing measures. LCGA reveal heterogeneous recovery and adaptation trajectories that need to be taken into account in policies supporting individual recovery and stimulating societal preparedness. More panel studies in the flood risk domain are needed to gain better insights into the dynamics of individual recovery, risk-reducing behavior, and associated risk and protective factors.     

Nonparametric Estimation of the Number of Drug Users in Hong Kong Using Repeated Multiple Lists

We update a previous approach to the estimation of the size of an open population when there are multiple lists at each time point. Our motivation is 35 years of longitudinal data on the detection of drug users by the Central Registry of Drug Abuse in Hong Kong. We develop a two‐stage smoothing spline approach. This gives a flexible and easily implemented alternative to the previous method which was based on kernel smoothing. The new method retains the property of reducing the variability of the individual estimates at each time point. We evaluate the new method by means of a simulation study that includes an examination of the effects of variable selection. The new method is then applied to data collected by the Central Registry of Drug Abuse. The parameter estimates obtained are compared with the well known Jolly–Seber estimates based on single capture methods.