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Transforming the Economy Sustaining Food, Water, Energy and Justice

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Transforming the Economy Sustaining Food, Water, Energy and Justice ISEE 1 ISEE2016/BPE2016 UDC CAUSES June 26–29 ISBPE University of District of Columbia Transforming the Economy Sustaining Food, Water, Energy and Justice Pork and Pollution: An Introduction to Research and Action on Industrial Hog Production Corresponding Author: Zoë Ackerman - Rachel Carson Council Email: [email protected] 2nd Author: Robert Musil - Rachel Carson Council Type of Presentation: Paper presentation Biography: Dr. Robert K. Musil is president and CEO of the Rachel Carson Council, a legacy organization envisioned by Rachel Carson and founded in 1965. Dr. Musil is also a senior fellow and adjunct professor at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, where he teaches about climate change and environmental politics. Zoë Ackerman, the associate director for the RCC, conducts research on food and climate justice and directs a growing network of 25 colleges and universities. Abstract: Livestock in the United States produce one million pounds of fecal matter every four seconds. On a daily basis, factory- farmed hogs in North Carolina alone turn out more waste than do people in six states, and most of it goes untreated and unregulated. The unseen effects of cheap barbecue and bacon wreak havoc on air, water, soil, and the health and well-being of workers and communities around the country. These will only worsen with extreme weather, rising temperatures, and sea level rise. “Pork and Pollution: An Introduction to Research and Action on Hog Farming” explores the connections between hog production, public policy, ecology, public health, social justice, and climate change. The report provides many entry points for civic engagement and is an ideal starting place for building coalitions between nonprofits, academic institutions, students, journalists, organizers, and anyone interested in reimagining our modern food system. ISEE 2 ISEE2016/BPE2016 UDC CAUSES June 26–29 ISBPE University of District of Columbia Transforming the Economy Sustaining Food, Water, Energy and Justice Alternative Visions for Leveraging the Food-Water Nexus for a Sustainability Transition: The Case of India Corresponding Author: Rimjhim Aggarwal - Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA Email: [email protected] Type of Presentation: Paper presentation Biography: Dr. Aggarwal is an associate professor at the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. She has a PhD in economics from Cornell University. Dr. Aggarwal’s research and teaching interests lie at the interface between sustainability science and international development. She is currently engaged in research projects examining the impacts of globalization and climate change on agricultural and water governance, farm livelihoods, and food security in India, Nepal, Thailand, and Arizona. Abstract: The National Food Security Bill enacted in India in 2013 has attracted a lot of international attention as it is the most ambitious plan worldwide to provide subsidized food grains to 67% of the 1.2 billion people of India. Currently around 40% of the population is provided subsidized grain through the Public Distribution System. The new bill would consolidate several previous government programs for food aid, extend their coverage, and introduce new measures. Given that India is home to around one third of the world’s poor and one sixth of malnourished people, as well as being a major player in global food markets, understanding how this bill will affect the dynamic interaction of food and water systems across multiple spatial (state, regional, national, and global level) and temporal scales has become critical. The issue of food and water interactions has become particularly salient in light of new findings from satellite data (and other sources) about the rapidly depleting groundwater reserves in semiarid regions of the country, where most of the population is concentrated and where groundwater is the major source of drinking and irrigation needs. There is also growing concern about how climate uncertainties would impact water availability and domestic food production and, consequently, the government’s ability to continue to fulfill its obligation toward provision of subsidized food. In our presentation we discuss how behind these trends, new—and contested—alternative visions are being articulated for the current and imagined future use of water, land, and energy resources. These alternative framings and visions reveal how access to and contestation over natural resources constitute a key political issue. Major decisions around food, water, and energy are highly political and take place within fragmented institutional spaces, which often do not align with the scientific understandings of the inherent linkages between these resources. Thus it is not surprising that despite the radical policy change at the higher level, the institutional and political rigidities hold back change at the grassroots level. However, it is also interesting that from within this chaos there are also several emerging examples of disruptive grassroots innovations that are leveraging the synergies across sectors to drive more sustainable solutions. These diverse outcomes provide some clues as to how decision making within individual sectors can be influenced through institutional and policy design to transition toward more sustainable pathways in a second-best world ISEE 3 ISEE2016/BPE2016 UDC CAUSES June 26–29 ISBPE University of District of Columbia Transforming the Economy Sustaining Food, Water, Energy and Justice Unity in Diversity: Paths of Evolution in the Application of Ecological Economics in Latin America Corresponding Author: Bernardo Aguilar-González - Middle American and Caribbean Ecological Economics Society Email: [email protected] 2nd Author: Alberto López Calderón - Universidad Nacional del Litoral - ASAUEE (Asociación Argentino-Uruguaya de Economía Ecológica) 3rd Author: Peter May - Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, and CPDA/UFRRJ - ECOECO (Sociedade Brasileira de Economia Ecológica) 4th Author: Mario Pérez-Rincón - University del Valle, Colombia, and Andean Ecological Economics Society Type of Presentation: Full session Biography: The proponents are presidents of the Latin American regional societies of the ISEE: SMEE (Mesoamerican and Caribbean Society of Ecological Economics), SAEE (Andean Society of Ecological Economics), ECOECO (Brazilian Society of Ecologica Economics) and ASAUEE (Argentinean-Uruguayan Society for Ecological Economics). Together they are the coordinating team for REDIBEC (Iberoamerican Network of Ecological Economics). Abstract: As a postnormal science, ecological economics has developed in Latin America, rather than a unifying theory, a constructivist approach to applied scientific work frequently using what Orlando Fals Borda called participatory action research. This approach is highly influenced by socioecological contexts and has evolved in fairly distinctive characteristics for each of the subregions in which the transdiscipline is applied: Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, the Andean Region, Brazil, and the Rio de la Plata countries. This diversity is represented in the four existing regional societies: ASAUEE, ECOECO, SAEE, and SMEE. It is unified under the umbrella of the Iberoamerican Network of Ecological Economics (REDIBEC). Its journal, the Revista Iberoamericana de Economía Ecológica, shows this unified diversity in approaches. Three of these regions show a stronger influence of political ecology and are studying distributive ecological conflicts. Some are combining these studies with social metabolism analyses to deconstruct the realities of their subregions, highlighting the contradicitons of neoextractivism and the associated roles that these nations play in the new international division of labor. Other regional approaches show a stronger focus on the discussion of the appropriateness of policy instruments such as payments for ecosystem services and other green economy instruments. Some authors in these regions have proposed typologies to distinguish between radical and nonradical approaches to ecological economics. The involvement of nonacademic institutions and civil society organizations in the construction and application of concepts such as ecological debt, food sovereignty, agroecological agriculture, biopiracy, buen vivir, and so on, is another important feature of these regional approaches. This makes Latin America one of the most dynamic and revolutionary regions in the ecological economics world community. This survey brings important implications for ecological economics as an area of inquiry and for the ISEE as a professional organization. Should ecological economics strive for a unifying general theory? Is this unity in diversity in the nature of our transdiscipline? Should it be stimulated? Is the bottom-up construction of science an essential feature for the future of ecological economics? We will try to tackle these questions and more in this session. ISEE 4 ISEE2016/BPE2016 UDC CAUSES June 26–29 ISBPE University of District of Columbia Transforming the Economy Sustaining Food, Water, Energy and Justice Decoupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts: Evidence from Latin America Corresponding Author: Bernardo Aguilar-González - Middle American and Caribbean Ecological Economics Society Email: [email protected] 2nd Author: Mario Pérez-Rincón - University del Valle, Colombia, and Andean Ecological Economics Society 3rd Author: Luciana Togeiro -
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