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The Philippines, and in particular its urban agglomerations (Manila, but not only), is characterized by innumerable social and environmental problems. These are largely due to recent history, from colonization onwards, to a socio-political system that has never found stability, but also to environmental impacts of the country's development, such as pronounced deforestation, massive urbanization and growth linked to the use of fossil fuels. In this framework, the role of climate is really important. The Philippines is located in a region of the globe strongly influenced by monsoons, which bring dry seasons (with frequent heat waves) alternating with wet ones with heavy rainfall. In addition, the region is often hit by typhoons, some of them very intense (super-typhoons), and the sea-level rise and storm surges associated with intense events cause severe flooding on the coasts of this archipelago. During recent decades, anthropogenic climate change has generally intensified all these phenomena, with even very serious consequences on territories that can often be considered fragile and on a very exposed population, in the countryside and on the coasts, but especially in urban centres. The environmental and social degradation we are witnessing in the Philippines certainly calls for systemic thinking like that of Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato si' (Pope Francis 2015). It is a matter of adapting to a changed climate that will not return to the pre-industrial conditions, while at the same time strongly mitigating with a drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. But here, as in the world's other fragile states, more than anything else there is a need for the developed countries, and the ones that created the problems related to climate change, to reach out to the Philippines with support of international cooperation to make the whole world a fair, more prosperous, safe and happy place to live. In this paper, I will attempt to describe the Philippines' climate and its recent changes, the impacts of these on the territories, the consequences on Philippine society, and the challenges of ecological conversion in this situation of environmental degradation.

The Brookhaven National Laboratory pulp and paper industry process model is used to project market penetration of energy conserving technologies and purchased energy for the paper industry. The risk adjusted discount rate concept is incorporated to penalize the capital costs of unproven technologies. For this analysis, the production-cost minimization objective is relaxed to explore near-minimum cost industry alternatives. Allowing paper production to include all possibilities within 1% of the absolute minimum costs results in very significant variations in both projected market penetration levels and energy use. Industry model results relying solely on the cost minimization objective for market penetration and energy demand forecasts may be highly suspect.

Africa’s development challenges may be summed up as follows: investment in human development including nutrition, health, education, water, and sanitation; increasing agricultural productivity by smallholder farmers; attaining an adequate threshold of infrastructure: roads, railroads, energy, ports, and communications; and finally gaining access to global markets and fair trade.

Linac Energy Management (LEM) is a control system program which calculates, and optionally implements, magnet setpoint settings (BDESs) following a change in Energy (such as a change in the number, phase, and amplitude of active klystrons). The change is made relative to those magnets’ existing BDES setpoints by a factor encoding the change in energy. LEM is necessary because changes in the number, phase, and amplitude of the active klystrons (the so-called "Klystron complement") change the beam’s rigidity, and therefore, to maintain constant optics, one has to change focusing gradients and bend fields. This paper describes the basic process and some of the implementation lessons learned for LEM at the LCLS. Proceedings of the 1st International Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC2010, Kyoto, Japan

This presentation gives an overview of the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM CRSP). The SANREM CRSP utilizes a systems approach to promote many goals including the improvement of agricultural productivity, the empowerment of smallholders, and the promotion of sustainable development. This presentation shows the different components, partners, and structure of the SANREM CRSP, the extent of capacity building efforts, and the long-term research activities for Phase IV. ME (Management Entity)

This paper discusses the process of wind model validation against field measurements.

Evictions occur when a landlord expels renters from residing in property the landlord owns. Recent data suggest that approximately 40% of residential households in California from years 2012 to 2016 are occupied by renters. The prevalence of renting along with increasing awareness of evictions make studying the causes of eviction a topic of interest for public officials, scholars, housing service providers, and the renter population among others. High cost of living is a direct common cause of evictions across the US. This paper examines and presents a study on the connection between energy burden (how much a single household pays for electricity out of its total household income) and eviction rate. Analysis relies on the application of quantitative research methods using census tract level data from 2012 to 2016 over the service territory of Southern California Edison (SCE). This study uses models that account for both time-variant and time-invariant effects of other key cost and household demographic variables on eviction rate. By taking this approach, the author attempts to separate an unbiased effect of energy burden, which could inform predictions about whether high energy burden is generally accompanied by high eviction rates. Preliminary results suggest that there is a borderline significant positive correlation between energy burden and the unobserved time-invariant census tract level heterogeneity that contributes to higher eviction rates.

Report and presentation completed by students enrolled in PA 5242: Environmental Planning, Policy, and DM, taught by Carissa Schively Slotterback in spring 2015. ; This project was completed as part of a year-long partnership between the City of Rosemount and the University of Minnesota’s Resilient Communities Project (http://www.rcp.umn.edu). As more extreme weather incidents have ravaged the United States in recent years, many local governments are taking a closer look at just how resilient their communities are to the changing global climate. The goal of this project was to create a climate adaptation plan aimed at strengthening resilience to climatic impacts on built, natural, economic, and social systems. In collaboration with city project lead Jason Lindahl, a planner for the City of Rosemount, a team of students in PA 5242: Environmental Planning, Policy, and Decision-Making analyzed data from the Minnesota Department of Health’s Vulnerability Assessment and case studies of two different regions in the United States and made recommendations for how the City of Rosemount can use a vulnerability assessment to inform activities that improve the City’s adaptability in the face of climate change. A final report and presentation from the project are available. ; This project was supported by the Resilient Communities Project (RCP), a program at the University of Minnesota that convenes the wide-ranging expertise of U of M faculty and students to address strategic local projects that advance community resilience and sustainability. RCP is a program of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA). More information at http://www.rcp.umn.edu

Experimental evidence is mounting for enhanced stability against pulsed heat loads in cable-in-conduit conductors brought about by transient pressure waves in helium. It has been suggested that this enhancement derives from improved heat transfer caused by pressure induced flow and from extra heat absorption capability due to the thermodynamic path followed by helium in the course of pressure rise and release. A basic conductor design is given to take advantage of these phenomena yet avoiding the difficulties encountered in the force-cooled conductor presently under development. The design is discussed in terms of manufacturability, performance, and applicability in large fusion magnets. A few small scale test conductors have been constructed. Preliminary test results on the performance of one of them is included. Possible variations offered by the flexibility of the basic design is also discussed.

The phenomenon of ���climate change litigation��� has come to the fore in recent years as campaigners and activists have become increasingly frustrated at a perceived lack of action on the part of the international community and individual states in terms of getting to grips with the climate change problem. Existing legal mechanisms available to private parties and other bodies, such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been used as a means of endeavouring to hold governments and polluters to account for the effects of climate change. The physical impact of climate change on life and property has been thrown into sharp relief by floods and wildfires in all parts of the globe. One aspect of climate change litigation focuses on the role that tort might play in attempting to secure compensation for at least part of such losses. No one would pretend that actions of this nature can actually solve the problem, but they may serve to shame polluters and so forth by establishing an actual link between their activities and the tangible consequences of climate change. However, such actions raise formidable causation difficulties which have, until recently, rendered such claims outlandish and highly speculative. Nevertheless, developments in extreme weather event attribution may be about to reduce the conceptual and theoretical barriers to bringing such claims. In this article it is argued that, from a UK perspective, existing causality tests may be capable of accommodating such evidence, although, one must be aware of countervailing policy considerations which may inhibit the courts from adopting such an approach. Keywords: Climate change, climate change litigation, attribution science, tort, causation ALJ 2021, 268���284