Many industries in California are difficult to decarbonize, making carbon capture and storage (CCS) essential to reach net zero. California has committed to deliver an enormous 100 thousand tons per year of carbon storage by 2045. Despite much interest in carbon sequestration, there are currently no active geologic carbon capture...
In some legislative bodies, the use of terms like climate change and global warming is frequently seen as taboo. In the United States, voters who identify as right-leaning have reported little concern about the environment or climate change. This lack of interest is mirrored by Republican legislators who often publicly...
This research explores the prospects of legislation in Michigan to authorize statewide use of Overdose Fatality Review Teams (OFRTs) to address the escalating opioid crisis. OFRTs consist of multidisciplinary teams that collaborate for overdose prevention. These teams operate on a local to statewide level and are comprised of individuals from...
The law commonly referred to as Title IX, which was passed in 1972, called for an end to sex-based discrimination in educational and federally-funded settings. Before long, it became particularly associated with the quest for equality for women’s sports. As Title IX was a major catalyst in advancing and even...
In 2021, Oregon’s legislature passed House Bill 2021 with relative ease. House Bill 2021 is a mandate for the state’s two largest utilities to reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation on a decreasing scale, reaching 100% below baseline levels by 2040. This ambitious piece of legislation, meant to reduce the...
Greenwashing is a relatively novel, diversely interpreted, and under-researched social phenomenon. Therefore, studying greenwashing concepts, methodological yardsticks, and the dynamic behind its pervasiveness provides an excellent opportunity to improve our understanding of it, refine our detection tools, and illuminate its influencing factors and impacts on society. This study aims to:...
Each year, numerous people attend cultural events in the United States, be they large celebrations such as New Orleans’ Mardi Gras or one of many numerous Cinco de Mayo festivals throughout the country or smaller, more specialized events. Many times, the cultural aspects take a backseat to profits, which leads...
Because the environmental threats are becoming global in scope, international cooperation and global governance issues are in the spotlight. The most controversial environmental law and policy problems arise in the areas where no individual state has sole responsibility for governing, "global commons." Scholars believe that the best way to deal...
Solar energy systems purchased in the United States have increased tenfold since 2010. As solar photovoltaics (PV) markets expand, solar energy becomes more affordable. In the last five years, the price of solar has decreased by 40 percent. Despite solar PV becoming more affordable and rising consumer demand, between 50...
The benefits of electrification are widely discussed in energy and development literature, but little research to date has studied the impacts of household electricity access on women in particular. Women make up the majority of the world’s poor and are also disproportionately affected by energy poverty because of their social...
There are currently 43 countries which have adopted some kind of carbon pricing policy – either adopted a carbon tax or entered a cap–and–trade, while the remaining countries have not. This has created significant diversity in the world with regard to climate change mitigation. There is thus a need to...
The last decade has seen a drastic interest in microgrids throughout the world. Even though this trend might seem to be just another technological solution in the energy sector, it is a part of a greater transition from a centralized energy system to a more decentralized one. However, unlike most...
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world with 35% of its people live below the poverty line. 70% of Afghans have no access to electricity, and 90% of those without electricity live in the rural areas. Since 2002, more than $4 billion have been spent on Afghanistan’s...
The research conducted here originated with the question of what caused the massive build-up of nuclear arsenals, which included ever larger and more powerful bombs and delivery systems from them, in the United States and the Soviet Union, even though the consensus beforehand was that nuclear energy should be prohibited...
Nuclear energy enjoyed widespread support in the United States during its initial decades and has seen extensive study as a potential means of combating contemporary energy issues such as climate change and alternative transportation fuels. Despite the potential contribution to solving these challenges, the industry has been largely stagnant since...
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a group formed in 1960 and often blamed for the oil shock of 1973, is treated as a cartel that aims to limit oil production and hold oil price at a level above market equilibrium. Recent research has offered a counter theory that...
Researchers and policy-makers interested in assessing public communication to better inform the decision-making process are increasingly utilizing data harvested from social media. Twitter is one of the largest online sources of near-instantaneous information about a myriad of topics socially relevant in the public sphere. Renewable energy (RE) is a socially...
Cities of the world today house more than half the world’s population, contribute to 80 percent of the global GDP, consume approximately 70 percent of the global energy and produce 70 percent of the greenhouse gases produced worldwide (Floater et al., 2014; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014). City governments...
A prevalent assumption among those engaging in secessions is that their quality of life will improve once they establish their own nation. This study examined this assumption by looking at how a successful secession impacted peoples’ quality of life. Despite the sheer number of active secessionist movements, very few actually...
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DavidBernell
A prevalent assumption among those engaging in secessions is that their
Recent trends in energy have lead to an increased push for the efficient use of energy with a focus on improving the energy efficiency of household appliances. Electric resistance heating represents a highly inefficient technology that still sees regular use. Previous literature has paid relatively little attention to the heating...
Net energy metering (NEM), the diffusion of residential photovoltaics (PV), and the smart grid transition are three accelerants of change that impact the rate of transitory change in the electric power grid system. Institutional relationships that underpin the old central station model now appear to be fracturing under the weight...
Rural electrification is today an important element of countries economic development around the world. Access to electricity is believed to alleviate poverty, and therefore is emphasized in the United Nations’ strategies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In this spirit, Togo started in 2012 a new rural electrification program...
The absence of federal climate legislation in the United States has led to a growth of sub-federal and non-governmental programs to combat greenhouse gas emissions. One such program, the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) seeks to mitigate greenhouse emissions from higher education through the voluntary commitment of...
This study investigates the barriers faced by solar water heating (SWH) in the state of Oregon. SWH is a renewable energy technology (RET) that serves a functional purpose by heating water from a renewable resource (the sun) for practical commercial or domestic applications. Oregon currently experiences a low level of...
Electricity is a vital energy source for modern life, and is used in almost every aspect of daily life. United States electricity consumption totaled nearly 3,886,403 gigawatt hours in 2011. Residential electricity consumption accounts for 37 percent of total electricity consumption in the United States. Between 1990 and 2007, the...
In 2008, China released a new green initiative, the Green Securities Policy, to increase the sustainability of Chinese capital markets. One of the integral components of the policy is the new environmental disclosure regulation which prescribes Chinese listed companies in the 14 highly polluting industries to report required environmental information....
Over the past ten years, reports of piracy and other forms of maritime violence have been dramatically on the rise. As these reports increase, so too does international attention toward how to solve this. This thesis examines the development of cooperative maritime security efforts in both Southeast Asia and the...
As time continues, the issue of full European Union membership for Norway becomes a more pertinent issue. The EU has long awaited the membership of Norway, but unfortunately the Nordic country has decided to remain independent. Norway’s historical past has led many Norwegians to believe their country is not ready...
Renewable energy policy serves as a tool to combat the hazards that fossil energy sources pose to human health and the global environment. It is also being used to achieve additional social and economic goals alongside environmental policy, namely, bringing equitable liberation to populations disproportionately affected by increasing global temperatures....
Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources has been identified by governments throughout the world as a key strategy for reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing sustainability and resiliency, and supporting local economies. Despite these benefits, this transition has been slow in the United States, causing some...
In 2016, the state of Oregon passed landmark legislation that doubles the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard and eliminates the use of coal-fired electricity for the state’s two major electric utilities by 2030. The legislation was the first of its kind in the country to outright ban the use of a...
Humanitarian intervention by the United States has increased since the end of the Cold War. This thesis examines the cases of Somalia, Rwanda, Libya and Syria as to explore why the US chooses to offer various amounts of aid to some failed or fragile nation states and not others. Rwanda...
The purpose of this study is to analyze the events that occurred throughout the Egyptian Revolution from January 2010 to February 2010 through pragmatic humanism. Tweets will be looked at from the book Tweets from Tahrir to show how the process unfolded. Building on the previous research, the tweets will...
The purpose of this collection is to piece together a series of events in Argentina's history that resulted in the present day workers movements. Upon completion of an internship in Rosario, Argentina, an interest was sparked in learning more about the movements of unemployed workers through social autonomy. The economic...
In The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria argues that there has emerged "too
much democracy" and too little liberty in the world today, and suggests this trend may
lead to a crisis of belief in democracy. However, what Zakaria calls "democratization" in
many cases does not lead to democracy.
The...