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The Scarlet - Volume CIV, No. 5 (September 5, 2025)
No full textThe September 5, 2025 edition of The Scarlet (est. 1939), Clark University\u27s student-run newspaper. The Scarlet is intellectually and editorially independent of the University.https://commons.clarku.edu/scarlet/1180/thumbnail.jp
Mediation is What Authoritarian States Make of it: Assessing the Role of National Identity Consolidation in Chinese and Turkish Diplomacy in Russia’s War Against Ukraine
No full textThe absence of ripeness in Russia’s war against Ukraine begs the question of why both China and Türkiye have intervened diplomatically in the conflict. One possible answer resides in the role of mediation and diplomacy in ameliorating the ‘authoritarian control problem.’ Informed by constructivist insights on the co-constitutive relationship between identities and interests, we advance the hypothesis that Chinese and Turkish involvement in the war in Ukraine is primarily explained by its utility for consolidating national identity and, by extension, securing regime authority over domestic society. We test this hypothesis through use of critical event analysis, examining major installments in the trajectory of Chinese and Turkish diplomacy in the war. Our analysis reveals a correlation between Chinese and Turkish mediation and the self-serving process of national identity consolidation. We conclude with consideration of the implications of this finding for this special issue’s theme of ‘peace through victory.
Spatial resolution for forest carbon maps
No full textForests are central to climate solutions, and transparent and accurate data on forest carbon stocks and fluxes are critical for scientists and decision-makers. Satellite-based forest carbon maps have recently proliferated from public agencies such as NASA and the private sector. These maps have tended toward ever-higher spatial resolutions. However, higher spatial resolutions increase the uncertainties of carbon maps, rendering products at very high spatial resolution largely meaningless for forest carbon monitoring
Exploring Emerging Adulthood(s) in India
No full textThe current study investigated emerging adulthood in India using a survey design (N = 342, Mage = 24.33 years) including the Inventory of Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood (Reifman et al., 2007) and the Flourishing scale (Diener et al., 2010). Most participants endorsed the characteristics of emerging adulthood as representative of the current time of their life. Self-focus was the highest rated, followed by emerging adulthood being a time of possibilities, identity explorations, feeling-in-between, instability, and finally, other-focus. Latent Profile Analysis was applied to identify meaningful sub-groups based on similar characteristics and rating patterns. Four profiles were determined for IDEA: stall, moderate, transitional time/relational, and transitional time/self-focus. All profiles scored high on the Flourishing scale. A univariate analysis depicted that well-being levels were significantly different across the profiles. Findings were consistent with previous research and added unique insights indicative of sociocultural differences based on gender, socioeconomic class, and urban-rural locations
The value of a value: The benefits of improved decision making informed by non-market valuation
Get PDFInformation on non-market values has the potential to improve decision making but approaches to measure these values are costly and may be inaccurate. This study develops a Bayesian value of information (VOI) model to evaluate when and if the benefit of conducting a non-market valuation (NMV) study exceeds the cost, and which method of those considered delivers the highest expected net benefit. The approach is illustrated using a water quality improvement decision, with VOI estimated for stated preference, revealed preference and benefit transfer methods, the first two implemented at varying degrees of best practice. Information on the anticipated accuracy of each valuation method is derived via structured expert-elicitation. Results show that the net VOI from NMV studies varies widely and depends on multiple factors, including project scale, the quality of existing knowledge, the accuracy of NMV methods, the type of values measured (e.g., use versus nonuse values) and the costs of applying each method. Findings suggest that familiar narratives regarding the value of NMV estimates may be too simplistic, suggesting that a more nuanced approach to study application is warranted. Although demonstrated for one case study, the approach can be adapted to many decision settings
End of Sri Lanka civil war (2009)
No full textBook Description:
Geography studies the relationship of humans and the natural environment, and these 40 essays examine those geographical events that have most profoundly shaped global society in the opening decades of the 21st century.Explore how these events have transformed how people interact with the environment, from political and economic issues such as elections, market practices, and war, to cultural and social issues such as racism and gender stereotyping at work. Landscapes, regions, cities, nature, society, development – our entire existence – is tied up with space and geography, and thus geography is well-placed to provide important insights and perspectives on the complex events and issues of our time. Geography in the 21st Century studies the world\u27s rapidly changing environments and its shifting economic, political, and cultural landscapes
Building a Geospatial Archive of Species Loss as Response to Local Caribou Extinction
Get PDFThis article offers a critical assessment of Storying Extinction: Responding to the Loss of North Idaho’s Mountain Caribou, a public-facing digital environmental humanities project produced by a team of University of Idaho Library researchers following the 2019 extirpation of mountain caribou from the South Selkirk Mountains of the Inland Northwest (the last caribou to inhabit the contiguous United States). The project has been conceptualized as a community response to the specific species loss, and it takes the form of a deep map, or geospatial archive, where users can inhabit and explore the region’s multispecies landscape in the aftermath of caribou extirpation through trail camera footage, nonfiction narrative, and georeferenced oral history videos of North Idaho community members narrating mountain caribou encounters. This article begins by offering a critical assessment of Storying Extinction’s methodology and formal architecture as it relates to representing human and more-than-human dimensions of species loss within a public and virtual setting. It then explores the importance of material practice for the environmental humanities and the specific contributions that performative cartographic processes can offer traditional EH scholarship. The article concludes by arguing that a multidisciplinary synthesis of GIS, digital, and narrative approaches is critical for communicating and exploring shifting spatial relations in the era of the Anthropocene and sixth mass extinction, and that Storying Extinction’s formal and methodological approaches can serve as a model for environmental humanities projects concerned with extinction geographies and environmental justice. © 2025 Jack Kredell, Chris Lamb, and Devin Becker
Climate Crisis in Freetown: Examining the Flooding Adaptation Strategies of Coastal Informal Settlements, A Case Study of Culvert Community, Freetown, Sierra Leone
No full textChanges in climate have altered rainfall patterns as we once knew them, triggering extreme weather events like floods and affecting millions of people across the world. The impacts of floods are persistent and severe in marginalized coastal communities with poor drainage infrastructure and limited government support. This study examined the flooding adaptation strategies of a coastal informal settlement, a case study of the Culvert Community in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Using a qualitative case study design, I collected data through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and transect walks. Findings revealed that community residents employ various strategies under the PARA framework. Residents “Protect” their community through periodic drainage cleaning exercises, filling sacks with gravel, and using old tires as artificial walls to prevent water from entering their homes, “Accommodate” through modifying housing structures like building multi-story houses with flood-resilient materials, increasing heights of foundations, and building double-staired corrugated zinc houses and creating storage areas by mounting shelves in their rooms, and “Retreat” by taking valuables to family/friends outside the community. The adaptive capacities of residents are shaped by social, cultural, political, and especially economic factors. The study concludes that the impacts of floods reveal not only the rapid shift in climate but also infrastructure deficits, governance issues, compliance challenges, and economic vulnerabilities. To reduce the impacts of recurrent floods in informal coastal communities, the study recommends strengthening institutional support, enhancing community engagement in policy formulation, and investing in flood-resilient infrastructure
Smart Environments: Implications for Environmental Governance
No full textEnvironmental governance has the potential to be significantly transformed by Smart Environments technologies, e.g., technologies that enabled enhanced environmental monitoring and analytic procedures via combinations of information and communication technologies (ICT), conventional monitoring approaches (e.g., remote sensing), and Internet of Things (IoT) applications (e.g., Environmental Sensor Networks (ESNs)). This chapter offers an update of a 2018 paper that assessed these developments through the term “Smart Earth, ” and which likewise engaged the potential implications and pitfalls of new digital technologies for environmental governance. Here, we offer a meta-review of research on what we now call “Smart Environments, ” ranging from ecological informatics to the digital humanities. We pair this with a critical perspective on pathways for evolution in environmental governance frameworks, exploring five key Smart Environments issues relevant to environmental governance: data, real-time regulation, predictive management, open source, and citizen sensing. We conclude with suggestions for future research directions and transdisciplinary conversations about environmental governance in a Smart Environments world. © The Author(s) 2025