Calls for more broad-based, integrated, useful knowledge now abound in the world of global environmental change science. They evidence many scientists’ desire to help humanity confront the momentous biophysical implications of its own actions. But they also reveal a limited conception of social science and virtually ignore the humanities. They thereby endorse a stunted conception of ‘human dimensions’ at a time when the challenges posed by global environmental change are increasing in magnitude, scale and scope. Here, we make the case for a richer conception predicated on broader intellectual engagement and identify some preconditions for its practical fulfilment. Interdisciplinary dialogue, we suggest, should engender plural representations of Earth’s present and future that are reflective of divergent human values and aspirations. In turn, this might insure publics and decision-makers against overly narrow conceptions of what is possible and desirable as they consider the profound questions raised by global environmental change

This paper critically examines new modes of behaviour change promoted by the contemporary British state, providing a critique of libertarian paternalism as an emergent form of government in the UK. We analyse the multivalent principles and mechanisms associated with libertarian paternalism. We consider the contribution of Foucauldian theories of governmentality and psychological power within human geography to a critical analysis of libertarian paternalism. Reflecting on the example of Manual for Streets (DfT, 2007) for re-designing residential roads in the UK, we conclude by explaining why libertarian paternalist policies could lead to the formation of more, or less deliberative public spaces.

This paper explores the relationship between political hierarchy and the complex webs of political organization associated with urban governance. Deploying the concept of metagovernance and a study of urban policy reform in the West Midlands region of England, this paper claims that state and governmental hierarchies continue to have a crucial role in coordinating the activities of governance regimes in the UK. This paper concludes by considering the effects of hierarchical power on the systems of political participation and representation that are associated with urban governance.

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Whitehead, M. (2003). (Re)Analysing the Sustainable City: Nature, Urbanisation and the Regulation of Socio-environmental Relations in the UK. Urban Studies, 40(7), 1183-1206. RAE2008The sustainable city has now become a leading paradigm of urban development throughout the world. Although the practices, discourses and ideologies associated with the sustainable city have been widely disseminated, analyses of sustainable urban development remain surprisingly anodyne. Drawing upon the insights of regulation theory, this paper attempts to develop a critical engagement with the sustainable city as a space of socio-ecological regulation. Focusing upon two examples of sustainable urban development in practice?the first, the struggle over work-place environments in Stoke-on-Trent; and the second, the reinsertion of nature into the Black Country urban region?this paper explores the regulatory geography of the sustainable city and the environmental visions and practices with which it is associated.Peer reviewe

The Breakthrough Listen Initiative is undertaking a comprehensive search for radio and optical signatures from extraterrestrial civilizations. An integral component of the project is the design and implementation of widebandwidth data recorder and signal processing systems. The capabilities of these systems, particularly at radio frequencies, directly determine survey speed; further, given a fixed observing time and spectral coverage, they determine sensitivity as well. Here, we detail the Breakthrough Listen wide-bandwidth data recording system deployed at the 100 m aperture Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. The system digitizes up to 6 GHz of bandwidth at 8 bits for both polarizations, storing the resultant 24 GB s −1 of data to disk. This system is among the highest data rate baseband recording systems in use in radio astronomy. A future system expansion will double recording capacity, to achieve a total Nyquist bandwidth of 12 GHz in two polarizations. In this paper, we present details of the system architecture, along with salient configuration and disk-write optimizations used to achieve high-throughput data capture on commodity compute servers and consumer-class hard disk drives.

This paper explores the contested construction of more relational urban imaginaries within a movement that is simultaneously committed to enhanced systems of care for distant places/others, and intensified regimes of (re)localisation. Transition Culture initiatives explore ?how to prepare for a carbon constrained, energy lean world? and stem from a concern for a post peak-oil global future. While the radical political openness of Transition Culture is in keeping with the vision of a more diverse polity imagined by advocates of relational space (for instance Amin, 2004), we argue that this openness is predicated upon an apolitical pragmatism that masks latent tensions between an environmentally benign localism and an ethics of care at-a-distance. If a transitional ethics of space occupies the uncertain ground between a relational and territorial geographical imagination, the Transition Culture movement provides a rich context within which to explore the ethical conundrums that stem from different tactics of place-making.Peer reviewe

It appears that recent debates within human geography, and the broader social sciences, concerning the more-than-rational constitution of human decision making are now being paralleled by changes in the ways in which public policy makers are conceiving of and addressing human behaviour. This paper focuses on the rise of so-called Behaviour Change policies in public policy in the UK. Behaviour Change policies draw on the behavioural insights being developed within the neurosciences, behavioural economics, and psychology. These new behavioural theories suggest not only that human decision making relies on a previously overlooked irrational component, but that the irrationality of deeision making is sufficiently consistent to enable effective public policy intervention into the varied times and spaees that surround human decisions. This paper charts the emergence of Behaviour Change policies within a range of British public policy sectors, and the political and scientifie antecedents of such policies. Ultimately, the paper develops a geographieally informed, ethical critique of the contemporary Behaviour Change regime that is emerging in the UK. Drawing on thirty in-depth interviews with leading policy executives, and case studies that reflect the application of Behaviour Change policies on the design and constitution of British streets, the analysis claims that current strategies are predicated on a partial reading of new behavioural theories. We argue that this partial reading of human eognition is leading to the construction of public policies that seek to arbitrarily decouple the rational and emotional components of human deeision making with deleterious social and political consequenees.