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2 - The research strategy: linking the local to the global
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- By Thomas J. Wilbanks, Corporate Research Fellow and Leader of Global Change and Developing country Programs Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)., Robert W. Kates, University Professor Brown University, David P. Angel, Associate Professor of Geography and Dean of Graduate Studies and Research Clark University, Susan L. Cutter, Carolina Distinhuished Professor University of South Carolina, William E. Easterling, Professor of Geography and Earth System Science Pennsylvania State University, Michael W. Mayfield, Professor Department of Geography and Planning, Appalachian State University
- Association of American Geographers GCLP Research Team
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- Book:
- Global Change and Local Places
- Published online:
- 31 July 2009
- Print publication:
- 26 June 2003, pp 27-54
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Summary
In the beginning …
The Global Change and Local Places project of the Association of American Geographers originated in a 1992 meeting at which participants formulated three propositions:
The grand query regarding the ways scale matters in understanding global climate change would benefit from detailed case studies of localities that were linked to scholars active in climate change-related research at global and national scales;
Such case studies could constitute a basis for designing a research protocol for use in other local case studies, thereby helping build a body of empirical research that could serve as a basis for developing a bottom-up paradigm for global climate change research to complement the dominant top-down paradigm; and
These locality studies should be based at universities whose faculty possessed detailed, long-term knowledge of their local areas, in some cases engaging scholars in global change research who might otherwise not normally participate in a large-scale research project.
Funding for the project outlined at the 1992 meeting was sought and eventually obtained from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Mission to Planet Earth Program (subsequently renamed Destination Earth). Intensive work on the project began in 1996 and continued through 2001. The several rounds of proposal writing that preceded funding refined the theoretical rationale for the project and its central components: four study areas located in Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania; and three cross-cutting modules devoted respectively to estimating local greenhouse gas emissions, understanding the forces driving those emissions, and assessing local emission reduction potentials.
7 - Changing places and changing emissions: comparing local, state, and United States emissions
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- By William E. Easterling, Professor of Geography and Earth Sytem Science Pennsylvania State University, Colin Polsky, NOAA/UCAR Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow with the Research and Assessment Systems for Sustainability program Harvard University, Douglas G. Goodin, Associate Professor of Geography Kansas State University, Michael W. Mayfield, Professor Department of Geography and Planning, Appalachian State University, William A. Muraco, Research Professor & Professor Emeritus University of Toledo, Brent Yarnal, Professor of Geography and Director of the Center for Integrated Assessment Pennsylvania State University
- Association of American Geographers GCLP Research Team
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- Book:
- Global Change and Local Places
- Published online:
- 31 July 2009
- Print publication:
- 26 June 2003, pp 143-157
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Summary
The greenhouse gas emission inventories that currently inform abatement policy discussions have been developed almost exclusively from national-scale data, leavened only rarely with state or provincial inventories. Yet much of the capacity to abate greenhouse gas emissions necessarily resides within local institutions and communities. Policy may be debated and established at national and global scales, but it can be implemented only primarily by local action. This chapter examines how much information is lost when greenhouse gas emissions are estimated only at national scales (the United States in this instance) rather than at state or local levels, as in the four Global Change and Local Places study areas. That information may be critical to linking global and national policies to local actors and behavior.
Comparison of differences in the composition of greenhouse gas emission sources at three nested scales (national, state, local) for the four Global Change and Local Places study sites reveals good agreement in the by-gas composition of greenhouse gas emissions among national, state, and local inventories. Considerable differences are evident, however, in the by-source composition of greenhouse gas emissions among national, state, and local inventories. Geographical sovereignty is evident with respect to the composition of emissions, but geographical sovereignty does not hold for the sources of those emissions, suggesting that continuous monitoring of state and local emissions sources is needed to track geographical and temporal deviations from national trends.
Fugitive emissions and global perspectives
Human-induced greenhouse gases, once released into the atmosphere, recognize no boundaries.
4 - Northwestern North Carolina: local diversity in an era of change
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- By Neal G. Lineback, Professor of Geography Department of Geography and Planning, Appalachian State University, Michael W. Mayfield, Professor Department of Geography and Planning, Appalachian State University, Jennifer DeHart, Doctoral candidate Department of Geography, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- Association of American Geographers GCLP Research Team
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- Book:
- Global Change and Local Places
- Published online:
- 31 July 2009
- Print publication:
- 26 June 2003, pp 79-102
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Summary
Northwestern North Carolina offers a distinctive combination of economic development characteristic of the New South in the United States, extensive forest management, and intensive tourism. For project purposes, the region afforded opportunities to examine the effects of the population and affluence dimensions of the I = PAT+formulation, to consider the relative importance of forest carbon sinks in locality contributions to greenhouse gas emissions abatement, and to consider differences between local and statewide perspectives on greenhouse gas emission questions.
Greenhouse gas emissions in the Northwestern North Carolina study area originate primarily from a relatively small number of utility and industrial point sources, but affluence-related emissions from the transportation and residential sectors are also notable components of the region's mix of emissions sources. A surprisingly heavy reliance on local biomass waste by small manufacturing plants substitutes for the use of fossil fuels in the region, a facet of the global array of fuel and emissions issues perhaps evident in other forested regions.
Landscape, life, and livelihood
The study area covers parts of the Piedmont Plateau and Blue Ridge mountains with approximately two thirds lying in the Piedmont (Figure 2.2), a region characterized by rolling hills and gently sloping interfluves, with local relief typically less than 50 m (165 ft). The Blue Ridge portion of the study area is a heavily dissected mountainous region with most elevations lying between 900 and 1,500 m (2950–4925 ft) and with local relief often exceeding 300 m (985 ft).