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3 - Global change and Southwestern Kansas: local emissions and non-local determinants
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- By John Harrington, Professor and Head of the Department of Geography Kansas State University, David E. Kromm, Professor Emeritus of Geography Kansas State University, Lisa M. B. Harrington, Associate Professor of Geography Kansas State University, Douglas G. Goodin, Associate Professor of Geography Kansas State University, Stephen E. White, Interim Dean College of Arts and Sciences, Kansas 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 57-78
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Summary
Landscape, life, and livelihood
The Southwestern Kansas study area (Figure 2.1) lies within the American High Plains, a semi-arid region west of the 100° meridian that extends northward from West Texas through Kansas and Nebraska to the Dakotas. Characterized by nineteenth century explorers as the ‘Great American Desert,’ the first European-American landholders introduced cattle ranching to this nearly treeless shortgrass prairie. Through the Homesteading Act and the efforts of railroads, much of the High Plains was settled by crop farmers in the late nineteenth century. The area of land successfully cultivated varied with precipitation cycles, however, and the particularly long dry spell that occurred in the 1930s resulted in land abandonment through much of the region, lending the High Plains a new name: The Dust Bowl.
The study site lies at the center of the High Plains and in the heart of the former Dust Bowl. Its six counties encompass an area of approximately 14,120 square kilometers (5,450 square miles), inhabited by slightly more than 90,000 people and over 900,000 cattle. The three principal settlements are Garden City (2000 population of 28,451), Dodge City (25,276), and Liberal (19,666). Southwestern Kansas lies at relatively high elevation: 610–1,070 m (2,000–3,500 ft) above sea level, but contains little internal topographical relief.
The study area's climate is semi-arid with mean monthly temperatures ranging from -1 to +27°C (30–80°F). Precipitation averages less than 58 cm (23 in) per year, most of which falls as spring and summer rain (Goodin et al. 1995).
8 - Explaining greenhouse gas emissions from localities
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- By David P. Angel, Associate Professor of Geography and Dean of Graduate Studies and Research Clark University, Samuel A. Aryeetey-Attoh, Professor of Geography Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toledo, Jennifer DeHart, Doctoral candidate Department of Geography, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, David E. Kromm, Professor Emeritus of Geography Kansas State University, Stephen E. White, Interim Dean College of Arts and Sciences, Kansas 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 158-170
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Summary
The Global Change and Local Places project case studies foster robust explanations of local, national, and international trends in greenhouse gas emissions. Knowing the specific events and processes responsible for changes in greenhouse gas emissions in particular places (sometimes called the proximate or intermediate forces of human-induced changes in the global environment) broadens understanding of possibilities for abatement or adaptation. Examples of proximate forces include the opening of a coal-fired power plant, or the growth of two-earner households and associated increases in automobile use. Proximate forces cannot be studied in isolation from the social processes that underlie them, the mechanisms and trends often called the driving forces of global change. Focusing on proximate forces and driving forces deepens understanding of greenhouse gas emission dynamics by emphasizing the degree to which the proximate forces that are so often the focus of policy responses are themselves determined by powerful social forces that policy makers often ignore.
The four Global Change and Local Places study areas were used as natural laboratories for teasing out details regarding the operations of proximate and driving forces. Case studies often provide contexts in which analysis and explanation are less refractory than they can be over larger areas (Box 8.1). Indeed, the distinctly different trajectories of greenhouse gas emissions for the four Global Change and Local Places study areas illustrate the ways emissions and changes in emissions over time vary in response to the different kinds of economic change that have occurred in the four areas.
10 - Reducing greenhouse gas emissions: learning from local analogs
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- By C. Gregory Knight, Professor of Geography Pennsylvania State University, Susan L. Cutter, Carolina Distinhuished Professor University of South Carolina, Jennifer DeHart, Doctoral candidate Department of Geography, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Andrea S. Denny, Environmental Protection Specialist in the State and Local Climate Change Program United States Environmental Protection Agency, David G. Howard, Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning University of Toledo, Sylvia-Linda Kaktins, Doctoral candidate Kansas State University, David E. Kromm, Professor Emeritus of Geography Kansas State University, Stephen E. White, Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Kansas State University, 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 192-214
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Summary
Global change is rooted in localities. The impacts of global warming, as well as adaptations to warming and attempts to ameliorate it, will occur in communities at local and regional scales. In some respects global climate change is analogous to other societal dilemmas. Local communities contribute to large, intractable problems; local initiatives may arise in the absence of larger efforts to address the problems; and localities grapple with policies and regulations imposed upon them from afar. Within each Global Change and Local Places study area, there are human–environment analogs that yield insights into how greenhouse gas mitigation could proceed at locality scale.
Earlier chapters have documented the import of understanding the driving forces that generate regional greenhouse gas emissions, tracked changes in emissions through time, and assessed greenhouse gas abatement potentials in the Global Change and Local Places study areas. Examining the structures and dynamics of societal attempts to mitigate threats analogous to global warming offers fresh insights for science and policy formulation. Whereas prior work has focused on using analogs to anticipate impacts and adaptation, this chapter emphasizes analogy to understand mitigation processes. For purposes of this analysis, adaptation denotes the array of societal coping responses to an environmental threat such as climate change. Mitigation means efforts to abate the threat itself, such as limiting the release of greenhouse gases or acting to absorb them.