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Extreme climate events are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change. Vulnerability to extremes is the result of three components: exposure to hazards, sensitivity of the system, and capacity to adapt. A large-scale qualitative study of rural vulnerability to climate extremes in Argentina, Canada, and Colombia demonstrates the political-economic root causes of vulnerability in each context. Structural causes are difficult to identify using quantitative indices and deductive metrics alone, but qualitative approaches can help identify key drivers of vulnerability at a deeper level. Technology and diversification are insufficient to address such structural or "deep" vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article meets methodological and theoretical difficulties in using social indicators to assess vulnerability to climate change and contributes to enhance methodological strategies for addressing this phenomenon. Most of the studies of vulnerability to climate change define vulnerability as an expression of three dimensions: the exposures of the systems to climatic events, the sensitivity to these risk conditions and the adaptive capacity to cope with the impacts. These three dimensions enable the operationalization of the concept trough biophysical and social indicators whose main purpose is to quantify the phenomenon and establish causal relationships between events and resources. From a different wiew of this conceptualization, another way of understanding vulnerability is to understand it as a dynamic process strongly shaped by social, cultural, economic, political and institutional conditions. From this approach, climate change is suposed to impact on previous and long-term vulnerabilities mainly defined by access to resources. Vulnerability is then defined as a complex process which does not support quantifications or generalizations between causes and effects as those proposed in indicators systems. Based upon a research experience in Mendoza, Argentina, and Chinchiná, in Colombia this article demonstrates the limitations of the use of indicators of social vulnerability to applied social research. Through the analysis of public statistical data in Argentina and Colombia and in-depth interviews in the study areas, the authors reconstruct the difficulties faced in the building process of these indicators to demonstrate the weaknesses of each indicator to account the complexity of vulnerability. Income, land tenure, access to water, technology, infrastructure, technical assistance, education and associativism indicators particularly discussed. At the end, the authors presents an alternative proposal to adress the complexities of vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses vulnerability to Global Environmental Change of rural producers of Mendoza River basin, in Argentina. Vulnerability is a complex phenomenon that is generated at the intersection of environmental, social and economic dimensions. From a qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with producers of the study area, the paper explain the processes affecting actors (exposures / sensitivities) and the practices (adaptations) they develop to address these phenomena. The main idea is that hydroclimatological events act on a number of previous, long-term vulnerabilities defined by access to resources. Also it shows that resources are critical to the development of adaptive capacities, but finds that "availability of resources" and "capacity building" are not phenomena always related by a linear and direct causality. That is, sometimes the mere existence of resources is not enough to foster adaptive capacities. Noting some capacities gaps, the article identifies critical factors that could improve rural actors' capacities and could strengthen them to cope with future global climate events and other factors that affect their living conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the essentials of a political program for the resolution of conflicts, commonly called mediation. Although in general the creation of these programs aims at generating a positive effect on the justice system relieving the overload of the courts; the case that we are dealing with here is not designed to achieve these results. On the contrary, by postulating a model of ideal society, what is being proposed is to generate a socio-cultural change from the subjectivities, developing in the subjects some given values. We call this proposal for change project of moralization. From a perspective that emphasizes the analysis of practices and representations of the State, the article deals with describing and analyzing critically the scopes encompassed in this project of social engineering for moralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban environment is characterised by many pressures caused by population growth, transport (and its related emissions), and the damage to green areas. Yet, there is a variety of ecosystem services available in urban areas, which may be deployed to ameliorate the current problems and foster their sustainability. This paper reviews the role of ecosystem services as tools for sustainability, based on an urban setting. It also describes a series of multi-country case studies, where an assessment of their functions using a set of benefits valuation approaches such as health benefits, economic benefits, social benefits and benefits to climate resilience, are provided, along with an appraisal of their role in up-keeping the overall quality of the urban environment in the studied areas. Policy recommendations aimed at enhancing the role of ecosystem services, and fostering sustainability in the sampled sites -and beyond-are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]