Documents Jurado, Elena 2 results

"The global financial crisis has dealt a shattering blow to the neoliberal faith in laissez-faire as the dominant guiding principle for the organisation of markets. The crisis has also exposed the fragility of globalisation: as sources of financing dry up, we are witnessing a dramatic collapse in world trade, shrinking capital flows and a worrying rise in anti-immigrant sentiment.

These developments have huge implications for the future of the progressive project. On the one hand, progressive governments and policymakers around the world will need to re-build an international economic and financial order at a time when the tendency is to focus on state-level solutions. On the other hand, as faith in unregulated markets crumbles, they will need to fill an ideological vacuum which risks being taken over by populists.

Meeting these challenges will require a critical but forward-looking debate on the issues and options available for reform. The aim of this “handbook of ideas” is to advance this debate by bringing together short policy recommendations and proposals by leading international thinkers on how progressives should approach the major economic and political challenges thrown up by the global crisis."

"A general model to take into account the distribution of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the water column as well as POPs interaction with the atmosphere and sediments has been developed. The model has been adapted to deal with several families of POPs, including PCBs (Polychlorinated Biphenyls), PAHs (Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons), PBDEs (Polybrominated Dyphenyl Ethers) and PCDD/Fs (Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans). The simulated time series concentrations for one year are in general in good agreement with experimental observations from literature for these families of contaminants. However, specific designed campaigns still need to be performed to validate the model with a set of homogenous forcings concerning air and historical sediment concentrations as well as data on evolution of concentrations in the water column and in the surficial sediment layer. The model is being coupled with a biogeochemical model to assess the influence of phytoplankton, zooplankton and bacteria on the dynamics of POPs. In a further step, the model will be used to analyze the data obtained from different experimental campaigns carried out in Thresholds as well as mesocosm experiments."