Edward L. Miles

Preparing for Climatic Change: The Water, Salmon, and Forests of the Pacific Northwest

The impacts of year-to-year and decade-to-decade climatic variations on some of the Pacific Northwests key natural resources can be quantified to estimate sensitivity to regional climatic changes expected as part of anthropogenic global climatic change. Warmer, drier years, often associated with El Niño events and/or the warm phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, tend to be associated with below-average snowpack, streamflow, and flood risk, below-average salmon survival, below-average forest growth, and above-average risk of forest fire. During the 20th century, the region experienced a warming of 0.8 °C. Using output from eight climate models, we project a further warming of 0.5–2.5 °C (central estimate 1.5 °C) by the 2020s, 1.5–3.2°C (2.3 °C) by the 2040s, and an increase in precipitation except in summer. The foremost impact of a warming climate will be the reduction of regional snowpack, which presently supplies water for ecosystems and human uses during the dry summers. Our understanding of past climate also illustrates the responses of human management systems to climatic stresses, and suggests that a warming of the rate projected would pose significant challenges to the management of natural resources. Resource managers and planners currently have few plans for adapting to or mitigating the ecological and economic effects of climatic change.

An approach to designing a national climate service

Climate variability and change are considerably important for a wide range of human activities and natural ecosystems. Climate science has made major advances during the last two decades, yet climate information is neither routinely useful for nor used in planning. What is needed is a mechanism, a national climate service (NCS), to connect climate science to decision-relevant questions and support building capacity to anticipate, plan for, and adapt to climate fluctuations. This article contributes to the national debate for an NCS by describing the rationale for building an NCS, the functions and services it would provide, and how it should be designed and evaluated. The NCS is most effectively achieved as a federal interagency partnership with critically important participation by regional climate centers, state climatologists, the emerging National Integrated Drought Information System, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Regional Integrated Sciences Assessment (RISA) teams in a sustained relationship with a wide variety of stakeholders. Because the NCS is a service, and because evidence indicates that the regional spatial scale is most important for delivering climate services, given subnational geographical/geophysical complexity, attention is focused on lessons learned from the University of Washington Climate Impacts Groups 10 years of experience, the first of the NOAA RISA teams.

Pressures on the United Nations convention on the law of the sea of 1982 arising from new fisheries conflicts: The problem of straddling stocks

Abstract A growing number of coastal states believe the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea did not adequately provide for straddling stocks, those stocks in and adjacent to the EEZ. Important conflicts concerning such stocks are described in the Northwest Atlantic, Southwest Atlantic, the East Central and Southeast Pacific, and in the Northeast Pacific (Bering Sea). After considering applicable international law, a proposed approach to resolution of this problem is discussed, drawing on the 1982 Convention, prior treaty provisions, and earlier proposals concerning fisheries. The problem of new entrants and other third parties is mentioned as especially difficult.

United Nations resolutions on driftnet fishing: An unsustainable precedent for high seas and coastal fisheries management

This article argues that the 1989 and 1991 driftnet resolutions (44/225 and 46/215) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly recommending termination of all high seas deployment of large pelagic driftnets are flawed by procedural and substantive errors. The resolutions were not supported by the best scientific evidence available and are not consistent with the principles of high seas fishing in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The article reviews the political pressures, mostly from the United States but with significant input from South Pacific nations, that were largely responsible for the resolutions, and offers detailed descriptions and evaluations of observational data on the key North Pacific squid driftnet fisheries. Most of these data were ignored by the UN General Assembly, despite their availability and their evidence that high seas bycatch rates in the squid fisheries are among the lowest in any known fishery, whatever the gear. The final section of the article di...

Transgenic pig carrying green fluorescent proteasomes

Among its many functions, the ubiquitin–proteasome system regulates substrate-specific proteolysis during the cell cycle, apoptosis, and fertilization and in pathologies such as Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and liver cirrhosis. Proteasomes are present in human and boar spermatozoa, but little is known about the interactions of proteasomal subunits with other sperm proteins or structures. We have created a transgenic boar with green fluorescent protein (GFP) tagged 20S proteasomal core subunit α-type 1 (PSMA1-GFP), hypothesizing that the PSMA1-GFP fusion protein will be incorporated into functional sperm proteasomes. Using direct epifluorescence imaging and indirect immunofluorescence detection, we have confirmed the presence of PSMA1-GFP in the sperm acrosome. Western blotting revealed a protein band corresponding to the predicted mass of PSMA1-GFP fusion protein (57 kDa) in transgenic spermatozoa. Transgenic boar fertility was confirmed by in vitro fertilization, resulting in transgenic blastocysts, and by mating, resulting in healthy transgenic offspring. Immunoprecipitation and proteomic analysis revealed that PSMA1-GFP copurifies with several acrosomal membrane-associated proteins (e.g., lactadherin/milk fat globule E8 and spermadhesin alanine-tryptophan-asparagine). The interaction of MFGE8 with PSMA1-GFP was confirmed through cross-immunoprecipitation. The identified proteasome-interacting proteins may regulate sperm proteasomal activity during fertilization or may be the substrates of proteasomal proteolysis during fertilization. Proteomic analysis also confirmed the interaction/coimmunoprecipitation of PSMA1-GFP with 13/14 proteasomal core subunits. These results demonstrate that the PSMA1-GFP was incorporated in the assembled sperm proteasomes. This mammal carrying green fluorescent proteasomes will be useful for studies of fertilization and wherever the ubiquitin–proteasome system plays a role in cellular function or pathology.

Cooperation or Conflict in a Changing Arctic

The possibility of conflict among nations has dominated discussions of the future of the Arctic. Are there no opportunities for cooperation? This article explores the avenues and incentives for Arctic cooperation through the common issues outlined in the strategy statements of the five coastal Arctic states. Incentives to cooperate can be found in all the thematic areas examined: sovereignty, scientific research, resource development, shipping, and environmental concerns. Cooperation is already occurring on some salient issues. Additional cooperation may occur as issues become increasingly pressing. From this perspective, Arctic conflict is by no means inevitable. Numerous avenues for cooperation exist.

Concepts, approaches, and applications in sea use planning and management

Abstract This article discusses some essential concepts and approaches for sea use planning and management that are taken from the general literature on planning, management, and policy implementation. It is divided into two parts. The first part consists of an eclectic and wide‐ranging survey of the literature on planning, management, and policy analysis in general use. The second part contains applications to the analysis of problems of multiple‐use conflicts since this is a difficult and growing problem that sea use planners face. The perspective adopted in this paper is that of a senior policy analyst attached to the prime ministers or presidents planning staff/office. As such, the focus is on the interests of the whole nation and across all marine sectors.

Global Ocean Politics: The Decision Process at the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, 1973-1982

Preface. Part I: The Anatomy of UNCLOS III. I. Introduction. II. The Evolution of the Issues in UNCLOS III. III. Questions and Issues in the Analysis of Global Lawmaking Conferences. Part II: A Sequential and Thematic Analysis of Phase I of UNCLOS III, 1973-76. IV. The Conference: Phase I, 1973-74. V. The Conference: Phase I, Continued, 1975. VI. The Conference: Phase I, Concluded, 1976. VII. A Thematic Analysis of UNCLOS III, 1974-76. Part III: A Sequential Analysis of UNCLOS III, 1977-82. VIII. Continuing the Search for the Overall Formula: Packages One and Two, 1977-78 (Phases II and III of the Conference). IX. Continuing the Search for the Overall Formula: Packages One and Two, 1979-82 (Phases IV and V of the Conference). X. Implementing Detail: Package One, 1977-82. XI. Formula and Implementing Detail: Package Two, 1977-82. Part IV: Conclusions. XII. A Thematic Analysis of Phases II-V of UNCLOS III, 1977-82. Appendix A: Major Events in the Evolution of UNCLOS III. Index.

Organizations and Integration in International Systems

In this paper, I propose to develop a research design in an attempt to facilitate theory-building in the study of international organizations. Having done this I will describe some applications of this approach in teaching. I have proceeded in this particular way because I am concerned that most, though not all, of the seminars with which I am familiar, and most of the textbooks in international organization which are still being written, reflect a disproportionate emphasis on only a few of the organizations which make up the United Nations and, to a lesser extent, the League of Nations.1 There are at the last official count,2 2,134 intergovernmental (IGOs) and nongovernmental (NGOs) international organizations in existence, and this does not

An interpretation of the Geneva proceedings—part I

Abstract This interpretation of the second substantive session of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea is based on observations of the Plenary, General Committee, Committees I, II, and III, and their Working Groups from 7 April to 9 May 1975 in Geneva. The observations are supplemented with information derived in multiple interviews with sixty‐seven delegates from twenty‐nine delegations. Part I of the paper describes general characteristics of the Geneva negotiations and compares them with the first round of substantive negotiations held in Caracas in 1974. There was much less rhetoric used in Geneva as compared to Caracas, especially in Committee I. Also in Committee I, the Algerian delegation succeeded within the Group of 77 in their initiative to link the seabed issue with the problem of control over global commodities in the context of claims to establish a New Economic Order. The negotiations in Committee II were seriously affected by the absence of effective leadership and the ...