Makena Coffman

Hurricane Iniki: measuring the long-term economic impact of a natural disaster using synthetic control

The long-term impacts of disasters are ‘hidden’ as it becomes increasingly difficult over time to attribute them to a singular event. We use a synthetic control methodology, formalized in Abadie, A. et al. (2010), Synthetic control methods for comparative case studies: estimating the effect of Californias tobacco control program, Journal of the American Statistical Association105(490): 493–505, to estimate the long-term impacts of a 1992 hurricane on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Hurricane Iniki, the strongest storm to hit Hawaii in many years, wrought an estimated US

Electric vehicles revisited: a review of factors that affect adoption

7.4 billion (2008) in direct damages. Since the unaffected Hawaiian Islands provide a control group, the case of Iniki is uniquely suited to provide insight into the long-term impact of natural disasters. We show that Kauais economy has yet to recover, 18 years after this event. We estimate the islands current population to be 12 per cent smaller than it would have been had the hurricane not occurred. Similarly, aggregate personal income and the number of private sector jobs are proportionally lower.

University leadership in island climate change mitigation

ABSTRACT Electric vehicles (EVs) were recently reintroduced to the global car market. These are an improvement over their predecessors in performance and electric driving range. Although the uptake of EVs has been notable in a short period of time, most government goals for adoption have not been met. This paper reviews a growing body of peer-reviewed literature assessing factors affecting EV adoption. Several important gaps in knowledge are identified. First, there is mixed evidence of the effectiveness of government incentives in encouraging EV uptake and particularly little knowledge in regards to issues of timing and magnitude. The literature shows that public charging infrastructure is an important factor associated with EV uptake, though the direction of causality is yet unclear. Public charging infrastructure can ease range anxiety, particularly for battery electric vehicles, but there is little guidance as to the way in which government should best go about ensuring the provision of infrastructure. Lastly, the nascent EV market means that studies primarily rely on surveys about hypothetical situations. There is strong evidence that actual purchases are much lower than consumers’ stated preferences. Improving understanding of this “attitude–action” gap is important to better informing studies of EV uptake over time.

Review: Infrastructural Ecologies: Alternative Development Models for Emerging Economies By Hillary Brown and Byron Stigge:

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the University of Hawaii at Manoas (UHMs) initiatives in achieving greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions on campus and at the state level.Design/methodology/approach – UHM has taken a “lead by example” approach to climate change mitigation in terms of working to meet the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, becoming a founding member of The Climate Registry, and providing university leadership in crafting the policy to meet Hawaiis Climate Change Solutions Act of 2007.Findings – Universities are uniquely poised to play a role in not only climate change research, education, and community outreach, but also in the regional and national policy‐making arena. In the absence of federal legislation, states are paving the way to create binding US GHG reduction commitments – making crafting innovative and appropriate policy all the more important and meaningful at the state and regional levels.Practical implications – The paper discus...

The triple-bottom-line: framing of trade-offs in sustainability planning practice

To study these practices one must look at what buildings do to humans and nonhumans that relate to them. The book is organized in seven chapters, in addition to an introduction and a conclusion. It starts by situating the approach and arguments of the book in relation to its goals. The reader obtains a good sense of what kind of politics the author is interested in uncovering, what a practice approach means, and how a practice study in the ANT tradition is conducted. Analyzing the claims and approaches common to most studies of architecture and politics, which assume a dichotomous and asymmetric relationship between the two, the author explains how her analysis differs and proposes a symmetric ontology of architecture (chapter 1). The ethnographic method and practice-based approach are discussed in chapter 2. The five empirical chapters that follow tell stories that help the reader to witness the emergence of the political in five ways. The author takes the reader on her investigation as she encounters practitioners, dwellers, buildings, and objects and observes how they interact. The substance, method, and approach of the book will appeal to a variety of readers, including architects, designers, political scientists, and anthropologists. Nevertheless, the book offers at least two important contributions to those interested in urban studies, planning, and public policies. First, it shows how they may understand the political as relational, mundane, and emerging in practices. Just as the author applies this understanding to the study of the use and making of buildings, one may adopt the same approach to the investigation of how the political (with a small p) emerges in cities in use, policies in making, and plans in becoming. Following the arguments made in this book, the study of the political in urban practice would move from considering plans and policies as reflections of politics to engaging with them as mediators of interactions, connections, and transformations. This would require a shift in the common types of questions urban theorists tend to ask. For example, the question of “who acts, decides, chooses, participates, and represents, and whether this participation follows democratic procedures, [would be replaced by the question of] how specific capacities to act are performed through design and urban practice” (p. 6). Ultimately, urban thinkers would be urged to reimagine forms of political representation, political engagement, and political sites that better explain how things are accomplished and how change happens. The second contribution is a methodological one. Chapter 2, “How to Study Ecology of Practice,” explains the moves from studying outcomes to studying the practices that produce them and from studying practices to doing networkoriented ethnographies. It discusses the types of questions this research approach is capable of addressing and the kind of engagement is required from the researcher in the field. In doing so, the chapter offers a report about the realities of conducting ethnography. The author discusses research in a way analogous to how architecture is treated throughout the book: “-in-making.” The chapter ultimately reveals the practices of conducting research and is a welcome reading to anyone hoping to engage in ethnographic and practice-based studies. Those readers familiar with ANT may take interest in the empirical chapters as examples of applied methodology. For those readers who wish to better understand the principles and assumptions of ANT, the book offers explanations and clarifications throughout all chapters. For researchers and practitioners in the fields of architecture, urban design, and planning, regardless of their interest in ANT, the book offers the possibility of rethinking how they understand practices, the built environment, politics, and the research process. Readers may feel challenged to identify their own taken-for-granted assumptions as they learn about asymmetric and relational ontology, cosmopolitical ecology, and slow ethnography. However, contrary to its title, the book does not provide instructions on how to make architecture political. As the author warns, it does not tell the reader how to use architecture to improve the world. Because she subscribes to the idea that it is impossible to see everything from nowhere—that is, no one is able to look from the outside to make a judgment and recommendation—the author describes accounts of becoming political without taking sides. Yet the book offers five examples of research that allows one to witness, see, and investigate how architecture becomes political.