Technological change often prompts calls for regulation. Yet formulating regulatory policy in relation to rapidly-changing technology is complex. It requires an understanding of the politics of technology, the complexity of the innovation process, and its general impact on society. Chapter 3 introduces a variety of academic literatures across the humanities, law and the social sciences that offer insights on understanding technological change that have direct relevance to the challenges of regulating new and emerging technology. The chapter discusses different strands of scholarship, ranging from the history of technology, innovation studies and the growing field of law and technology that have until now remained largely fragmented and siloed, focusing primarily on digital technologies.

Introduces the economic crisis that the US is currently experiencing and the reasons why industrial policy is the right solution to it.

The chapter examines the relationship between the size and diversity of the expellee population and entrepreneurship and occupational change in West Germany. Using statistical data at the municipal and county levels, it documents a reversal of fortune: although expellee presence presented economic challenges in the immediate postwar period, in the long run, it increased entrepreneurship rates, education, and household incomes. The more regionally diverse the expellee population, the better the long-run economic performance in receiving communities.

This chapter comprehensively lays out all the possible ways that artificial intelligence (AI) might interact with Jewish sources as their relationship develops over the next many years. It divides the scope of the relationship into three parts. First, it engages with questions of moral agency and their potential interactions with Jewish law, and suggests that this path, while enticing, may not be particularly fruitful. Second, it suggests that Jewish historical sources generally distinguish human value from human uniqueness, and that there is therefore quite a bit of room to think of an AI as a person, if we so choose, without damaging the value of human beings. Finally, it considers how Jewish thought might respond to AI as a new height of human innovation, and how the human–AI relationship shares many characteristics with the God–human relationship as imagined in Jewish sources.

What counts as a significant innovation in human history, and what might we identify beyond the topics included in this book? In our concept of progress are we too influenced by the sense of our own era as the culmination of history, and can we avoid a presentist bias?

Festivals are one of the main contemporary forums in which Indigenous Australian public ceremony is staged, learned, shared and increasingly, revived. In this chapter we review the literature on public ceremony at Indigenous festivals, focusing on Junba at the Mowanjum festival in the Kimberley and Kun-borrk/Manyardi at the Stone Country and Mahbilil festivals in western Arnhem Land/Kakadu. We consider festivals as serving several purposes: Firstly, as a forum for cultural revival, reclamation, and maintenance, supporting language and song revival and reclamation work by local individuals, groups and Indigenous businesses. Secondly, as a forum for education and diplomacy, serving as powerful statements of Indigenous sovereignty, identity, law and diplomacy which educate the broader public. Thirdly, as a site for continuity and innovation of practice. We examine how performers in the Kimberley use Junba to transform society to address inequity and discrimination in wider Australian society, and performers in western Arnhem Land use Kun-borrk/Manyardi at festivals to support interdependence and reciprocity enacted as part of regional ceremonial practices and ideologies of being ‘different together’.

When we study technology transitions of the past – the shifts from horses to cars, from cesspools to sewers, from traditional farming to intensive agriculture – we can see how they were enabled and accelerated by government policy. Coordinated action by groups of countries could accelerate change even more – through faster innovation, larger economies of scale, and level playing fields where needed. International cooperation of this kind could dramatically accelerate low-carbon transitions in each of the greenhouse-gas-emitting sectors of the global economy. Until now, it has barely been attempted.

Mainstreaming urban nature and nature-based solutions requires that we understand the key challenges and opportunities that are facing projects on the ground. This chapter revisits the main themes of the textbook, providing concise conclusions about the key points, arguments, and findings presented in the previous chapters and summarising the key implications for urban nature and nature-based solutions in the context of transformative pathways for sustainability. To break the dominance of grey infrastructure, new approaches are needed for the development, implementation, and mainstreaming of nature in cities. The chapter engages with two case studies to illustrate its key messages: Barcelona, Spain, and Sofia, Bulgaria.

This chapter presents innovation pathways for urban nature and nature-based solutions that are appearing in cities. Innovation pathways are journeys that involve key drivers, decision-making junctures, agents, and opportunities. The chapter provides a typology of nature-based innovations and unpacks the underlying conditions enabling and constraining the mainstreaming of these innovations through the nature-based solutions innovation system framework. It also discusses localised innovation processes. The chapter provides potential explanations for path dependencies through urban development regimes that enable or constrain these initiatives and systems. From these three sets of dynamics, the chapter aims to provide an understanding about what shapes the pathways through which urban nature and nature-based innovations emerge and open the gateway to potential intervention points towards sustainability. The chapter presents recent innovation pathways for urban nature through case studies from Leidsche Rijn water system in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and Little France Park in Edinburgh, United Kingdom, to explore the interconnections between nature, innovation and urban sustainability that indicate the emergence of a global agenda.

The greatest progress so far in decarbonising the global economy has been made by governments that ignored the advice of economists. Investing in new technologies turns out to be a more effective way of changing things than taxing the incumbents. We need to stop being surprised by this and start replicating those successes.

Economics is not just about the allocation of scarce resources – how to ‘divide up the pie’. It is also about the creation of novelty, and the formation of new structures – how to make a pie in the first place. The new science of complexity, allied to old ideas of political economy, can help us understand how to create and change things quickly and at large scale. New economic thinking of this kind predicted the global financial crisis, but has barely begun to be applied to policy. It could transform the way we respond to climate change.

Urban nature holds great potential to address the web of challenges that cities are facing and support transitions to a more sustainable future. Cities are working with nature in a diversity of ways, such as by using blue and green infrastructure. Blue infrastructure includes, for example, lakes, ponds, drains, and wetlands. These features can regulate storm-water flows, reduce pressure on the urban drainage system, and create sponge cities that lower flooding risks while reducing heat island effects, enhancing biodiversity, and providing recreational opportunities. Green infrastructure can include, for example, urban forests, green roofs and walls, multi-functional parks, and river embankments. These areas can improve air quality and energy efficiency, reduce heat island effects, and contribute to human health and well-being, amongst other benefits. Furthermore, urban gardens can increase access to food and employment while enhancing physical and mental health and social integration.