title: Renewable energy adoption in an ageing population: Heterogeneity in preferences for micro-generation technology adoption

authors: Willis, Kenneth

subjects: renewable energy

abstract: Many countries are endeavouring to supply more of their energy from renewable resources. Such countries are also experiencing an aging population with a greater proportion of people aged ≥65 years. This demographic shift may reduce the uptake of renewable energy, if older person households are less inclined to accept change and adopt new technologies. This paper assesses whether such households have different behavioural responses to energy efficiency compared to the rest of society and investigates whether micro-generation renewable energy technologies are less likely to be adopted by these households. It uses conditional logit and mixed logit models to investigate the impact of age of household on primary heating adoption, and also to assess the impact of older households on the installation of discretionary micro-generation technologies (solar thermal, solar voltaic, and wind power) to supplement existing heating and lighting systems. Results indicate that primary heating choice is not affected but that older person households are less inclined to adopt micro-generation technologies.

text: Renewable energy adoption in an ageing population: Heterogeneity in preferences for micro-generation technology adoption Many countries are endeavouring to supply more of their energy from renewable resources. Such countries are also experiencing an aging population with a greater proportion of people aged ≥65 years. This demographic shift may reduce the uptake of renewable energy, if older person households are less inclined to accept change and adopt new technologies. This paper assesses whether such households have different behavioural responses to energy efficiency compared to the rest of society and investigates whether micro-generation renewable energy technologies are less likely to be adopted by these households. It uses conditional logit and mixed logit models to investigate the impact of age of household on primary heating adoption, and also to assess the impact of older households on the installation of discretionary micro-generation technologies (solar thermal, solar voltaic, and wind power) to supplement existing heating and lighting systems. Results indicate that primary heating choice is not affected but that older person households are less inclined to adopt micro-generation technologies.

year: 2011

title: Book Review: Myth and the Christian Nation: A Social Theory of Religion – By Burton L. Mack

authors: Pratt, Douglas

subjects: book review

abstract: This article reviews the book: “Myth and the Christian Nation: A Social Theory of Religion”, by Burton L. Mack.

text: Book Review: Myth and the Christian Nation: A Social Theory of Religion – By Burton L. Mack This article reviews the book: “Myth and the Christian Nation: A Social Theory of Religion”, by Burton L. Mack.

year: 2010

title: An outsider's guide to public oral history in New Zealand

authors: Mahuika, Nepia

subjects: Oral history

abstract: At the beginning of this century, public history in New Zealand was considered a ‘new term’ in historical practice, described as crucial in both ‘the emergence of professional history writing’ and the assertion of ‘cultural nationalism.’¹ In the past decade, scholars here have highlighted its breadth and significance in ‘the employment of historians and the historical method outside academia; in government, private companies, the media, historical societies and museums, as well as those working in private practice.’² Oral history has also become a significant part of public history’s nation-making, key in the collecting of exceptional and ‘ordinary’ public voices.³ For Māori, current definitions of oral and public history are problematic because, as this essay suggests, both are constructed within Pākehā-centric perspectives of history, tradition, orality and what counts as ‘public.’ Public history has been called a ‘slippery process’, often shaped in a contrast between ‘people’s history’ and a ‘search for social cohesion’.4 This search for ‘cohesion’ is a familiar colonial refrain that fuels a healthy native scepticism of public history as yet another settler-centric invention that keeps us on the outside. This essay considers the ways in which public oral history in New Zealand is articulated, noting how this is done within narrow definitions and binaries that displace, ignore, or distort, indigenous perspectives. It suggests a rethinking of oral history as a movement beyond current binaries in the field, and advocates a widening of the meaning of oral sources, methods and politics, in order to include indigenous definitions as legitimately oral and public. This analysis is decolonial, not because it seeks an eradication of nationalism, but because it seeks to disrupt colonial-centric meanings of oral and public history by recentering Māori perspectives as legitimate to the New Zealand public oral history vernacular.

text: An outsider's guide to public oral history in New Zealand At the beginning of this century, public history in New Zealand was considered a ‘new term’ in historical practice, described as crucial in both ‘the emergence of professional history writing’ and the assertion of ‘cultural nationalism.’¹ In the past decade, scholars here have highlighted its breadth and significance in ‘the employment of historians and the historical method outside academia; in government, private companies, the media, historical societies and museums, as well as those working in private practice.’² Oral history has also become a significant part of public history’s nation-making, key in the collecting of exceptional and ‘ordinary’ public voices.³ For Māori, current definitions of oral and public history are problematic because, as this essay suggests, both are constructed within Pākehā-centric perspectives of history, tradition, orality and what counts as ‘public.’ Public history has been called a ‘slippery process’, often shaped in a contrast between ‘people’s history’ and a ‘search for social cohesion’.4 This search for ‘cohesion’ is a familiar colonial refrain that fuels a healthy native scepticism of public history as yet another settler-centric invention that keeps us on the outside. This essay considers the ways in which public oral history in New Zealand is articulated, noting how this is done within narrow definitions and binaries that displace, ignore, or distort, indigenous perspectives. It suggests a rethinking of oral history as a movement beyond current binaries in the field, and advocates a widening of the meaning of oral sources, methods and politics, in order to include indigenous definitions as legitimately oral and public. This analysis is decolonial, not because it seeks an eradication of nationalism, but because it seeks to disrupt colonial-centric meanings of oral and public history by recentering Māori perspectives as legitimate to the New Zealand public oral history vernacular.

year: 2017