Extreme political populism has been fiercely spreading climate disinformation for years, contributing to a social divide about climate change. In order to profile how both sides of the climate divide communicate climate change, we collected dissemination materials and analysed the mindset of key actors reaching global audiences. Here we show that applying network science to textual content and analysing the emerging reconstructed mindset can support the identification of emotional patterns linked to a quick and pervasive spread of falsehoods — i.e. an infodemic — such as hypercritical scepticism masking falsehoods under a trustful promotion of change. Climate represents a fearsome threat linked to inconsistent science in climate change infodemics. Change represents a reassuring pattern characterized by trust in climate infodemics, low anticipation without risk awareness, except for some fear about policy changes. For climate activism change is linked to high levels of negative emotions like anger, disgust and fear, related to a perception of existential threats. Furthermore, children are an angering concern in climate infodemics, while climate change activism perceives children with trust and joy, but sadness for their anticipated future.
This book examines water security as a prime example of how the economic, socio-cultural and political-normative systems that regulate access to water reflect the evolving and gendered power relations between different societal groups. Access to water is characterized by inequalities: it depends not only on natural water availability, but also on the respective socio-political context. It is regulated by gender-differentiated roles and responsibilities towards the resource, which are strongly influenced by, among others, tradition, religion, customary law, geographical availability, as well as the historical and socio-political context. While gender has been recognized as a key intervening variable in achieving equitable water access, most studies fail to acknowledge the deep interrelations between social structures and patterns of water use. Proof of these shortcomings is the enduring lack of data on water accessibility, availability and utilization that sufficiently acknowledges the relational nature of gender and other categories of power and difference, like class and socioeconomic status, as well as their comprehensive analysis. This book addresses this major research gap.
Trabajo presentado en la Conference on Complex Systems (CCS), celenbrada en Lyon del 25 al 29 de octubre de 2021. ; The vulnerability of democratic processes is under scrutiny after scandals related to Cambrige Analytica (2016 U.S. elections, the Brexit referendum, and elections in Kenya [1]). The deceptive use of social media in the US, the European Union and several Asian countries, increased social and political polarization across world regions. Finally, there are straightforward frauds like Crimea referendum and Belarus elections. These challenges are eroding democracy, the most frequent source of governmental power, and raise multiple questions about its vulnerabilities [2]. Democratic systems have countless ways of performing elections, which create different electoral systems (ES). It is therefore in citizens' interest to study and understand how different ESs relate to different vulnerabilities and contemporary challenges. These systems can be analyzed using network science in various layers – they involve a network of voters in the first place, a network of electoral districts connected by commuting flow for instance, or a network of political parties to give a few examples. The electoral system together with the underlying voting processes and opinion dynamics can be seen as a complex system [3]. We study electoral systems in a dynamical framework. We look at the volatility of the election results, analyzing how much they vary over time. However, the term volatility is frequently used in relation to the Pedersen index of volatility. In this meaning it has been studied and even linked to the party system instability [4, 5]. Our approach goes far beyond two-point volatility. We analyze the vulnerability of an ES based on a long run of opinion dynamics process with many elections performed during the evolution. In this context, we consider that a system is more vulnerable, if it has a larger variance of the election results and if it magnifies the influence of extremism and media. We can further identify which voting system is more sensitive to fluctuations, and which one is more vulnerable to internal/external influences, like zealots or propaganda. This allows us to construct a probability distribution of election results under every electoral system. It is essential to provide new tools and arguments to the discussion on the evaluation of electoral systems. We aim at comparing different ESs in a dynamical framework. Our novel approach of analyzing electoral systems in such way with all its aspects included, from opinion dynamics in the population of voters to inter-district commuting patterns to seat appointment methods, will help answering questions like: Which electoral systems are more predictable/stable under fluctuations? Which electoral systems are the most robust (or vulnerable) under external and internal influences? Which features of electoral systems make them more (less) stable?
There are strong interdependencies between water use in agriculture and energy consumption as water saving technologies can require increased pumping and pressurizing. The Chinese Government includes water efficiency improvement and carbon intensity reduction targets in the 12th Five-Year Plan (5YP. 2011–2015), yet the links between energy use and irrigation modernization are not always addressed in policy targets. Here we build an original model of the energy embedded in water pumping for irrigated agriculture and its related processes. The model is based on the physical processes of irrigation schemes and the implication of technological developments, comprising all processes from extraction and conveyance of water to its application in the field. The model uses data from government sources to assess policy targets for deployment of irrigation technologies, which aim to reduce water application and contribute to adaptation of Chinese agriculture to climate change. The consequences of policy targets involve co-beneficial outcomes that achieve water and energy savings, or trade-offs in which reduced water application leads to increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We analyze irrigation efficiency and energy use in four significant provinces and nationally, using scenarios based on the targets of the 12th 5YP. At the national scale, we find that expansion of sprinklers and micro-irrigation as outlined in the 5YP would increase GHG emissions from agricultural water use, however, emissions decrease in those provinces with predominant groundwater use and planned expansion of low-pressure pipes. We show that the most costly technologies relate to trade-offs, while co-benefits are generally achieved with less expensive technologies. The investment cost per area of irrigation technology expansion does not greatly affect the outcome in terms of water, but in terms of energy the most expensive technologies are more energy-intensive and produce more emissions. The results show that water supply configuration (proportion of surface to groundwater) largely determines the potential energy savings from reductions in water application. The paper examines the importance of fertigation and highlights briefly some policy implications.
Citizen-driven Renewable Energy (RE) projects of various kinds, known collectively as community energy (CE), have an important part to play in the worldwide transition to cleaner energy systems. On the basis of evidence from 8 European countries, we investigate CE, over approximately the last 50 years (c.1970–2018), through the lens of Social Innovation (SI). We carry out a detailed review of literature around the social dimension of renewable energy; we collect, describe and map CE initiatives from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK; and we unpack the SI concept into 4 operational criteria which we suggest are essential to recognizing SI in CE. These are: (1) Crises and opportunities; (2) the agency of civil society; (3) reconfiguration of social practices, institutions and networks; (4) new ways of working. We identify three main phases of SI in CE. The environmental movements of the 1960s and the "oil shocks" of the 1970s provided the catalyst for a series of innovative societal responses around energy and self-sufficiency. A second wave of SI relates to the mainstreaming of RE and associated government support mechanisms. In this phase, with some important exceptions, successful CE initiatives were mainly confined to those countries where they were already embedded as innovators in the previous phase. The third phase of CE innovation relates to the societal response to the Great Recession that began in 2008 and lasted most of the subsequent decade. CE initiatives formed around this time were also strongly focused around democratization of energy and citizen empowerment in the context of rising energy prices, a weak economy, and a production and supply system dominated by excessively powerful multinational energy firms. CE initiatives today are more diverse than at any time previously, and are likely to continue to act as incubators for pioneering initiatives addressing virtually all aspects of energy. However, large multinational energy firms remain the dominant vehicle for ...
Citizen-driven Renewable Energy (RE) projects of various kinds, known collectively as community energy (CE), have an important part to play in the worldwide transition to cleaner energy systems. On the basis of evidence from 8 European countries, we investigate CE, over approximately the last 50 years (c.1970-2018), through the lens of Social Innovation (SI). We carry out a detailed review of literature around the social dimension of renewable energy; we collect, describe and map CE initiatives from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK; and we unpack the SI concept into 4 operational criteria which we suggest are essential to recognizing SI in CE. These are: (1) Crises and opportunities; (2) the agency of civil society; (3) reconfiguration of social practices, institutions and networks; (4) new ways of working. We identify three main phases of SI in CE. The environmental movements of the 1960s and the "oil shocks" of the 1970s provided the catalyst for a series of innovative societal responses around energy and self-sufficiency. A second wave of SI relates to the mainstreaming of RE and associated government support mechanisms. In this phase, with some important exceptions, successful CE initiatives were mainly confined to those countries where they were already embedded as innovators in the previous phase. The third phase of CE innovation relates to the societal response to the Great Recession that began in 2008 and lasted most of the subsequent decade. CE initiatives formed around this time were also strongly focused around democratization of energy and citizen empowerment in the context of rising energy prices, a weak economy, and a production and supply system dominated by excessively powerful multinational energy firms. CE initiatives today are more diverse than at any time previously, and are likely to continue to act as incubators for pioneering initiatives addressing virtually all aspects of energy. However, large multinational energy firms remain the dominant vehicle for ...
