Suchergebnisse

Whilst we know quite a bit about organized forms of climate skepticism, very few studies focus on how disorganized climate skeptics seek an underdog position to speak truth to power. Hence, we investigate frank speech as updated ancient forms of truth-telling 'parrhesia', in two Swedish empirical sources that strongly question the climate change consensus. The first is a digital space for free speech, and the second a focus group of climate skeptics. Tracing 'epistemic skepticism' and 'response skepticism', we inquire into the attempts to counter scientific expertise and the different ways to refuse to act in accordance with officially sanctioned advice. We analyze the details of climate cynic truth-telling in relation to truthtelling as provocation, as ethical practice and as exhibition of a specific aim. We explore how the climate skeptic turns into a climate cynic, and discuss how alternative truth construction forms an anti-climate ethical selfhood. We end by problematizing how parrhesia is linked to ethical relativism, and argue that the recognition of climate cynicism facilitates our understanding of how conflicting political realities about climate change are produced.

Climate adaptation requires large capital investments that could be provided not only by traditional sources like governments and banks, but also by derivatives markets. Such markets would allow two parties with different tolerances and expectations about climate risks to transact for their mutual benefit and, in so doing, finance climate adaptation. Here we calculate the price of a derivative called a European put option, based on future sea surface temperature (SST) in Tasmania, Australia, with an 18 °C strike threshold. This price represents a quantifiable indicator of climate risk, and forms the basis for aquaculture industries exposed to the risk of higher SST to finance adaptation strategies through the sale of derivative contracts. Such contracts provide a real incentive to parties with different climate outlooks, or risk exposure to take a market assessment of climate change. ; Support for this research came from the CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship, Enabling Adaptation Pathways project.

This article discusses how climate change causes an intensification of Western North Pacific typhoons and how the effects of such amplified typhoons upon the Philippines exemplify the concept of climate injustice. Using a political ecology approach, the article begins with an examination of the concepts of climate change, climate injustice, background injustice, and compound injustice. This is followed by an examination of the causes of typhoons, the vulnerability of the Philippines to typhoons, and how climate change may generate stronger typhoons. These stronger typhoons that may be produced by climate change, and the risks that they pose to the Philippines, are an example of climate injustice, while the legacy of colonial exploitation in the Philippines is an example of background injustice. The struggles faced by the Philippines in coping with climate change augmented typhoons are an example of compound injustice. The article concludes with a discussion of the reluctance of developed countries, such as Australia, Canada, and the United States, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions notwithstanding the consequences these emissions have on countries such as the Philippines.

Climate change has become a top priority for many scientists and politicians around the world, but most of the general public cannot understand their technical terminology. Without the proper knowledge or exposure to climate science and policy, the public is left confused and uninformed on what to think, what to do individually and how to vote on systematic climate policies. For my capstone, I created the Climate Curiosities Podcast. It is designed to be an approachable and easily accessible platform to connect people with climate science and policy experts and address some of the most common curiosities about climate change. The Climate Curiosities Podcast breaks down three major questions: 1. What scientific evidence do we have to support climate change observations and projections? 2. What are the causes and consequences of climate change, specifically on humans? 3. What are some actions and solutions that are available to address climate change today? Interested in learning more? Listen to the Climate Curiosities Podcast, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Abstract Background For agricultural systems to achieve climate-smart objectives, including improved food security and rural livelihoods as well as climate change adaptation and mitigation, they often need to be take a landscape approach; they must become 'climate-smart landscapes'. Climate-smart landscapes operate on the principles of integrated landscape management, while explicitly incorporating adaptation and mitigation into their management objectives. Results An assessment of climate change dynamics related to agriculture suggests that three key features characterize a climate-smart landscape: climate-smart practices at the field and farm scale; diversity of land use across the landscape to provide resilience; and management of land use interactions at landscape scale to achieve social, economic and ecological impacts. To implement climate-smart agricultural landscapes with these features (that is, to successfully promote and sustain them over time, in the context of dynamic economic, social, ecological and climate conditions) requires several institutional mechanisms: multi-stakeholder planning, supportive landscape governance and resource tenure, spatially-targeted investment in the landscape that supports climate-smart objectives, and tracking change to determine if social and climate goals are being met at different scales. Examples of climate-smart landscape initiatives in Madagascar's Highlands, the African Sahel and Australian Wet Tropics illustrate the application of these elements in contrasting contexts. Conclusions To achieve climate-smart landscape initiatives widely and at scale will require strengthened technical capacities, institutions and political support for multi-stakeholder planning, governance, spatial targeting of investments and multi-objective impact monitoring.

Abstract Climate change is a problem with no single solution. It has many parts, and, in this article, I break down each component of the wicked problem that is climate change. A shift in power and leadership bring change across the board, so what does the new president have planned for climate change? Anytime someone thinks of climate change, the immediate thought that comes to mind is the carbon footprint but how serious is that? If cars are the leading cause of carbon emissions, what's the other option? Are we supposed to not drive places? Many people already know about the issue of trash in the ocean, but what about the five "great patches" of trash floating around the world. This article will show you just how big of a problem climate change really is and will answer all of these different questions

Most scientists agree that climate change is the largest existential threat of our time. Despite the magnitude of the threat, surprisingly few climate-related discussions take place on social media. What factors drive online discussions about climate change? In this study, we examined the occurrence of Reddit discussions around three types of climate-related events: natural disasters (e.g., hurricanes, wildfires), political events (i.e., 2016 United States Presidential election), and policy events (i.e., United States' withdrawal from Paris Climate Agreement, release of IPCC report). The objective was to understand how different types of events influence collective action as measured by discussions of climate change. Six large US cities were selected based on the occurrence of at least one locally-relevant natural disaster since 2014. Posts (N = 4.4 million) from subreddits of the selected cities were collected to obtain a six-month period before and after local natural disasters as well as climate-related political and policy events (which applied equally to all cities). Climate change discussions increased significantly for all three types of events, with the highest discussion during the 2016 elections. Further, discussions returned to baseline levels within 2 months following natural disasters and policy events but continued at elevated rates for up to 4 months following the 2016 elections. The findings suggest that collective discussions on climate change are driven more by political leaders' controversial positions than life-threatening local natural disasters themselves. Implications for collective action are discussed.

The country has an area of 18,000 km spread over 332 islands, of which about 110 are inhabited. Most of the population lives on two large islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Fiji faces significant development challenges, and the government has set ambitious development objectives to address them. Economic growth in Fiji has been relatively slow in the last decades. Recently, the 20-year and 5-year National Development Plan was prepared to respond to this situation; its ambitious objectives are to more than double the real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by 2036 and to provide universal access to all services, including housing, electricity, clean and safe water and sanitation, high-quality education, and health care.

The impacts of climate change on human cultures have received increasing attention in recent years. However, the extent to which people are aware of these impacts, whether such awareness motivates climate action, and what kinds of people show stronger awareness are rarely understood. The present investigation provides the very first set of answers to these questions. In two studies (with a student sample with N = 199 from Singapore and a demographically representative sample with N = 625 from the USA), we observed a generally high level of awareness among our participants. Most importantly, perceived cultural impacts of climate change robustly predicted intentions to engage in climate change mitigation behavior and climate activism, as well as support for climate policy. We also found expected associations between perceived cultural impacts and some psychological and demographic variables (e.g., cosmopolitan orientation, moral inclusion, political orientation). These findings not only add a cultural dimension to the research on public understanding of climate change but also reveal a viable application of cultural frames as an effective climate communication strategy.

Le constat du XXIe siècle se veut formel : l'Homme sera la cause de sa propre extinction. Aujourd'hui, la redondance du climat est omniprésente dans nos médias pour décrire les changements climatiques qui s'opèrent au sein du système terre. L'être humain est devenu au fil des siècles récents de son histoire une force tellurique majeure capable d'en impacter l'air et la surface terrestre. Par sa quête sans relâche des avancées technologiques, « le progrès », l'Homme a généré à lui-seul une nouvelle strate géologique, celle que le chimiste néerlandais Paul Crutzen (1933-) nomme en l'Anthropocène. Face à l'urgence actuelle, nous devons repenser l'espace commun. La loi doit imposer à tous une utilisation raisonnable et viable de notre environnement. Nous devons trouver des solutions pour réconcilier la biosphère et l'humain. Il faut repenser le foyer de demain. Un projet législatif commun doit servir notre projet environnemental. Face au déni et à l'inaction des responsables politiques, l'architecte doit agir. Le projet architectural doit servir le projet environnemental. Pour sortir de l'impasse individualiste, il doit aussi servir le projet sociétal.

Politiche, misure e strumenti per contenere le emissioni di CO2 Illustriamo l'ultimo contributo al quarto Rapporto sui cambiamenti climatici votato a maggio 2007 dal terzo gruppo di lavoro del Comitato intergovernativo "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change". Il Rapporto affronta la problematica delle tendenze delle emissioni dei gas serra e il tema della mitigazione a breve e lungo termine. Presentiamo un'analisi critica delle proposte del documento.

Climate adaptation requires large capital investments that could be provided not only by traditional sources like governments and banks, but also by derivatives markets. Such markets would allow two parties with different tolerances and expectations about climate risks to transact for their mutual benefit and, in so doing, finance climate adaptation. Here we calculate the price of a derivative called a European put option, based on future sea surface temperature (SST) in Tasmania, Australia, with an 18 °C strike threshold. This price represents a quantifiable indicator of climate risk, and forms the basis for aquaculture industries exposed to the risk of higher SST to finance adaptation strategies through the sale of derivative contracts. Such contracts provide a real incentive to parties with different climate outlooks, or risk exposure to take a market assessment of climate change. ; Support for this research came from the CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship, Enabling Adaptation Pathways project.

The concept of climate justice is now omnipresent in debates about the climate emergency that society faces. Whereas once it was engaged with as a largely scholarly endeavour by philosophers exploring the ethical and moral dimensions of climate change as a social and political phenomena (Shue 2014; Page 2006; Bell 2013; Caney, 2014; Harris, 2016, 2019; Schlosberg & Collins, 2014; Moss 2018; Hayward and Roser 2016; Posner and Weisback 2010), from the early 2000s it also became a rallying cry for environmental and climate organisations using it as a framing to place issues of climate debt and historical responsibility centre stage and to demand justice for those communities on the frontline of the climate crisis, but who have contributed least to it (Bond 2012; Bruno et al 1999; UNRISD 2019). Despite some overlap, these strands of work often evolve in parallel and as others have noted, there are still 'disconnects and tensions between more philosophical and academic treatments of the subject on the one hand, and "activist"-oriented approaches to climate justice on the other' (Newell et al 2021:1). In this short concept note, I briefly contextualise the origins and evolution of the term, relating it to ongoing shifts in the world of climate politics before relating it to current debates in agrarian studies to illustrate the significant scope for understanding agrarian struggles through the lens of climate justice, but also how insights from agrarian studies can enrich understandings and practices of climate justice.

Climate change has become a pressing environmental concern for scientists, social commentators and politicians. Previous social science research has explored media representations of climate change in various temporal and geographical contexts. Through the lens of Social Representations Theory, this article provides a detailed qualitative thematic analysis of media representations of climate change in the 1988 British broadsheet press, given that this year constitutes an important juncture in this transition of climate change from the domain of science to that of the socio-political sphere. The following themes are outlined: (i) "Climate change: a multi-faceted threat"; (ii) "Collectivisation of threat"; (iii) "Climate change and the attribution of blame"; and (iv) "Speculative solutions to a complex socio-environmental problem." The article provides detailed empirical insights into the "starting-point" for present-day disputes concerning climate change and lays the theoretical foundations for tracking the continuities and discontinuities characterising social representations of climate change in the future.

Public perceptions of the climate debate predominantly frame the key actors as climate scientists versus sceptical voices; however, it is unclear why climate scientists and sceptical voices choose to participate in this antagonistic and polarised public battle. A narrative interview approach is used to better understand the underlying rationales behind 22 climate scientists' and sceptical voices' engagement in the climate debate, potential commonalities, as well as each actor's ability to be critically self-reflexive. Several overlapping rationales are identified including a sense of duty to publicly engage, agreement that complete certainty about the complex assemblage of climate change is unattainable and that political factors are central to the climate debate. We argue that a focus on potential overlaps in perceptions and rationales as well as the ability to be critically self-reflexive may encourage constructive discussion among actors previously engaged in purposefully antagonistic exchange on climate change.