scholarly journals Perception and risk of Covid-19 and climate change: investigating analogies in a common framework

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonello Pasini ◽  
Fulvio Mazzocchi

This paper investigates analogies in the dynamics of Covid-19 pandemic and climate change. A comparison of their common features (such as nonlinearity and inertia) and differences helps us to achieve a correct scientific perception of both situations, increasing the chances of actions for their solutions. Besides, applying to both the risk equation provides different angles to analyse them, something that may result useful especially at the policy level. It shows that not only short-term interventions are needed, but also long-term strategies involving some structural changes. More specifically, it also shows that, even if climate change is probably more critical and long-lasting than the Covid-19 crisis, we still have, at least currently, more options for reducing its related risk.

2015 ◽  
Vol 105 (5) ◽  
pp. 232-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Guiteras ◽  
Amir Jina ◽  
A. Mushfiq Mobarak

A burgeoning “Climate-Economy” literature has uncovered many effects of changes in temperature and precipitation on economic activity, but has made considerably less progress in modeling the effects of other associated phenomena, like natural disasters. We develop new, objective data on floods, focusing on Bangladesh. We show that rainfall and self-reported exposure are weak proxies for true flood exposure. These data allow us to study adaptation, giving accurate measures of both long-term averages and short term variation in exposure. This is important in studying climate change impacts, as people will not only experience new exposures, but also experience them differently.


2003 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 277-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Corfee-Morlot ◽  
Niklas Höhne
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Robert A. Berner

The cycle of carbon is essential to the maintenance of life, to climate, and to the composition of the atmosphere and oceans. What is normally thought of as the “carbon cycle” is the transfer of carbon between the atmosphere, the oceans, and life. This is not the subject of interest of this book. To understand this apparently confusing statement, it is necessary to separate the carbon cycle into two cycles: the short-term cycle and the long-term cycle. The “carbon cycle,” as most people understand it, is represented in figure 1.1. Carbon dioxide is taken up via photosynthesis by green plants on the continents or phytoplankton in the ocean. On land carbon is transferred to soils by the dropping of leaves, root growth, and respiration, the death of plants, and the development of soil biota. Land herbivores eat the plants, and carnivores eat the herbivores. In the oceans the phytoplankton are eaten by zooplankton that are in turn eaten by larger and larger organisms. The plants, plankton, and animals respire CO2. Upon death the plants and animals are decomposed by microorganisms with the ultimate production of CO2. Carbon dioxide is exchanged between the oceans and atmosphere, and dissolved organic matter is carried in solution by rivers from soils to the sea. This all constitutes the shortterm carbon cycle. The word “short-term” is used because the characteristic times for transferring carbon between reservoirs range from days to tens of thousands of years. Because the earth is more than four billion years old, this is short on a geological time scale. As the short-term cycle proceeds, concentrations of the two principal atmospheric gases, CO2 and CH4, can change as a result of perturbations of the cycle. Because these two are both greenhouse gases—in other words, they adsorb outgoing infrared radiation from the earth surface—changes in their concentrations can involve global warming and cooling over centuries and many millennia. Such changes have accompanied global climate change over the Quaternary period (past 2 million years), although other factors, such as variations in the receipt of solar radiation due to changes in characteristics of the earth’s orbit, have also contributed to climate change.


2021 ◽  
pp. 166-182
Author(s):  
Jason Brennan ◽  
William English ◽  
John Hasnas ◽  
Peter Jaworski

Diffusion of responsibility refers to the problem that when something is everyone’s job, it in effect ends up being nobody’s job. This explains why many collective problems arise. People face perverse incentives to free ride on others’ actions and not to do their part. As a result, agents often think in short-term rather than long-term ways. Problems such as climate change can be modeled as instances of the tragedy of the commons, one form of a collective action problem that arises due to perverse incentives created by the diffusion of responsibility.


2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 260-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Lange ◽  
Martin Buerger ◽  
Andreas Stallmach ◽  
Tony Bruns

The gut microbiota influences essential human functions including digestion, energy metabolism, and inflammation by modulating multiple endocrine, neural, and immune pathways of the host. Its composition and complexity varies markedly across individuals and across different sites of the gut, but provides a certain level of resilience against external perturbation. Short-term antibiotic treatment is able to shift the gut microbiota to long-term alternative dysbiotic states, which may promote the development and aggravation of disease. Common features of post-antibiotic dysbiosis include a loss of taxonomic and functional diversity combined with reduced colonization resistance against invading pathogens, which harbors the danger of antimicrobial resistance. This review summarizes the antibiotic-related changes of the gut microbiota and potential consequences in health and disease.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robinson Hordoir ◽  
Lars Axell ◽  
Anders Höglund ◽  
Christian Dieterich ◽  
Filippa Fransner ◽  
...  

Abstract. We present Nemo-Nordic, a Baltic & North Sea model based on the NEMO ocean engine. Surrounded by highly industrialised countries, the Baltic and North seas, and their assets associated with shipping, fishing and tourism; are vulnerable to anthropogenic pressure and climate change. Ocean models providing reliable forecasts, and enabling climatic studies, are important tools for the shipping infrastructure and to get a better understanding of effects of climate change on the marine ecosystems. Nemo-Nordic is intended to come as a tool for both short term and long term simulations, and to be used for ocean forecasting as well as process and climatic studies. Here, the scientific and technical choices within Nemo-Nordic are introduced, and the reasons behind the design of the model and its domain, and the inclusions of the two seas, are explained. The model's ability to represent barotropic and baroclinic dynamics, as well as the vertical structure of the water column, is presented. Biases are shown and discussed. The short term capabilities of the model are presented, and especially its capabilities to represent sea level on an hourly timescale with a high degree of accuracy. We also show that the model can represent longer time scale, with a focus on the Major Baltic Inflows and the variability of deep water salinity in the Baltic Sea.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 271-281
Author(s):  
Yasuko Kameyama ◽  
Keishi Ono

AbstractAs the level of understanding about climate change has increased, the term “climate security” has been increasingly used in the rapidly growing literature on this subject. Although Japan has officially acknowledged the importance of tackling climate change, discussion of climate security has been almost nonexistent among Japanese governmental officials, politicians, and academics. Our aim was to trace discourses related to climate security in Japan to determine why so little exists in Japan and whether or not such discourse could suggest new areas for consideration to more comprehensively respond to the climate change problem. Because of different interpretations and uses of the term “climate security” in the existing literature, we first categorized existing approaches to climate security into four types and used this categorization to examine Japan’s discourse from these perspectives. Two of the approaches, namely “long-term irreversible planetary changes” and “short-term abrupt risks to individuals”, had been considered in Japan previously but without specific reference to the term climate security. The other two, “cause of conflict and violence” and “impacts to military and defense organizations”, however, had not been used and need to be included in discussions of climate change in Japan. Some of the topics not discussed in Japan include indirect economic losses of Japanese industries via supply chains, loss of Japan’s exclusive economic zone due to sea-level rise, and the potential inflow of refugees resulting from extreme weather patterns outside of Japan.


Author(s):  
Willy Jou ◽  
Russell J. Dalton

One of the ways that citizens and elites orient themselves to politics is in reference to a Left-Right vocabulary. Left and Right, respectively, refer to a specific set of progressive and conservative policy preferences and political goals. Thus, Left-Right becomes a framework for positioning oneself, political figures, and political parties into a common framework. Most citizens identify themselves in Left-Right terms and their distribution of these orientations vary across nations. These orientations arise both from long-term societal influences and from the short-term issues of the day. Most people also place political parties in Left-Right terms. This leads citizens to use Left-Right comparisons as an important factor in their voting choice, although this impact varies considerably across nations. Most parties attract voters that broadly share their Left-Right orientations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 945 ◽  
pp. 957-962
Author(s):  
I.L. Shubin ◽  
V.V. Dorkin ◽  
P.S. Sultygova

The results of experimental and theoretical studies of the process of destruction of concrete by the methods of fracture mechanics are considered. Results of studies of long-term strength, durability and deformability of concrete subjected to a preliminary short-term temperature action up to 300° C and 400° C under load and without load are presented. It is shown that after short-term heating up to 300о С the long-term strength of concrete decreases insignificantly. It is established that heating up to 400° C can be considered the boundary of the structural integrity of concrete. The conditions for using the results of these studies in determining the values of a function that characterizes the change in the long-term strength of a material in the mechanics of heterogeneous structures are formulated. The function of the material destruction measure is introduced to describe the nature of the structural changes in the material at a given constant continuous load, and its change for different levels of a continuous load is considered.


1982 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 836-851 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sheldon Scheps

A short-term remedy is proposed in the hope of curtailing the proliferation of statistical and inferential error rife within the published archaeological literature. First, a study by Isbell and Schreiber, one that violates rudimentary quantitative and qualitative analytical precepts, yet nevertheless was published in American Antiquity, is discussed in depth in order to exemplify the extent to which matters have deteriorated within the discipline. Then, this analysis, in conjunction with the various compendia of statistical abuse compiled by numerous professionals within the field, is invoked as support for an argument advocating structural changes in the peer review system. Perhaps such solutions could be implemented until previously proposed long-term solutions, such as David Thomas"s call for compulsory courses and certification examinations to satisfy academic degree requirements, are finally instituted.


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