scholarly journals Scientists Say Land and Ocean Are Key to Tackling Climate Crisis

Eos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randy Showstack

A House committee listened to experts on why ocean science is critical to understanding the changing climate and why better land use could be a major part of mitigating climate change.

2020 ◽  
pp. 004728162096698
Author(s):  
Shelton Weech

Rhetorical theory has frequently relied on metaphors of place and positioning as heuristics to build better arguments. This article utilizes one such metaphor, that of stasis theory, as a method by which we might change the terrain of the conversation surrounding the climate crisis. As an example, the author does a rhetorical analysis of a recent agricultural report from the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment and finds that, rather than using traditional questions of conjecture and quality, the authors of the report focus on questions of procedure and definition to reframe the discussion surrounding the climate crisis. Drawing from the rhetoric in this report, the author suggests that technical communicators might similarly produce more fruitful conversations around the climate crisis if they focus on what to do (procedure) and redefining the crisis as a local issue (definition).


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-43
Author(s):  
Anushiya Jeganathan ◽  
Ramachandran Andimuthu ◽  
Palanivelu Kandasamy

Cities are dynamic systems resulting from the complex interaction of various socio-ecological and environmental developments. Climate change disproportionately affects cities mostly located in climate-sensitive areas; thus, these urban systems are the most critical in modern societies under changing climate scenarios, uncertain disruptions, and urban inhabitants' daily lives. It is essential to analyze the challenges in the metropolitan area through the lens of climate change. The present work analyses the challenges in Chennai, a coastal city in India and one of the chief industrial growth canters in Indian and South Asian region. The challenges are analyzed through the city’s system analysis via land use, green cover, population, and coastal hazards. Land use and green cover changes are studied through satellite images using ArcGIS and assessing coastal risks due to sea-level rise through GIS-based inundation model. There are drastic changes in land-use patterns; the green cover had reduced much, including agricultural and forest cover due to rapid urbanization. The land use has changed to 59.6% of the reduction in agriculture land, nearly 40% reduction in forest land, and 47% of the wetland over time. The observed mean sea level trend for Chennai is + 0.55 mm/year from 1916 to 2015 and the area of 21.75 sq. km is under the threat of inundation to 0.5m sea-level rise. The population growth, drastic changes in land use pattern, green cover reduction, and inundation due to sea-level rise increase the city's risks to climate change. There is a need to ensure that future land-use developments do not worsen the current climate risk level, either through influencing the hazards themselves or affecting the urban system's future vulnerability and adaptive capacity. The study also urges the zone level adaptation strategies to ensure the resilience of the city.


Author(s):  
Hill and

Communities tend to learn things the hard way, reacting in the wake of disasters rather than in anticipation of them. Virtually all existing infrastructure was designed to withstand the extremes that we have experienced in the past. Historically, scientists could not project the impacts of climate change with much precision, so our existing design choices and plans for infrastructure have largely ignored the risks posed by those impacts. This chapter identifies strategies that communities and individuals can adopt now to strengthen their building practices to endure new extremes driven by a changing climate. Among other things, it analyzes how improving building codes and standards and insisting on wiser land-use policies, especially in the absence of a “no more” moment, can serve as a bulwark against the destruction that climate-fueled disasters bring.


Author(s):  
Obed M. Ogega ◽  
James Mbugua ◽  
Herbert O. Misiani ◽  
Maurice Nyadawa ◽  
Enrico Scoccimarro ◽  
...  

This study investigated the influence of land-use and precipitation change and variability on Lake Victoria’s water-level fluctuations. Extreme precipitation events, corresponding to extreme water-levels, over the lake and its catchment area were identified and their return periods estimated by fitting them into a generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution. Using general circulation models from the 6th phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6)’s Detection & Attribution Model Intercomparison Project (DAMIP), an assessment of the potential contribution of human-induced climate change on the observed precipitation patterns over the study area was done. The greatest precipitation anomalies for the period 1900-2020 were recorded in 1961’s October-December (OND) season and 2019’s June-August (JJA) and OND seasons, corresponding to the period when the highest water-levels were recorded in Lake Victoria. While land-use change in the study domain was observed, extended and unusually heavy June to December 2019 precipitation bore the greatest responsibility for the 2019/2020 high water-levels in Lake Victoria. The OND precipitation event of 2019 was a 1-in-52-year event compared to the 1961’s 1-in-693 years. Differences in return periods at various parts of the lake imply a high spatial climate variability within the lake itself. An analysis of the fraction of attributable risk (FAR) showed natural variability to have a greater influence on the JJA and OND precipitation patterns over Lake Victoria than human-induced climate change. However, variability over the land area of the study domain was mainly driven by human-induced climate change rather than natural variability, implying a unique climate system over Lake Victoria. Findings from the current study enhance the understanding of Lake Victoria’s water budget and motivate for further research to inform effective strategies on the planning and use of Lake Victoria’s water resources in a changing climate.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén D. Manzanedo ◽  
Peter Manning

The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak pandemic is now a global crisis. It has caused 1.6+ million confirmed cases and 100 000+ deaths at the time of writing and triggered unprecedented preventative measures that have put a substantial portion of the global population under confinement, imposed isolation, and established ‘social distancing’ as a new global behavioral norm. The COVID-19 crisis has affected all aspects of everyday life and work, while also threatening the health of the global economy. This crisis offers also an unprecedented view of what the global climate crisis may look like. In fact, some of the parallels between the COVID-19 crisis and what we expect from the looming global climate emergency are remarkable. Reflecting upon the most challenging aspects of today’s crisis and how they compare with those expected from the climate change emergency may help us better prepare for the future.


2013 ◽  
pp. 79-94
Author(s):  
Ngoc Luu Bich

Climate change (CC) and its impacts on the socio-economy and the development of communities has become an issue causing very special concern. The rise in global temperatures, in sea levels, extreme weather phenomena, and salinization have occurred more and more and have directly influenced the livelihoods of rural households in the Red River Delta – one of the two regions projected to suffer strongly from climate change in Vietnam. For farming households in this region, the major and traditional livelihoods are based on main production materials as agricultural land, or aquacultural water surface Changes in the land use of rural households in the Red River Delta during recent times was influenced strongly by the Renovation policy in agriculture as well as the process of industrialization and modernization in the country. Climate change over the past 5 years (2005-2011) has started influencing household land use with the concrete manifestations being the reduction of the area cultivated and the changing of the purpose of land use.


1970 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nanang Susanto

Penelitian ini menguji teori Marx yang mengatakan bahwa dalam proses kapitalisasi, petani lahan kecil akan tergusur oleh petani lahan besar. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan metode Participatory Action Research (PAR). Menggunakan teknik observasi partisipasi di lapangan, studi ini melakukan wawancara mendalam terhadap petani. Analisis data yang digunakan bersifat induktif. Penelitian ini menghasilkan kesimpulan, bahwa teori Marx tidak terjadi di malar Aman. Adapun penyebab menurunnya pertanian disebabkan menurunnya unsur hara tanah, mahalnya biaya produksi, alih fungsi lahan dan perubahan cuaca. Sedangkan strategi petani lahan kecil untuk mempertahankan kehidupan yaitu melakukan pola tanam tumpang sari, melakukan pekerjaan tambahan, dan mengatur keuangan.This study examines Marx's theory which says that in the process of capitalization, small land farmers will be displaced by large land farmers. This study uses a qualitative approach with the method of Participatory Action Research (PAR). Using the techniques of participatory observation in the field, the study conducted in-depth interviews on farmers. Analysis of the data used is inductive. This study led to the conclusion that Marx's theory does not happen in Aman malar. The cause of the decline of agriculture due to declining soil nutrients, the high cost of production, land use and climate change. While the strategies of small land farmers to sustain life is to do the planting patterns of intercropping, do extra work, and manage finances.


2020 ◽  
pp. 161-165
Author(s):  
Bertram de Crom ◽  
Jasper Scholten ◽  
Janjoris van Diepen

To get more insight in the environmental performance of the Suiker Unie beet sugar, Blonk Consultants performed a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study on beet sugar, cane sugar and glucose syrup. The system boundaries of the sugar life cycle are set from cradle to regional storage at the Dutch market. For this study 8 different scenarios were evaluated. The first scenario is the actual sugar production at Suiker Unie. Scenario 2 until 7 are different cane sugar scenarios (different countries of origin, surplus electricity production and pre-harvest burning of leaves are considered). Scenario 8 concerns the glucose syrup scenario. An important factor in the environmental impact of 1kg of sugar is the sugar yield per ha. Total sugar yield per ha differs from 9t/ha sugar for sugarcane to 15t/ha sugar for sugar beet (in 2017). Main conclusion is that the production of beet sugar at Suiker Unie has in general a lower impact on climate change, fine particulate matter, land use and water consumption, compared to cane sugar production (in Brazil and India) and glucose syrup. The impact of cane sugar production on climate change and water consumption is highly dependent on the country of origin, especially when land use change is taken into account. The environmental impact of sugar production is highly dependent on the co-production of bioenergy, both for beet and cane sugar.


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