Bringing the World’s Children Into Focus: Cultivating Well-Being on a Global ScaleBringing the World’s Children Into Focus: Cultivating Well-Being on a Global Scale

PsycCRITIQUES ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 6060 (2828) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura E. Berk ◽  
Gregory S. Braswell ◽  
Adena B. Meyers ◽  
Rocío Rivadeneyra ◽  
Maria Schmeeckle
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Global Scale

Well-Being in Practice and Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 52-73
Keyword(s):  
Control Systems ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
The People ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Relationship

Recent research focuses on the concept of well-being, aiming to systematize it and obtain design guidelines. In latest years, various building certification systems have arisen, which, although used for ex post evaluations, contain, specularly, design guidelines. In a first phase the concept of well-being was intended on a global scale, linked to the pitfalls of pollution and consumption of resources, so design guidelines and control systems developed within the construction industry to ensure the conservation of the environment and therefore the “well-being” and “health” of human communities. Having therefore developed certification systems measuring and evaluating the performance of buildings in relation to their impact on the environment and its resources, we are now faced with a shift of attention on a smaller scale, linked to the performance that buildings offer not so much with respect to the environment as to the people who live in them. This chapter explores the concepts behind such systems and the relationship between building certification systems and people's well-being.

scholarly journals Exploring Perceived Well-Being from Urban Parks: Insights from a Megacity in Latin America

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 7586
Author(s):  
Andrea Parra-Saldívar ◽  
Sebastián Abades ◽  
Juan L. Celis-Diez ◽  
Stefan Gelcich
Keyword(s):  
Native Species ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Urban Parks ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Ecological Knowledge ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Middle Income Countries ◽  
The Relationship

Urbanization has impacted biodiversity and ecosystems at a global scale. At the same time, it has been recognized as a driver of the physical and emotional gap between humans and nature. The lack of direct contact with nature can have a negative impact on several aspects of human well-being and change knowledge and attitudes of people towards the environment. However, this phenomenon is still poorly understood in megacities outside developed countries. Here, we explore the relationship between ecological knowledge and self-reported well-being in an important urban park in Santiago, Chile. We conducted semi-structured surveys of park users to explore their beliefs, preferences, ecological knowledge of plants and birds, and self-reported well-being. Citizens associated urban parks mainly with “nature,” and particularly with the presence of trees and plants. Trees were recognized as the most relevant elements of urban parks; in turn, birds were ranked as the less relevant. Regarding formal ecological knowledge, respondents correctly identified an average of 2.01 plants and 2.44 birds out of a total of 10 for each taxon, and exotic species were more likely to be recognized. Park users also reported high scores for self-reported well-being. Interestingly, variance of self-reported well-being scores tended to increase at low levels of ecological knowledge of trees, but no significant relationship was detected with knowledge of birds, nor native species. Ecological knowledge of trees was positively related to self-reported well-being. Results suggest that parks can positively contribute to bring people closer to nature in middle-income countries. Improving ecological knowledge can be critical to restore the relationship between humans and nature in megacities.

scholarly journals Scaling Biodiversity Conservation Efforts: An Examination of the Relationship Between Global Biodiversity Targets and Local Plans

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Rae Pierce ◽  
Sabrina Drill ◽  
Michael D. Halder ◽  
Mika Mei Jia Tan ◽  
Anushri Tiwari ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Local Scale ◽  
Convention On Biological Diversity ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
Global Biodiversity ◽  
The Relationship

Cities have a critical role to play in meeting global-scale biodiversity targets. Urban socio-ecological systems connect human and ecological well-being. The outsized impact of cities reaches well-beyond their geographic borders through cultural, ecological, and economic interactions. Although cities account for just 2% of the earth's surface, they host over half of the human population and are responsible for 75% of consumption. The Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and others have acknowledged the important role cities can play in achieving global targets. In response, at least 110 cities have produced plans focused on biodiversity, but we do not know the extent to which these city plans align with global targets or what role they play in achieving these targets. Here, we explore the relationship between global biodiversity conservation targets and local biodiversity plans to identify how elements at the two scales align or diverge. We compared the CBD Strategic Plan 2011–2020 (Aichi Targets) with 44 local biodiversity plans (often called LBSAPs) from cities around the world. We analyzed more than 2,800 actions from the local plans to measure the relationship with these global targets. Our results show how local approaches to biodiversity conservation can inform post-2020 global frameworks to improve coordination between global and local scale processes. We identify actions particular to the local scale that are critical to conserve global biodiversity and suggest a framework for improved coordination between actors at different scales that address their respective roles and spheres of influence.

scholarly journals Climate impacts on human livelihoods: where uncertainty matters in projections of water availability

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 403-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. K. Lissner ◽  
D. E. Reusser ◽  
J. Schewe ◽  
T. Lakes ◽  
J. P. Kropp
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Availability ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Impact Model ◽  
First Results

Abstract. Climate change will have adverse impacts on many different sectors of society, with manifold consequences for human livelihoods and well-being. However, a systematic method to quantify human well-being and livelihoods across sectors is so far unavailable, making it difficult to determine the extent of such impacts. Climate impact analyses are often limited to individual sectors (e.g. food or water) and employ sector-specific target-measures, while systematic linkages to general livelihood conditions remain unexplored. Further, recent multi-model assessments have shown that uncertainties in projections of climate impacts deriving from climate and impact models as well as greenhouse gas scenarios are substantial, posing an additional challenge in linking climate impacts with livelihood conditions. This article first presents a methodology to consistently measure Adequate Human livelihood conditions for wEll-being And Development (AHEAD). Based on a transdisciplinary sample of influential concepts addressing human well-being, the approach measures the adequacy of conditions of 16 elements. We implement the method at global scale, using results from the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP) to show how changes in water availability affect the fulfilment of AHEAD at national resolution. In addition, AHEAD allows identifying and differentiating uncertainty of climate and impact model projections. We show how the approach can help to put the substantial inter-model spread into the context of country-specific livelihood conditions by differentiating where the uncertainty about water scarcity is relevant with regard to livelihood conditions – and where it is not. The results indicate that in many countries today, livelihood conditions are compromised by water scarcity. However, more often, AHEAD fulfilment is limited through other elements. Moreover, the analysis shows that for 44 out of 111 countries, the water-specific uncertainty ranges are outside relevant thresholds for AHEAD, and therefore do not contribute to the overall uncertainty about climate change impacts on livelihoods. The AHEAD method presented here, together with first results, forms an important step towards making scientific results more applicable for policy-decisions.

scholarly journals Editorial Introduction: Re-envisioning Education in a Globalizing World

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-209
Author(s):  
Hiro Saito
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Happy Life ◽  
Critical Knowledge ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Globalizing World ◽  
The Relationship

This special issue focuses on education as a crucial factor mediating the relationship between youth and globalization. Specifically, four papers collectively explore how education can be re-envisioned from the following vantage point: the use of technology to foreground the fundamentally interconnected nature of today’s world; the help of mindfulness to deepen the awareness of such interconnectedness and cultivate a commitment to collective well-being; the role of activism to produce more critical knowledge and transformational solidarity for social justice on a global scale; at the same time, the necessity of reflexivity to examine one’s own ontological and epistemological assumptions before attempting any educational intervention. I argue that this vantage point helps re-envision the existing institutions and practices of education to encourage young people in a globalizing world to learn to live a happy life together by embracing their pluriversal coexistence.

scholarly journals Climate impacts on human livelihoods: where uncertainty matters in projections of water availability

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 355-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. K. Lissner ◽  
D. E. Reusser ◽  
J. Schewe ◽  
T. Lakes ◽  
J. P. Kropp
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Availability ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Impact Model ◽  
First Results

Abstract. Climate change will have adverse impacts on many different sectors of society, with manifold consequences for human livelihoods and well-being. However, a systematic method to quantify human well-being and livelihoods across sectors is so far unavailable, making it difficult to determine the extent of such impacts. Climate impact analyses are often limited to individual sectors (e.g. food or water) and employ sector-specific target measures, while systematic linkages to general livelihood conditions remain unexplored. Further, recent multi-model assessments have shown that uncertainties in projections of climate impacts deriving from climate and impact models, as well as greenhouse gas scenarios, are substantial, posing an additional challenge in linking climate impacts with livelihood conditions. This article first presents a methodology to consistently measure what is referred to here as AHEAD (Adequate Human livelihood conditions for wEll-being And Development). Based on a trans-disciplinary sample of concepts addressing human well-being and livelihoods, the approach measures the adequacy of conditions of 16 elements. We implement the method at global scale, using results from the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISI-MIP) to show how changes in water availability affect the fulfilment of AHEAD at national resolution. In addition, AHEAD allows for the uncertainty of climate and impact model projections to be identified and differentiated. We show how the approach can help to put the substantial inter-model spread into the context of country-specific livelihood conditions by differentiating where the uncertainty about water scarcity is relevant with regard to livelihood conditions – and where it is not. The results indicate that livelihood conditions are compromised by water scarcity in 34 countries. However, more often, AHEAD fulfilment is limited through other elements. The analysis shows that the water-specific uncertainty ranges of the model output are outside relevant thresholds for AHEAD for 65 out of 111 countries, and therefore do not contribute to the overall uncertainty about climate change impacts on livelihoods. In 46 of the countries in the analysis, water-specific uncertainty is relevant to AHEAD. The AHEAD method presented here, together with first results, forms an important step towards making scientific results more applicable for policy decisions.

Comfort and Convenience: Temporality and Practice

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Shove
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Temporal Order ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Resource Consumption ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Changing Patterns

Despite being embedded in the practices and discourses of daily life, comfort and convenience are not terms around which theories and studies of consumption have traditionally revolved. Over the last decade or so, the tides of intellectual fashion have begun to turn, bringing the mundane into view and highlighting previously invisible dimensions of consumer culture. In reviewing changing interpretations of comfort and convenience, this article captures some of the processes through which the contours of social life are simultaneously sustained and transformed. It also examines how interpretations of comfort and convenience come to be as they are today, and in understanding the types of consumption and demand they entail. This more substantive angle is important in that contemporary definitions of physical well-being and temporal order imply and rely upon forms of resource consumption which are unsustainable in the longer run or on a global scale. The article concludes by considering time and timing, convenience and compromise, convenience and the time–space profiles of practice, and changing patterns of consumption in relation to comfort and convenience.

System dynamics approach for the economic impacts of ICTs: evidence from Macedonia

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 364-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilija S. Hristoski ◽  
Olivera B. Kostoska
Keyword(s):  
System Dynamics ◽  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Hierarchical Cluster ◽  
Communication Technologies ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Indicator Values ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
The Impact

Measuring the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on the economy is a major challenge and a research question standing at the forefront of economics in the past years. In terms of methodologies, two approaches have been followed extensively, i.e. the standard growth accounting methodology and the regression-based models. This paper aims at developing an alternative approach to studying the usage and impact of ICTs. For this purpose, a two-step methodology is proposed here. At first, hierarchical cluster analysis is used to provide an objective clustering of countries (Macedonia and EU-28) according to 53 indicator values/scores of the Networked Readiness Index. Furthermore, a system dynamics model is proposed to simulate the evolution of the NRI indicator values for Macedonia. This second step allows for examining the potential of the country to improve its rankings on a global scale and thus, become better at leveraging ICTs for increased competitiveness and well-being. Beyond the rankings, the proposed methodology can serve as a useful guide for those attributes Macedonia should focus on in order to improve its position relative to other countries, i.e. to move from its current to the next higher cluster.

Health and well-being in the great recession

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolaos Askitas ◽  
Klaus F. Zimmermann
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Economics Of Health ◽  
Search Data ◽  
The Business Cycle ◽  
The Impact

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the authors can use internet search data in order to capture the impact of the 2008 Financial and Economic Crisis on well-being. Design/methodology/approach – The authors look at the G8 countries with a special focus on USA and Germany and investigate whether internet searches reflect the “malaise” caused by the crisis. The authors focus on searches that contain the word “symptoms” and are thought to proxy self-diagnosis and those that contain “side effects” and are thought to proxy treatment. Findings – The authors find that “malaise” searches spike in a fashion coincident with the crisis and its contagion timeline across the G8 countries. The authors show that results based on search recover previously known stylized facts from the economics of health, well-being and the business cycle. Research limitations/implications – Internet penetration is high across the G8 countries. The authors nonetheless cannot get a good handle on the part of the population, which is not online. Moreover the authors cannot get a good grip on all confounding factors. More research would be necessary with access to search microdata. Originality/value – The authors propose global proxies for diagnosis and treatment based on the “search buzz” for symptoms and side effects. The authors can thus capture trends on a global scale. This approach will become increasingly important.

scholarly journals A systematic approach to assess human wellbeing demonstrated for impacts of climate change

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tabea K. Lissner ◽  
Dominik E. Reusser ◽  
Tobia Lakes ◽  
Jürgen P. Kropp
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Systematic Approach ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Climate Impact ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Influence Matrix ◽  
Impact Pathways

AbstractClimate change impacts will affect many important societal sectors, with potential negative consequences for human well-being and livelihoods, however an integrated and systematic measure to assess the state of livelihood conditions in this context is not available. At the same time, human livelihoods and wellbeing are an important part of (social) sustainability. Yet, aspects of human needs and well-being within assessments of sustainability are criticised for being arbitrary and incomplete. This paper presents a systematic approach to assess Adequate Human livelihood conditions for wEll-being And Development (AHEAD) on a regional to global scale. Based on an interdisciplinary literature review, we first select a consistent set of elements that allow to describe and quantify well-being and livelihoods. In a second step, we analyze documented associations between the elements to outline climate impact pathways and indirect effects of changes in single system components, using an influence matrix. The novel approach provides an important first step to point towards climate change adaptation measures, which most effectively increase human well-being, while identifying potential unintended side-effects. Even though there are some limitations to assessing well-being and livelihoods on a global scale, a consistent measure of AHEAD is of utmost importance for future sustainability and climate impact analyses.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document