8. Prometheus

2018 ◽  
pp. 144-160
Author(s):  
Erle C. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Earth System ◽  
System Science ◽  
Geologic Time ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Social And Environmental Change ◽  
The Many ◽  
Global Environmental Changes

The Anthropocene continues to be controversial across the many scholarly communities that study social and environmental change, including not only archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, and environmental historians, but also ecologists and Earth scientists. Will creating a new unit of geologic time help to advance scientific efforts to understand Earth’s human transformation? ‘Prometheus’ considers the new challenges faced by Earth System science: the anthroposphere, geoengineering, and the need to guide efforts to adapt to an increasingly dynamic human planet. Given the overwhelming scale, rate, and diversity of harmful global environmental changes produced by human societies, it is hard not to view the Anthropocene as an unmitigated disaster, but could a better Anthropocene be a possibility?

scholarly journals Meeting at the crossroads

Elem Sci Anth ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex McInturff ◽  
Clare E. B. Cannon ◽  
Peter S. Alagona ◽  
David N. Pellow
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Large Carnivore ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
The Many ◽  
Novel Concept ◽  
Diversity Of Life ◽  
Global Environmental Changes

As global environmental changes continue to accelerate, research and practice in the field of conservation biology may be essential to help forestall precipitous declines in the earth’s ability to sustain a diversity of life. However, many conservation programs have faced scrutiny for the social injustices they create, especially within the paradigm of demarcating protected lands. Currently, a new conservation paradigm emphasizing landscapes shared by people and wildlife is emerging, and with it, an opportunity to ensure that justice for both human and beyond-human groups is given consideration. Here, we examine a practice emblematic of this new conservation paradigm, the reintroduction and recovery of large carnivore species, and draw from theories in environmental justice to detail the many forms of justice at stake in these efforts. Our analysis shows that a pluralistic application of justice is required to ensure that new conservation practices do not produce and reproduce injustices for people. In addition, we show that the success of these emerging programs in meeting their conservation goals in fact depends on meaningfully addressing a range of justice concerns. By developing this framework, we also identify domains in which environmental justice scholarship can expand its scope. To this end, we introduce the novel concept of affective environmental justice, which describes the complex role of emotions as environmental harms, as disruptors of understanding other forms of justice, and as links between logics of oppression. Our framework offers a comprehensive resource to work through in planning and implementing large carnivore reintroduction and recovery programs, and we conclude by describing the challenges and opportunities for further aligning conservation and environmental justice in research and practice.

scholarly journals Utilizing Photovoice to Support Indigenous Accounts of Environmental Change and Injustice

Genealogy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felicia M. Mitchell ◽  
Shanondora Billiot ◽  
Stephanie Lechuga-Peña
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
Ecological Changes ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Cultural Connections ◽  
Global Environmental Changes

Global environmental changes can happen quickly or over extended periods and have compounding effects. Indigenous communities experience environmental changes that can lead to a decline in quality of life, illness or disease, and unwelcome cultural adaptations that extend to future generations. Due to limited resources and political marginalization, members of these communities may not be able to respond to or prevent these conditions. Cultural connections to the land and community, along with limited resources, impact Indigenous peoples’ willingness and ability to relocate to different geographic locations experiencing less damaging ecological changes or environmental risk. In this article, we respond to the Special Issue prompt probing “[m]ethods in which Indigenous communities engage within their environment and on the land to conduct research”. We begin by describing environmental change, followed by a scoping review of Photovoice studies focused on environmental issues. Environmental changes affecting Indigenous groups are discussed, including a case study and a discussion of the ways that Photovoice can support and honor Indigenous peoples’ connection to the natural environment. This article is not intended to be an exhaustive review, but rather seeks to understand how Photovoice is being used to respond to and document environmental change, and how such visual methodologies can be used in Indigenous communities.

scholarly journals The Disaster Risk, Global Change, and Sustainability Nexus

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 957 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascal Peduzzi
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Global Change ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Disaster Risk Reduction ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Disaster Risk ◽  
Compound Event ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Global Environmental Changes

Until the 1970s, disaster risk was perceived as a direct consequence of natural hazards. Gradually, disaster risk has come to be understood as a compound event, which lies at the intersection of hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of the exposed elements. After decades of research and lessons learned from mega-disasters, social scientists have introduced the social dimension of disaster risk, and the prevailing understanding is that disasters are also a human construct. Now, due to climate and global environmental changes, even the natural component of hazards is being altered by anthropogenic activities, changing hazard susceptibility, coverage, frequency, and severity. This review retraces the brief history and evolution of the global understanding of disaster risk as a compound event, in parallel with research on global environmental change. It highlights the main milestones in this area, and shows that there are tight connections between trends of disaster risk and global change. This paper aims to demonstrate the need to better consider the role of global environmental change in disaster risk assessment. In 2015, three major new agreements were reached to improve global environmental governance: the new Sendai Framework (2015–2030), the post-2015 development agenda with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Climate COP21 in Paris. These all include a clear focus on disaster risk reduction; however, several aspects of disaster risk linked with global environmental changes are still not clearly addressed by the main stakeholders (governments, insurers, or agencies). As the complexity of risk unfolds, more actors are getting together; the need for a holistic approach for disaster risk reduction has become clear, and is closely connected with achieving sustainable development.

Functional shifts in natural forests under environmental change over the last 65 years are faster in colder regions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masumi Hisano ◽  
Han Chen ◽  
Xinli Chen ◽  
Masahiro Ryo
Keyword(s):  
Drought Tolerance ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Functional Composition ◽  
Natural Forests ◽  
Functional Responses ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Global Environmental Changes

Abstract Global environmental changes have significantly impacted plant diversity and composition over many decades. Maintaining biodiversity and composition is critical for sustainability of ecosystem functioning and related services. While global environmental changes have modified plant species and functional compositions in forest ecosystems, it remains unclear how temporal shifts in functional composition differ across regions and biomes. Utilizing extensive spatial and long-term forest inventory data (17,107 plots monitored 1951–2016) across Canada, we found that functional composition shifted toward fast-growing deciduous broadleaved trees and higher drought tolerance over time; notably, this functional shift was more rapid in colder regions. Further analysis revealed that the functional composition of colder plots shifted toward drought tolerance more rapidly with rising CO2 than warmer plots, which suggests the vulnerability of the functional composition of colder plots against global environmental changes. Future ecosystem management practices should consider spatial differences in functional responses to global environmental change, with particular attention to colder plots that experience higher rates of warming and compositional changes.

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