Why for COVID but Not for Climate?

2021 ◽  
pp. 230-236
Author(s):  
Jorge Daniel Taillant
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Global Community ◽  
Opinion Piece ◽  
Climate Crisis

This chapter is a reproduction of a previously published opinion piece examining the similarities of the challenges the global community faced during the COVID-19 crisis and the dynamics faced by catastrophic climate change trends. The chapter considers why the global community acted so quickly to address COVID-19 but seems not so pressed to tackle an even greater problem, irreversible climate change. It provides insights on the characteristics of these crises and the reactions of society to them and compares and contrasts these different but similar existential crises. The chapter also contrasts the views of the two authors, who are aged 52 and 20, and their different approaches to the solutions, which may offer insight and clues about how future generations will tackle and strive to resolve the climate crisis.

scholarly journals The frugal life and why we should educate for it

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John White
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Systematic Account ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Over Time

The article begins with a fictional example of a life that has been spent frugally in several different ways and for different reasons over time: in wartime, through many decades of simple living, through a period marked by anxiety over the threat to future generations from the depletion of global resources and the climate crisis, to the COVID-19 emergency. The mini-biography serves as an introduction to a more systematic account of these various perspectives on frugality and reasons for adopting a frugal way of living. This provides the framework for a discussion of different aspects of education for frugality in the main body of the article. There are two brief sections at the end dealing, first, with a caveat about the climate change argument for education in frugality and, second, with wider issues that the topic raises.

scholarly journals Form not Content Dictates the “Smart” City

2021 ◽  
pp. 231-240
Author(s):  
Dhiru Thadani
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Scientific Communities ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
The Past ◽  
Traditional Pattern ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Mother Earth

Over the past 50 years, decision-makers, laypersons, scientific communities, and design professions have repeatedly warned of the impending climate crisis caused by overdependence on fossil fuels. The environmental prophets have admonished that mother earth is on the brink of catastrophe. In response, scientific wizards have boasted that technocratic solutions will save the day. The evidence clearly indicates that a drastic change in policies, lifestyle, and consumption habits is necessary if there is to be a livable world for future generations.  Urbanism is the most efficient form of habitation. Embracing and legislating for the traditional pattern of urbanism which is supported by Wi-Fi technology is the livable and sustainable prescription to address climate change and the global dependence on fossil fuels. 

What we can learn from the parallels between the COVID-19 and the future climate change crises

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén D. Manzanedo ◽  
Peter Manning
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Substantial Portion ◽  
Preventative Measures ◽  
The Future ◽  
Behavioral Norm ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Global Population

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.

Effective Altruism

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Animal Welfare ◽  
Poverty Alleviation ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Global Poverty ◽  
Global Community ◽  
Helping Others ◽  
The World ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Effective Altruism

The effective altruism movement consists of a growing global community of people who organize significant parts of their lives around two key ideas, represented in its name. Altruism: If we use a significant portion of the resources in our possession—whether money, time, or talents—with a view to helping others, we can improve the world considerably. Effectiveness: When we do put such resources to altruistic use, it is crucial to focus on how much good this or that intervention is reasonably expected to do per unit of resource expended (for example, per dollar donated). While global poverty is a widely used case study in introducing and motivating effective altruism, if the ultimate aim is to do the most good one can with the resources expended, it is far from obvious that global poverty alleviation is highest priority cause area. In addition to ranking possible poverty-alleviation interventions against one another, we can also try to rank interventions aimed at very different types of outcome against one another. This includes, for example, interventions focusing on animal welfare or future generations. The scale and organization of the effective altruism movement encourage careful dialogue on questions that have perhaps long been there, throwing them into new and sharper relief, and giving rise to previously unnoticed questions. In the present volume, the first of its kind, a group of internationally recognized philosophers, economists, and political theorists contribute in-depth explorations of issues that arise once one takes seriously the twin ideas of altruistic commitment and effectiveness.

Configurations to Superior Environmental Innovation Strategy: A Both–And Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 108602662110316
Author(s):  
Tiziana Russo-Spena ◽  
Nadia Di Paola ◽  
Aidan O’Driscoll
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Innovation Strategy ◽  
Environmental Innovation ◽  
Data Set

An effective climate change action involves the critical role that companies must play in assuring the long-term human and social well-being of future generations. In our study, we offer a more holistic, inclusive, both–and approach to the challenge of environmental innovation (EI) that uses a novel methodology to identify relevant configurations for firms engaging in a superior EI strategy. A conceptual framework is proposed that identifies six sets of driving characteristics of EI and two sets of beneficial outcomes, all inherently tensional. Our analysis utilizes a complementary rather than an oppositional point of view. A data set of 65 companies in the ICT value chain is analyzed via fuzzy-set comparative analysis (fsQCA) and a post-QCA procedure. The results reveal that achieving a superior EI strategy is possible in several scenarios. Specifically, after close examination, two main configuration groups emerge, referred to as technological environmental innovators and organizational environmental innovators.

“Famous, Beloved, Reviled, Respected, Feared, Celebrated:” Media Construction of Greta Thunberg

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily D Ryalls ◽  
Sharon R Mazzarella
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Time Magazine ◽  
Alternative Construction ◽  
Media Construction ◽  
Climate Crisis

Abstract In the 16 months before TIME magazine naming Greta Thunberg its Person of the Year, as her influence grew, so too did the news media’s attempts to make sense of her. This project analyzes profiles of Greta Thunberg to understand how journalists constructed the persona that has become “Greta.” We argue the paradoxical framing of Thunberg as exceptional and fierce and childlike contributes to an alternative construction of girlhood grounded in the positive portrayal of her Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis. While featuring ASD as her “superpower” is potentially progressive, we argue foregrounding Thunberg’s whiteness and age cements her construction as the iconic voice of the climate crisis movement, potentially downplaying the need for collective action to end climate change.

scholarly journals Are there similarities between the Corona and the climate crisis?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Decision Procedures ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Short Paper ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Look Back ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
Climate Crisis

AbstractIn this short paper, I look back at the early stages of the Corona crisis, around early February 2020, and compare the situation with the climate crisis. Although these two problems unfold on a completely different timescale (weeks in the case of Corona, decades in the case of climate change), I find some rather striking similarities between these two problems, related with issues such as uncertainty, free-rider incentives, and disincentives of politicians to adequately address the respective issue with early, farsighted and possibly harsh policy measures. I then argue that for complex problems with certain characteristics, it may be necessary to establish novel political decision procedures that sidestep the normal, day-to-day political proceedings. These would be procedures that actively involve experts, and lower the involvement of political parties as far as possible to minimize the decision-makers’ disincentives.

A “Natural” Proposal for Addressing Climate Change

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Lovejoy
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Radiant Heat ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Considerable Time ◽  
Long Time

One of the fundamental challenges of climate change is that we contribute to it increment by increment, and experience it increment by increment after a considerable time lag. As a consequence, it is very difficult to see what we are doing to ourselves, to future generations, and to the living planet as a whole. There are monumental ethical issues involved, but they are obscured by the incremental nature of the process and the long time frame before reaching the concentration of greenhouse gases and the ensuing accumulation of radiant heat—and consequent climate change—that ensues.

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