Opportunities and Limitations for Reproductive Science in Species Conservation

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
William V. Holt ◽  
Pierre Comizzoli
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Pollution ◽  
Conservation Biology ◽  
Species Conservation ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Animal Conservation ◽  
Reproductive Science ◽  
Number Of Individuals

Reproductive science in the context of conservation biology is often understood solely in terms of breeding threatened species. Although technologies developed primarily for agriculture or biomedicine have a potentially important role in species conservation, their effectiveness is limited if we regard the main objective of animal conservation as helping to support populations rather than to breed a small number of individuals. The global threats facing wild species include the consequences of climate change, population growth, urbanization, atmospheric and water pollution, and the release of chemicals into the environment, to cite but a few. Reproductive sciences provide important and often unexpected windows into many of these consequences, and our aim here is both to demonstrate the breadth of reproductive science and the importance of basic knowledge and to suggest where some of the insights might be useful in mitigating the problems. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Animal Biosciences, Volume 10 is February 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

scholarly journals Extreme Weather and Climate Change: Population Health and Health System Implications

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristie L. Ebi ◽  
Jennifer Vanos ◽  
Jane W. Baldwin ◽  
Jesse E. Bell ◽  
David M. Hondula ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Health System ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Extreme Weather ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Weather And Climate ◽  
Resilient Infrastructure

Extreme weather and climate events, such as heat waves, cyclones, and floods, are an expression of climate variability. These events and events influenced by climate change, such as wildfires, continue to cause significant human morbidity and mortality and adversely affect mental health and well-being. Although adverse health impacts from extreme events declined over the past few decades, climate change and more people moving into harm's way could alter this trend. Long-term changes to Earth's energy balance are increasing the frequency and intensity of many extreme events and the probability of compound events, with trends projected to accelerate under certain greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. While most of these events cannot be completely avoided, many of the health risks could be prevented through building climate-resilient health systems with improved risk reduction, preparation, response, and recovery. Conducting vulnerability and adaptation assessments and developing health system adaptation plans can identify priority actions to effectively reduce risks, such as disaster risk management and more resilient infrastructure. The risks are urgent, so action is needed now. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Public Health, Volume 42 is April 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

scholarly journals Climate Change, Disinformation, and How to Combat It

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Lewandowsky
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Public Acceptance ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Free Markets ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Multiple Levels

Climate change presents a challenge at multiple levels: It challenges our cognitive abilities because the effect of the accumulation of emissions is difficult to understand. Climate change also challenges many people's worldview because any climate mitigation regime will have economic and political implications that are incompatible with libertarian ideals of unregulated free markets. These political implications have created an environment of rhetorical adversity in which disinformation abounds, thus compounding the challenges for climate communicators. The existing literature on how to communicate climate change and dispel misinformation converges on several conclusions: First, providing information about climate change, in particular explanations of why it occurs, can enhance people's acceptance of science. Second, highlighting the scientific consensus can be an effective means to counter misinformation and raise public acceptance. Third, culturally aligned messages and messengers are more likely to be successful. Finally, climate misinformation is best defanged, through a process known as inoculation, before it is encountered, although debunking techniques can also be successful. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Public Health, Volume 42 is April 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

scholarly journals Vicious Circles: Violence, Vulnerability, and Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Halvard Buhaug ◽  
Nina von Uexkull
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Economic Prosperity ◽  
Vulnerability To Climate Change ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Climatic Drivers ◽  
Conflict Risk

Climate change threatens core dimensions of human security, including economic prosperity, food availability, and societal stability. In recent years, war-torn regions such as Afghanistan and Yemen have harbored severe humanitarian crises, compounded by climate-related hazards. These cases epitomize the powerful but presently incompletely appreciated links between vulnerability, conflict, and climate-related impacts. In this article, we develop a unified conceptual model of these phenomena by connecting three fields of research that traditionally have had little interaction: ( a) determinants of social vulnerability to climate change, ( b) climatic drivers of armed conflict risk, and ( c) societal impacts of armed conflict. In doing so, we demonstrate how many of the conditions that shape vulnerability to climate change also increase the likelihood of climate–conflict interactions and, furthermore, that impacts from armed conflict aggravate these conditions. The end result may be a vicious circle locking affected societies in a trap of violence, vulnerability, and climate change impacts. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 46 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

scholarly journals At the Water's Edge: Coastal Settlement, Transformative Adaptation, and Well-Being in an Era of Dynamic Climate Risk

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
William Solecki ◽  
Erin Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Community Change ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Climate Resilience ◽  
Transformative Adaptation

With accelerating climate change, US coastal communities are experiencing increased flood risk intensity, resulting from accelerated sea level rise and stronger storms. These conditions place pressure on municipalities and local residents to consider a range of new disaster risk reduction programs, climate resilience initiatives, and in some cases transformative adaptation strategies (e.g., managed retreat and relocation from highly vulnerable, low-elevation locations). Researchers have increasingly understood that these climate risks and adaptation actions have significant impacts on the quality of life, well-being, and mental health of urban coastal residents. We explore these relationships and define conditions under which adaptation practices will affect communities and residents. Specifically, we assess climate and environmental stressors, community change, and well-being by utilizing the growing climate change literature and the parallel social science literature on risk and hazards, environmental psychology, and urban geography work, heretofore not widely integrated into work on climate adaptation. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Public Health, Volume 42 is April 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

scholarly journals Domestic Pressure and International Climate Cooperation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Tavoni ◽  
Ralph Winkler
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
International Policy ◽  
International Climate Policy ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
International Climate ◽  
Shed Light

In the wake of 25 United Nations Climate Change Conferences of the Parties (and counting), international cooperation on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions to avoid substantial and potentially irreversible climate change remains an important challenge. The limited impact of the Kyoto Protocol on curbing emissions, and the gap between the ambitions of its successor and the Paris Agreement's lack of sanctioning mechanisms for addressing noncompliance, demonstrates both the difficulties in negotiating ambitious environmental agreements and the reluctance of countries to comply with their agreed emission targets once they have joined the treaty. Therefore, a better understanding of the obstacles and opportunities that the interactions between domestic and international policy pose for the design of successful international climate cooperation is of utmost importance. To shed light on the roots of the stalemate (and suggest possible ways out), this article reviews and draws lessons from a growing theoretical, experimental, and empirical literature that accounts for the hierarchical interplay between domestic political pressure and international climate policy. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Resource Economics, Volume 13 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Civilization-Saving Science for the Twenty-First Century

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia K. McNutt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Leading Edge ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Change Mitigation

Geoscientists have generally been at the leading edge of predicting the challenges society faces from hazards both natural and anthropomorphic. As geoscientists, we have been less successful in devising the solutions to those problems to ensure a habitable planet for ourselves and future generations because often the solutions lie in creating novel partnerships with other researchers, including engineers, biologists, and social scientists. These sorts of transdisciplinary partnerships have been leading to radical advances in human health, under the banner of convergence science. Application of these principles of convergence science offers significant promise for addressing challenges such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, environmental health, protecting ecosystem services, and advancing sustainability science. To apply this approach rigorously, however, will involve a culture change in the geosciences in terms of how students are educated, how researchers are rewarded, and how projects are funded. ▪ Geoscientists need to work collaboratively with life, physical, and social scientists, as well as engineers, to solve the problems of our time. ▪ Universities need to address financial, procedural, educational, and cultural impediments to the conduct of convergence research. ▪ Adopting a solutions orientation to major environmental issues could help attract a more diverse geoscience workforce. ▪ Climate change mitigation would benefit from partnerships between geoscientists and social scientists to make the right behavior easy. ▪ The current course of Earth science education, research, and partnerships is inadequate to address sustainability. ▪ Ensuring environmental health requires collaboration between experts in health, environment, infrastructure, and economics. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Volume 50 is May 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Stepping on the Gas to a Circular Economy: Accelerating Development of Carbon-Negative Chemical Production from Gas Fermentation

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Fackler ◽  
Björn D. Heijstra ◽  
Blake J. Rasor ◽  
Hunter Brown ◽  
Jacob Martin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Carbon Capture ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Chemical Production ◽  
Gas Fermentation ◽  
Product Flexibility ◽  
Key Enabling Technologies

Owing to rising levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere and oceans, climate change poses significant environmental, economic, and social challenges globally. Technologies that enable carbon capture and conversion of greenhouse gases into useful products will help mitigate climate change by enabling a new circular carbon economy. Gas fermentation using carbon-fixing microorganisms offers an economically viable and scalable solution with unique feedstock and product flexibility that has been commercialized recently. We review the state of the art of gas fermentation and discuss opportunities to accelerate future development and rollout. We discuss the current commercial process for conversion of waste gases to ethanol, including the underlying biology, challenges in process scale-up, and progress on genetic tool development and metabolic engineering to expand the product spectrum. We emphasize key enabling technologies to accelerate strain development for acetogens and other nonmodel organisms. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Volume 12 is June 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

scholarly journals Restoring Degraded Lands

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Almut Arneth ◽  
Lennart Olsson ◽  
Annette Cowie ◽  
Karl-Heinz Erb ◽  
Margot Hurlbert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Degradation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Climate Regulation ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Change Mitigation ◽  
Degradation Problem

Land degradation continues to be an enormous challenge to human societies, reducing food security, emitting greenhouse gases and aerosols, driving the loss of biodiversity, polluting water, and undermining a wide range of ecosystem services beyond food supply and water and climate regulation. Climate change will exacerbate several degradation processes. Investment in diverse restoration efforts, including sustainable agricultural and forest land management, as well as land set aside for conservation wherever possible, will generate co-benefits for climate change mitigation and adaptation and more broadly for human and societal well-being and the economy. This review highlights the magnitude of the degradation problem and some of the key challenges for ecological restoration. There are biophysical as well as societal limits to restoration. Better integrating policies to jointly address poverty, land degradation, and greenhouse gas emissions and removals is fundamental to reducing many existing barriers and contributing to climate-resilient sustainable development. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 46 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

scholarly journals Air Quality in Africa: Public Health Implications

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Asmamaw Abera ◽  
Johan Friberg ◽  
Christina Isaxon ◽  
Michael Jerrett ◽  
Ebba Malmqvist ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Air Pollution ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Household Waste ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Pollution Levels ◽  
Development Processes

This review highlights the importance of air quality in the African urban development process. We address connections between air pollution and ( a) rapid urbanization, ( b) social problems, ( c) health impacts, ( d) climate change, ( e) policies, and (  f ) new innovations. We acknowledge that air pollution levels in Africa can be extremely high and a serious health threat. The toxic content of the pollution could relate to region-specific sources such as low standards for vehicles and fuels, cooking with solid fuels, and burning household waste. We implore the pursuit of interdisciplinary research to create new approaches with relevant stakeholders. Moreover, successful air pollution research must regard conflicts, tensions, and synergies inherent to development processes in African municipalities, regions, and countries. This includes global relationships regarding climate change, trade, urban planning, and transportation. Incorporating aspects of local political situations (e.g., democracy) can also enhance greater political accountability and awareness about air pollution. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Public Health, Volume 42 is April 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

scholarly journals Anxiety, Worry, and Grief in a Time of Environmental and Climate Crisis: A Narrative Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Ojala ◽  
Ashlee Cunsolo ◽  
Charles A. Ogunbode ◽  
Jacqueline Middleton
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Narrative Review ◽  
Annual Review ◽  
Publication Date ◽  
The One ◽  
Climate Crisis

Climate change worry, eco-anxiety, and ecological grief are concepts that have emerged in the media, public discourse, and research in recent years. However, there is not much literature examining and summarizing the ways in which these emotions are expressed, to what processes they are related, and how they are distributed. This narrative review aims to ( a) summarize research about the relationships between, on the one hand, negative emotions in relation to climate change and other environmental problems and, on the other hand, mental well-being among people in different parts of the world and ( b) examine studies that have explored the potentially constructive role of worry—for example, in the form of providing motivation to act. It is clear from this review that negative emotions regarding environmental problems are normal, and often constructive, responses. Yet, given the nature, range, and extent of these emotions, it is important to identify diverse place-based and culturally relevant strategies to help people cope. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 46 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

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