Preaching when life depends on it: climate crisis and Gospel hope

2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-219
Author(s):  
Margaret Bullitt-Jonas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Moral Issue ◽  
Spiritual Awakening ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Climate Crisis

Many preachers avoid delivering sermons about the climate crisis. Bullitt-Jonas reflects on the power of sermons to awaken moral courage, arguing that strong sermons on climate change create the conditions for spiritual awakening and prophetic action. She considers six ideas for preachers, starting with how to frame the climate emergency in terms of Christian theology. She reflects on how to approach the lectionary; how to be adequately informed about climate science; how to connect climate change with other issues, such as coronavirus and racial and economic justice; why and how to infuse sermons with the empowering love of God; and individual and collective actions to encourage. Preachers play an essential role in helping Christians understand the climate crisis as a religious and moral issue and in creating a social “tipping point” that propels rapid change. The article includes resources for “best practices” in climate preaching and communication.

scholarly journals Future Directions—Engaged Scholarship and the Climate Crisis

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 304
Author(s):  
A. Haven Kiers ◽  
David de la Peña ◽  
N. Claire Napawan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Landscape Architecture ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Engaged Learning ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Ecosystem Research ◽  
Case Study Methodology ◽  
Climate Crisis

Climate change has the potential to disrupt ecosystem services and further exacerbate the effects of human activities on natural resources. This has significant implications for educational institutions and the populations they serve. As the current crop of landscape architecture students struggles to define its role within the climate crisis and its related social and political underpinnings, a core mission of colleges and universities moving forward should be to provide students with applied knowledge about how climate change affects the landscape. This goes beyond coursework in climate science or policy; for landscape architecture students to be leaders in the response to climate change, they need applied, practical skills. An ever-growing body of the literature focuses on landscape design strategies for climate change adaptation; however, few frameworks integrate these strategies with the hands-on experience students will need to face real-world challenges after graduation. Educational institutions have the potential to utilize their campuses as demonstration sites for applied ecosystem research programs and actively engage students with the design, implementation, politics, and ongoing stewardship of these landscapes. This paper uses a case study methodology to understand how experiential and public-engaged learning pedagogies contribute to student preparedness to address climate change. It examines three cases of engaged learning at the University of California, Davis campus and attributes their impact to intentional connections with research, to the delegation of responsibility; to the openness of spaces for experimentation, and to self-reflection that connects climate with everyday behavior. By promoting experiential learning programs that require students to actively use their heads and their hands to construct and sustainably manage their own campus landscapes, service-learning studios and internships can provide opportunities for students to address the real scenarios of climate crisis and resilience.

scholarly journals Making the climate crisis personal through a focus on human health

2021 ◽  
Vol 166 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vijay S. Limaye
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Local Health ◽  
Climate Resilience ◽  
Climate Crisis

AbstractClimate change–driven health impacts are serious, widespread, and costly. Importantly, such damages are largely absent from policy debates around the costs of delay and inaction on this crisis. While climate change is a global problem, its impacts are localized and personal, and there is growing demand for specific information on how climate change affects human health in different places. Existing research indicates that climate-fueled health problems are growing, and that investments in reducing carbon pollution and improving community resilience could help to avoid tens to hundreds of billions of dollars in climate-sensitive health impacts across the USA each year, including those stemming from extreme heat, air pollution, hurricanes, and wildfires. Science that explores the underappreciated local health impacts and health-related costs of climate change can enhance advocacy by demonstrating the need to both address the root causes of climate change and enhance climate resilience in vulnerable communities. The climate crisis has historically been predominantly conceived as a global environmental challenge; examination of climate impacts on public health enables researchers to localize this urgent problem for members of the public and policymakers. In turn, approaches to climate science that focus on health can make dangerous climate impacts and the need for cost-effective solutions more salient and tangible.

scholarly journals Tropical Imaginaries and Climate Crisis: Embracing Relational Climate Discourses

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Anita Lundberg ◽  
André Vasques Vital ◽  
Shruti Das
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Relational Climate

In this Introduction, we set the Special Issue on 'Tropical Imaginaries and Climate Crisis' within the context of a call for relational climate discourses as they arise from particular locations in the tropics. Although climate change is global, it is not experienced everywhere the same and has pronounced effects in the tropics. This is also the region that experienced the ravages – to humans and environments – of colonialism. It is the region of the planet’s greatest biodiversity; and will experience the largest extinction losses. We advocate that climate science requires climate imagination – and specifically a tropical imagination – to bring science systems into relation with the human, cultural, social and natural. In short, this Special Issue contributes to calls to humanise climate change. Yet this is not to place the human at the centre of climate stories, rather we embrace more-than-human worlds and the expansion of relational ways of knowing and being. This paper outlines notions of tropicality and rhizomatics that are pertinent to relational discourses, and introduces the twelve papers – articles, essays and speculative fiction pieces – that give voice to tropical imaginaries and climate change in the tropics.

Moral Reasoning, Intuitions, and Perceptions of Climate Change

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ezra Markowitz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Moral Issue ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Technical Issue ◽  
Forthcoming Article ◽  
Climate Change Research ◽  
The Public

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science. Please check back later for the full article. Climate change is often perceived by individuals as a scientific, environmental, economic and/or technical issue. Until recently, the moral and ethical dimensions of the issue have appeared to resonate less strongly with many members of the public. Yet for over two decades, climate ethicists and others have argued strenuously that climate change is, perhaps at its core, a moral and ethical issue. What explains this apparent disconnect between normative and subjective perspectives on the moral core of climate change? Research has identified a set of key psychological and cultural mechanisms that influence and at times inhibit individual moral reasoning about climate change and, often, inhibit perceptions of climate change as a moral issue. Moral reasoning and intuitions about climate change in turn influence public engagement with and support for responses to the problem. The research to date suggests several new questions for scholars to examine further, and it offers implications for effective public communication and engagement.

scholarly journals A physical concept in the press: the case of the Jet Stream

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Fonseca ◽  
Gonzalo Miguez-Macho ◽  
José A. Cortes-Vazquez ◽  
Antonio Vaamonde
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Jet Stream ◽  
Safe Limits ◽  
The Media ◽  
A Chain ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Climate Crisis

Abstract. In recent years, science has hardened the discourse on the emergency of global warming, pointing out that the next decades will be decisive to maintain the stability of the climate system, avoiding a cascade effect of events that increase the average temperature above safe limits. The scientific community warns that there are different tipping points that could produce a chain reaction in the global climate. One of them is related to the Jet Stream. But despite the importance of this air current in atmospheric dynamics in the Northern Hemisphere and the changes it is experiencing in the context of global warming, the public is still not familiar with this kind of physical concepts, nor with much simpler others. As concerns about the climate crisis rise, knowledge remains stagnant. To advance in the learning of the science of climate change, in general, and of concepts such as the Jet Stream, in particular, specific scientific communication formats are required that can successfully tackle the difficult task of explaining such complex problems to the general public. These formats should be included in the media because they are the main source for information on climate change and because their characteristics allow taking on the challenge. In this article we present a communication proposal existent in a newspaper published in Spain. We argue that this communication format represents a good model to disseminate climate science, educate readers and even to make physical concepts such as the Jet Stream accessible. We believe that this format conforms to and complies with the enunciation of Article 12 of the Paris Agreement, which calls on the signatory countries to promote education and training on climate change.

scholarly journals AGU Editors Call for Action to Address Global Climate Crisis

Eos ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paige Wooden ◽  
Matt Giampoala ◽  
Margaret Moerchen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Urgent Action

As global leaders meet to discuss climate change, AGU’s editors in chief make an appeal for urgent action based on years of accumulated climate science research.

scholarly journals Key messages from the IPCC AR6 climate science report

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Ming ◽  
Isobel Rowell ◽  
Sam Lewin ◽  
Robert Rouse ◽  
Thomas Aubry ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Physical Science ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Assessment Report ◽  
Briefing Document ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Climate Crisis

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published the first part of its sixth assessment report (AR6) which summarises the latest climate science findings and will guide policy in the years ahead. This report is particularly timely, as world leaders prepare to respond to the climate crisis at the UN COP26 climate summit in Glasgow this November. The full AR6 report is an enormous scientific undertaking that assesses the physical science basis for climate change and assembles the findings from over 14,000 peer reviewed publications. The purpose of this briefing document is to provide a succinct summary of the key scientific messages.

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.

“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.

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