Future imaginings and the battle over climate science: an interview with Michael Mann

Organization ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 748-756 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Wright ◽  
Michael Mann
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Temperature Variations ◽  
Central Target ◽  
Climate Reconstructions ◽  
Temperature Trends ◽  
Climate Change Denial ◽  
Michael Mann ◽  
Historical Temperature

Professor Michael Mann is one of the world’s leading climate scientists and best known for his work on historical temperature trends and hemispherical climate reconstructions, including the iconic ‘hockey stick’ graph of long-term temperature variations. As a result of his work, Professor Mann became a central target of criticism from conservative politicians, industry groups and the climate change denial industry. The following edited interview was conducted in October 2012.

scholarly journals Special Issue on Climate Migration

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Anda David ◽  
Frédéric Docquier
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Economic Research ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Low Latitude ◽  
Weather Shocks ◽  
Temperature Trends ◽  
Agricultural Areas ◽  
Slow Onset

How do weather shocks influence human mobility and poverty, and how will long-term climate change affect future migration over the course of the 21st century? These questions have gained unprecedented attention in public debates as global warming is already having severe impacts around the world, and prospects for the coming decades get worse. Low-latitude countries in general, and their agricultural areas in particular, have contributed the least to climate change but are the most adversely affected. The effect on people's voluntary and forced displacements is of major concern for both developed and developing countries. On 18 October 2019, Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) organized a workshop on Climate Migration with the aim of uncovering the mechanisms through which fast-onset variables (such as weather anomalies, storms, hurricanes, torrential rains, floods, landslides, etc.) and slow-onset variables (such as temperature trends, desertification, rising sea level, coastal erosion, etc.) influence both people's incentives to move and mobility constraints. This special issue gathers five papers prepared for this workshop, which shed light on (or predict) the effect of extreme weather shocks and long-term climate change on human mobility, and stress the implications for the development community.

scholarly journals Alan Betts: Green Energy Times, 2018

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Betts
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Policy ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Green Energy ◽  
Collective Decision ◽  
The Public ◽  
Systems Perspective ◽  
Climate Change Denial ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Future

This is a collection of my 2018 articles in the Green Energy Times (http://www.greenenergytimes.org/ ).This series started in 2016. Many of these articles have been edited or updated from articles I wrote forthe Rutland Herald, sometimes with different titles and pictures.They blend science and opinion with a systems perspective, and encourage the reader to explorealternative and hopeful paths for their families and society. They are written so that a scientist willperceive them as accurate (although simplified); while the public can relate their tangible experience ofweather and climate to the much less tangible issues of climate change, energy policy and strategies forliving sustainably with the earth system.The politically motivated attacks on climate science by the current president have sharpened my politicalcommentary this year; since climate change denial may bring immense suffering to our children and lifeon Earth.I believe that earth scientists have a responsibility to communicate clearly and directly to the public1 –aswe all share responsibility for the future of the Earth. We must deepen our collective understanding, sowe can make a collective decision to build a resilient future.

scholarly journals Drivers of Upper Atmosphere Climate Change

Eos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Upper Atmosphere ◽  
Earth’S Magnetic Field ◽  
Temperature Trends ◽  
Earth's Magnetic Field ◽  
New Research

New research confirms the influence of carbon dioxide on long-term temperature trends in the upper atmosphere, but changes in Earth’s magnetic field also play a key role.

scholarly journals Future Socio-Political Scenarios for Aquatic Resources in Europe: A Common Framework Based on Shared-Socioeconomic-Pathways (SSPs)

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
John K. Pinnegar ◽  
Katell G. Hamon ◽  
Cornelia M. Kreiss ◽  
Andrzej Tabeau ◽  
Sandra Rybicki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Modeling Framework ◽  
Aquatic Resources ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
Common Framework ◽  
Ipcc Sres ◽  
Political Economic

It has proven extremely challenging for researchers to predict with confidence how human societies might develop in the future, yet managers and industries need to make projections in order to test adaptation and mitigation strategies designed to build resilience to long-term shocks. This paper introduces exploratory scenarios with a particular focus on European aquaculture and fisheries and describes how these scenarios were designed. Short-, medium- and long-term developments in socio-political drivers may be just as important in determining profits, revenues and prospects in the aquaculture and fisheries industries as physical drivers such as long-term climate change. Four socio-political-economic futures were developed, based partly on the IPCC SRES (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios) framework and partly on the newer system of Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs). ‘Off the shelf’ narrative material as well as quantitative outputs were ‘borrowed’ from earlier frameworks but supplemented with material generated through in-depth stakeholder workshops involving industry and policy makers. Workshop participants were tasked to outline how they thought their sector might look under the four future worlds and, in particular, to make use of the PESTEL conceptual framework (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal) as an aide memoire to help define the scope of each scenario. This work was carried out under the auspices of the EU Horizon 2020 project CERES (Climate change and European aquatic RESources), and for each ‘CERES scenario’ (World Markets, National Enterprise, Global Sustainability and Local Stewardship), additional quantitative outputs were generated, including projections of future fuel and fish prices, using the MAGNET (Modular Applied GeNeral Equilibrium Tool) modeling framework. In developing and applying the CERES scenarios, we have demonstrated that the basic architecture is sufficiently flexible to be used at a wide diversity of scales. We urge the climate science community to adopt a similar scenarios framework, based around SSPs, to facilitate global cross-comparison of fisheries and aquaculture model outputs more broadly and to harmonize communication regarding potential future bioeconomic impacts of climate change.

scholarly journals Making Change Visible – An Explorative Case Study of Dealing With Climate Change Deniers in Forest Education

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-68
Author(s):  
Jens Hepper
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Vocational Education ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
High Rate ◽  
First Year ◽  
Climate Change Denial ◽  
Forest Education

Abstract This case study addresses the issue of climate change denial among students in their first year of vocational education. It was possible to shake the belief that man-made climate change was not happening, through letting students measure the potential of natural forest vegetation and compare their findings with those gathered by their peers nine years earlier. The comparison revealed that old forests had turned into ecosystems, which were adapted for dryer warmer climates. For education for sustainable development, forest education and biology lessons offer the opportunity to establish a long term project, in which peer-to-peer-learning over generations of students is possible, with a high rate of acceptance of the results generated by the former students.

scholarly journals Climate, Energy and Community: Vermont 2018

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Betts
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Systems Perspective ◽  
Political Commentary ◽  
Climate Change Denial ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Weather And Climate

This is a compilation of my 2018 columns from the Sunday Rutland Herald and Barre/Montpelier Time Argus. This is the eleventh year of a series that started in January 2008; and a 2012 overview paper is available .These columns go through the seasons, dealing with weather, climate, climate change, energy and policy issues. They blend science and opinion with a systems perspective, and encourage the reader to explore alternative and hopeful paths for their families and society. They are framed so that a scientist will perceive them as technically accurate (although simplified); while the public can relate their tangible experience of weather and climate to the much less tangible issues of climate change, energy policy and strategies for living sustainably with the earth system. The politically motivated attacks on climate science by the current administration have however sharpened my political commentary; since climate change denial may bring immense suffering to our children and all life on Earth.I believe that earth scientists have a responsibility to communicate clearly and directly to the public –as we all share responsibility for the future of the Earth. We must deepen our collective understanding, if we are to we can make a collective decision to build a resilient future.

scholarly journals Climate Change, Temperature, and Homicide: A Tale of Two Cities, 1895–2015

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Lynch ◽  
Paul B. Stretesky ◽  
Michael A. Long
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New York ◽  
Seasonal Temperature ◽  
Temperature Changes ◽  
Temperature Trends ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Change Temperature ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Seasonal Weather

AbstractIt has been argued that the temperature increase caused by anthropogenic climate change will produce a significant increase in violent crime. Support for that prediction is often based on statistical analyses of seasonal temperature and crime data cycles across days, months, and quarters and sometimes on large geographic areas. Within-year temperature changes are very large, however, relative to the 30-yr temperature increases employed to measure climate change. In addition, because temperature trends associated with climate change vary geographically, analyses should employ small geographic units for which temperature changes are measured over yearly intervals and for long periods of time. To address these conditions, this study examined the long-term temperature–crime association for homicides in New York and London for 1895–2015. Consistent with previous studies examining seasonal weather and crime patterns, we found a positive correlation between annual homicide rates and temperature, but only at the bivariate level. This relationship became statistically insignificant in both New York and London when gross domestic product is controlled. Moreover, the bivariate relationship between temperature and homicide is statistically insignificant when correcting for nonstationarity. Thus, it does not appear that climate change has led to higher rates of homicide in New York and London over the long term. These nonfindings are important because they suggest that studies of climate change and violence might do well to consider alternative mechanisms that mediate the relationship between climate change and violence.

scholarly journals The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate in Latin America: Knowledge Gaps and the Urgency to Translate Science Into Action

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mônica M. C. Muelbert ◽  
Margareth Copertino ◽  
Leticia Cotrim da Cunha ◽  
Mirtha Noemi Lewis ◽  
Andrei Polejack ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Effective Action ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Climate Science

Climate Change hazards to social-ecological systems are well-documented and the time to act is now. The IPCC-SROCC used the best available scientific knowledge to identify paths for effective adaptation and mitigation of climate change impacts on the ocean and cryosphere. Despite all the evidence highlighted by SROCC and the key role of the ocean and cryosphere for climate change at all levels, Latin America (LA) faces challenges to take effective action mostly due to socio-economic vulnerability, political instability and overall technical capacities. Countries have adopted diverse actions as the information needed by policy makers has been made available, not necessarily in accessible and inclusive ways. Regional imbalance in economic development, technological level, capacity development, societal involvement, and governmental oversight have contributed to skewed geographical and technological gaps of knowledge on key ecosystems and specific areas preventing effective climate actions/solutions. We analyze the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) from the region as proxies to the incorporation of IPCC recommendations. The gaps and opportunities for the uptake of ocean and climate science to political decision making is discussed as five key aspects: (i) climate assessment information and regional policies, (ii) knowledge production, (iii) knowledge accessibility, (iv) knowledge impact to policy, and (v) long term monitoring for decision making. We advocate that the uptake of SROCC findings in LA policies can be enhanced by: (a) embracing local realities and incorporating local, traditional and indigenous knowledge; (b) empowering locals to convey local knowledge to global assessments and adapt findings to local realities; (c) enhancing regional research capabilities; and (d) securing long-term sustainable ocean observations. Local and regional participation in knowledge production and provision enhances communication pathways, climate literacy and engagement which are key for effective action to be reflected in governance. Currently, the lack of accessible and inclusive information at the local level hampers the overall understanding, integration and engagement of the society to mitigate climate effects, perpetuates regional heterogeneity and threatens the efforts to reverse the course of climate change in LA. Local researchers should be empowered, encouraged, rewarded and better included in global climate-ocean scientific assessments.

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