scholarly journals Handling climate change education at universities: an overview

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Leal Filho ◽  
Mihaela Sima ◽  
Ayyoob Sharifi ◽  
Johannes M. Luetz ◽  
Amanda Lange Salvia ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Climate change is a problem which is global in nature, and whose effects go across a wide range of disciplines. It is therefore important that this theme is taken into account as part of universities´ teaching and research programs. Methods A three-tiered approach was used, consisting of a bibliometric analysis, an online survey and a set of case studies, which allow a profile to be built, as to how a sample of universities from 45 countries handle climate change as part of their teaching programs. Results This paper reports on a study which aimed at identifying the extent to which matters related to climate change are addressed within the teaching and research practices at universities, with a focus on the training needs of teaching staff. It consists of a bibliometric analysis, combined with an online worldwide survey aimed at ascertaining the degree of involvement from universities in reducing their own carbon footprint, and the ways they offer training provisions on the topic. This is complemented by a set of 12 case studies from universities round the world, illustrating current trends on how universities handle climate change. Apart from reporting on the outcomes of the study, the paper highlights what some universities are doing to handle climate issues, and discusses the implications of the research. Conclusions The paper lists some items via which universities may better educate and train their students on how to handle the many challenges posed by climate change.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthieu Spekkers ◽  
Viktor Rözer ◽  
Annegret Thieken ◽  
Marie-Claire ten Veldhuis ◽  
Heidi Kreibich

Abstract. Flooding is assessed as the most important natural hazard in Europe, causing thousands of deaths, affecting millions of people and accounting for large economic losses in the past decade. Little is known about the damage processes associated with extreme rainfall in cities, due to a lack of accurate, comparable and consistent damage data. The objective of this study is to investigate the impacts of extreme rainfall on residential buildings and how affected households coped with these impacts in terms of precautionary and emergency actions. Analyses are based on a unique dataset of damage characteristics and a wide range of potential damage explaining variables at the household level, collected through computer-aided telephone interviews (CATI) and an online survey. Exploratory data analyses based on a total of 859 completed questionnaires in the cities of Münster (Germany) and Amsterdam (the Netherlands) revealed that the uptake of emergency measures is related to characteristics of the hazardous event. In case of high water levels, more efforts are made to reduce damage, while emergency response that aims to prevent damage is less likely to be effective. The difference in magnitude of the events in Münster and Amsterdam in terms of rainfall intensity and water depth, is probably also the most important cause for the differences between the cities in terms of the suffered financial losses. Factors that significantly contributed to damage in at least one of the case studies are water contamination, the presence of a basement in the building and people's awareness of the upcoming event. Moreover, this study confirms conclusions by previous studies that people's experience with damaging events positively correlates with precautionary behaviour. For improving future damage data acquisition, we recommend to include cell-phones in a CATI survey to avoid biased sampling towards certain age groups.


1979 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Voll

The Sudanese Mahdī has been pictured as a villain, as a hero, as a reactionary, as an anti-imperialist revolutionary, and in many other ways. The romance and excitement of the nineteenth-century Mahdiyya has inspired novels and movies, while the many faceted reality of the movement has caught the attention of a wide range of scholars in search of case studies of specific phenomena. In recent years the Mahdī has been used as an example of a ‘charismatic’ leader,1 the founder of a religionpolitical party in the ‘third world,’2 the leader of a millenarian revolt,3 an African rebel against alien rule,4 and a Semitic messiah in an African context. Many of these analyses are the constructive products of the changing situation in the world of contemporary historical studies. Each tends to reflect a broader analytical concern aroused by modern developments.


2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. i12-i42
Author(s):  
L Johnston ◽  
C Malcolm ◽  
L Rambabu ◽  
J Hockley ◽  
S D Shenkin

Abstract Introduction COVID-19 in care homes has heightened the risk of staff burnout, undermining already problematic staff retention and low morale. There has been an associated proliferation of resources and online initiatives to support frontline workers, however, few of these are directly targeted at the care home workforce. Care home workers are highly skilled in caring for people with complex needs, but have very variable levels of formal training, and just over half of care homes in Scotland include registered nurses. This project will rapidly collate existing resources and identify, direct from care home workers, their best practice, initiatives, and resources used to support resilience and retention during this pandemic and moving forward. Methods 1) Rapid review of care home specific evidence and resources (including published research and social media); 2) Online survey of Enabling Research in Care Homes (ENRICH) members across Scotland (n = 55); 3) Case studies within six care homes to identify what is working well and what is not in terms of promoting resilience and emotional support. Results The rapid review has identified a wide range of resources directed at supporting staff working in care homes; the survey and case studies will provide data on the key learning and resources that have supported staff, and outline the challenges identified. There are many resources available but staff do not access these. The role of the care home manager is key. Key conclusions This comprehensive review of resources and initiatives will make a valuable contribution to policy and practice designed to reduce burnout and foster retention not just in care homes but more widely across health and social care.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 10244
Author(s):  
Ernesto Mesa-Vázquez ◽  
Juan F. Velasco-Muñoz ◽  
José A. Aznar-Sánchez ◽  
Belén López-Felices

Over the last three decades, behavioural economics has been gaining ground in the research on a wide range of agriculture-related themes. This is due to the diversity of the agents involved in the production systems and the agro-food value chains in which opposing interests must be reconciled. The main objective of this study is to examine the dynamics of the research on the application of behavioural economics in agriculture across the world. To do this, a bibliometric analysis has been carried out through a literature review of the period between 1991 and 2020. The results of the study show that the use of behavioural economics has increased in the research on agriculture, particularly over the last five years. The application of behavioural economics in agriculture has focused on analysing consumers, producers, management, marketing, development, environmental issues, climate change, food and health.


ReCALL ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-178
Author(s):  
GAVIN BURNAGE

This paper examines the provision of networked CALL services at the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at the University of Cambridge. It argues that in such a context a broad, inclusive approach to networking – one which avoids any over-strict commitment to a single method or paradigm of network delivery, but makes the most of whatever is available – is often the most appropriate. This eclectic approach helps preserve the best of what has been created in the past while keeping up with everything technological advances offer, and respects the wide-ranging and widely-differing views and approaches of Faculty teaching staff. The aim of the MML Network Service is therefore to present a wide range of disparate resources in a single, coherent framework. While welcoming the many advantages the use of the World Wide Web brings, the article stresses that in a broad infrastructure both older programs which have proved their worth and newer, highly-developed programs which have come after them need not be lost while the functionality of the Web is still developing. It also lays out in general terms some technical suggestions for those seeking ideas on the implementation of networking strategies in a Windows-based local area or university-wide network, partly with a view to reinforcing the credentials for CALL and humanities computing generally to be afforded high-quality computing infrastructure both in the present and with whatever technological advances bring in the future.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (8) ◽  
pp. 1337-1355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthieu Spekkers ◽  
Viktor Rözer ◽  
Annegret Thieken ◽  
Marie-Claire ten Veldhuis ◽  
Heidi Kreibich

Abstract. Flooding is assessed as the most important natural hazard in Europe, causing thousands of deaths, affecting millions of people and accounting for large economic losses in the past decade. Little is known about the damage processes associated with extreme rainfall in cities, due to a lack of accurate, comparable and consistent damage data. The objective of this study is to investigate the impacts of extreme rainfall on residential buildings and how affected households coped with these impacts in terms of precautionary and emergency actions. Analyses are based on a unique dataset of damage characteristics and a wide range of potential damage explaining variables at the household level, collected through computer-aided telephone interviews (CATI) and an online survey. Exploratory data analyses based on a total of 859 completed questionnaires in the cities of Münster (Germany) and Amsterdam (the Netherlands) revealed that the uptake of emergency measures is related to characteristics of the hazardous event. In case of high water levels, more efforts are made to reduce damage, while emergency response that aims to prevent damage is less likely to be effective. The difference in magnitude of the events in Münster and Amsterdam, in terms of rainfall intensity and water depth, is probably also the most important cause for the differences between the cities in terms of the suffered financial losses. Factors that significantly contributed to damage in at least one of the case studies are water contamination, the presence of a basement in the building and people's awareness of the upcoming event. Moreover, this study confirms conclusions by previous studies that people's experience with damaging events positively correlates with precautionary behaviour. For improving future damage data acquisition, we recommend the inclusion of cell phones in a CATI survey to avoid biased sampling towards certain age groups.


2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Loosemore ◽  
Vivien Chow ◽  
Denny McGeorge

Purpose – A predicted increase in climate change-related extreme weather events will present hospitals with new health-related and physical risks which were not originally anticipated in building and infrastructure designs. Markus et al.'s building systems model is used to analyse a range of adaptive strategies to cope with such events. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Focus group interviews were conducted with a wide range of hospital stakeholders across three case study hospitals in Australia and New Zealand which have experienced extreme weather events. Findings – It is concluded that effective adaptive strategies must balance responses across different organisational sub-systems. Contrary to previous research, the findings indicate that hospital managers do see hospital infrastructure as an important component of disaster response. However, it is the least adaptable of all response subsystems, making other options more attractive in the heat of a crisis. Research limitations/implications – A focus on three case studies allowed the researchers to explore in-depth the experiences of stakeholders who had experienced extreme weather events. While producing highly valid results, the inherent limitation of this approach is the lack of breath. So further case studies are needed to generalise from the results. Practical implications – Recommendations are made to improve the adaptive capacity of healthcare facilities to cope with the future health challenges of climate change risk. Originality/value – By acknowledging that no one group holds all the knowledge to deal with extreme weather events, this paper capture the collective knowledge of all key stakeholders who have a stake in the process of responding effectively to such an event. It shows that hospital adaptation strategies cannot be considered in isolation from the surrounding emergency management systems in which a hospital is imbedded.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-172
Author(s):  
Thomas Leitch

Building on Tzvetan Todorov's observation that the detective novel ‘contains not one but two stories: the story of the crime and the story of the investigation’, this essay argues that detective novels display a remarkably wide range of attitudes toward the several pasts they represent: the pasts of the crime, the community, the criminal, the detective, and public history. It traces a series of defining shifts in these attitudes through the evolution of five distinct subgenres of detective fiction: exploits of a Great Detective like Sherlock Holmes, Golden Age whodunits that pose as intellectual puzzles to be solved, hardboiled stories that invoke a distant past that the present both breaks with and echoes, police procedurals that unfold in an indefinitely extended present, and historical mysteries that nostalgically fetishize the past. It concludes with a brief consideration of genre readers’ own ambivalent phenomenological investment in the past, present, and future each detective story projects.


Author(s):  
Sergei Soldatenko ◽  
Sergei Soldatenko ◽  
Genrikh Alekseev ◽  
Genrikh Alekseev ◽  
Alexander Danilov ◽  
...  

Every aspect of human operations faces a wide range of risks, some of which can cause serious consequences. By the start of 21st century, mankind has recognized a new class of risks posed by climate change. It is obvious, that the global climate is changing, and will continue to change, in ways that affect the planning and day to day operations of businesses, government agencies and other organizations and institutions. The manifestations of climate change include but not limited to rising sea levels, increasing temperature, flooding, melting polar sea ice, adverse weather events (e.g. heatwaves, drought, and storms) and a rise in related problems (e.g. health and environmental). Assessing and managing climate risks represent one of the most challenging issues of today and for the future. The purpose of the risk modeling system discussed in this paper is to provide a framework and methodology to quantify risks caused by climate change, to facilitate estimates of the impact of climate change on various spheres of human activities and to compare eventual adaptation and risk mitigation strategies. The system integrates both physical climate system and economic models together with knowledge-based subsystem, which can help support proactive risk management. System structure and its main components are considered. Special attention is paid to climate risk assessment, management and hedging in the Arctic coastal areas.


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