Plants, Environmental Constraints, and Climate Change

2021 ◽  
pp. 171-192
Author(s):  
Waqar Islam ◽  
Tayeba Sanaullah ◽  
Noreen Khalid ◽  
Muhammad Aqeel ◽  
Sibgha Noreen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Constraints

Sustainable Development

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Hirsch
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Environmental Constraints ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Grave Problem ◽  
Intensive Growth

Sustainable development was famously defined in the 1987 Brundtland Report as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” In the decades that followed, anthropologists have made clear that the term requires a more specific redefinition within its context of late capitalism. For anthropologists, sustainable development evokes the effort of extending capitalist discipline while remaining conscious of economic or environmental constraints. Yet they have also found that sustainable development discourses frequently pitch certain forms of steady, careful capitalist extension as potentially limitless. Anthropologists have broadly found “sustainable” to be used by development workers and policy experts most widely in reference to economic rather than environmental constraints. Sustainable development thus presents as an environmentalist concept but is regularly used to lubricate extraction and energy-intensive growth in the name of a sustained capitalism. The intensifying impacts of climate change demonstrate the stakes of this choice. Anthropological interruptions and interrogations of the sustainable development concept within the unfolding logic of late capitalism range from the intimate and local realm of economic lives, to the political ecology of resource extraction, to the emerging ethnography of climate change. Anthropologists investigate sustainable development at these three scales. Indeed, scale is an effective analytic for understanding its spatial and temporal effects in and on the world. Anthropologists approach sustainable development up close as it has been utilized as a short-term disciplinary instrument of transforming people identified as poor into entrepreneurs. They can zoom out to see large extractive industries as, themselves, subjects and drivers of a larger-scale, longer-term framework of sustainable development. They also zoom out even further, intervening in emergent responses to climate change, a problem of utmost urgency that affects the globe broadly and far into the future, but unevenly. The massive environmental changes wrought by energy-intensive growth have already exceeded the carrying capacity of many of the world’s ecosystems. Climate change is at once a grave problem and a potential opportunity to rethink our economic lives. It has been an impetus to redefine mainstream approaches to sustainable development within a fossil-fueled capitalism. However, a deliberate program of “neoliberal adaptation” to climate change is emerging in sites of sustainable development intervention in a way that promises a consolidation of capitalist discipline. Anthropologists should thus engage a more robust ethnographic agenda rooted in environmental justice.

scholarly journals What part of natural flow can be considered a "water resource"?

2015 ◽  
Vol 366 ◽  
pp. 86-92
Author(s):  
V. Andréassian ◽  
J. Margat ◽  
G. Thirel ◽  
P. Hubert
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Demand ◽  
Complex Function ◽  
Water Security ◽  
Climatic Changes ◽  
Hydrologic Regime ◽  
Environmental Constraints ◽  
Hydrologic Data ◽  
Natural Flow ◽  
Artificial Reservoirs

Abstract. In this paper, we discuss an unfortunate semantic shortcut – the use of the expression "water resources" as a synonym for "river/groundwater flow" – which causes great confusion in all Water Security-related discussions. We show that only a part of the flow can be considered a resource, and that the efficiency of the flow-to-resource conversion is a complex function of: (i) the hydrologic regime, (ii) environmental constraints (in-stream reserved flows), (iii) the type of water demand, and (iv) the existence of artificial reservoirs. Last, we illustrate how the flow-to-resource conversion can be affected by future climatic changes. Hydrologic data and climate change simulations for three French rivers (the rivers Vilaine, Durance and Garonne) are used to illustrate this discussion.

Relationships between vine hydraulics and wine production in Falanghina: morpho-functional and isotopic traceability to evaluate sustainability in a climate change context

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Damiano ◽  
Chiara Cirillo ◽  
Giovanna Battipaglia ◽  
Chiara Amitrano ◽  
Antonio Pannico ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Use Efficiency ◽  
Water Use ◽  
Resource Use ◽  
Environmental Constraints ◽  
Resource Use Efficiency ◽  
Wine Production ◽  
Campania Region ◽  
Use Efficiency ◽  
The Impact

<p>In the Mediterranean region, climate change is intensifying the need to improve the resource use efficiency of crops (e.g. water use efficiency) and to increase yield, quality and stability of productions, especially in high profitability and vulnerable crops as grapevine. In a climate change scenario, with increasing temperature and frequency of extreme events, such as prolonged periods of drought, the improvement of knowledge about the plasticity of morpho-functional traits in vines, becomes pivotal. Only a deep knowledge of vine responses to environmental constraints can help achieving the correct management of cultivation factors towards sustainability.</p><p>The objective of this study is to apply a multidisciplinary approach for monitoring the resource use efficiency and resource allocation during vine development up to wine production. This general objective will be pursued by analysing the complex relationships between parameters in the continuum environment/plant/wine with specific emphasis on the influence of water availability on the vine, grapes, must and finally wine, in order to relate climate, plant water status and oenological characteristics.</p><p>The study was conducted in a vineyard of Vitis vinifera L. subsp. vinifera ‘Falanghina’ located in southern Italy (La Guardiense farm, Guardia Sanframondi, Benevento, Campania region).</p><p>The vineyard performance was monitored on the basis of several morphological and eco-physiological parameters, measured in the main phenological phases, including: plant architecture, fertility, leaf anatomical traits, photosynthetic efficiency, leaf gas exchanges, nutritional status, berry and must quality. Water use efficiency was estimated through the analysis of anatomical and stable isotope traits (linked with hydraulic and resource efficiency parameters) from tree-ring series and leaf samples. Stable isotopes were also analysed in the must, in order to check the occurrence of an isotopic signature from the plants towards the must.</p><p>The approach proved to be promising for achieving a comprehensive understanding on the impact of environmental constraints not only on plant behaviour, but also on the characteristics of the oenological products, furnishing at the same time a promising tool to reconstruct vine status from the isotopic trace in the must.</p><p> </p>

Phenology studies need to account for tissue temperature, not air

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Peaucelle ◽  
Josep Peñuelas ◽  
Hans Verbeeck
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Simple Model ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Tissue Temperature ◽  
Plant Tissues ◽  
Environmental Constraints ◽  
Field Observations ◽  
Climatic Warming ◽  
Real Temperature

<p>Plant phenology is mainly driven by temperature in extratropical ecosystems. Contrasting responses of foliar phenology to climatic warming, however, have been reported in recent decades, raising important questions about the role of other environmental constraints, especially light. A striking and common aspect to past phenological studies is that all analyses have been solely based on air temperature. In fact, temperatures differ substantially between plant tissues and the air, because plants absorb and radiate energy. Using a simple model of bud energy balance, we explore how using bud instead of air temperature could change our interpretation of the phenological response to warming and explain several observed responses of phenology to temperature and light. Not accounting for the real temperature of plant tissues represents a real gap in phenology studies. Field observations of plant tissues temperature as well as experiments are needed for accurately assessing the response of vegetation to climate change.</p>

Preliminary Report of a Comparative Study of Seminiferous Tubular Epithelium from Rats Flown on Cosmos 1887 and SL3

1988 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 276-277
Author(s):  
Walter J. Sapp ◽  
D.E. Philpott ◽  
C.S. Williams ◽  
K. Kato ◽  
J. Stevenson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Space Flight ◽  
Physiological Response ◽  
Preliminary Report ◽  
Complete Recovery ◽  
Environmental Constraints ◽  
Tubular Epithelium ◽  
Testicular Weight ◽  
Testicular Morphology ◽  
Normal Offspring ◽  
Rats And Mice

Space flight, with its unique environmental constraints such as immobilization, decreased and increased pressures, and radiation, is known to affect testicular morphology and spermatogenesis. Selye, summarized the manifestations of physiological response to nonspecific stress and he pointed out that atrophy of the gonads always occurred. Reports of data collected from two dogs flown in space for 22 days (Cosmos 110) indicate that there was an increase of 30 to 70% atypical spermatozoa when compared to ground based controls. Seventy-five days after the flight the abnormalities had decreased to the high normal value of 30% and mating of these dogs after this period produced normal offspring, suggesting complete recovery. Effects of immobilization and increased gravity were investigated by spinning rats and mice at 2x g for 8-9 weeks. A decrease in testicular weight was noted in spun animals when compared to controls. Immobilization has been show to cause arrest of spermatogenesis in Macaca meminstrins.

Averting robo-bees: why free-flying robotic bees are a bad idea

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 723-729
Author(s):  
Roslyn Gleadow ◽  
Jim Hanan ◽  
Alan Dorin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Computer Simulation ◽  
Food Security ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Plant Interactions ◽  
Plant Insect Interactions ◽  
Native Habitat ◽  
Insect Pollinators ◽  
Insect Interactions

Food security and the sustainability of native ecosystems depends on plant-insect interactions in countless ways. Recently reported rapid and immense declines in insect numbers due to climate change, the use of pesticides and herbicides, the introduction of agricultural monocultures, and the destruction of insect native habitat, are all potential contributors to this grave situation. Some researchers are working towards a future where natural insect pollinators might be replaced with free-flying robotic bees, an ecologically problematic proposal. We argue instead that creating environments that are friendly to bees and exploring the use of other species for pollination and bio-control, particularly in non-European countries, are more ecologically sound approaches. The computer simulation of insect-plant interactions is a far more measured application of technology that may assist in managing, or averting, ‘Insect Armageddon' from both practical and ethical viewpoints.

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