From the Shore to the Coast: Curating the Front Line of Climate Change

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Celina Jeffery
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Coastal Regions ◽  
Research Initiative ◽  
New Models ◽  
A Site ◽  
Climate Crisis

Ephemeral Coast (2015‐present; ephemeralcoast.com) is a curatorial research initiative by the author that identifies the coastline as a site and indicator of the radical shifts in geography that are literally taking place in the ocean as a result of the Anthropocene. This article discusses how exhibitions and events associated with the project have considered ephemerality as a poignant curatorial concept within and through which to consider the vanishing of healthy coastal regions. In creating a comparison with other exhibitions that address the climate crisis and related environmental devastation, it argues that the kinds of local, place-based and interdisciplinary curatorial research involved in this project allow for a reconsideration of the Anthropocene epoch as more of a ‘boundary’ event, which necessitates crossing disciplinary divides and questioning the development of new models of understanding and counteraction based upon curatorial engagement with ephemerality.

scholarly journals Staging Climate Security: Resilience and Heterodystopia in the Bangladesh Borderlands

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Cons
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Visual Language ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
Ground Zero ◽  
The Future ◽  
Development Technology ◽  
To Come ◽  
Warming World ◽  
A Site ◽  
Climate Crisis

This essay interrogates an emergent genre of development projects that seek to instill resilience in populations likely to be severely impacted by climate change. These new projects venture a dark vision of life in a warming world—one where portable technologies become necessary for managing a future of climate chaos. I propose, following Michel Foucault, understanding these projects as heterodystopias: spaces managed as and in anticipation of a world of dystopian climate crisis that are at once stages for future interventions and present-day spectacles of climate security. My exploration of these projects is situated in the borderlands of Bangladesh, a space increasingly imagined as a ground zero of climate change. The projects discussed frame the borderlands as a site that reflects forward onto a multiplicity of (other) dystopian spaces to come. Their often puzzling architecture reveals a grim imagining of the future: one in which atomized resilient families remain rooted in place, facing climate chaos alone, assisted by development technology. In this way, these projects seek to mitigate against global anxiety about climate displacement by emplacing people—preventing them from migrating across borders increasingly imagined as the front lines of climate security. Yet at the same time, these projects speak a visual language that suggests they are as much about representing success at managing climate crisis to an audience elsewhere as they are to successfully stemming climate migration in a particular place. Heterodystopia provides an analytic for diagnosing the specific visions of time and space embedded in securitized framings of the future. In doing so, however, it also points toward counterimaginations and possibilities for life in the midst of ecological change. I thus conclude by contrasting climate heterodystopias with other projects that Bangladeshi peasants living in the borderlands are carrying out: projects that offer different ways of imagining the environment and life in the borderlands of Bangladesh.

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.

Site, Adapt, Perform: A Practice-as-Research Confrontation with Climate Change

2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Kloetzel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Adaptive Performance ◽  
Bruno Latour ◽  
Research Methodologies ◽  
Arts Festivals ◽  
A Site

In recent years, arts festivals around the globe have become enamoured of touring, site-based performance. Such serialised site work is growing in popularity due to its accessibility, its spectacular characteristics, and its adaptive qualities. Employing practice-as-research methodologies to dissect the basis of such site-adaptive performances, the author highlights her discovery of the crumbling foundation of the adaptation discourse by way of her creative process for the performance work Room. Combining findings from the phenomenological explorations of her dancing body as well as from cultural analyses of the climate change debate by Dipesh Chakrabarty (2009), Claire Colebrook (2011, 2012), and Bruno Latour (2014), the author argues that only by fundamentally shifting the direction of the adaptation discourse – on scales from global to the personal – will we be able to build a site-adaptive performance strategy that resists the neoliberal drive towards ecological and economic precarity.

scholarly journals Poetry as Praxis + “Illumination”: Toward an Epistemically Just Health Promotion for Resistance, Healing, and (Re)Imagination

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 20S-26S
Author(s):  
Ryan J. Petteway
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Health Promotion ◽  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Black Feminist Theory ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
Creative Power ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
A Site

Health promotion is facing a most challenging future in the intersections of structural racism, COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), racialized police violence, and climate change. Now is a critical moment to ask how health promotion might become more responsive to and representative of people’s daily realities. Also how it can become a more inclusive partner in, and collaborative conduit of, knowledge—one capable of both informing intellects and transforming hearts. It needs to feel the pulse of the “fierce urgency of now,” and perhaps nothing can reveal this pulse more than the creative power of art—especially poetry. Drawing from critical and Black feminist theory, I use commentary in prose to conceptualize and call for an epistemically just health promotion guided by poetry as praxis—not just as method. I posit that, as praxis rooted in lived realities, poetry becomes experiential excavation and illumination; a practice of community, communion, and solidarity; a site and source of healing; and a space to create new narratives of health to forge new paths toward its promotion. I accordingly suggest a need to view and value poetry as a critical scholarship format to advance health promotion knowledge, discourse, and action toward a more humanized pursuit—and narrative—of health equity.

“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.

scholarly journals Are there similarities between the Corona and the climate crisis?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert C. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Decision Procedures ◽  
Free Rider ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Short Paper ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Look Back ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
Climate Crisis

AbstractIn this short paper, I look back at the early stages of the Corona crisis, around early February 2020, and compare the situation with the climate crisis. Although these two problems unfold on a completely different timescale (weeks in the case of Corona, decades in the case of climate change), I find some rather striking similarities between these two problems, related with issues such as uncertainty, free-rider incentives, and disincentives of politicians to adequately address the respective issue with early, farsighted and possibly harsh policy measures. I then argue that for complex problems with certain characteristics, it may be necessary to establish novel political decision procedures that sidestep the normal, day-to-day political proceedings. These would be procedures that actively involve experts, and lower the involvement of political parties as far as possible to minimize the decision-makers’ disincentives.

Wave-Powered Desalination

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Stiber ◽  
Asfaw Beyene
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Wave Energy ◽  
Specific Region ◽  
Wave Power ◽  
Wave Energy Conversion ◽  
Coastal Regions ◽  
Sustainable Resources ◽  
Modeling Software ◽  
The Cost

Climate change, drought, population growth and increased energy and water costs are all forces driving exploration into alternative, sustainable resources. The abundance of untapped wave energy often presents an opportunity for research into exploiting this resource to meet the energy and water needs of populated coastal regions. This paper investigates the potential and impact of harnessing wave energy for the purpose of seawater desalination. First the SWAN wave modeling software was used to evaluate the size and character of the wave resource. These data are used to estimate the cost of water for wave-powered desalination taking a specific region as a case example. The results indicate that, although the cost of water from this technology is not economically competitive at this time, the large available resource confirms the viability of significantly supplementing current freshwater supplies. The results also confirm that research into the feasibility of wave power as a source of energy and water in the area is warranted, particularly as water and energy become more scarce and expensive coinciding with the maturity of commercial wave energy conversion.

Guest Editor’s Introduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Aisha S. Durham ◽  
Wesley Johnson ◽  
Sasha J. Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Critical Inquiry ◽  
Culture Model ◽  
The Us ◽  
A Site ◽  
Circuit Of Culture

Florida is a site of critical inquiry and figures prominently in the US American imaginary. The Sunshine State sets the stage for broader conversations about cultural difference, climate change, and participatory democracy. Contributors to this special issue apply the canonical circuit of culture model to address the interrelated nature of culture and power. They provide methodologically thick, fleshy interpretive analyses that privilege experiential, experimental, and embodied approaches to take seriously Florida cultural politics, people, and popular forms.

scholarly journals Monitoring Changes to Arctic Vegetation and Glaciers at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, Based on Time Series Remote Sensing

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 3845
Author(s):  
Guangbo Ren ◽  
Jianbu Wang ◽  
Yunfei Lu ◽  
Peiqiang Wu ◽  
Xiaoqing Lu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Time Series ◽  
High Latitude ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Vegetation Coverage ◽  
Coastal Regions ◽  
Average Annual Temperature

Climate change has profoundly affected global ecological security. The most vulnerable region on Earth is the high-latitude Arctic. Identifying the changes in vegetation coverage and glaciers in high-latitude Arctic coastal regions is important for understanding the process and impact of global climate change. Ny-Ålesund, the northern-most human settlement, is typical of these coastal regions and was used as a study site. Vegetation and glacier changes over the past 35 years were studied using time series remote sensing data from Landsat 5/7/8 acquired in 1985, 1989, 2000, 2011, 2015 and 2019. Site survey data in 2019, a digital elevation model from 2009 and meteorological data observed from 1985 to 2019 were also used. The vegetation in the Ny-Ålesund coastal zone showed a trend of declining and then increasing, with a breaking point in 2000. However, the area of vegetation with coverage greater than 30% increased over the whole study period, and the wetland moss area also increased, which may be caused by the accelerated melting of glaciers. Human activities were responsible for the decline in vegetation cover around Ny-Ålesund owing to the construction of the town and airport. Even in areas with vegetation coverage of only 13%, there were at least five species of high-latitude plants. The melting rate of five major glaciers in the study area accelerated, and approximately 82% of the reduction in glacier area occurred after 2000. The elevation of the lowest boundary of the five glaciers increased by 50–70 m. The increase in precipitation and the average annual temperature after 2000 explains the changes in both vegetation coverage and glaciers in the study period.

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