Orthodox Economics and the Science of Climate Change

2016 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariano Torras
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Monthly Review ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The World ◽  
Glacial Melting

We have finally reached the point where most people around the world believe that climate change is really happening. Almost a decade ago, the landmark report by Nicholas Stern sparked a fierce debate among economists, not over whether climate change was real, but over the costs of addressing it. In the years since, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published further alarming reports on projected future global temperatures, rates of glacial melting, and sea levels. Most recently, last December saw an unprecedented agreement by nearly 200 countries at the Paris climate summit to take steps to address the problem.… My concern here is therefore not to continue making the case for the reality of climate change, but instead to show how that reality is portrayed—and distorted—in the mainstream media, with behind-the-scenes assistance from orthodox economic analysis.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Impact of Climate Change in the Modern Enterprise

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 26-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasios Danos ◽  
Konstantina Boulouta
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Critical Infrastructure ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Weather Patterns ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
Modern Enterprise ◽  
The World ◽  
Rising Sea Levels ◽  
The Impact

This article analyses the profound and rapid climate changes that have taken place worldwide in the past two decades and their effects on modern enterprise. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing strategies to adapt to and counterbalance future impacts of climate change sustainably are among the most pressing needs of the world today. Global temperatures are predicted to continue rising, bringing changes in weather patterns, rising sea levels, and increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Such climatic events can have a major impact on households, businesses, critical infrastructure and vulnerable sections of society, as well as having a major economic impact. Therefore, society must prepare to cope with living in a changing climate. The effects of a changing climate have considerable impacts on modern enterprises. In some parts of the world, these impacts are increasingly becoming evident.

scholarly journals Bamboo Fale: Climate of Change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Emily Cayford
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Pacific Islands ◽  
Storm Surges ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Developed Country ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Climate Resilience ◽  
Weather Events ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The World

<p>The world is currently sitting on the brink of a massive upheaval as Climate Change continues to intensify. At this stage, there is no apparent turning back: the only remaining option is to adapt. While many countries are already feeling the effects, the most vulnerable lie within the Pacific Islands.  With 70% of the Samoan population living along their coastline (The World Bank, 2016), the country is identified as one of the most vulnerable Pacific Islands. It is prone to high waves and storm surges, along with tropical cyclones, which destroy livelihoods and housing, as well as claiming lives.  The traditional architecture of Samoa was originally built to withstand such weather events, but has not been adapting to resist the increased cyclone intensity and rising sea levels. The materials and building practices currently used within Samoa do not have the properties to resist these extreme weather events.  Western building practises have been introduced and into the Samoan construction industry, but has not yet successfully been integrated. Combinations of traditional and Western building practises are, instead, resulting in buildings more vulnerable than ever. This issue remains unresolved, with unsuitable housing remaining one of the largest dilemmas currently faced by Samoa’s inhabitants.  Samoa recently graduated from the classification: Least Developed Country, to be classified as a Developing Country (Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience). This places Samoa as one of the more developed nations of the Pacific, therefore encouraging Samoa to take the lead in resilience to the ever imposing effects of Climate Change. Samoa has a close relationship with both New Zealand and Australia and therefore has access to building expertise, education and materials. Why, then, is Samoa so lacking in architectural resilience to the effects of Climate Change?  This paper endeavours to investigate this gap and, in turn provide a potential resolution. These solutions could aid other Pacific countries as well as encouraging further architectural resilience that can then be mirrored by the remaining, vulnerable countries of the Pacific.  This thesis first investigates the question:  “Why has Samoan culture not developed stronger architectural resilience against Climate Change?”  This thesis then evolves to question:  “How can Samoan architecture be hybridised to influence increased architectural resilience against Climate Change?”</p>

scholarly journals Rice and Climaate Change:Implication for Food Security in Nigeria:A Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diagi B. E. ◽  
Edokpa D. O. ◽  
Suzan Ajiere
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Extreme Event ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Land Preparation ◽  
Food And Agriculture ◽  
The World ◽  
Poverty Elimination

Climate change is already seen to be impacting on every aspect of life on earth especially in the agricultural sectors of developing nations. In Nigeria, and indeed the world over, seasons are shifting, temperatures are rising, landscapes are changing and sea levels are rising. Extreme event like drought and flood are becoming more frequent and pronounced. FAO in2009 further highlighted that Agriculture is expected to pay a significant cost of the damage caused by climate change. Nigeria as one of the African countries is highly vulnerable to the influence of climate change (IPCC, 2007), as this is already being experienced, in form of extreme events such as flooding, droughts in some Northern States, heat/cold waves, changes in weather patterns which have posed serious challenges to the sustainability of rice production.This will have implication for rice farming especially in Nigeria, where rain-fed agriculture is predominant, the onset and cessation of the rains ascertain the cultural practices of farmers, such as land preparation, crop variety selection and planting to harvesting (Odekunle, 2004; Umar, 2010). The implication of this will be interference with food security as rice is an essential food crop in Nigeria that is consumed by a large number of the population.The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2018, has warned that hunger in Africa is being made worse by the impacts of climate change as itthreatens the capacity of vulnerable countries to guarantee food security, poverty elimination and actualize sustainable development. The increasing rate of food insecurity in the world leading to different form of malnutrition is worrisome and more needs to be done in the areas of agriculture in order to ensure food security and improve on nutrition if a world without hunger is to be achieved by 2030.

scholarly journals INTRODUCTION: SPECIAL ISSUE ON ‘MACROECONOMICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE’

2021 ◽  
Vol 258 ◽  
pp. 9-11
Author(s):  
Dawn Holland ◽  
Hande Kucuk ◽  
Miguel León-Ledesma
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Extreme Temperatures ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Special Report ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Cost ◽  
Rising Sea Levels

Climate change is one of the most serious risks facing humanity. Temperature rises can lead to catastrophic climate and natural events that threaten livelihoods. From rising sea levels to flooding, bush fires, extreme temperatures and droughts, the economic and human cost is too large to ignore. More than 190 world leaders got together in Glasgow during November 2021 at the UN’s COP26 climate change summit to discuss progress on the Paris Agreement (COP21) and to agree on new measures to limit global warming. In Paris, countries agreed to limit global warming to well below 2° and aim for 1.5° as well as to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate and raise the necessary funding to deliver on these aims. However, actions to date were not nearly enough as highlighted by the IPCC (2018) special report. The world is still on track to reach warming above 3° by 2100. As evident from figure 1, global temperatures have been on a steadily increasing path since the start of the 20th century and this process has substantially accelerated since the beginning of the 1980s. This has been unevenly distributed, with temperatures in the Northern hemisphere being a full 1°C higher than for the 1961–1990 average, whilst temperatures in the Southern hemisphere have increased by almost 0.5°C.

scholarly journals Communication, Negotiation, and Influence at International Climate Change Meetings and Summits

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hartmut Wessler ◽  
Julia Lück ◽  
Antal Wozniak
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Production Environment ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Impact

The annual United Nations Climate Change Conferences, officially called Conferences of the Parties (COPs), are the main drivers of media attention to climate change around the world. Even more so than the Rio and Rio+20 “Earth Summits” (1992 and 2012) and the meetings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the COPs offer multiple access points for the communicative engagement of all kinds of stakeholders. COPs convene up to 20,000 people in one place for two weeks, including national delegations, civil society and business representatives, scientific organizations, representatives from other international organizations, as well as journalists from around the world. While intergovernmental negotiation under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) constitutes the core of COP business, these multifunctional events also offer arenas for civil society mobilization, economic lobbying, as well as expert communication and knowledge transfer. The media image of the COPs emerges as a product of distinct networks of coproduction constituted by journalists, professional communicators from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and national delegations. Production structures at the COPs are relatively globalized with uniform access rules for journalists from all over the world, a few transnational news agencies dominating distribution of both basic information and news visuals, and dense localized interaction between public relations (PR) professionals and journalists. Photo opportunities created by globally coordinated environmental NGOs meet the selection of journalists much better than the visual strategies pursued by delegation spokespeople. This gives NGOs the upper hand in the visual framing contest, whereas in textual framing NGOs are sidelined and national politicians clearly dominate media coverage. The globalized production environment leads to relatively similar patterns of basic news framing in national media coverage of the COPs that reflect overarching ways of approaching the topic: through a focus on problems and victims; a perspective on civil society demands and solutions; an emphasis on conflict in negotiations; or a focus on the benefits of clean energy production. News narratives, on the other hand, give journalists from different countries more leeway in adapting COP news to national audiences’ presumed interests and preoccupations. Even after the adoption of a new global treaty at COP21 in Paris in 2015 that specifies emission reduction targets for all participating countries, the annual UN Climate Change Conferences are likely to remain in the media spotlight. Future research could look more systematically at the impact of global civil society and media in monitoring the national contributions to climate change mitigation introduced in the Paris Agreement and shoring up even more ambitious commitments needed to reach the goal of keeping global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius as compared to pre-industrial levels.

Water Resources and Climate Change

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Gleick
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Hydrologic Cycle ◽  
Ice Dynamics ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Precipitation Patterns ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Snow And Ice

Natural and human-caused climate changes are strongly linked to the hydrologic cycle and freshwater resources. The hydrological cycle is a core part of climate dynamics involving all three common forms of water—ice, liquid, vapor—and the movement of water around the world. Changes in climate affect all aspects of the hydrologic cycle itself through alterations in temperature, precipitation patterns, storm frequency and intensity, snow and ice dynamics, the stocks and flows of water on land, and connections between sea levels and coastal wetlands and ecosystems. In addition, many of the social, economic, and political impacts of climate change are expected to be felt through changes in natural water resources and developed water systems and infrastructure. Extensive research extending back a century or more has been conducted around the world on all the subsection categories presented below. Despite many remaining uncertainties, major advances in basic scientific understanding of the complex processes surrounding freshwater and climate have been made in the past decadet. New ground- and space-based sensors collect far more water- and climate-related data in the 21st century than in the past. Improvements in both regional and global hydrological and climatological modeling have permitted far greater understanding of water and climate links and risks. And more water management institutions and managers are beginning to integrate information about past and future climatic variability into water system planning, design, and construction. Recent observational evidence indicates that the impacts of human-caused climatic changes can now be observed in some regions for a wide range of water resources, including changing evaporative demand associated with rising temperatures, dramatic changes in snow and ice, alterations in precipitation patterns and storm, rising sea levels, and effects on aquatic ecosystems.

Climate Change and Supply Chain Operations

2011 ◽  
pp. 93-126
Author(s):  
Costas P. Pappis
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Water Cycle ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
The World ◽  
Stern Review ◽  
Rising Sea Levels

In the previous chapter 3 the focus of the presentation has been on the implications of climate change, as felt globally, for the environment and human societies in developing as well as in developed countries. As noticed there, the Stern Review’s conclusion that “climate change will have increasingly severe impacts on people around the world, with a growing risk of abrupt and large-scale changes at higher temperatures” (Stern Review, 2006) is shared by most scientists and governments. The Review warns that “a warmer world with a more intense water cycle and rising sea levels will influence many key determinants of wealth and well-being, including water supply, food production, human health, availability of land, and the environment” (Stern Review, p. 84).

The Earth Is Out There: Attitudes Of Irish Secondary Students Towards Earth Science

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emer Emily Neenan ◽  
Joseph Roche
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Secondary Schools ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Secondary Students ◽  
Student Attitudes ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World

&lt;p&gt;The world is facing a future where geoscience issues with significant social impact are increasingly central, including climate change, clean water, energy and resource management (e.g. mining, fracking), and natural disasters. The disposition of the next generation of citizens, as future voters and as future scientists, is vital if the world is to meet the challenges of rising temperatures, rising sea levels, and rising incidences of natural disasters. This paper arises from ongoing educational research undertaken in Irish secondary schools, examining student engagement with and understanding of geoscientific topics. Earth Science is included in the new Science syllabus in Ireland for 12 - 15 year old students (lower secondary level), but so far, no one has studied Irish students&amp;#8217; attitudes towards Earth Science. This is a mixed-methods study involving a survey of secondary schools in Ireland, including urban and rural, and mixed- and single-gender schools. Students representative in age and demographics of the participants are included as consultant voices at multiple stages in the study. Preliminary results from this study will be discussed in detail, focusing on student attitudes towards Earth Science as global and Irish citizens; how they conceptualise human interdependence with and on the planet; and how they consider themselves in different ways connected to or independent from the Earth, the study of Earth Science, and students or children their age elsewhere on the planet facing similar challenges in the era of climate change.&amp;#160;&lt;/p&gt;

scholarly journals Szósta katastrofa – wyniszczenie w dobie człowieka

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 184-200
Author(s):  
Marcin Łubiński ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Activity ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
The World ◽  
Rising Sea Levels ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Future Consequences

As the scientists indicate in their analyzes, about 60% of vertebrates on Earth have extinct since the industrial revolution. The inevitable climate catastrophe in the coming decades will bring even more noticeable damage. Due to the pres-ence of the human species in the world and its unrestrained expansion, the eff ects of Homo sapiens activity aff ect almost all ecosystems. Snowless winters, rising sea levels or extremely high temperatures are symptoms of a disaster that we are unable to ignore. This article briefl y discusses the most signifi cant threats to ecosystem services, the eff ects of careless human activity, and their current as well as future consequences, broken down into individual “sectors” of human activity. The current geopolitical situation regarding climate change and its impact on the world will also be presented. This article is mainly based on the 2019 IPBES report and reports from WWF and other entities dealing with climate change.

scholarly journals The Role of Heterogeneous Catalytic Processes in the Green Hydrogen Economy

Catalysts ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1185
Author(s):  
Eva Díaz ◽  
Salvador Ordóñez
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Draft Report ◽  
Heterogeneous Catalytic ◽  
The Past ◽  
Aggressive Action ◽  
The World ◽  
Heterogeneous Catalytic Processes

In a recent United Nations draft report (August 2021), a large number of scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change described the climate change over the past century as “unprecedented” and warned that the world will warm at an increasing rate, with unpredictable results, unless aggressive action to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases is taken [...]

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