More Future? Straight Ecologies in British Climate-Change Theatre

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Ariane de Waal
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Nuclear Family ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Royal Court ◽  
Habitable Planet ◽  
Studio Theatre ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Second Wave

Abstract Attempts to convey the urgency of the climate crisis often rely on the figure of the child. From Greta Thunberg via school-striking students to the grandchildren invoked in the titles of bestselling books about global warming, appearances of children seem especially effective in protesting the loss of a habitable planet. The iconic child that needs saving (or becomes the planet’s saviour) is equally prominent in British plays about climate change. Drawing on queer critiques of the conceptual short circuit between the child and the future, this article identifies two waves of UK eco-theatre: the first wave endorses hetero-nuclear family bonds and future-oriented thinking; the second wave traces alternative relations to nonhuman, ageing, or ailing Others in the present. The first part of the article revisits critiques of reproductive futurism; the second examines the straight ecologies that characterise the first wave of eco-theatre, based on a detailed analysis of Duncan Macmillan’s play Lungs (Studio Theatre, Washington, DC/Sheffield Crucible, 2011). The final part considers climate-change plays that sever reproductive timelines, as exemplified by Caryl Churchill’s Escaped Alone, Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children, and Stef Smith’s Human Animals (all Royal Court, 2016).

Rolling Back Climate Regulation: Trump’s Assault on the Planet

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-130
Author(s):  
Ronald C. Kramer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Corporate Crime ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Regulatory Policies ◽  
Climate Regulation ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Trump Administration

The Donald Trump administration has engaged in a number of crimes related to climate change. This article examines these climate crimes, in particular, the administration’s organized denial of global warming and its political omissions concerning the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions that result in the rollback of existing regulatory policies related to the climate crisis. This criminality is explored through the lens of the concept of state–corporate crime, a concept utilized by a number of green criminologists to analyze environmental harms. The Trump administration’s rollback of climate change regulations is first located within its historical, political, and social contexts. Then, the specific actions and political omissions that constitute these rollbacks are described and analyzed as state–corporate environmental crimes.

scholarly journals Climate change, environmental sustainability and health care quality

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans C Ossebaard ◽  
Peter Lachman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Healthcare Service ◽  
Health Care Quality ◽  
Care Quality ◽  
Climate Crisis

Abstract The challenges for health care continue to grow and in the 21st century healthcare policymakers and providers will need to respond to the developing impact of global warming and the environmental impact of healthcare service delivery. This cannot be viewed apart from the current Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which is likely to be linked to the climate crisis.

Climate Change, Apocalypse, and the Future of Salvation

Futures ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 225-242
Author(s):  
John R. Hall ◽  
Zeke Baker
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
The Us ◽  
Exploratory Survey ◽  
The Future ◽  
Climate Crisis

In this chapter, an exploratory survey focuses on ‘popular theologies’ in relation to institutional religious formations in the US in order to bring to light affinities and disjunctures between alternative ways that global salvation can be (or fail to be) envisioned and engaged in relation to climate futures. Given climate change, the future of salvation is not simply a matter for individual souls, as religion often has it. The spectre of global warming poses salvation challenges of potentially apocalyptic proportions for the biosphere and peoples of the planet Earth. Religion in its discourses and practices brings issues of salvation into especially sharp resolution. It is also the ambivalent ur-source of the apocalyptic, which, along with other religious theologies and practices, can be mapped in relation to their distinctive social temporalities. Focusing on alternative temporalities—especially apocalyptic orientations towards the Millennium—lays bare the cultural antinomies of climate crisis.

scholarly journals A physical concept in the press: the case of the Jet Stream

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavier Fonseca ◽  
Gonzalo Miguez-Macho ◽  
José A. Cortes-Vazquez ◽  
Antonio Vaamonde
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Jet Stream ◽  
Safe Limits ◽  
The Media ◽  
A Chain ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Climate Crisis

Abstract. In recent years, science has hardened the discourse on the emergency of global warming, pointing out that the next decades will be decisive to maintain the stability of the climate system, avoiding a cascade effect of events that increase the average temperature above safe limits. The scientific community warns that there are different tipping points that could produce a chain reaction in the global climate. One of them is related to the Jet Stream. But despite the importance of this air current in atmospheric dynamics in the Northern Hemisphere and the changes it is experiencing in the context of global warming, the public is still not familiar with this kind of physical concepts, nor with much simpler others. As concerns about the climate crisis rise, knowledge remains stagnant. To advance in the learning of the science of climate change, in general, and of concepts such as the Jet Stream, in particular, specific scientific communication formats are required that can successfully tackle the difficult task of explaining such complex problems to the general public. These formats should be included in the media because they are the main source for information on climate change and because their characteristics allow taking on the challenge. In this article we present a communication proposal existent in a newspaper published in Spain. We argue that this communication format represents a good model to disseminate climate science, educate readers and even to make physical concepts such as the Jet Stream accessible. We believe that this format conforms to and complies with the enunciation of Article 12 of the Paris Agreement, which calls on the signatory countries to promote education and training on climate change.

Modelling ecosystem adaptation and dangerous rates of global warming

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Millington ◽  
Peter M. Cox ◽  
Jonathan R. Moore ◽  
Gabriel Yvon-Durocher
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Diffusion Rate ◽  
Individual Species ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
Rates Of Change ◽  
Rapid Climate Change ◽  
Warming Climate ◽  
Intraspecies Competition ◽  
High Trait

Abstract We are in a period of relatively rapid climate change. This poses challenges for individual species and threatens the ecosystem services that humanity relies upon. Temperature is a key stressor. In a warming climate, individual organisms may be able to shift their thermal optima through phenotypic plasticity. However, such plasticity is unlikely to be sufficient over the coming centuries. Resilience to warming will also depend on how fast the distribution of traits that define a species can adapt through other methods, in particular through redistribution of the abundance of variants within the population and through genetic evolution. In this paper, we use a simple theoretical ‘trait diffusion’ model to explore how the resilience of a given species to climate change depends on the initial trait diversity (biodiversity), the trait diffusion rate (mutation rate), and the lifetime of the organism. We estimate theoretical dangerous rates of continuous global warming that would exceed the ability of a species to adapt through trait diffusion, and therefore lead to a collapse in the overall productivity of the species. As the rate of adaptation through intraspecies competition and genetic evolution decreases with species lifetime, we find critical rates of change that also depend fundamentally on lifetime. Dangerous rates of warming vary from 1°C per lifetime (at low trait diffusion rate) to 8°C per lifetime (at high trait diffusion rate). We conclude that rapid climate change is liable to favour short-lived organisms (e.g. microbes) rather than longer-lived organisms (e.g. trees).

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.

Political Preferences, Personality Traits, and Environmentalism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Soutter ◽  
René Mõttus
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Environmental Attitudes ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Party Voting

Although the scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change continues to grow, public discourse still reflects a high level of scepticism and political polarisation towards anthropogenic climate change. In this study (N = 499) we attempted to replicate and expand upon an earlier finding that environmental terminology (“climate change” versus “global warming”) could partly explain political polarisation in environmental scepticism (Schuldt, Konrath, & Schwarz, 2011). Participants completed a series of online questionnaires assessing personality traits, political preferences, belief in environmental phenomenon, and various pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours. Those with a Conservative political orientation and/or party voting believed less in both climate change and global warming compared to those with a Liberal orientation and/or party voting. Furthermore, there was an interaction between continuously measured political orientation, but not party voting, and question wording on beliefs in environmental phenomena. Personality traits did not confound these effects. Furthermore, continuously measured political orientation was associated with pro-environmental attitudes, after controlling for personality traits, age, gender, area lived in, income, and education. The personality domains of Openness, and Conscientiousness, were consistently associated with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, whereas Agreeableness was associated with pro-environmental attitudes but not with behaviours. This study highlights the importance of examining personality traits and political preferences together and suggests ways in which policy interventions can best be optimised to account for these individual differences.

Graubündens Wald im Fokus | Focus on the Grisons forest

2009 ◽  
Vol 160 (7) ◽  
pp. 195-200
Author(s):  
Reto Hefti
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Positive Attitude ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Intensive Use ◽  
Form Part ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
The Government

In the mountainous canton Grisons, much visited by tourists, the forest has always had an important role to play. New challenges are now presenting themselves. The article goes more closely into two themes on the Grisons forestry agenda dominating in the next few years: the increased use of timber and climate change. With the increased demand for logs and the new sawmill in Domat/Ems new opportunities are offered to the canton for more intensive use of the raw material, wood. This depends on a reduction in production costs and a positive attitude of the population towards the greater use of wood. A series of measures from the Grisons Forestry Department should be of help here. The risk of damage to infrastructure is particularly high in a mountainous canton. The cantonal government of the Grisons has commissioned the Forestry Department to define the situation concerning the possible consequences of global warming on natural hazards and to propose measures which may be taken. The setting up of extensive measurement and information systems, the elaboration of intervention maps, the estimation of the danger potential in exposed areas outside the building zone and the maintenance of existing protective constructions through the creation of a protective constructions register, all form part of the government programme for 2009 to 2012. In the Grisons, forest owners and visitors will have to become accustomed to the fact that their forests must again produce more wood and that, on account of global warming, protective forests will become even more important than they already are today.

Denouement: World Politics, Systemic Leadership, and Climate Change

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William R. Thompson ◽  
Leila Zakhirova
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
World Politics ◽  
First Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Climate Fluctuations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Agrarian Economy ◽  
Historical Processes

In this final chapter, we conclude by recapitulating our argument and evidence. One goal of this work has been to improve our understanding of the patterns underlying the evolution of world politics over the past one thousand years. How did we get to where we are now? Where and when did the “modern” world begin? How did we shift from a primarily agrarian economy to a primarily industrial one? How did these changes shape world politics? A related goal was to examine more closely the factors that led to the most serious attempts by states to break free of agrarian constraints. We developed an interactive model of the factors that we thought were most likely to be significant. Finally, a third goal was to examine the linkages between the systemic leadership that emerged from these historical processes and the global warming crisis of the twenty-first century. Climate change means that the traditional energy platforms for system leadership—coal, petroleum, and natural gas—have become counterproductive. The ultimate irony is that we thought that the harnessing of carbon fuels made us invulnerable to climate fluctuations, while the exact opposite turns out to be true. The more carbon fuels are consumed, the greater the damage done to the atmosphere. In many respects, the competition for systemic leadership generated this problem. Yet it is unclear whether systemic leadership will be up to the task of resolving it.

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