GLOBALLY UNASSISTED TUVALUANS AFFECTED BY CLIMATE CHANGES: OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE "NO FUTURE"?

Abstract In theoretical and empirical terms, the climate change is seen in the current study as a set of themes containing the perspective of "coming to occur in a near future". However, thinking about the Island State of Tuvalu as a possible illustrative example of the direct occurrence of climate change adds a new analytical perspective to the existing literature, because the inversion from "coming to occur" to "is occurring" may change the resolution focus and give visibility to the affected ones. The aim of the current study is to reflect about the Tuvaluan climate change case based on literature review and documentary research and anchored on Political Theory and Sociology authors who use citizenship, human rights and sovereignty as research themes. It is concluded that Tuvalu illustrates the understanding of climate change and is a probable case of "non-future" for the unassisted ones.

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Climate change in the recent geological past and the near future. Predicting its impacts: a Review

Bulletin of the Geological Society of Greece ◽

10.12681/bgsg.20684 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 55 (1) ◽

pp. 260

Author(s):

Constantinos Perisoratis

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Sea Level Rise ◽

Climatic Change ◽

Sea Level ◽

Scientific Community ◽

Climate Changes ◽

Late Quaternary ◽

The Earth ◽

Geological Past ◽

Near Future

The climate changes are necessarily related to the increase of the Earth’s temperature, resulting in a sea level rise. Such continuous events, were taking place with minor and greater intensity, during the alternation of warm and cool periods in the Earth during the Late Quaternary and the Holocene periods. However, a particularly significant awareness has taken place in the scientific community, and consequently in the greater public, in the last decades: that a climatic change will take place soon, or it is on-going, and that therefore it is important to undertake drastic actions. However, such a climatic change has not been recorded yet, and hence the necessary actions are not required, for the time being.

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Should Judges Make Climate Change Law?

Transnational Environmental Law ◽

10.1017/s2047102519000360 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 55-75 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Laura Burgers

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Political Theory ◽

Deliberative Democracy ◽

Separation Of Powers ◽

Democratic Legitimacy ◽

Law And Politics ◽

Sound Environment ◽

Judicial Lawmaking ◽

Near Future

AbstractWhat scholars referred to as a climate change litigation ‘explosion’ in 2015 has today become an established movement which is unlikely to stop in the near future: worldwide, over a thousand lawsuits have been launched regarding responsibility for the dangers of climate change. Since the beginning of this trend in transnational climate litigation scholars have warned that the separation of powers is threatened where judges interfere with the politically hot issue of climate change. This article uses Jürgen Habermas's political theory on deliberative democracy to reconstruct the tension between law and politics generated by these lawsuits. This reconstruction affords a better understanding of the implications of climate change litigation: while the role of the judiciary as such remains unchanged, the trend is likely to influence the democratic legitimacy of judicial lawmaking on climate change, as it indicates an increasing realization that a sound environment is a constitutional value and is therefore a prerequisite for democracy.

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Macrobenthic community response to long-term climate change in the Adriatic Sea (Italy)

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-20678 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Daniele Scarponi ◽

Michele Azzarone ◽

Rafal Nawrot ◽

Michal Kowalewski

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Changes ◽

Benthic Communities ◽

Community Response ◽

Last Interglacial ◽

Benthic Assemblages ◽

Northern Adriatic ◽

Future Global Warming ◽

Near Future

<p>The ecological consequences of climate change on marine ecosystems remains poorly understood, particularly for ecological communities that reside in enclosed basins, which limit marine species in their ability to migrate. Here we use assemblages of late Quaternary fossils mollusks preserved in nearshore sediments to explore how nearshore marine benthic communities responded to past climate changes in the northern Adriatic. &#160; We focus on three time periods: (1) the last interglacial (<125ka BP), when regional temperatures were higher than today, representing a possible analogue for the near-future global warming; (2) the last late glacial 14.5-18.0 ka BP; and (3) the mid-Holocene 6.0-1.0 ka BP, when conditions were similar to today but with a minimal human impact. Temporal dynamics of benthic communities was assessed by applying multivariate and resampling approaches to abundance data for core-derived samples of fossil mollusks. Results demonstrate that the penultimate interglacial benthic assemblages shifted to a new community state during the subsequent glacial period. The shift represented a decline in abundance of exclusively Mediterranean nearshore species and a concurrent increase in abundance of nearshore species of cosmopolitan and boreal affinity. This shift was, most likely, driven by global climate cooling. Following this major community restructuring, the local nearshore communities had reversed back to their previous state during the mid-Holocene, when interglacial climate conditions were fully reestablished again. We conclude that the nearshore community responded to long-term climate changes by displaying a resilient (rather than persistent or stochastic) behavior, with Holocene biota reversing back to the pre-existing interglacial state. However, regional pollution, trawling and the threat of spreading invasive species are already taking their toll and the present-day communities are shifting to a novel, historical unprecedented community state. Nonetheless, our findings indicate that if local and regional threats can be mitigated, the coastal marine communities of the northern Adriatic would be resilient against limited climate warming in the near future.</p>

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Elevated Temperatures Negatively Affect Olive Productive Cycle and Oil Quality

Agronomy ◽

10.3390/agronomy11081492 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (8) ◽

pp. 1492

Author(s):

Giora Ben-Ari ◽

Iris Biton ◽

Yair Many ◽

Dvory Namdar ◽

Alon Samach

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Changes ◽

Elevated Temperatures ◽

Oil Quality ◽

Breeding Programs ◽

Fruit Productivity ◽

Olive Cultivars ◽

Growing Conditions ◽

Near Future ◽

The Mediterranean Basin

Climate change, with elevated temperatures throughout the year, affects many stages of the reproductive growth and development of olives as well as oil quality at harvest. Although olive (Olea europaea L.) is well adapted to the environmental conditions of the Mediterranean Basin, agricultural techniques and breeding through selection programs will have to adapt to these climate change, threatening to worsen in the near future. Defining the pathways controlling high fruit productivity and oil quantity and quality, despite elevated temperatures and sub-optimal growing conditions, is important for coping with current and predicted climate changes. As breeding programs aiming to address these crucial changes may take several decades, an urgent need to designate specific olive cultivars that are more resistant to high temperatures emerges.

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Climate Change, Arctic Aesthetics, and Indigenous Agency in the Age of the Anthropocene

The Yearbook of Polar Law Online ◽

10.1163/2211-6427_015 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 375-409 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Victoria Herrmann

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Human Rights ◽

Indigenous Communities ◽

Law Reform ◽

The Arctic ◽

Visual Narratives ◽

Trade Routes ◽

Indigenous Groups ◽

Contextual Element ◽

Near Future

As the world enters into a new century, Arctic countries, indigenous groups, non-state actors, and even non-Arctic nations such as China and India are intensifying their political and economic investments in the circumpolar region. The potential of an ice-free pole in the near future promises unprecedented opportunities of energy resources, trade routes, and mineral extraction. Nonetheless, few political leaders have or will ever travel to the far north. In a place so geographically remote from those who are taking interest, images and supportive textual discourse have become a medium for legitimising actions and statements. Each selective compositional or contextual element determines the realm of visibility and invisibility, enacting a particularly politicised disposition from its audience. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate how images of indigenous communities in the Arctic function as currency in debates of climate change, human rights, and native agency. First, the piece explores the human rights implications of a changing climate for native Arctic communities. This article then explores the implications of narratives of traditional knowledge being drawn onto abstract grids of historic victimisation through their engagement with international law, institutions, and human rights campaigns. Through this, the article shows that these images and aesthetic codes have constructed and conditioned changing perceptions of human rights and responsibility in a melting Arctic. The analysis considers the role visual narratives generally play in human rights within the climate change discourse and their implications for law reform and strategies for achieving climate justice.

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The Past as a Mirror: Deep Time Climate Change Exemplarity in the Anthropocene

Culture Unbound Journal of Current Cultural Research ◽

10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1909301 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (3-4) ◽

pp. 330-352 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Henrik Hovland Svensen ◽

Marit Ruge Bjærke ◽

Kyrre Kverndokk

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Early Modern ◽

Large Scale ◽

Climate Changes ◽

Climatic Warming ◽

Deep Time ◽

The Past ◽

Thermal Maximum ◽

Near Future ◽

Earth Dynamics

During the past decades, notions of Earth dynamics and climate change have changed drastically, as anthropogenic CO2-emissions are linked to measurable Earth system changes. At the same time, Earth scientists have discovered deep time climate changes triggered by large scale and natural release of CO2. As the understanding of past climatic changes improved, they were used to envision what might happen in the near future. This article explores the use of deep time climate examples by analyzing publications on a 56-million-year-old greenhouse gas-driven rapid global warming event, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). We explore how the PETM is framed and used as an example of “extreme climatic warming” in four cases across different scientific genres. The scientific knowledge about the PETM is considered too uncertain to draw conclusions from, but our analysis shows that, by being presented as an example, the PETM may still contribute to the scientific understanding of ongoing climate change. Although the PETM is regarded as too uncertain to guide present day climate change modeling, it is still considered morally significant, and is allowed to influence public opinion and policy making. We argue that the PETM is used as an example in ways that have formal similarities with the early modern historia magistra vitae topos. The PETM example highlights the ambivalence that characterizes the Anthropocene as a temporal conception. The Anthropocene is “completely different”, but at the same time pointing to the similarity between the present and the deep past, thereby allowing for comparison to past geological events. Thus, the Anthropocene is not so “completely different” after all. Just a little bigger, a lot faster, and a lot scarier to humans.

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