The New Ecology

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oswald J. Schmitz
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Environmental Services ◽  
Know How ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Face ◽  
Entire Planet ◽  
Economic Well Being

Our species has transitioned from being one among millions on Earth to the species that is single-handedly transforming the entire planet to suit its own needs. In order to meet the daunting challenges of environmental sustainability in this epoch of human domination—known as the Anthropocene—ecologists have begun to think differently about the interdependencies between humans and the natural world. This book provides the best available introduction to what this new ecology is all about—and why it matters more than ever before. It describes how the science of ecology is evolving to provide a better understanding of how human agency is shaping the natural world, often in never-before-seen ways. The book emphasizes the importance of conserving species diversity, because it can offer a portfolio of options to keep our ecosystems resilient in the face of environmental change. It envisions humans taking on new roles as thoughtful stewards of the environment to ensure that ecosystems have the enduring capacity to supply the environmental services on which our economic well-being—and our very existence—depend. It offers the ecological know-how to maintain and enhance our planet's environmental performance and ecosystem production for the benefit of current and future generations. The book shows how today's ecology can provide the insights we need to appreciate the crucial role we play in this era of unprecedented global environmental transition.

scholarly journals G20 Hangzhou Summit: A Possible Turning Point for Global Governance

2016 ◽  
Vol 02 (03) ◽  
pp. 327-346
Author(s):  
Colin I. Bradford
Keyword(s):  
Global Governance ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
2030 Agenda ◽  
The Face ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Paris Climate Agreement ◽  
Public Reaction ◽  
The Uk

The 2016 G20 Summit in Hangzhou takes place within a tense global political context. The outcome of the UK Brexit referendum in June revealed the deep divide between the politics of competitive nationalism and the commitment to international cooperation. It also reflected the depth of public reaction to global economic integration and the absence of response to public anxieties about social well-being and environmental sustainability from the political middle in many countries. China’s hosting of the G20 Summit presents an opportunity to turn a corner in global summitry by strengthening global leadership at this critical juncture, while China’s ability to do so depends on the willingness of other G20 members to comprehensively address public anxieties. The UN 2030 Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement, both reached in 2015, do provide political and policy answers to the public anxieties. The question is the effectiveness of the initiatives governments are taking to implement them, which could be framed together to achieve sustainability for all in the face of serious, demonstrable systemic risks. Many governments may resist this level of ambition and prefer to strike a lower profile as the world shifts its focus from goal setting in 2015 to goal implementation in 2016. Yet even with this less ambitious approach, there are ways that G20 countries can initiate processes that engage stakeholders in envisioning the future and developing alternative approaches and pathways to move their nations toward where they need to be by 2030 in terms of social, economic, and environmental sustainability. As people-centered and planet-centered agendas, the sustainable development goals (SDGs) set in the UN 2030 Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement have the policy content necessary to provide hope and direction for anxious publics. Similarly, it is hopeful that G20 leaders can develop narratives and define commitments to address the economic insecurity of their people and in the meantime strengthen the G20’s role in global governance.

scholarly journals Assessing Global Environmental Sustainability Via an Unsupervised Clustering Framework

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 563 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aiyshwariya Paulvannan Kanmani ◽  
Renee Obringer ◽  
Benjamin Rachunok ◽  
Roshanak Nateghi
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Performance Metrics ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Data Transformations ◽  
Environmental Performance Index ◽  
Self Organized ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Ranking Countries ◽  
Over Time

The importance of sustainable development has risen in recent years due to the significant number of people affected by lack of access to essential resources as well as the need to prepare for and adapt to intensifying climate change and rapid urbanization. Modeling frameworks capable of effectively assessing and tracking sustainability lie at the heart of creating effective policies to address these issues. Conventional frameworks, such as the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), that support such policies often involve ranking countries based on a weighted sum of a number of relevant environmental metrics. However, the selection and weighing processes are often biased. Moreover, the ranking process fails to provide policymakers with possible avenues to improve their country’s environmental sustainability. This study aimed to address these gaps by proposing a novel data-driven framework to assess the environmental sustainability of countries objectively by leveraging unsupervised learning theory. Specifically, this framework harnesses a clustering technique known as Self-Organized Maps to group countries based on their characteristic environmental performance metrics and track progression in terms of shifts within clusters over time. The results support the hypothesis that the inconsistencies in the EPI calculation can lead to misrepresentations of the relative sustainability of countries over time. The proposed framework, which does not rely on ranking or data transformations, enables countries to make more informed decisions by identifying effective and specific pathways towards improving their environmental sustainability.

scholarly journals Building a Sustainable Society: The Necessity to Change the Term 'Consumer'

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina Chakori
Keyword(s):  
Economic System ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Consumption Culture ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Important Relationship ◽  
Definition Of

The profit-seeking system leads to many negative environmental impacts. Within this economic system, consumption reflects an important relationship between humans and nature. However, despite the growing international attention to environmental sustainability, our society does not necessarily acknowledge consumerism as the cause of global environmental degradation. Deconstructing the consumption culture and redefining what determines well-being, this paper will attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of the existing definition of people in the economic system. Many authors have defined our role in the economy; however, in terms of customer, citizen-consumer, and socially conscious consumer, most of the literature in this domain remains rooted in consumerism. Consumerism cannot be fixed with further consumerism; therefore this paper discusses the importance of reclaiming our identity and the need to define new terms for people in a new economic system. Any new terms should integrate interests and responsibilities that go beyond simple utility maximization. Moving beyond the term “consumer” will change our worldview. This cultural transformation may help facilitate long-term environmental sustainability.

scholarly journals Postmaterial Experience Economics, Population, and Environmental Sustainability

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Booth
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Political Support ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Human Fertility ◽  
Primary Driver ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Economic Well Being

Postmaterial values with their reduced emphasis on accumulating material possessions lead to greater political support for limits on environmental pollution and to a less entropic way of life that increases environmental sustainability. Similarly, reducing human fertility to replacement levels can stabilize population and increase environmental sustainability in the future by reducing the pressure of population growth on environmental resources. In recent history, increases in per capita economic well being has been a primary driver of expansion in postmaterialism and reduce human fertility worldwide. The irony of this phenomena is that economic development potentially destructive to the environment leads to more postmaterialism and reduced fertility, both of which benefit environmental sustainability. In this article, the underpinnings of these conclusions will be set out as well as possible ways around the dilemma they bring.

scholarly journals Growth Regulators for Viable Production in Conditions of Formation the Responsible International Cooperation

2020 ◽  
Vol 159 ◽  
pp. 03004
Author(s):  
Tetyana Calinescu ◽  
Olena Zelenko
Keyword(s):  
International Cooperation ◽  
External Environment ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Socio Economic Development ◽  
The Face ◽  
Research Goal ◽  
Level Of Knowledge ◽  
Methodological Approaches ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Economic Well Being

Scientific and applied discussion of different approaches to socio-economic development in different societies in the face of world challenges led to formulate such a research goal as a justification of viable production regulators, to recommend the development of other alternatives at all management levels. The methodological basis of the study were the methods and principles of scientific knowledge, general and special methods, techniques used in the justification of production and cooperation regulators. This research made possibility to define the following viability regulators as: the level of knowledge gained, the integration level of the country and its industries for international cooperation; achieving balance in the internal and external environment in terms of profitability and socio-economic well-being and establishing a social dialogue. The methodological approaches used to identify modern regulators of the production viability have a broad applied aspect of application in various national economy sectors and are original in terms of their use in conditions of responsible international cooperation in Ukraine. The definition of economic growth targets in Ukraine should be based on: human capital sustainable development; formation of effective communications at all government levels in order to synchronize the actions and changes in the development of responsible international cooperation.

Through the prism of Spain. Socio-economic causes of different outcomes of Russian and Spanish civil wars

2017 ◽  
pp. 142-155
Author(s):  
I. Rozinskiy ◽  
N. Rozinskaya
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
World War I ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Russian Civil War ◽  
World War ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Economic Well Being

The article examines the socio-economic causes of the outcome of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1936), which, as opposed to the Russian Civil War, resulted in the victory of the “Whites”. Choice of Spain as the object of comparison with Russia is justified not only by similarity of civil wars occurred in the two countries in the XX century, but also by a large number of common features in their history. Based on statistical data on the changes in economic well-being of different strata of Spanish population during several decades before the civil war, the authors formulate the hypothesis according to which the increase of real incomes of Spaniards engaged in agriculture is “responsible” for their conservative political sympathies. As a result, contrary to the situation in Russia, where the peasantry did not support the Whites, in Spain the peasants’ position predetermined the outcome of the confrontation resulting in the victory of the Spanish analogue of the Whites. According to the authors, the possibility of stable increase of Spanish peasants’ incomes was caused by the nation’s non-involvement in World War I and also by more limited, compared to Russia and some other countries, spending on creation of heavy (primarily military-related) industry in Spain.

Strategic threats to energy security as risks of quality of people's life

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 730-744
Author(s):  
V.I. Loktionov
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Energy Security ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Scientific Methods ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
General Scientific ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Economic Well Being ◽  
The Way

Subject. The article reviews the way strategic threats to energy security influence the quality of people's life. Objectives. The study unfolds the theory of analyzing strategic threats to energy security by covering the matter of quality of people's life. Methods. To analyze the way strategic threats to energy security spread across cross-sectoral commodity and production chains and influences quality of people's living, I applied the factor analysis and general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis. Results. I suggest interpreting strategic threats to energy security as risks of people's quality of life due to a reduction in the volume of energy supply. I identified mechanisms reflecting how the fuel and energy complex and its development influence the quality of people's life. The article sets out the method to assess such quality-of-life risks arising from strategic threats to energy security. Conclusions and Relevance. In the current geopolitical situation, strategic threats to energy security cause long-standing adverse consequences for the quality of people's life. If strategic threats to energy security are further construed as risk of quality of people's life, this will facilitate the preparation and performance of a more effective governmental policy on energy, which will subsequently raise the economic well-being of people.

Meditation buffers medical student compassion from the deleterious effects of depression.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer S Mascaro ◽  
Sean Kelley ◽  
Alana Darcher ◽  
Lobsang Negi ◽  
Carol Worthman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Medical Student ◽  
Medical Students ◽  
Medical School ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Daily Functioning ◽  
Wait List ◽  
School Students ◽  
Social Emotions ◽  
The Face ◽  
Second Year

Increasing data suggest that for medical school students the stress of academic and psychologicaldemands can impair social emotions that are a core aspect of compassion and ultimately physiciancompetence. Few interventions have proven successful for enhancing physician compassion inways that persist in the face of suffering and that enable sustained caretaker well-being. To addressthis issue, the current study was designed to (1) investigate the feasibility of cognitively-basedcompassion training (CBCT) for second-year medical students, and (2) test whether CBCT decreasesdepression, enhances compassion, and improves daily functioning in medical students. Comparedto the wait-list group, students randomized to CBCT reported increased compassion, and decreasedloneliness and depression. Changes in compassion were most robust in individuals reporting highlevels of depression at baseline, suggesting that CBCT may benefit those most in need by breakingthe link between personal suffering and a concomitant drop in compassion

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