scholarly journals Tropical Imaginaries and Climate Crisis: Embracing Relational Climate Discourses

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Anita Lundberg ◽  
André Vasques Vital ◽  
Shruti Das
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Relational Climate

In this Introduction, we set the Special Issue on 'Tropical Imaginaries and Climate Crisis' within the context of a call for relational climate discourses as they arise from particular locations in the tropics. Although climate change is global, it is not experienced everywhere the same and has pronounced effects in the tropics. This is also the region that experienced the ravages – to humans and environments – of colonialism. It is the region of the planet’s greatest biodiversity; and will experience the largest extinction losses. We advocate that climate science requires climate imagination – and specifically a tropical imagination – to bring science systems into relation with the human, cultural, social and natural. In short, this Special Issue contributes to calls to humanise climate change. Yet this is not to place the human at the centre of climate stories, rather we embrace more-than-human worlds and the expansion of relational ways of knowing and being. This paper outlines notions of tropicality and rhizomatics that are pertinent to relational discourses, and introduces the twelve papers – articles, essays and speculative fiction pieces – that give voice to tropical imaginaries and climate change in the tropics.

scholarly journals Future Directions—Engaged Scholarship and the Climate Crisis

Land ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 304
Author(s):  
A. Haven Kiers ◽  
David de la Peña ◽  
N. Claire Napawan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Service Learning ◽  
Landscape Architecture ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Engaged Learning ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Ecosystem Research ◽  
Case Study Methodology ◽  
Climate Crisis

Climate change has the potential to disrupt ecosystem services and further exacerbate the effects of human activities on natural resources. This has significant implications for educational institutions and the populations they serve. As the current crop of landscape architecture students struggles to define its role within the climate crisis and its related social and political underpinnings, a core mission of colleges and universities moving forward should be to provide students with applied knowledge about how climate change affects the landscape. This goes beyond coursework in climate science or policy; for landscape architecture students to be leaders in the response to climate change, they need applied, practical skills. An ever-growing body of the literature focuses on landscape design strategies for climate change adaptation; however, few frameworks integrate these strategies with the hands-on experience students will need to face real-world challenges after graduation. Educational institutions have the potential to utilize their campuses as demonstration sites for applied ecosystem research programs and actively engage students with the design, implementation, politics, and ongoing stewardship of these landscapes. This paper uses a case study methodology to understand how experiential and public-engaged learning pedagogies contribute to student preparedness to address climate change. It examines three cases of engaged learning at the University of California, Davis campus and attributes their impact to intentional connections with research, to the delegation of responsibility; to the openness of spaces for experimentation, and to self-reflection that connects climate with everyday behavior. By promoting experiential learning programs that require students to actively use their heads and their hands to construct and sustainably manage their own campus landscapes, service-learning studios and internships can provide opportunities for students to address the real scenarios of climate crisis and resilience.

scholarly journals Climate Imperialism: Ecocriticism, Postcolonialism, and Global Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Hartnett
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Indigenous Resistance ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Climate Crisis

Global climate change threatens to kill or displace hundreds of thousands of people and will irrevocably change the lifestyles of practically everyone on the planet. However, the effect of imperialism and colonialism on climate change is a topic that has not received adequate scrutiny. Empire has been a significant factor in the rise of fossil fuels. The complicated connections between conservation and empire often make it difficult to reconcile the two disparate fields of ecocriticism and postcolonial studies. This paper will discuss how empire and imperialism have contributed to, and continue to shape, the ever-looming threat of global climate crisis, especially as it manifests in the tropics. Global climate change reinforces disparate economic, social, and racial conditions that were started, fostered, and thrived throughout the long history of colonization, inscribing climate change as a new, slow form of imperialism that is retracing the pathways that colonialism and globalism have already formed. Ultimately, it may only be by considering climate change through a postcolonial lens and utilizing indigenous resistance that the damage of this new form of climate imperialism can be undone.

scholarly journals Making the climate crisis personal through a focus on human health

2021 ◽  
Vol 166 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vijay S. Limaye
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Local Health ◽  
Climate Resilience ◽  
Climate Crisis

AbstractClimate change–driven health impacts are serious, widespread, and costly. Importantly, such damages are largely absent from policy debates around the costs of delay and inaction on this crisis. While climate change is a global problem, its impacts are localized and personal, and there is growing demand for specific information on how climate change affects human health in different places. Existing research indicates that climate-fueled health problems are growing, and that investments in reducing carbon pollution and improving community resilience could help to avoid tens to hundreds of billions of dollars in climate-sensitive health impacts across the USA each year, including those stemming from extreme heat, air pollution, hurricanes, and wildfires. Science that explores the underappreciated local health impacts and health-related costs of climate change can enhance advocacy by demonstrating the need to both address the root causes of climate change and enhance climate resilience in vulnerable communities. The climate crisis has historically been predominantly conceived as a global environmental challenge; examination of climate impacts on public health enables researchers to localize this urgent problem for members of the public and policymakers. In turn, approaches to climate science that focus on health can make dangerous climate impacts and the need for cost-effective solutions more salient and tangible.

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.

Preaching when life depends on it: climate crisis and Gospel hope

2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-219
Author(s):  
Margaret Bullitt-Jonas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Moral Issue ◽  
Spiritual Awakening ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Climate Crisis

Many preachers avoid delivering sermons about the climate crisis. Bullitt-Jonas reflects on the power of sermons to awaken moral courage, arguing that strong sermons on climate change create the conditions for spiritual awakening and prophetic action. She considers six ideas for preachers, starting with how to frame the climate emergency in terms of Christian theology. She reflects on how to approach the lectionary; how to be adequately informed about climate science; how to connect climate change with other issues, such as coronavirus and racial and economic justice; why and how to infuse sermons with the empowering love of God; and individual and collective actions to encourage. Preachers play an essential role in helping Christians understand the climate crisis as a religious and moral issue and in creating a social “tipping point” that propels rapid change. The article includes resources for “best practices” in climate preaching and communication.

Self and world in lay interpretations of climate change

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Joy Denniss ◽  
Aidan Davison
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Lay People ◽  
The World

Purpose – This paper aims to report on an in-depth qualitative study that focuses on the convergence of the interpretive activities of knowing, living in and valuing the world in lay reasoning about climate change. Although awareness is growing that lay people interact with scientific knowledge about climate change in complex ways, relatively little is known about this interaction. Much quantitative research on public attitudes to climate change does little to draw out the cognitive and experiential processes by which lay people arrive at understandings of climate change. Design/methodology/approach – Through narrative analysis of qualitative interviews, this paper examines lay rationalities of climate change as a process of not only knowing the world (epistemology), but of being oriented towards the world (ontology) and valuing the world (axiology). Findings – The findings emphasise the extent of individual variation in lay interpretations of climate change, and their internal complexity. Almost all participants display differences in reasoning about climate change when considering their personal lives as compared to the wider, public world. Distinct accounts of self and world in lay rationalities are evident in the ways that participants imagine the future and express their feelings of culpability for and responsibility to act on climate change. Originality/value – This paper argues that lay reasoning about climate science does not just engage ways of knowing the world but also ways of being in and valuing the world so as to open up multiple trajectories for comprehension.

scholarly journals Sustainable Tropical Urbanism: Insights from Cities of the Monsoonal Asia-Pacific

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Simona Azzali ◽  
Lisa Law ◽  
Anita Lundberg
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Asia Pacific Region ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Scoping Reviews ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Tropics

The Tropics is experiencing the fastest growing urbanisation on the planet and faces serious sustainability issues. This introduction to the eTropic Special Issue on ‘Sustainable Tropical Urbanism’ calls for a notion of plural sustainabilities in order to critique how urban sustainability has mainly been developed in temperate zones and transferred to tropical regions; but also, to recognise shared aspects of the Tropics, including climate change and environmental challenges, as well as histories of colonialism and their continuing postcolonial cultural and socioeconomic effects on peoples of the Tropics and their futures. These threads are drawn together under a conceptual trio of Place, Past, and People in order to further explore these similarities and differences. Narrowing the focus to the monsoonal Asia-Pacific region, this Special Issue presents case studies from Khulna and Chittagong in Bangladesh; Singapore and the Indonesian city of Semarang in Southeast Asia; and the regional city of Cairns in tropical northeast Australia. This Special Issue of eTropic brings together research articles, scoping reviews and viewpoints from multiple disciplines and interdisciplines to explore the dynamics of sustainable tropical urbanism.

scholarly journals AGU Editors Call for Action to Address Global Climate Crisis

Eos ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paige Wooden ◽  
Matt Giampoala ◽  
Margaret Moerchen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Urgent Action

As global leaders meet to discuss climate change, AGU’s editors in chief make an appeal for urgent action based on years of accumulated climate science research.

scholarly journals Decolonising Climate Change: A Call for Beyond-Human Imaginaries and Knowledge Generation

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Chao ◽  
Dion Enari
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Constitutive Relations ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Knowledge Generation ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Indigenous Epistemologies ◽  
Scientific Paradigms ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Tropics

This article calls for transdisciplinary, experimental, and decolonial imaginations of climate change and Pacific futures in an age of great planetary undoing. Drawing from our personal and academic knowledge of the Pacific from West Papua to Samoa, we highlight the need for radical forms of imagination that are grounded in an ethos of inclusivity, participation, and humility. Such imaginations must account for the perspectives, interests, and storied existences of both human and beyond-human communities of life across their multiple and situated contexts, along with their co-constitutive relations. We invite respectful cross-pollination across Indigenous epistemologies, secular scientific paradigms, and transdisciplinary methodologies in putting such an imagination into practice. In doing so, we seek to destabilise the prevailing hegemony of secular science over other ways of knowing and being in the world. We draw attention to the consequential agency of beyond-human lifeforms in shaping local and global worlds and to the power of experimental, emplaced storytelling in conveying the lively and lethal becoming-withs that animate an unevenly shared and increasingly vulnerable planet. The wisdom of our kindred plants, animals, elements, mountains, forests, oceans, rivers, skies, and ancestors are part of this story. Finally, we reflect on the structural challenges in decolonising climate change and associated forms of knowledge production in light of past and ongoing thefts of sovereignty over lands, bodies, and ecosystems across the tropics.

scholarly journals Key messages from the IPCC AR6 climate science report

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Ming ◽  
Isobel Rowell ◽  
Sam Lewin ◽  
Robert Rouse ◽  
Thomas Aubry ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Physical Science ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Assessment Report ◽  
Briefing Document ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Climate Crisis

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published the first part of its sixth assessment report (AR6) which summarises the latest climate science findings and will guide policy in the years ahead. This report is particularly timely, as world leaders prepare to respond to the climate crisis at the UN COP26 climate summit in Glasgow this November. The full AR6 report is an enormous scientific undertaking that assesses the physical science basis for climate change and assembles the findings from over 14,000 peer reviewed publications. The purpose of this briefing document is to provide a succinct summary of the key scientific messages.

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