scholarly journals Protesting for the Future in Pandemic Contexts. Comparing Participants in Fridays For Future Global Climate Strikes in Austria and Germany

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Neuber ◽  
Antje Daniel ◽  
Beth Gharrity Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Institutional Trust ◽  
Policy Action ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Longitudinal Patterns ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Crisis Scenarios ◽  
Climate Crisis

Drawing on new survey data on protesters at the September 2020 Fridays for Future Global Climate Strike in Berlin and Vienna, this report examines protesters’ socio-de- mographic profiles, political engagement and attitudes before and after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The longitudinal patterns we find are largely consistent across the two cities. However, the results from Berlin point to a greater dynamic in the sense of a transformation of FFF to a broader youth movement as well as a more marked increase in protesters’ institutional trust and self-efficacy. Among protesters in both cities we find indications of dissonance between positive perceptions about the government’s capacity to take scientifically-informed policy action in crisis scenarios (i.e., Covid-19) and con- cerns that such actions will not be adequately applied to the climate crisis.

scholarly journals Fighting Every Crisis in the Wake of Covid-19: Shifting Grounds for Mobilization among Fridays for Future Protesters in Germany

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth Gharrity Gardner ◽  
Michael Neuber
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Institutional Trust ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Street Protest ◽  
Shed Light

In upending much of what is usually taken for granted about politics in everyday life, the Covid-19 pandemic is re-animating several puzzles in the study of protest participation. Here we conduct a case study of Fridays for Future (FFF) global climate strike mobilization in Berlin to shed light on the profile of activists who sustained protest mobilization in pandemic contexts. Comparing data from field surveys of protesters at the September 2020 global climate strike with data collected at the pre-pandemic strikes in September and November 2019, we examine the profile of FFF demonstrators along multiple dimensions, including socio-demographics, motivations, political engagement, and institutional trust. Our preliminary results suggest that younger, more politically engaged, and less politically-cynical climate activists joined the street protest under pandemic conditions. Beyond the large turnout of the already-committed, findings also suggest that protesters were more confident in the ability of action and policy to make a difference with climate change but also galvanized by the loss of attention to the issue in the wake of Covid-19.

scholarly journals A chance for reform: the environmental impact of travel for general surgery residency interviews

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Fung ◽  
Isabelle Raiche ◽  
Tyler Lamb ◽  
Nada Gawad ◽  
Andrea MacNeill ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Co2 Emissions ◽  
General Surgery ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Application Process ◽  
General Surgery Residency ◽  
Alternative Structures ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Co2 ◽  
Climate Crisis

Background: In light of the global climate emergency, it is worth reconsidering the current practice of medical students traveling to interview for residency positions. We sought to estimate carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with travel for general surgery residency interviews in Canada, and the potential avoided emissions if interviews were restructured. Methods: An 8-item survey was constructed to collect data on cities visited, travel modalities, and costs incurred. Applicants to the University of Ottawa General Surgery Program during the 2019/20 Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS) cycle were invited to complete the survey.  Potential reductions in CO2 emissions were modeled using a regionalized interview process with either one or two cities. Results: Of a total of 56 applicants, 39 (70%) completed the survey. Applicants on average visited 10 cities with a mean total cost of $4,866 (95% CI=3,995-5,737) per applicant. Mean CO2 emissions were 1.82 (95% CI=1.50-2.14) tonnes per applicant, and the total CO2 emissions by applicants was estimated to be 101.9 (95% CI=84.0 – 119.8) tonnes. In models wherein interviews are regionalized to one or two cities, emissions would be 57.9 tonnes (43.2% reduction) and 84.2 tonnes (17.4% reduction), respectively. Overall, 74.4% of respondents were concerned about the environmental impact of travel and 46% would prefer to interview by videoconference. Conclusion: Travel for general surgery residency interviews in Canada is associated with a considerable environmental impact. These findings are likely generalizable to other residency programs. Given the global climate crisis, the CaRMS application process must consider alternative structures.

scholarly journals Voices of a generation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Eide ◽  
Risto Kunelius
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
High Tide ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Youth Movement ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Movement Organization ◽  
Local Movement ◽  
Climate Crisis

Abstract In this article, we look at the most recent high tide of the climate crisis attention from the perspective of the school strikers’ movement. It is based on interviews with 31 young climate activists from 23 countries around the world, made possible by the work of several colleagues in MediaClimate –network (mediaclimate.net), a group of researchers who have studied global climate media coverage/debates since 2008. The interviews followed a semi-structured guideline, prompting respondents to discuss how their activism started, their role in the local movement, the nature of movement organization and their relations to other institutions and actors (NGOs, media, politicians). This diverse sample of dialogues with activists in a wide variety of global political and cultural contexts cultures, languages and local conditions collectively produced a vast discursive material. In our analysis, we first look at the specific way science and interaction with scientists is part of the youths’ action horizon, combining this to the ways in which they relate their life experiences to climate science. Second, we will situate this specific science-activism analysis to a brief overview of the nature (or inner logic) of the school movement and the identity of the activists. Through these two empirical excursions, we harvest some lessons about communicating climate science suggested by the youth movement.

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.

scholarly journals Big data for climate action or climate action for big data?

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395172098203
Author(s):  
Maria I Espinoza ◽  
Melissa Aronczyk
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Intergovernmental Organizations ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
Data Practices ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
User Data ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Depth Interviews

Under the banner of “data for good,” companies in the technology, finance, and retail sectors supply their proprietary datasets to development agencies, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations to help solve an array of social problems. We focus on the activities and implications of the Data for Climate Action campaign, a set of public–private collaborations that wield user data to design innovative responses to the global climate crisis. Drawing on in-depth interviews, first-hand observations at “data for good” events, intergovernmental and international organizational reports, and media publicity, we evaluate the logic driving Data for Climate Action initiatives, examining the implications of applying commercial datasets and expertise to environmental problems. Despite the increasing adoption of Data for Climate Action paradigms in government and public sector efforts to address climate change, we argue Data for Climate Action is better seen as a strategy to legitimate extractive, profit-oriented data practices by companies than a means to achieve global goals for environmental sustainability.

The Era of Environmental Derangement: Witnessing Climate Crisis in Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nupur Pancholi ◽  
◽  
Sanjit Kumar Mishra ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Cumulative Impacts ◽  
Environmental Deterioration ◽  
Human Interventions ◽  
Human World ◽  
Climate Crisis

Drawing on Amitav Ghosh’s novel Gun Island (2019) together with his nonfictional The Great Derangement (2016), the article strives to present that while advancing endless desires, human-centric culture and the idea of ‘good life’ drive climate change and environmental deterioration. It seeks to enumerate the devastating consequences of changing climatic conditions and degenerating ecosystems and their cumulative impacts on the humankind and non-human world. It aims to locate how human life at the margins has been affected by these cataclysmic consequences through analysing Ghosh’s Gun Island. It attempts to show that human interventions had significantly fuelled the global climate crisis in the seventeenth century, decoding the myth of Bonduki Sadagar that Ghosh identifies in Gun Island.

scholarly journals Management of changes in the insurance industry in the conditions of climate crisis

2020 ◽  
Vol 166 ◽  
pp. 13006
Author(s):  
Nelia Nagaichuk ◽  
Olena Shabanova ◽  
Natalia Tretiak ◽  
Anatoliy Marenych ◽  
Hanna Chepeliuk
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Insurance Industry ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Insurance Companies ◽  
Global Climate Changes ◽  
Theoretical Generalization ◽  
Scientific Task ◽  
Natural Climate ◽  
Climate Crisis

The insurance industry is rather effective in overcoming consequences of natural disasters. Insurance companies play a key role in financing natural disasters consequences, at the same time they sustain record losses and are in difficult financial conditions. Taking into account the above said, the issues of management of insurers risks is up-today and is connected with climate change. In article the content of “climate risk” as risk is specified, the emergence of which is caused by human activity, which leads to pollution, resulting from industrial activity and other sources that greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide) which are capable to absorb a range of infrared radiation generate and, as a result, predetermine warming of the global atmosphere that brings to change of structure of the world atmosphere and adds natural climate instability during the certain periods of time. The most destructive dangers threatening to mankind owing to global warming are systematized. Types of risks and their sphere of manifestation in Ukraine are outlined. The directions of adaptation of the insurance industry to changes, caused by climatic crisis are defined. Due to results of the research, the theoretical generalization and author’s solutions of a scientific task are offered, which appear in the development of scientific and methodical approaches and justification of practical recommendations about modernization of activity of insurance companies and reinsurers in the conditions of risks, generated by global climate changes. Scientific novelty of the research: specifying the role of the insurance industry regarding the prevention of risks connected with global warming.

scholarly journals The El Niño: A Meteorological Risk Factor for Vector-borne Diseases

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avi Patel ◽  
Keyword(s):  
El Niño ◽  
Neglected Tropical Diseases ◽  
El Nino ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Economic Loss ◽  
Tropical Diseases ◽  
Vector Borne Diseases ◽  
Vector Borne ◽  
Climate Crisis

The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has been ravaging numerous coastal and inland communities with excessive flooding and drought conditions, causing immense economic loss, and the incidence of many neglected tropical diseases. Affecting over 60 million people directly, El Niño remains one of the greatest enigmas to human health, and combined with the ever-escalating global climate crisis, El Niño events are only projected to increase in magnitude in the coming years (WHO, 2016).

scholarly journals Co-occurrence of extreme ozone and heat waves in two cities from Morocco

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenza KHOMSI 1,2 ◽  
Houda NAJMI 2 ◽  
Zineb SOUHAILI 1
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Surface Temperature ◽  
Extreme Events ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Heat Waves ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Meteorological Factor ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Change Context

Temperature is the first meteorological factor to be directly involved in leading ozone (O3) extreme events. Generally, upward temperatures increase the probability of having exceedance in ozone adopted thresholds. In the global climate change context more frequent and/or persistent heat waves and extreme ozone (O3) episodes are likely to occur during in coming decades and a key question is about the coincidence and co-occurrence of these extremes. In this paper, using 7 years of surface temperature and air quality observations over two cities from Morocco (Casablanca and Marrakech) and implementing a percentile thresholding approach, we show that the extremes in temperature and ozone (O3) cluster together in many cases and that the outbreak of ozone events generally match the first or second days of heat waves. This co-occurrence of extreme episodes is highly impacted by humidity and may be overlapping large-scale episodes.

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