scholarly journals Flattening the Curve: Learning the lessons of world history to mitigate societal crises

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hoyer ◽  
James S Bennett ◽  
Harvey Whitehouse ◽  
Pieter François ◽  
Kevin Feeney ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Gilded Age ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
World History ◽  
Loss Of Life ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Sectarian Violence ◽  
Historical Societies ◽  
Societal Collapse ◽  
The World

The world is experiencing myriad crises, from global climate change to a major pandemic to runaway inequality, mass impoverishment, and rising sectarian violence. Such crises are not new, but have been recurrent features of past societies. Although these periods have typically led to massive loss of life, the failure of critical institutions, and even complete societal collapse, lessons can be learned from societies that managed to avoid the more devastating and destructive outcomes. Here, we present a preliminary analysis of outcomes from periods of crisis in 50 historical societies and examine closely four cases of averted crisis in world history, highlighting common features. A key observation is that the structural-demographic cycles that give rise to societal crises typically incorporate a ‘gilded age’ during which more future-minded governance could avert future crises. To accomplish more forward-thinking public policy, capable not just of ‘flattening the curve’, but of actually breaking the cycle that produces societal crises in the first place, we argue that systematic quantitative analysis of patterns in world history is a necessary first step.

Envisaged transfer projects: New technologies in the water sustainability

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naseer Ahmed Abbasi ◽  
Xiangzhou Xu
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Water Shortage ◽  
Environmental Aspects ◽  
Water Shortages ◽  
The World

<p><strong>Abstracts:</strong> Influenced by global climate change, water shortages and other extreme weather, water scarcity in the world is an alarming sign. This article provides evidences regarding the Tunnel and Tianhe project’s feasibility and their technical, financial, political, socioeconomic and environmental aspects. Such as how to utilize the water vapour in the air and to build a 1000 km long tunnel project to fulfill the goal of solving water shortage in China. The projects are promising to solve the problem of water, food and drought in the country. In addition, the telecoupling framework helps to effectively understand and manage ecosystem services, as well as the different challenges associated with them. Such efforts can help find the ways for proper utilization of water resources and means of regulation.</p><p><strong>Key words: </strong>Sustainability; water shortage; transfer project</p>

scholarly journals Hindu Kush Himalayan Ecosystem as a Common Concern of Humankind: Imperative for Better Regional Jurisprudence

2017 ◽  
pp. 42-52
Author(s):  
Debasis Poddar
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Regional Climate Change ◽  
Mountain Glaciers ◽  
Common Concern ◽  
Hindu Kush ◽  
The World

Hindu Kush Himalayan region (hereafter the HKH) - with 3500 odd kilometres stretched in eight countries- is default resource generation hub for about one-fifth population of the world. The ecosystem-growing delicate these days- seems to play a critical role for the survival of flora and fauna along with the maintenance of all its life-sustaining mountain glaciers. Ten major rivers to carry forward hitherto sustainable development of these peoples fall into question now. Further, in the wake of global climate change today, the delicate HKH ecosystem becomes increasingly fragile to unfold manifold consequences and thereby take its toll on the population. And the same might turn apocalyptic in its magnanimity of irreversibledamage. Like time-bomb, thus, climate ticks to get blown off. As it is getting already too delayed for timely resort to safeguards, if still not taken care of in time, lawmakers ought to find the aftermath too late to lament for. Besides being conscious for climate discipline across the world, collective efforts on the part of all regional states together are imperative to minimize the damage. Therefore, each one has put hands together to be saved from the doomsday that appears to stand ahead to accelerate a catastrophicend, in the given speed of global climate change. As the largest Himalayan state and its central positioning at the top of the HKH, Nepal has had potential to play a criticalrole to engage regional climate change regime and thereby spearhead climate diplomacy worldwide to play regional capital of the HKH ecosystem. As regional superpower, India has had potential to usurp leadership avatar to this end. With reasoningof his own, the author pleads for better jurisprudence to attain regional environmental integrity inter se- rather than regional environmental integration alone- to defendthe vulnerable HKH ecosystem since the same constitutes common concern of humankind and much more so for themselves. Hence, to quote from Shakespeare, “To be or not to be, that is the question” is reasonable here. While states are engaged in the spree to cause mutually agreed destruction, global climate change- with deadly aftermath- poses the last and final unifier for them to turn United Nations in rhetoric sense o f the term.

GEOLOGICAL MEMORY OF STARUNJA – AS THE COURSE OF PROTECTION OF THE WORLD NATURAL HERITAGE IN CARPATHIAN REGION OF UKRAINE

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-25
Author(s):  
Oleg Adamenko ◽  
Yaroslav Adamenko ◽  
Kateryna Radlovska ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Upper Pleistocene ◽  
Carpathian Region ◽  
The World ◽  
The Village ◽  
World Natural Heritage

Paleontological location of the Pleistocene fauna of hairy rhinos and mammoths near the village. Starunya Bogorodchany district of Ivano-Frankivsk region (Prykarpathian, Ukraine) is considered as a paleoclimatic rapper of global changes and a stratigraphic "bridge" linking stratigraphic patterns of the Upper Pleistocene of Western Europe and the plain territory of Ukraine. This is important for the reconstruction of global climate change and the transformation of natural and man-made geosystems.

Climate Change and the Health of Urban Populations

Urban Health ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 129-138
Author(s):  
Patrick L. Kinney
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Urban Health ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Urban Resilience ◽  
Urban Populations ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Urban Heat ◽  
Risk Of Exposure

Global climate change represents one of the sentinel changes the world is facing and that will threaten population health in this century. In the context of urban health, climate change threatens to increase urban heat island effects, to change exposure to pollution, and to increase urban residents’ risk of exposure to natural disasters, among other phenomena. And yet urban innovation is central to the longer term solution to climate change from the development of innovative approaches that reduce cities’ carbon footprint to initiatives that increase urban resilience in the face of climate change threats. This chapter discusses the threat that climate change poses for urban populations and potential approaches that can mitigate this challenge toward improving urban health.

Global Climate Change: Real or Myth?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael H. Fox
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Greenhouse Gases ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
An Inconvenient Truth ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Earth’S Climate ◽  
The One

We, the teeming billions of people on earth, are changing the earth’s climate at an unprecedented rate because we are spewing out greenhouse gases and are heading to a disaster, say most climate scientists. Not so, say the skeptics. We are just experiencing normal variations in earth’s climate and we should all take a big breath, settle down, and worry about something else. Which is it? A national debate has raged for the last several decades about whether anthropogenic (man-made) sources of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) and other so-called “greenhouse gases“ (primarily methane and nitrous oxide) are causing the world to heat up. This phenomenon is usually called “global warming,” but it is more appropriate to call it “global climate change,” since it is not simply an increase in global temperatures but rather more complex changes to the overall climate. Al Gore is a prominent spokesman for the theory that humans are causing an increase in greenhouse gases leading to global climate change. His movie and book, An Inconvenient Truth, gave the message widespread awareness and resulted in a Nobel Peace Prize for him in 2008. However, the message also led to widespread criticism. On the one hand are a few scientists and a large segment of the general American public who believe that there is no connection between increased CO2 in the atmosphere and global climate change, or if there is, it is too expensive to do anything about it, anyway. On the other hand is an overwhelming consensus of climate scientists who have produced enormous numbers of research papers demonstrating that increased CO2 is changing the earth’s climate. The scientific consensus is expressed most clearly in the Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 by the United Nations–sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the fourth in a series of reports since 1990. The IPCC began as a group of scientists meeting in Geneva in November 1988 to discuss global climate issues under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program.

scholarly journals Creaturely Communal Ontology in Practice: John Zizioulas in Dialogue with Ritual Theory

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 506
Author(s):  
John W. Compton
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Full Diversity ◽  
Ritual Theory ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Foundational Work ◽  
As If

This article is born out of a deep concern for our current ecological crisis and serves as a beginning foundational work for how the Christian tradition can address global climate change. Our current way of being gives precedence to the autonomous individual, whose freedom is characterized by disregard for other creatures. John Zizioulas’ communal ontology demonstrates that as the world was created out of God’s loving will, it is comprised of relationship. Living into individuation and division is a refusal of this communion with other creatures and God, but the Eucharist serves as the ritual that brings Christians into communion through the remembrance of Christ. Ian McFarland’s work on the theology of creation provides the helpful nuance that creaturely movement in communion must include the full diversity of creatures. I then turn to Bruce Morrill’s work to demonstrate that the Eucharistic practice must have bearing beyond the walls of the church. It leads practitioners to live into eschatological hope and kenotic service to the world. John Seligman’s ritual theory demonstrates that ritual practice can accomplish these goals because it creates a subjunctive ‘as-if’ world in the face of the world that is perceived as chaotic. Through the continuous practice of the ritual, participants are then formed to live into this subjunctive ‘as-if’ world without ritual precedence. In this way, the Eucharistic practice can prepare practitioners to live into the kenotic service to a world broken by individuation that has led to global climate change and creaturely destruction.

Hybrid energy module for experiments and studies in remote locations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Misha Krassovski ◽  
Jeffery Riggs ◽  
Chris Tavino ◽  
Stan Wullschleger ◽  
Susan Heinz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Electrical Power ◽  
Power Equipment ◽  
Hybrid Energy ◽  
Remote Areas ◽  
Remote Locations ◽  
The World

<p>Increased concerns about regional and global climate change in recent decades has led to a significant expansion of monitoring, observational, and experimental sites in remote areas of the world. During this same time, advances in technology and availability of low-power equipment, have allowed increasingly sophisticated measurements with an increasingly wide variety of instruments, sensors, and sensor networks. However, the deployment and use of these technologies in remote locations is restricted not only by harsh environmental conditions, but by the availability of electrical power and communication options. With this presentation we would like to share our experience of designing and building hybrid energy (solar and wind) module that can be used to provide power and communication capabilities for remote installations.</p>

scholarly journals Transformation of Climate Change Risks for the World Economy in the Light of Agriculture Development Tendencies

Vestnik NSUEM ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 10-23
Author(s):  
N. N. Yashalova ◽  
T. K. Molchanova ◽  
D. A. Ruban
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Change Analysis ◽  
Industrial Growth ◽  
Climate Change Risks ◽  
The World ◽  
Agroindustrial Complex ◽  
National Economies

The importance of agriculture for a given economic system determines risk related to the global climate change. Analysis of the statistical data (impact of agro-industrial complex in the world and national economies and dynamics of temperature regime) shows that the relation between temperature changes and significance of agro-industrial complex in economy have determined the character of risk during two past decades and will continue doing this in the future. The risk can be partly-compensated (when the importance of agro-industrial complex decreases) and non-compensated (when the importance of agroindustrial complex remains stable or increases). Risk transformations, i.e., fundamental changes of the risk character, are quick (up to two years) and themselves form a kind of challenge for development of the world and national economies. The studied risk is a subject of governance within the frame of national strategies. Particularly, the countries with strong agrarian orientation of their economies can stimulate industrial growth to decrease risks linked to the influence of the global climate change.

scholarly journals Photovoltaic Solar Spectral Filtering Using Bio-Filters

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moses E. Emetere
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Solar Radiation ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Solar Irradiance ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Spectral Filtering ◽  
Irradiance Measurement ◽  
Pv Panel ◽  
The World

The harsh solar irradiance measurement in recent times has further supported the existence of global climate change. It is not clear if this challenge is located in other parts of the world. Over the years, it has been observed that PV panel have a lower lifespan with a failing performance. Due to the peculiarity of this challenge in the research, the bio-filter was synthesized to shield the PV panel from damage via the aforementioned harsh solar radiation. The bio-filter was tested using the monocrystalline and polycrystalline panel. The results proved that the bio-filters are good stabilizing medium.

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