Evolving natural environmental context for planning in Australia: biodiversity and climate change

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter S. Liss ◽  
James E. Lovelock

Environmental context. The idea that gases produced by plankton living in the oceans can affect cloudiness and regulate climate was given prominence by the promulgation more than 20 years ago by Charlson, Lovelock, Andreae and Warren of the CLAW hypothesis. In the intervening period it has been difficult to prove or disprove the idea, although much research has flowed from its enunciation. Perhaps its lasting legacy is in the way we view the planet and how research is conducted to try to understand how it operates.


Climate Law ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 244-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annalisa Savaresi ◽  
Juan Auz

The adoption of the Paris Agreement has prompted a flurry of climate change litigation, both to redress the impacts of climate change and to put pressure on state and non-state actors to adopt more ambitious action to tackle climate change. The use of human rights law as a gap-filler to provide remedies where other areas of the law do not is not new, especially in the environmental context. It is therefore not a surprise that human rights arguments are increasingly being made, and human rights remedies increasingly being sought, in climate change litigation. While relatively few cases have been argued on human rights grounds so far, the trend is continuing and accelerating, with some striking results. This article takes stock of human rights arguments made in climate change litigation to date to gauge what they reveal about the evolving relationship between human rights and climate change law—and about possible future developments.


2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Cropp ◽  
John Norbury

Environmental context. The prospect of human-induced climate change provides a compelling imperative for an improved understanding of living systems, especially those involving ocean plankton that are proposed to have an important role in regulating climate. Ecosystems are complex, adaptive systems and mathematical modelling has proved to be a powerful tool in understanding such systems. The present article considers some of the fundamental issues currently constraining such understanding with particular consideration to modelling ecosystems that underpin the CLAW hypothesis and how they might behave in response to global warming.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker H.W. Rudolf

While there is mounting evidence indicating that the relative timing of predator and prey phenologies shapes the outcome of trophic interactions, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of how important the environmental context (e.g. abiotic conditions) is for shaping this relationship. Environmental conditions not only frequently drive shifts in phenologies, but they can also affect the very same processes that mediate the effects of phenological shifts on species interactions. Thus, identifying how environmental conditions shape the effects of phenological shifts is key to predict community dynamics across a heterogenous landscape and how they will change with ongoing climate change in the future. Here I tested how environmental conditions shape effects of phenological shifts by experimentally manipulating temperature, nutrient availability, and relative phenologies in two predator-prey freshwater systems (mole salamander- bronze frog vs dragonfly larvae-leopard frog). This allowed me to (1) isolate the effect of phenological shifts and different environmental conditions, (2) determine how they interact, and (3) how consistent these patterns are across different species and environments. I found that delaying prey arrival dramatically increased predation rates, but these effects were contingent on environmental conditions and predator system. While both nutrient addition and warming significantly enhanced the effect of arrival time, their effect was qualitatively different: Nutrient addition enhanced the positive effect of early arrival while warming enhanced the negative effect of arriving late. Predator responses varied qualitatively across predator-prey systems. Only in the system with strong gape-limitation were predators (salamanders) significantly affected by prey arrival time and this effect varied with environmental context. Correlations between predator and prey demographic rates suggest that this was driven by shifts in initial predator-prey size ratios and a positive feedback between size-specific predation rates and predator growth rates. These results highlight the importance of accounting for temporal and spatial correlation of local environmental conditions and gape-limitation in predator-prey systems when predicting the effects of phenological shifts and climate change on predator-prey systems.


Author(s):  
Richarld H. Field

Except in some academic circles, Titus Smith Jr. is mostly a forgotten man. The year 2018 marked the 250th anniversary of Titus Smith Jr’s. birth in Granby, Massachusetts (1768-1850). While general articles about Smith’s life exist (Punch 1978), surprisingly there have only been three serious studies celebrating his knowledge and scientific thinking (Piers 1938, Clark 1954, Gorham 1955). Smith lived prior to the era when science hardened into specialized fields and when a single mind could move between disciplines allowing each to inform the other. Smith’s interdisciplinary methods and his belief that nature is a global force are once again coming to the forefront as climate change emerges as the single most important threat to the survival of the planet. This essay attempts to bring this 19th century philosopher of nature into a modern environmental context.


Author(s):  
Eric Post

This introductory chapter summarizes the most prominent abiotic components of recent climate change to establish the environmental context from which the discussion in the rest of the book proceeds. From an ecological perspective, climate change is most meaningfully considered as the suite of abiotic changes occurring across Earth coincident with the onset of the Industrial Revolution and progressing over the past 150 years. These abiotic changes include rising temperatures, temperature variability, changes in precipitation and snow cover, and diminishing sea and land ice. All these changes can be linked to ecological dynamics, though it is probably fair to state that most research to date on the ecological consequences of climate change has focused on temperature changes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 723-729
Author(s):  
Roslyn Gleadow ◽  
Jim Hanan ◽  
Alan Dorin

Food security and the sustainability of native ecosystems depends on plant-insect interactions in countless ways. Recently reported rapid and immense declines in insect numbers due to climate change, the use of pesticides and herbicides, the introduction of agricultural monocultures, and the destruction of insect native habitat, are all potential contributors to this grave situation. Some researchers are working towards a future where natural insect pollinators might be replaced with free-flying robotic bees, an ecologically problematic proposal. We argue instead that creating environments that are friendly to bees and exploring the use of other species for pollination and bio-control, particularly in non-European countries, are more ecologically sound approaches. The computer simulation of insect-plant interactions is a far more measured application of technology that may assist in managing, or averting, ‘Insect Armageddon' from both practical and ethical viewpoints.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document