scholarly journals Representing the majority and not the minority: the importance of the individual in communicating climate change

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Illingworth ◽  
Alice Bell ◽  
Stuart Capstick ◽  
Adam Corner ◽  
Piers Forster ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Community Level ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Positive Action ◽  
Individual Needs ◽  
The Individual

Abstract. This research presents three case studies, through which a creative approach to developing dialogue around climate change is outlined. By working with three distinct communities and encouraging them to discuss and write poetry about how climate change affects them, we demonstrate how such an approach might be adopted at this level. By analysing the discussions and poetry that arose out of these workshops we show how this community-level approach to communicating climate change is an essential counterpart to wider-scale quantitative research. The engagement of each community with climate change is dependent on the lived experiences of their members; a failure to recognise this results in less effective communications and can also cause communities to feel isolated and helpless. By considering the individual needs and aspirations of these communities we can support effective dialogue around the topic of climate change, and in doing so can better engender positive action against the negative effects of anthropogenic climate change.

scholarly journals Representing the majority and not the minority: the importance of the individual in communicating climate change

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Illingworth ◽  
Alice Bell ◽  
Stuart Capstick ◽  
Adam Corner ◽  
Piers Forster ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Community Level ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Positive Action ◽  
Individual Needs ◽  
The Individual

Abstract. This research presents three case studies, through which a creative approach to developing dialogue around climate change is outlined. By working with three distinct communities and encouraging them to discuss and write poetry about how climate change affects them, we demonstrate how such an approach might be adopted at this level. By analysing the discussions and poetry that arose out of these workshops we show how this community-level approach to communicating climate change is an essential counterpart to wider-scale quantitative research. The engagement of each community with climate change is dependent on the lived experiences of their members; a failure to recognize this results in less effective communications and can also cause communities to feel isolated and helpless. By considering the individual needs and aspirations of these communities we can support effective dialogue around the topic of climate change, and in doing so can better engender positive action against the negative effects of anthropogenic climate change.

Ecothriller heroics: Affect and spectatorship in fictions of climate change

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiane Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
North American ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Present Climate ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Prophetic Authority ◽  
The Ideal

This article examines the representation of climate change and heroic agency in recent European and North American ecothrillers. Through the use of four literary case studies, it shows how heroic figurations support an idea of climate change as a distinct disastrous event. Moreover, the heroic is shown to bring out images of a threatening other, usually in the shape of a distinct villain, who gives shape to forms of diffuse, indirect agencies as they are associated with anthropogenic climate change. In addition, the ideal positions of hero and perpetrator are articulated to larger normative and ideological frameworks, which the heroic figuration frames as irreconcilable. In this regard, markedly similar structures can be observed in novels that seek to present climate change as a genuine threat, such as L. A. Larkin’s Thirst and texts that follow a climate-sceptic agenda, such as Michael Crichton’s State of Fear. However, this article also shows how the hero’s position towards the sublime, as well as audio-visual tropes of destruction, can entail a tentative reformulation of the recipient, as in Bernard Besson’s The Greenland Breach. Finally, this article turns to Liz Jensen’s The Rapture, which is shown to follow a plot-driven, suspenseful thriller structure but withdraws heroic or prophetic authority over the disaster it represents and, in doing so, brings out the epistemological and ethical instability of the spectator’s position.

scholarly journals Environmental Racism and Natural Disasters: Preparing for a Future Defined by Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Mays ◽  
Michael Bischoff ◽  
Ronald Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Disparate Impact ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Environmental Racism

ABSTRACT   This paper argues that the negative effects of climate change induced natural disasters are felt disproportionately by poor and minority communities, and that it is more difficult for them to recover after crises. Because climate change has resulted in an increase in the frequency and severity of natural disasters and is only expected to get worse, disparate effects from natural disasters are a crucial topic to focus research on. This paper will expand the framework for future research in the field of environmental justice by establishing a focus on the intersection between global warming, natural disasters, and environmental racism. It will also illustrate the disparate impact of natural disasters on poor and minority communities with a series of case studies and will evaluate the government’s response in each case.

scholarly journals Transcending the Adaptation/Mitigation Climate Change Science Policy Debate: Unmasking Assumptions about Adaptation and Resilience

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 238-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tori L. Jennings
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Environmental Strategy ◽  
Vulnerable Communities ◽  
Adaptive Comanagement ◽  
The Individual

Abstract The two principal policy approaches to global climate change include mitigation and adaption. In recent years, the interest in adaptation and “resilience” has increased significantly in part because anthropogenic climate change appears unavoidable and mitigation agreements are difficult to achieve. This article takes a critical look at the emerging discourse over climate change adaptation and resilience. By drawing upon critiques of environmental resource management and adaptive comanagement, this paper argues that taking the concept of adaptation for granted as an appropriate bottom-up strategy for coping with anthropogenic climate change not only ignores the political and economic contexts in which this environmental strategy developed, but might also unintentionally subvert the vulnerable communities it intends to benefit. Using an ethnographic case study of the 2004 Boscastle Harbour flood in North Cornwall, England, this paper explores the paradoxical way in which adaptation and resilience work within the apparatus of the neoliberal state, which aims to shift responsibility for social and environmental problems to the individual. By better understanding the political and economic processes embedded in the concepts of adaptation and resilience, researchers will be more effective at finding equitable solutions to human ecological problems. Adaptation to the adverse effects of climate change is vital in order to reduce the impacts of climate change that are happening now and increase resilience to future impacts (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).

Paradox Negative Effects of the mid-Pliocene Warming on the Climatic Suitability of Six Mediterranean Sandfly Species in Europe

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 141-156
Author(s):  
Attila J. Trájer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Warm Period ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Mean Annual Temperature ◽  
Climatic Suitability ◽  
Mediterranean Species ◽  
East Mediterranean ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The Difference

The Pliocene era could be the last time when sandfly (Diptera: Psychodidae) species were widespread in Europe. Within the Pliocene, the mid-Pliocene period is an important model period in the investigation of the future effects of anthropogenic climate change. In this study, the mid-Pliocene potential distribution of six Mediterranean sandfly species was modelled based on the M2 mid-Pliocene cold and mid-Pliocene warm paleoclimatic reconstructions. It was found that the cold period’s potential occurrence of sandfly species could be notably more extended than the distribution of the taxa in the warm period. The difference is less expressed in the case of the West Mediterranean species, but it is particularly visible in the circum-Mediterranean and East Mediterranean taxa. It can be concluded that not the changes in the mean annual temperature, but the increase of the precipitation patterns and the wetter climate of the mid-Pliocene warm period resulted in the observed differences. The results imply that the use of mid-Pliocene warming as a model of the present climatic changes can be handled with caution in the performing of biogeographic proxies for vector sandflies related to the anthropogenic climate change.

scholarly journals Moving People in a Changing Climate: Lessons from Two Case Studies in Fiji

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annah Piggott-McKellar ◽  
Karen McNamara ◽  
Patrick Nunn ◽  
Seci Sekinini
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Community Involvement ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Monitoring And Evaluation ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
Vulnerability To Climate Change ◽  
Negative Impacts

High levels of vulnerability to climate change impacts are rendering some places uninhabitable. In Fiji, four communities have already initiated or completed the task of moving their homes and livelihoods to less exposed locations, with numerous more communities earmarked for future relocation. This paper documents people’s lived experiences in two relocated communities in Fiji—Denimanu and Vunidogoloa villages—and assesses the outcomes of the relocations on those directly affected. This study in particular seeks to identify to what extent livelihoods have been either positively or negatively affected by relocation, and whether these relocations have successfully reduced exposure to climate-related hazards. This study shows that planned climate-induced relocations have the potential to improve the livelihoods of affected communities, yet if these relocations are not managed and undertaken carefully, they can lead to unintended negative impacts, including exposure to other hazards. We find that inclusive community involvement in the planning process, regular and intentional monitoring and evaluation, and improving livelihoods through targeted livelihood planning should be accounted for in future relocations to ensure outcomes are beneficial and sustainable.

scholarly journals Response: Let This Be an Example: Three Remarks on a Thematic Cluster about Climate Change Exemplarity

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 415-420
Author(s):  
Hall Bjørnstad
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
Thematic Section ◽  
Science And Politics

This thematic section of Culture Unbound brings together five articles which in very different ways invite us to reflect on the importance of examples in the discourse on climate change. At first glance, such an invitation might be surprising, if not puzzling. Anthropogenic climate change is something radically unprecedented, so it would seem counter-intuitive to approach it through the discussion of prior examples. Furthermore, the analytical vocabulary which is already mobilized in the title of the section (exemplarity) and the introduction (exemplification) may seem alien to most readers. Do these terms actually serve as precise conceptual tools in the analysis? Indeed, is there really something like an operative theory of examples? To my mind, the five articles gathered here are very successful in dispelling such an initial reticence. Each piece is rich and thought-provoking on its own terms. Moreover, taken together, these articles help us appreciate the extent to which the use of examples is an unexpected and promising index for mapping how climate change discourse navigates between effect and affect, between illustration and ideal, between facts and values, between science and politics. In so doing, this thematic section also provides tools for better grasping the power of examples as such, which should be of methodological interest for other fields of study. In what follows, I will briefly comment on three aspects that I not only found particularly intriguing, but which are illuminated differently according to the shifting perspectives of the case studies in the articles. First, the surprising emphasis on the archive in certain articles; second, the position of exemplarity and exemplification between theory and practice; and third, the meaning of the deep desire for potent examples of climate change in the wider society, which will, in closing, bring me back to the title of my response.

scholarly journals Klimatyczne ABC. Interdyscyplinarne podstawy współczesnej wiedzy o zmianie klimatu

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Bohdanowicz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
Online Course ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
School Students ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University ◽  
Climate Crisis

In the face of the climate crisis, education based on the current scientific knowledge is an exceptionally urgent need. This textbook was created on the initiative of the scientists associated with the “UW for Climate” team, by 16 experts from the University of Warsaw and other academic centers, representing various fields of knowledge, such as physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, economics, psychology and engineering. Thus, it is an interdisciplinary textbook, just like the issue of climate change itself. The textbook is addressed to the university students interested in the basics of knowledge about climate change, regardless of the field of their study, as well as to the high school students and teachers. The individual topics of the “Climate ABC” are related to such areas of school knowledge as: physics, chemistry, biology and ecology, geography and social studies. The textbook also accompanies the online course under the same name offered by the University of Warsaw. The book is divided into four parts, presenting the mechanisms of global warming (part 1), its causes (part 2), consequences (part 3) and actions that can prevent the most negative effects of climate change (part 4).

scholarly journals Eddy-Driven Jet Sensitivity to Diabatic Heating in an Idealized GCM

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (16) ◽  
pp. 6413-6431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh S. Baker ◽  
Tim Woollings ◽  
Cheikh Mbengue
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Pressure Distribution ◽  
Diabatic Heating ◽  
Anthropogenic Climate Change ◽  
Thermal Forcing ◽  
Annular Mode ◽  
Idealized Model ◽  
Changing Climate ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Anthropogenic Forcings

The eddy-driven jet is studied using a dry idealized model to determine its sensitivity to thermal forcings. The jet latitude, speed, and variability are investigated under a series of Gaussian patch thermal forcing simulations applied systematically on a latitude–sigma grid in the troposphere. This work builds on previous studies by isolating the responses of the jet speed and latitude as opposed to combining them into a single annular mode index. It also explores the sensitivity of the jet to much smaller spatial heatings rather than applying forcing patterns to simulate anthropogenic climate change, as the size and magnitude of the forcings due to anthropogenic climate change are uncertain. The jet speed and latitude are found to have different sensitivity distributions from each other, which also vary between summer and winter. A simple mechanistic understanding of these sensitivities is presented by considering how the individual thermal forcings modify mean isentropic surfaces. In the cases analyzed, the jet response to forcing scales approximately linearly with the strength of the forcing and when forcings are applied in combination. The findings show a rich latitude–pressure distribution of jet sensitivities to thermal forcings, which will aid interpretation of jet responses in a changing climate. Furthermore, they highlight the areas where uncertainty needs to be reduced in the size and position of expected anthropogenic forcings, in order that the uncertainty in changes of the eddy-driven jet can be reduced.

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