The Good Is Never Perfect: Why the Current Flaws of Voluntary Carbon Markets Are Services, Not Barriers to Successful Climate Change Action

The world's current level of climate change action does not match its ambitions to tackle the issue, and its ambitions do not currently meet the levels of action science recommends. Voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) are one option proposed to lessen those disparities, and have been both criticized and championed by various groups. Critiques note them as being opaque, flawed, and ineffective. Yet they demonstrate tremendous potential for impact and unprecedented levels of finance. We contend that the critiques of these markets are not only resolvable, but are unavoidable challenges that must be addressed on the path to mobilizing climate change ambition and achieving targets. Furthermore, we believe that by 2050, the current discrete market-based solutions in climate action will become internalized aspects of our economies rather than separate remediations. This goal of internalizing the externalities that cause climate change will result in massive, sustained decarbonization, rapid reorganization of global economies, and an extraordinary push to invent, solve, and scale strategies that facilitate the transition. Pricing carbon is a key contemporary step for transitioning to that future. Voluntary carbon markets are one means to catalyze this action and while needing improvements, should be given appropriate leeway to improve and fulfill that role.

Science for Good Environmental Status: A European Joint Action to Support Marine Policy

In the last decade, several initiatives have been taken at a European level to adopt the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) by promoting coordination and stimulating integrated actions leading to consistent views on its final goal: the achievement of good environmental status (GES). In its holistic approach, the MSFD fully acknowledges the complexity and variability of marine ecosystems and demands constant scientific support for its actual implementation. Recently, the Joint Programming Initiative on “Healthy and Productive Seas and Oceans” (JPI Oceans) launched the joint action “Science for Good Environmental Status” (Science4GES), building on the contribution of different scientific disciplines and communities to better fulfill the scope of the MSFD. In this paper we illustrate and discuss a few crucial aspects of endeavors to implement the MSFD specifically implied in the definition of the metrics for the 11 descriptors and GES in its complexity, as well as improving the strategy governing its implementation. This presentation also describes the challenges, aims and implementation plan for the JPI-O joint action, where a transdisciplinary approach may help in progressing from the comprehensive and far-reaching vision of the MSFD to the achievement of a durable GES.

Teaching a Social Science Course on Climate Change: Suggestions for Active-Learning

Previous research indicates the importance of interdisciplinary approaches when teaching about climate change. Specifically, social science perspectives allow students to understand the policy, economic, cultural, and personal influences that impact environmental change. This article describes one such college course that employed active-learning techniques. Course topics included: community resilience, environmental education, historical knowledge timeline, climate justice, social vulnerability, youth action, science communication, hope versus despair, misinformation, and climate refugees. To unify these concepts, engaging activities were developed that specifically address relevant individual, local, state, national, and international climate resilience themes. Students assessed their personal climate footprint, explored social/cultural influences, wrote policy requests to relevant local/state government officials, studied national policy options, and learned about previous global initiatives. The course culminated in a mock global climate summit, which was modeled on a Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This final activity required each student to prepare a policy report and represent a nation in negotiating a multilateral climate agreement. It is accepted that climate change education must include physical data on the impacts of anthropogenic emissions. It is also essential that students appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of climate adaptations, become hopeful about addressing change, and gain skills necessary to engage as informed climate citizens.

From critical reflection to critical professional practice: Addressing the tensions between critical and hegemonic perspectives

Critical reflection processes are fundamental to critical social work practice. Nevertheless, these processes have been criticized for lacking a coherent translation to direct professional practice. Existing models of critical reflection culminate in the formulation of critical professional perspectives, leaving the translation of critical perspectives into direct practice underdeveloped. This gap requires attention, specifically in the contemporary context of social services that operate under the hegemony of conservative and neoliberal discourses, which impede critical rationality and practice. Therefore, a nuanced conceptualization of the process that links critical reflection and critical practice is required. This article provides such a conceptualization by describing an undergraduate social work course that used a collaborative inquiry group to explore critical participatory practices. Building on our collaborative inquiry experiences and findings, we portray a process that included critical reflection, direct critical practice, and the development of a critical professional perspective. Based on the conceptual framework of action science, our conceptualization demonstrates how the process of addressing the tension between critical and hegemonic perspectives enables professionals to create critical practice within the hegemonic field. In this way, we provide a theoretical contribution to the construction of critical reflection models and a practical contribution to professional developmental processes that promote critical professionalism.

Loss of Amazon rainforest resilience since the early 2000s

<p>The resilience of the Amazon rainforest to both climate and land use change is of critical importance for biodiversity, regional climate, and the global carbon cycle. Some models project future climate-driven Amazon rainforest dieback (Cox et al. 2000) and others argue that land-use and climate change have already pushed the Amazon close to a tipping point of rainforest dieback and transition to savanna (Lovejoy & Nobre 2018, 2019). But competing effects between rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and CO<sub>2</sub> fertilization, make the future of the Amazon uncertain. An alternative approach is to look for direct observational signals of changing rainforest resilience from timeseries analysis - here of remotely-sensed vegetation optical depth (VOD) (Moesinger et al. 2018), which correlates well with changes in broadleaf tree fraction coverage. Our results indicate that the Amazon rainforest has been losing resilience since the early 2000s, with statistical characteristics evolving consistently with critical slowing down on the way to a bifurcation-induced transition. Specifically, changes in lag-1 autocorrelation of VOD show that resilience is lost faster in regions with less mean annual rainfall. Parts of the rainforest that are closer to human activity are also losing resilience more quickly. Given observed increases in dry-season length, and expanding areas of land use change, the loss of Amazon rainforest resilience is likely to continue. Our results provide direct empirical evidence that the Amazon rainforest is losing stability, risking a sudden dieback that would have profound implications for biodiversity, carbon storage and climate change.</p><p> </p><p>References</p><p>Cox, P. M., Betts, R. A., Jones, C. D., Spall, S. A. & Totterdell, I. J. Acceleration of global warming due to carbon-cycle feedbacks in a coupled climate model. Nature 408, 184-187, doi:10.1038/35041539 (2000).</p><p>Lovejoy, T. E. & Nobre, C. Amazon Tipping Point. Science Advances 4, eaat2340, doi:10.1126/sciadv.aat2340 (2018).</p><p>Lovejoy, T. E. & Nobre, C. Amazon tipping point: Last chance for action. Science Advances 5, eaba2949, doi:10.1126/sciadv.aba2949 (2019).</p><p>Moesinger, L. et al. The global long-term microwave Vegetation Optical Depth Climate Archive (VODCA). Earth System Science Data 12, 177-196, doi:10.5194/essd-12-177-2020 (2020).</p><p> </p><p>This work was funded by the Volkswagen foundation and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 820970.</p>

Action Research Approaches

The contemporary use of action research draws on the exploratory, inductive nature of many qualitative research approaches—no matter the type of data collected—because the type of research problems studied are complex, dynamic, and located in rapidly changing contexts. When action research is undertaken to support social and organizational change, support from stakeholders affected by the research problem is essential, creating further complexity. Action research may serve as an alternative to more traditional views of social science. In this chapter, the authors describe action research as envisioned by Kurt Lewin, its originator. They show how two variants of action research—action science and collaborative developmental action inquiry—advance insight into how action research can be used to develop personal capability to address system changes that action research seeks to unveil. They conclude with reflections on criteria for rigor and relevance in action research in today's post-modern, complex world.

Luonnontiedekasvatuksen muuttuvat tavoitteet: luonnontieteellisestä lukutaidosta kestävyyskasvatukseen, toimijuuteen ja tulevaisuusajatteluun

Globaalit ympäristö- ja kestävyyskriisit muuttavat luonnontiedekasvatuksen tavoitteita, didaktiikkaa ja tutkimusta. Luonnontieteellisen lukutaidon (engl. scientific literacy) merkitys kytketään yhä useammin transformatiiviseen kestävyyskasvatukseen. Siinä ei riitä, että koulussa opitaan luonnontieteen sisältötietoa tai sen käyttämistä arjessa, vaan luonnontiedekasvatuksen pitää lisäksi tukea vastuullista toimijuutta ja arvopohjaista muutosta sekä yksilöissä että yhteiskunnassa. Artikkelissa argumentoidaan, että tulevaisuudentutkimuksen ajattelutapoja hyödyntämällä on mahdollista tukea vaihtoehtojen ja vaikutusmahdollisuuksien näkemistä ja niihin tarttumista. Luonnontieteiden opetus tarjoaa hyvän alustan skenaarioajattelulle, tulevaisuuden epävarmuuden kohtaamiselle ja uudistavan toimijuusorientaation rakentamiselle. Ehdotuksia konkretisoidaan esittelemällä I SEE -projektissa kehitettyä tulevaisuusorientoitunutta luonnontiedeopetusta. Lopuksi pohditaan ehdotusten ajankohtaista merkitystä kestävyysongelmien ja COVID19-pandemiankin aikoina. Changing Goals of Science Education: From Scientific Literacy to Education for Sustainable Development, Agency, and Futures thinking Abstract Global sustainability crises are changing the aims, pedagogies and research in science education. The field is increasingly oriented towards transformative education for sustainable development. School science should now support responsible agency and value-based transformation. This article argues that the thinking in the field of Futures Studies can help students to see alternative futures and take action. Science education provides excellent opportunities for scenario building activities, addressing the uncertainty, and shaping transformative agentic orientations. Future-oriented activities developed in the I SEE project are presented as an example. The suggestions are discussed with relation to the topical sustainability crises and the COVID19 pandemic. Keywords: science education, education for sustainable development, futures thinking, agency

Self-in-Field Action Research in Natural Spaces of Encounter: Inclusion, Learning, and Organizational Change

The goal of this paper is to examine the role of participatory action research (PAR) in improving relationships in “natural spaces of encounter” where members of conflicting groups meet and interact. It describes and analyzes a project, “the Academic Puzzle,” that fosters organization-wide change in relations between Jewish and Arab students at a College in Israel. The project consists of 16 programs, all initiatives by College faculty, administrators, or students. Many of these programs, though not all, use PAR methods such as cooperative inquiry, dialogue, action science, action evaluation, and photovoice. The paper focuses on four programs which were explicitly designed as PAR. Furthermore, it illustrates how the Puzzle project is guided by a “self-in-field” approach that helps link these individual initiatives into an “enclave” that offers an alternative to the dominant field in order to transform it.

Action Research

Action research has become a common practice among educational administrators. The term “action research” was first coined by Kurt Lewin in the 1930s, although teachers and school administrators have long engaged in the process described by and formally named by Lewin. Alternatively known as practitioner research, self-study, action science, site-based inquiry, emancipatory praxis, etc., action research is essentially a collaborative, democratic, and participatory approach to systematic inquiry into a problem of practice within a local context. Action research has become prevalent in many fields and disciplines, including education, health sciences, nursing, social work, and anthropology. This prevalence can be understood in the way action research lends itself to action-based inquiry, participation, collaboration, and the development of solutions to problems of everyday practice in local contexts. In particular, action research has become commonplace in educational administration preparation programs due to its alignment and natural fit with the nature of education and the decision making and action planning necessary within local school contexts. Although there is not one prescribed way to engage in action research, and there are multiple approaches to action research, it generally follows a systematic and cyclical pattern of reflection, planning, action, observation, and data collection, evaluation that then repeats in an iterative and ongoing manner. The goal of action research is not to add to a general body of knowledge but, rather, to inform local practice, engage in professional learning, build a community practice, solve a problem or understand a process or phenomenon within a particular context, or empower participants to generate self-knowledge.

Ciência-Ação em Ciência da Informação: um método qualitativo em análise

Objetivo: Apresenta uma reflexão crítica sobre a construção de conhecimento científico com uso do método pesquisa ação na Ciência da Informação, evidenciando como este método vem sendo utilizado nos estudos sobre competências em informação no Brasil e no Exterior. Apresenta discussão pioneira no campo da Ciência da Informação sobre os tipos ou formas de se trabalhar este método, enfatizando a Ciência-Ação.Método: Metodologicamente, consistiu em uma pesquisa de natureza qualitativa, de abordagem interpretativista, que utilizou as técnicas de pesquisa bibliográfica e análise documental. Foram identificados 27 artigos nacionais e 19 artigos internacionais pertinentes à pesquisa-ação, publicados no período de 2008 a 2018, e recuperados pelo Portal de Periódicos da Capes.Resultado: Verificou-se que a pesquisa-ação é utilizada em estudos com propósitos diversificados, a exemplo da elaboração de tesauros, tutoriais, modelos, políticas de desenvolvimento de coleções, programas de competências em informação e políticas de informação. Enquanto método de pesquisa qualitativo, identificou-se que há cinco tipos ou formas de se trabalhar a pesquisa-ação, a saber: tradicional, contextual, educacional, radical e action science ou ciência-ação. Contudo, não há indícios que o método de pesquisa-ação do tipo action science tenha sido abordado no campo da Ciência da Informação no Brasil. No Exterior há apenas dois trabalhos com características aproximadas.Conclusões: Contribui com o campo científico apresentando a definição, origem e as características da Ciência-Ação, discutindo a viabilidade e o potencial de uso desse método no campo da Ciência da Informação e em uma pesquisa de Tese em andamento.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Pesquisa-ação. Ciência-Ação. Método qualitativo. Conhecimento científico. Ciência da Informação.