Impacts of climate warming on reindeer herding require new land-use strategies

Climate in the Arctic has warmed at a more rapid pace than the global average over the past few decades leading to weather, snow, and ice situations previously unencountered. Reindeer herding is one of the primary livelihoods for Indigenous peoples throughout the Arctic. To understand how the new climate state forces societal adaptation, including new management strategies and needs for preserved, interconnected, undisturbed grazing areas, we coupled changes in temperature, precipitation, and snow depth recorded by automatic weather stations to herder observations of reindeer behaviour in grazing areas of the Laevas Sámi reindeer herding community, northern Sweden. Results show that weather and snow conditions strongly determine grazing opportunities and therefore reindeer response. We conclude that together with the cumulative effects of increased pressures from alternative land use activities, the non-predictable environmental conditions that are uniquely part of the warming climate seriously challenge future reindeer herding in northern Sweden.

Inconspicuous adaptations to climate change in everyday life: Sustainable household responses to drought and heat in Czech cities

Adaptation to climate change is often understood as a top-down decision-making and policy-implementing process, as well as application of expert knowledge, to prevent or reduce its (locally specific) negative consequences. In high-income societies, adaptation at the household level then frequently refers to adopting technological fixes distributed through the market, sometimes at a considerable cost. Informed by a study in the context of Central Europe, this article aims to discuss different practices of households and individuals that do not require increased consumption of energy or materials, but still help adapting to climate change in some of its local expressions, such as heatwaves and drought. They were described by participants in focus groups in six cities in the Czech Republic. I argue that such ‘inconspicuous adaptations’ emerge without connection to the climate change debate, or without deeper knowledge about the issue. Yet, they should not be overlooked as unimportant and short-term ‘coping responses’ and underestimated in this debate. They are part and parcel of the ongoing process of societal adaptation to climate change.

Adapting to People With Schizophrenia: A Phenomenological Study on a Rural Society in Indonesia

Background: The growing prevalence of schizophrenia in Indonesia requires the consideration of the families, caregivers, health care professionals, and the entire society, to serve as a support and coping resource for the patients. The process of recovery is rather difficult, especially in the absence of a decent place to live. Hence, there is the need to provide a supportive environment that facilitates recuperation from psychotic symptoms, enhances interaction with others, promotes self-expression of thoughts and feelings, and helps deal with daily stress and challenges. There are currently no studies on the framework of societal adaptation for people with schizophrenia (PWS). The aim of this research, therefore, was to explore the experiences of rural society inhabitants in adapting to PWS in Indonesia. Methods: The study uses a qualitative research design and implements an interpretive phenomenological approach. A total of ten society members were recruited from the community by purposive sampling, and the in-depth interviews conducted were audio-recorded and transcribed. In addition, thematic analysis was carried out using the interpretive phenomenological analysis method. Results: The majority of the participants assumed that PWS prompt the feeling of alertness over fear. In addition, the participants revealed a feeling of indecisiveness in related situations and emphasized the value of keeping up traditional beliefs and practices and the effectiveness of a demonstration of indifference. They explained the need to combine traditional and modern health practices as recommended by the spiritual leaders. Conclusion: Societal adaptation to PWS entails the understanding of how to deal with the disease’s uncertainty and complexity. It is important to create a supportive environment to promote mental health and wellbeing.

A Case Study: Investigating the Past, Present, and Future of Shanghainese Teenagers with Intellectual Disabilities from the Perspective of Societal Adaptation in the “Dream Café”

This investigation aims to shine a light on the employment problem of people with intellectual disabilities, starting from a special perspective. This study focuses on a unique place, the Dream Café that gives jobs to teens with intellectual disabilities, including Down Syndrome and Autism. My approach to is to reveal this topic through the personal story of Hao, the main character featured in my documentary short. Both this paper and that documentary began as a Video Journalism project. The video was produced in stages – from raw concept, development and planning in the pre-production” stage, to shooting footage and recording interviews during “production”, and the scripting and video editing phase known as “post-production”.

Constitution

The emergence of modern societies organised according to legal constitutions is an evolutionary puzzle. Homo sapiens are the only animal species capable of living in large-scale, cooperative societies whose members are genetically unrelated individuals. But neither sociological nor biological models can adequately explain this unique feature of contemporary human societies. Recently, gene-culture co-evolutionary theory explained the emergence of human institutions, which takes into account the reciprocal influence between culture and innate psychology in the course of human evolution. Relying on this account of contemporary evolutionary theory, this book advances the claim that constitutions are a complex adaptation grounded in both our innate social psychology and specific social institutions. Constitutionalism evolved as a societal adaptation, necessary to provide a unified symbolic moral system expected by human psychology in pluralistic moral societies. More than that, constitutions also structured modern society to deal with the evolutionary pressures coming from the fast-paced changes occurring, among others, in legal and economic systems. This book develops a novel, interdisciplinary perspective about the evolution of law and the role played by constitutions in the emergence of complex contemporary societies.

MOOCs and the Challenges They Pose to Higher Education

Technologies come and go at an alarming rate, and the length of time any one technology exists before being supplanted by a newer technology is growing even shorter. In colleges and universities, this rapid technological replacement rate can hold immense implications for both the development and delivery of education. When technology transience is considered, institutions of higher education look at how specific incarnations of technology come and go, the length of time they are in existence, and their use within a given context. And because education has historically been so closely intertwined with technology, it becomes an investigation into not only education but also lifespan development, societal adaptation, and a myriad of other factors in which technology driven international universities will exist and or cease to exist.