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This chapter provides a non-exhaustive review of the literature on the Social Vulnerability Index in order to share with Disaster Studies scholars and other professionals a general overview of the subject. This work analyzes selected case studies on the construction of a Social Vulnerability Index at national and local scales, and then specifically focuses on cases concerning social vulnerability to climate change, natural hazards, and COVID-19. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has simultaneously highlighted the extraordinary transformations of the contemporary earth system that are currently underway and the fragility of the political institutions in place that might offer some governance of human affairs in these novel circumstances. The pandemic response has, in places, generated retrograde geopolitical impulses to xenophobia and in others clear indications that international cooperation is crucial for dealing with disasters. The spectre of a deadly zoonotic diseases has once again raised questions of how human encroachment on animal species, both in supposedly wild spaces, and the very tamed ones of industrial agriculture, threatens a global civilization. The big question this all raises is whether novel governance mechanisms, taking ecological science seriously, will emerge from the pandemic wreckage in time to effectively tackle the accelerating climate change crisis which threatens further disruption of both human and natural systems. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
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As the operation of buildings accounts for around 30% of global CO2 emissions, reducing their energy consumption is considered crucial for climate change mitigation. Aware of this significance, the sustainable HCI (SHCI) community has conducted research on energy consumption for over 15 years. However, compared with domestic environments, commercial organisations are comprised of complex mixed-use buildings, and the socio-technical understanding of space and resulting energy use are relatively under-explored. In this late-breaking work, we present the initial findings of a longitudinal analysis that uses building energy data from a period covering the COVID-19 lockdown measures to help identify the energy associated with these buildings and their users. Viewing the pandemic as a unique, grand-scale 'energy intervention', the resulting consumption patterns are used to inform questions about leverage points for achieving change, stakeholder agency vs. infrastructure demand;and highlight the importance of putting energy data in context. © 2023 Owner/Author.
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Water withdrawal for public/private suppliers and public services (defined as public water use) and for irrigation (defined as irrigation water use) are essential components of agricultural water management as well as of the planning and management of domestic, commercial, and municipal water supplies. A significant fraction of the public and irrigation water use is consumptive (defined as the part of water withdrawn that is consumed) in nature, and it is primarily freshwater. Global climate change and variability have substantially impacted the large-scale drivers of freshwater resources across the globe, which include, for example, precipitation, temperature, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, and hydrologic extremes. Global environmental change has also influenced several local-scale freshwater availability drivers, such as water quality, municipal policies, and water taxation. Overall, the changes in freshwater resources have potentially stressed irrigation and public water use. Population growth has altered the supply–demand fronts of water balance, resulting in increased water supply stresses. Researchers have considered several soft-and hard-path solutions to augment the deficit in the supply–demand fronts;however, each solution has its own pros and cons. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the already existing critical issues related to sustainable future water use. New challenges have emerged, requiring both short-and long-term solutions. Hence, it is essential to understand the current public and irrigation water use changes resulting from the pandemic. An appropriate estimate of the future changes in water use would help develop/upgrade new/current water resource systems that can mitigate risks and show increased resiliency against global climate and environmental changes and unprecedented events like the COVID-19 pandemic. In this opinion chapter, we discuss some examples of the regional/local changes in water use during the ongoing pandemic and our increased preparedness or the lack of it. Additionally, the chapter focuses on the future risks and resilience of water resource systems to meet the future demands of water use as well as to face unprecedented events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer 2022.
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The objective of this work is to analyze the specific impacts of climate change in the Huasteca Hidalguense, an indigenous region of the state of Hidalgo that, according to the State Action Program for Climate Change (Otazo, 2011), will be the most affected in terms of temperature increase, water availability, food production and health in the decade 2020-2030. To obtain the information, a Participatory Action Research (PAR) process was carried out, culminating in the "Regional Forum on Water, Biodiversity and Climate Change in the Huasteca Hidalguense" and the workshop "Past, present and future of our territory". These activities showed that since the 1980s, a series of endogenous and exogenous impacts have been occurring in three ejidos in the municipality of Atlapexco that have impacted water availability, sanitation, deterioration of natural resources, and rising temperatures. The unexpected irruption of the Covid 19 pandemic implied difficulties in influencing the elaboration of collaborative measures among different actors to act in the face of the impacts of this phenomenon. Despite the above, we concluded that it is necessary to promote PRA processes to strengthen water infrastructure in indigenous territories highly vulnerable to climate change to build participatory solutions to the problems identified. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar los impactos específicos del cambio climático en la Huasteca hidalguense, una región indígena del estado de Hidalgo que, según el Programa Estatal de Acción para el Cambio Climático (Otazo, 2011), será la más afectada en los rubros de aumento de temperatura, disponibilidad de agua, producción de alimentos y salud en la década 2020-2030. Para obtener la información se llevó a cabo un proceso de Investigación Acción Participativa (IAP) que culminó con la realización del "Foro Regional Agua, Biodiversidad y Cambio Climático en la Huasteca Hidalguense" y del taller "Pasado, presente y futuro de nuestro territorio". A través de dichas actividades se comprobó que, desde los años 80 del siglo pasado, tres ejidos del municipio de Atlapexco han experimentado una serie de impactos endógenos y exógenos que impactan en la disponibilidad de agua, el saneamiento, el deterioro de los recursos naturales y el aumento de las temperaturas. La irrupción inesperada de la pandemia de Covid 19 implicó dificultades para incidir en la elaboración de medidas colaborativas entre distintos actores para actuar ante las incidencias de este fenómeno. A pesar de lo anterior, se concluye que es necesario impulsar procesos de IAP para fortalecer la infraestructura hídrica en territorios indígenas altamente vulnerables al cambio climático, con la finalidad de construir soluciones participativas a las problemáticas identificadas. (Spanish) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Relaciones: Estudios de Historia y Sociedad is the property of El Colegio de Michoacan, A.C. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
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This book focuses on understanding biomimetic architecture and its role as a sustainable design tool. It presents the role of biomimicry in mitigation and adaptation to climate change and examines how biomimetic architecture can provide healthy solutions to limit the spread of COVID-19 in buildings and cities. Coverage includes global examples of biomimetic approaches and buildings, an evaluation of the performance of biomimicry applications in architecture to illustrate best practices, and an exploration of how nature can offer inspiration in building design to conserve resources and save energy use as well as curb carbon emissions - a reaffirmed goal of COP 26 and an outcome of Glasgow Climate Pact. Finally, the book presents guidelines to enhance urban areas and healthier spaces in buildings to meet COVID-19 social distance regulations and beyond. • Examines global applications of biomimicry in architecture;• Highlights the importance of biomimicry in driving livability in cities and buildings;• Explores the role of biomimetic architecture in mitigating climate change. "The line of argument developed is highly relevant to the present, in addition to being original and pertinent to research on urban regeneration, especially in regard to the exploration of the use of biomimicry architecture in response to changing urban demands.” -Alessandra Battisti, Ph.D., Professor of Architecture, University of Rome La Sapienza. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
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Following the success of 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2021 International Conference on Science & Technology Applications in Climate Change (STACLIM), the Institute of Climate Change (IPI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) is proud to extend our promotion of research and education for the advancement of climate change studies. The 2022 International Conference on Science & Technology Applications in Climate Change (STACLIM 2022) with the theme "Climate change mitigation action through the lens of science and technology” is the fifth in the series of conferences organized by IPI. This year the conference was carried out in virtual form through the Webex platform (29 – 30 November 2022) due to the COVID-19 travel restriction. Through the virtual form, the science community is able to share their research findings in time.The aim of this conference is to bring together researchers in fields of Environmental Science, Health Sustainability, Mathematics, Sustainable Energy, Economic Sustainability, Socio-Cultural Studies, Social Science, Atmospheric Science, and related fields, to present their research findings as well as create new opportunities for future research collaborations. This event is envisaged to witness active participation from various eminent environmental and earth scientists, engineers and students from academia, industry and government sectors for addressing complications associated with climate change and to draw forth novel and ground-breaking initiatives and solutions for climate resilience.The plenary sessions in the main room were opened by two keynote speeches from leading experts including Prof. Dr. Lisa Stein from University of Alberta, Canada on "Microbial Solutions to Mitigating Climate Change”, Prof. Dr. Haruko Kurihara from University of Ryukyus, Japan, on "Ocean acidification impacts on marine ecosystem and its potential mitigation solutions”. As the keynote session was open for public registration, we had participants joining the event. It was then followed by the invited speaker sessions consisting of Prof. Dr. Fredolin Tangang (UKM), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rawshan Ara Begum (Macquarie University, Australia), Dr. Shantanu Kumar Pani (National Central University, Taiwan) and Mr. Saud Aldrees (University of Oxford, England). The program was then continued with oral presentation of 72 papers in 3 parallel breakout rooms. Each presenter was given up to 15 mins for presentation and Q&A sessions. There were additional 13 non-presenters who joined in during the presentation session. Presenters and participants have attended the conference from their respective countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, USA, China, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Algeria, India, and Ukraine.The conference went well with great support and synergy of the staff and personnel from Institute of Climate Change, UKM. To document and promulgate the research findings and ideas shared, we are very pleased to publish the accepted research papers of STACLIM 2022 in IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (EES).The EditorsList of Organizing Committee is available in this Pdf.
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Accessible, high-quality seed is vital to the agricultural, food, and nutrition sovereignty needed for justice-based sustainable development. Multiregion, interdisciplinary research on farmers' seed systems (FSS) can complement case-based and thematic approaches.This study's goals are to (1) provide a synthetic overview of current major FSS concepts;(2) design and evaluate a novel social- and political-ecological model of FSS using globally representative data from mountain agricultural areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America;(3) model and evaluate FSS relations to socioeconomic, political, and environmental factors including main food crops (rice, wheat, maize, potato, and common bean);(4) generate new spatial, geographic, and demographic estimates;and (5) strengthen FSS for justice-based sustainable development of agriculture, land use, and food systems. The conceptual framework of FSS-related factors guided the global modeling of data from 11 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. A multiple regression model explained FSS utilization (R2 1/4 0.53, P < 0.0001), specifying the significant inverse relations to mean farm area (strong), per-capita Gross Domestic Product at the district level (strong), and urban distance (moderate). FSS showed strong positive relations to aridity and topographic ruggedness. FSS were positively related to elevation in a 5-country Andean subsample. Results estimated FSS utilization by 136 million farmers within the 11 countries. Novel insights to strengthen FSS policies and programs are the importance of FSS to extremely small farm-area subgroups and other distinct FSS stakeholders, global-region geopolitical distinctness of FSS-farm area relations, multidistrict FSS concentrations that enable extralocal FSS spatial connectivity, FSS capacities in climate-change hot spots, and high FSS encompassing periurban areas. Policy-relevant results on global geographic and demographic extensiveness of FSS and key spatial, socioeconomic, political, and environment relations demonstrate that globally FSS are key to supporting agrobiodiversity, agroecology, nutrition, and the sustainability of food systems. These advise strengthening FSS through pro-poor and linked urban-rural policies at regional scales in addition to expanding local initiatives.
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Vehicle exhaust has been important source of atmospheric pollution in China. In terms of the environmental effects of vehicle emission control policies (VECPs), changes in air pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions are receiving increasing attention. Hubei has implemented many traffic controls to accelerate pollution abatement. However, few studies have reported how they would affect pollutant emissions in Hubei in the future, as most concentrate on assessments during COVID-19. Further, there has been little research on whether these controls bring observable health benefits. Thus, this study comprehensively evaluates the emission of major air pollutants (including NOx, CO, VOCs, PM2.5, PM10, and PMTSP) and GHGs (CO2, CH4, and N2O) from the transportation sector concerning different VECPs in Hubei during 2015–2050, together with health outcomes. It highlights that individual VECPs contribute differently to environmental and health benefits, encouraging innovation in mechanisms and technologies to mitigate atmospheric pollution while generating health benefits.
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As climate change increasingly threatens the United States, many local governments are implementing programs in response, helping to reduce their communities' contributions to climate change and enhancing their resilience to climate impacts. The purpose of this study is to understand how local governments in North Carolina communicate with residents about their climate change programming. Twelve local government sustainability employees participated in interviews about how they communicated with and received input from residents about such programs. Interview transcripts were coded and analyzed using Atlas.ti 9, and communications approaches were compared to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommendations. Participants' communications could be characterized as applying some of the IPCC recommendations, and findings suggest opportunities for greater adoption of IPCC strategies in local government communication about climate programs. The Covid-19 pandemic was primarily described as a barrier to communicating about climate programs but also was credited as creating an opportunity for enhanced connections in one community. Additionally, participants described misconceptions about climate change programming expressed by residents, such as initiatives being perceived as impractical when they were in fact feasible. © 2023 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.
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COVID-19 has changed the way we understand risk and vulnerability. The pandemic provides a more in-depth understanding of how systemic risks work and how they affect lives, livelihoods and economies at a broader scale. Consequently, a range of impacts was observed, including loss of human health, livelihoods, loss of general wellbeing, protracted poverty and loss of developmental gains. The pandemic has exacerbated social and economic inequalities as most affected are vulnerable groups of people, including the elderly or part-time workers with low-income jobs. The impacts of the pandemic on political decision-making resulted in security consequences spanning national and regional scales. The pandemic directly affected human security as people's ability to live peacefully, free of fear and live with dignity has been severely affected. These pandemic experiences call for revisiting the concepts of human security in developmental planning. With this background in view, the chapter evaluated the nexus between human security, climate change and pandemics. It also provides essential pointers that can help identify suitable policies and practices to promote human security while mitigating climate change and pandemics. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer 2022.
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Democracy has increasingly come under pressure as democratic norms are being eroded. This article explores why democratic processes are at risk in Europe and the United States and what might replace them. It reflects the thinking of the Study Group on Democracy convened under the auspices of the International Association for Intelligence Education in 2022. Its deliberations identified a set of underlying key drivers, documented how they manifested, and speculated on what new forms of governance might replace democratic rule. Recent trends cited include the corruption of norms, the disruptive influence of social media, the growing diversity of society, the shift from community-based problem-solving to reliance on identity politics, the emergence of existential threats, and the need for strong leadership. The group concludes that prospects for sustaining democratic institutions can best be understood by viewing future trends along two perspectives: the complexity of society and modes of decision-making.
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Exploring the rise and fall of global power from the mid-nineteenth century, this book tracks the long and interrelated trajectories of the most serious challenges facing the world today. Although at first the urgency of the coronavirus outbreak in 2020 seemed to take precedence over other global problems such as socioeconomic inequality and climate change, it has ultimately exacerbated these issues and created opportunities to address them boldly and innovatively. A Brief History of Now provides a bird's-eye view of world hegemony, economic globalization and political regimes as they have evolved and developed over the last two hundred years, providing context and insights into the forces which have shaped the Western world. Presented in an accessible and engaging narrative, the book addresses key contemporary challenges and explores the repercussions of a technological revolution, the potential instability of democracy over the coming years, and the urgent struggle to tackle climate change. With his book, Diego Olstein helps to answer pressing questions about our world today and provides a roadmap for analysing future trajectories. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.
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Intelligence education and practice require significant adaptations to the global heating crisis, pandemic disease, and environmental threats. The latter are now and will increasingly influence traditional national security, yet most security analysis focuses almost exclusively on human agency, not complex environmental risks. This unique era in human history possesses unprecedented "wicked" security drivers altering more familiar international economic, geopolitical, and military variables. The security drivers present an acute cultural, intellectual, and institutional adaptation problem. The Intelligence Community (IC) community remains limited by bureaucratic tribalism, inertia, predictable human cognitive security biases, and fundamental knowledge gaps. U.S. politically driven controversies about climate and pandemics threaten its professional analytical effectiveness. The IC must go beyond business-as-usual incrementalism toward much greater interdisciplinary integration of science and natural systems into intelligence education and practice.
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[...]the UK meets more of its food needs, the country risks having potentially counterfeit food imports and disrupted supply chains. The book describes relevant aspects of British food history, defines terms, lists foods imported and exported, measures freight shipped through UK airports, defines greenhouse gas emissions from livestock and crop production, documents food price trends, gives feed conversion rates for food animals, lists advertising spending by major food companies, explains water rights, and states how much land is owned by the British aristocracy, corporations, and Crown. Lang was a member of the EAT-Lancet Commission and he calls on the UK Government to adopt the Commission's Great Food Transformation recommendations to improve public health, the environment, food citizenship, wage scales, and democratic accountability, and to redistribute power in the food system.
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Anthropogenic aerosols mask the climate warming caused by greenhouse gases (GHGs). In the absence of observational constraints, large uncertainties plague the estimates of this masking effect. Here we used the abrupt reduction in anthropogenic emissions observed during the COVID-19 societal slow-down to characterize the aerosol masking effect over South Asia. During this period, the aerosol loading decreased substantially and our observations reveal that the magnitude of this aerosol demasking corresponds to nearly three-fourths of the CO2-induced radiative forcing over South Asia. Concurrent measurements over the northern Indian Ocean unveiled a ~7% increase in the earth's surface-reaching solar radiation (surface brightening). Aerosol-induced atmospheric solar heating decreased by ~0.4 K d−1. Our results reveal that under clear sky conditions, anthropogenic emissions over South Asia lead to nearly 1.4 W m−2 heating at the top of the atmosphere during the period March–May. A complete phase-out of today's fossil fuel combustion to zero-emission renewables would result in rapid aerosol demasking, while the GHGs linger on.
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Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-COV-2) is spreading rapidly around the world and has become a global pandemic. Meteorological factors have been recognized as one of the critical factors that influence the epidemiology and transmission of infectious diseases. In this context, the World Meteorological Organization and scholars at home and abroad have paid extensive attention to the relationships of environment and meteorology with COVID-19. This paper systematically collected and sorted out relevant domestic and foreign studies, and reviewed the latest research progress on the impact of environmental and meteorological factors on COVID-19, classifying them into typical meteorological factors (such as temperature, humidity, and wind speed), local environmental factors (such as indoor enclosed environment, ventilation, disinfection, and air conditioning), and air pollution. Current research evidence suggests that typical meteorological factors, local environmental factors, and air pollutants are closely related to the transmission of COVID-19. However, the results of different studies are still divergent due to uncertainty about the influencing mechanism, and differences in research areas and methods. This review elucidated the importance of environmental and meteorological factors to the spread of COVID-19, and provided useful implications for the control of further large-scale transmission of COVID-19 and the development of prevention and control strategies under different environmental and meteorological conditions.Copyright © 2022, Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention. All rights reserved.
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The most serious current challenge in the world is COVID-19 disease incidence. With the spread of COVID-19, in addition to widespread human and economic damages, concerns have increased about the world's climate and ecosystem change. This change alters the genetic structure of viruses, leading to newer strains. This study addressed global challenges regarding the COVID-19 epidemic effects and possible two-way changes in climate and ecosystems. Studies conducted from 2019 to 2022 were reviewed in this systematic review. Articles on climate and ecosystem change related to the COVID-19 epidemic were searched in the Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed databases in accordance with the MeSH search strategy using keywords such as "Climate Change” and "Ecosystem” or "COVID-19”. In this research, the coding method based on the PRISMA chart was used, and 13 related articles were included in the study after qualitative evaluation. The COVID-19 epidemic is likely to have significant implications for progress in climate and ecosystem change. The phenomenon of climate change and its interaction with the COVID-19 epidemic is not limited to natural issues. One of the most important consequences is its impact on the social and economic issues of human societies, the most important of which are air pollution and environmental degradation. An increase in normal and special wastes, water consumption and wastewater production, air pollution after the start of the global economy, damage to forests and animals, and tendencies to use fossil fuels are only a part of the direct and indirect negative effects of COVID-19 on climate and ecosystem change. Epidemics directly threaten people and the health system, while climate and ecosystem change more broadly weakens natural and human systems. The COVID-19 crisis requires solutions within weeks and months, whereas responses to the climate and ecosystem change crisis seem less acute. However, the effects of climate and ecosystem change worsen with further procrastination. Thus, such crises with overlapping conditions and interactions require more attention and immediate public mobilization. Thus, the necessary planning should be implemented to moderate and reduce its effects. © 2022 The Author(s);.
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The best way to think about the climate emergency is to imagine humanity has just arrived at a new planet somewhere in a distant galaxy. After all, as scientists tell us, our planet Earth will soon look like a new planet, with conditions radically changed from the 'climate niche' of the past 10,000 years, during which human civilization developed. Once settled on the new planet, our task is to terraform it, to build a new natural environment fit for human life and human flourishing. My general approach to the politics of climate change thus differs from the most common view among environmentalists. I do not believe we can speak of climate change as a product of the Anthropocene, the human-built world. Our inability to control the consequences of climate change shows this is still at heart a natural process, one triggered by human beings or, more specifically, by our limited ability to control natural processes and therefore by our incapacity to control the unintended consequences of our actions and choices. The solution to the climate emergency is not to exit the Anthropocene but, intriguingly, to enter it for the first time. The world building is a task significantly full of existential meaning and urgency.