Environment and society in Átl’ḵa7tsem/Howe Sound Biosphere: towards an integrated media ecology

The article examines the problems and prospects of the consolidation of the international order. The thesis that the global systemic crisis is a counter phase or a crisis of consolidation of the international order, which must be overcome by the joint efforts of participants of international relations in order to maintain the stability of the international system and prevent its destruction, is justified. The sustainable development of the modern international system depends on the consolidation of participants in the international order and the deepening of constructive cooperation between its participants. The interconnectedness of numerous crises leads to the intensification of the global system crisis. Its presence is a logical result of the global development of the system of international relations. Among the main elements of the global system crisis one can distinguish the financial crisis, economic crisis, environmental crisis, demographic crisis, global governance crisis, security crisis, energy crisis, global climate crisis. The inability of participants of the international system to regulate global crisis is evidence of a global governance crisis. All these crises, as the most important elements of the global system crisis, shape its structure, reflect its essence and make it holistic. The combination of interdependent crises complicates the overcoming of the global system crisis and strengthens it. Therefore, the global governance crisis is both the cause and the consequence of the global system crisis, which in turn indicates the turbulent state of the international system, in which it is impossible to clearly determine its further development. It is proved that the inability of the participants of the international system to consolidate themselves in accordance with the scale of global political transformations is one of the reasons for the emergence and deepening of the global systemic crisis. The presence of a complex of global crisis phenomena and the lack of effective institutional mechanisms to overcome them in synergetic unity reinforce the effect of each other, which deepens the global systemic crisis. Overcoming it depends on the degree of consolidation of the international order, which aims to improve the mechanisms of global governance of the international system. The basis of a consolidated international order could be a reformed UN with expanded powers or another global international organization. The global systemic crisis requires the search for tools and factors that will help to stabilize socio-economic and political relations and to rethink the forms and mechanisms of effective global governance.

This chapter provides an overview of the theories and concepts of sustainability and sustainable development and their anticipated links to global environmental, economic, and social crises. The theory of climate change and its likely impact on natural resources and their capacity for supporting sustainable economic development are discussed, and a comprehensive analysis of the concepts of sustainability (definition and types) and the sustainable development paradigm is provided. Due to its relevance to the topic of environmental sustainability, an overview of the Natural Capital, Natural Steps, and Factor X rules and definitions are also provided. Scenario-based analysis that has been used successfully in the development of strategic planning exercises and sustainability-related policies, rules, and regulations is discussed. The core thrust of economic, social, and environmental sustainability, emerging strategies, and developing praxis presented in this chapter and throughout the book support the concept of practical sustainability defined here as an integrated approach to long-term environmental sustainability.

“It’s the Climate, Stupid”A review essay of Brooke, Climate Change and the Course of Global History: A Rough Journey; and Parker, Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century Katherine Grandjean Climate Change and the Course of Global History: A Rough Journey. By John L. Brooke. Studies in Environment and History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 653 pages. $34.99 (paper). Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. By Geoffrey Parker. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013. 901 pages. $45.00 (cloth), $30.00 (paper). Increase Mather had gout in his hands. It flared up in the cold. The 1690s must have been trying for him, because that decade, almost everywhere, was frigid. “It has been a severe pinching winter,” he complained in his diary in 1698. “The dumb creatures perish.” Not only was it deeply, bitterly cold; it was also dry. New England grew thirsty in the late 1690s during a “sore and Long continued drought,” “distresing in almost all places.” Crops came up short, and people went hungry. “Tis such a Time of scarcity as the like never was,” Mather wrote. Unfortunately for those living in the Northeast, this distress coincided with another calamity: war. In Europe men were fighting the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–97), which erupted in England’s North American colonies as King William’s War and inaugurated decades of violence between New England, New France, and Native allies. The weather worsened the war’s miseries. In some places, rotten corn was all that could be gotten. Men stole from the mills anyway. “Never did I heare such a cry for bread,” wrote Joanna Cotton in 1697. She feared French and Indian raids, but she also worried about hunger. In other letters and diaries, too, “wars & scarcity” appear together, as if moving hand in hand.1 [End Page 159] The link has been less visible to historians. Much has been written about war in the colonies, but less about cold. Climate has not been a prominent theme in recent studies of early America. How did the vicissitudes of weather, as well as more long-term changes in climate, shape early American and Atlantic history? To date, it is hard to say. Scholars have long known that European expansion took place during the Little Ice Age, a global cooling period that lasted—arguably—from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. No one is quite sure what caused this chilly trend, but thanks to emerging climate data we do know what years were chilliest. The 1690s were outstandingly cold years, possibly the coldest in centuries. It was a miserable decade across the Northern Hemisphere. Famine in Estonia killed tens of thousands. Scotland starved, during seven “ill years” of economic disaster and bad harvests. Is this the War of the League of Augsburg’s wider context? Did colonists suffer simply because the war “impoverish[ed] them”?2 Or did the biting weather contribute to the violence? Few have asked. Early America’s climate history is still considerably unexplored. But, backed by clues from stalactites, glacial ice cores, and the squiggly circles of tree rings, among other evidence touted as the “new climate science,” scholars are beginning to turn their attention to such stories. Two new global histories of climate, by John L. Brooke and Geoffrey Parker, offer glimpses of the way forward. Brooke’s Climate Change and the Course of Global History is a big book. It covers the entire earth, through all of human history. Like other recent practitioners of “big” or “deep” history, he tells the human story on an evolutionary scale.3 While others have also crashed through the barriers of what was once called “prehistory” and have made grand global claims without relying primarily on written records, Brooke is the first to examine the twists and turns of the human experience using hard climate science. His object is to understand the role of nature—or, more precisely, climate—in human history. In Brooke’s view, it is a vital role. Climate, he argues, has driven the course of humanity’s fate, generally, including the “pattern and...

Issues of sustainability and pollution prevention in environmental engineering education

Issues of sustainability and pollution prevention in environmental engineering education

Spatial and temporal trends of contaminants in Canadian Arctic freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems: a review

In the past few years many conflicts have intensified in Africa, one of which have caused a new peacekeeping mission to be deployed to Mali, and already existing operations to be strengthened. Mali was the first victim of the chaos caused by the Arab Spring and the international intervention in Libya. The heavily armed Tuareg returned to Mali after the Libyan intervention, and their separatist aspirations caused an interior conflict that escalated when terrorist groups got involved. A democratically functioning country collapsed from one day to another. The crisis in Mali is a difficult challenge for the international community because it has to organize a multidimensional peacekeeping mission, while having to fight against terrorism. Moreover, the global economic crisis forced these nations to reduce their military spending without compromising effectiveness. The present paper deals with the complexity of the conflict in Mali and examines whether the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the peacekeeping mission in Mali, is able to comply with the expected requirements.

To evaluate the perspective of nurses in Turkey towards the global climate crisis and its impact on mental health using a qualitative approach. This study was conducted from August to September 2023 with 35 nurses living in seven regions of Turkey using an inductive qualitative approach. The researchers employed the snowball sampling method to select participants. Interviews with the participants were conducted until data saturation was reached. Thematic analysis was used to emerge themes. The findings revealed five main themes (perception of the global climate crisis, effects of the global climate crisis, effects of the global climate crisis on mental health, reflections of the global climate crisis on nursing and nurses' views on prevention and intervention studies for the global climate crisis). Also, the findings revealed 12 sub-themes (physical outcomes, mental outcomes, direct and indirect impacts, psychosocial effects and personal, national and international-based reflections). Our study indicates that nurses exhibit genuine concern for the global climate crisis and experience psychological effects related to this pressing environmental issue. Nurses are keenly aware of their responsibility to safeguard the planet and demonstrate a strong sense of concern for the state of the world. It is evident that nurses, being prominent advocates for sustainability, are cognizant of their responsibility to protect the planet and demonstrate genuine apprehension for the state of the world. Nurses play a crucial role, as they make up 60% of the global healthcare workforce and are often the frontline healthcare professionals during natural disasters. It is vital to elucidate and clarify the terminology concerning the relationship between the climate crisis and the mental health of nurses, to determine the scope of this relationship and to make recommendations for future research areas. No patient or Public Contribution.

ABSTRACTObjectiveThis study aimed to explore the metaphorical perceptions and cognitive structures of Turkish nursing students related to the impact of the global climate crisis on their profession.MethodsResearchers adopted a qualitative approach centered on metaphor analysis and involved 40 Turkish nursing students enrolled in programs in Türkiye during October 2023. Using metaphor analysis and techniques involving writing and drawing, the study uncovered how these students perceive and cognitively structure the influence of the global climate crisis on their nursing careers. The interview form featured the metaphor expression “The reflection of the global climate crisis on nursing is like … because …,” while the drawing component prompted students to determine their perspectives on the climate crisis's impact on nursing through concept drawings. The research adhered to the COREQ checklist.ResultsThe study revealed that nursing students generated 22 metaphors each through written and drawing techniques. Written metaphors were grouped into five categories: psychosocial challenges faced by nurses, patient populations, diseases and coping, burdens on the health system, and the growing importance of various fields within nursing. Drawing technique metaphors were grouped into four categories: nurses and the difficulties they face, the impact of the global climate crisis on the world, the impact of the global climate crisis on the healthcare sector, and the roles and responsibilities of nurses.ConclusionsWhile nursing students expressed diverse opinions, their concerns about the reflection of the global climate crisis on nursing yielded similar emotional responses. Metaphors are mostly focused on psychosocial challenges faced by nurses, the patient population, diseases, and coping mechanisms. The findings underscored nursing students’ concerns about the global climate crisis's impact on both their profession and the broader community.

The author takes up the human story as, after a protracted series of climatic swings, global warming resumed some 10,000 years ago, and new techniques of permanent settlement, herding, and tillage represent a novel engagement with nature. The boundary between worlds of food procurement and food production—between a world of hunting, gathering, and foraging and a world of agriculture—seems more transgressive, more traversed by continuities, than commonly supposed. Combining archaeology with environmental and genetic sciences, the chapter reconstructs the processes by which some species lost reproductive independence, and eventually became reliant on their principal predator, humans, to produce a new generation.

Journal of Scientific Research EDITORIAL Do we need a new journal? The answer lies in the fact that currently no international journal (online and print) with interdisciplinary character which specifically caters to the academic needs of the international community operates from Bangladesh. This journal aims to fill this lacuna and to be a bridge for the scientists from the east and the west. This is the first issue of the Journal of Scientific Research (JSR). The idea of launching a journal that hopes to publish quality scientific works was planted in early 2008 during a science faculty meeting at Rajshahi University. Now it is our pleasure to see the idea blossom into the first issue of first volume (1 January 2009) that contains scientific work not only of Asian regions but of much beyond that. The inaugural issue indicates the type of journal we hope to become. It is wide ranging and interdisciplinary. Our contributors include scholars at every stage of their academic career. As regards editorial policy and scope the Journal of Scientific Research is a peer-reviewed international journal originally intended for publication annually. But due to a satisfactory flow of manuscripts since the first announcements the publication frequency has now been increased to 3 online issues (one print volume) per year.The journal is a unifying force, going across the barriers between disciplines, addressing all related topics and materials. An international Editorial Board (along with an Advisory Board) comprising of renowned academics from various fields guides our editorial policy and direction. The journal is devoted to the publication of original research (research paper, review paper, short communication) covering the following fields:Section A:  Physical and Mathematical Sciences: Physics, Mathematics, Statistics, Geophysics, Computer, Environmental Science, Communications and Information Technology, Engineering and related branches.Section B:  Chemical and Biological Sciences: Chemistry, Biochemistry, Pharmacy, Biology, Genetics, Fisheries and related branches.The articles selected for the first issue have been reviewed by two discipline-specialists, and their recommendations have been appropriately incorporated. Submissions from the world research community are encouraged to fulfill our mission and aim for the journal to stand for the international scientific publishing standards.   It was clear during the planning and development of this first issue that the Asian region needs a forum through which research could be shared and acknowledged. I hope that this journal will soon be recognised by the wider research community as their forum for the dissemination of knowledge. We hope that the journal will not simply act as a place for publication of material, though obviously this is important, but should act as a catalyst for the advancement of science both within and outside the region.The journal is being published both online and in print. Online publishing, unique in nature, is faster and far less expensive than traditional hard copy publishing. Access of online journals is easier and better images, storage and multimedia are other advantages. I must thank the International Network for the availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) for helping us publish via BanglaJOL – and the help of Ms. Sioux Cumming in this regard is worthy of mention.The success of a journal depends on the quality of its Editorial Board and the reviewers. The effort that I have seen from them speaks well for the future of the new born journal.  Both the Editorial and Advisory Boards should deserve thanks for their indispensable advice and support during the planning phases of the journal. I should also thank the reviewers who contributed their valuable time to complete reviews within a reasonable time. I truly hope that the diversity contained in this first issue of the journal will be the hallmark of future issues. A K M A Islam email: jsr_editor@ru.ac.bd website: www.banglajol.info/index.php/JSR           © 2009 JSR Publications. ISSN: 2070-0237 (Print); 2070-0245 (Online). All rights reserved.DOI: 10.3329/jsr.vlil.1703   Â

A GLOBAL SETAC: ONE SOCIETY

Richard Powell, Intemperate Spaces: Field Practices and Environmental Science in the Canadian Arctic, 1955–2000, Completed at Department of Geography and Scott Polar Research Institute, University ...

The Canadian Arctic is undergoing considerable social and environmental change. Anthropogenic stressors on this sensitive environment include climate change, contaminants, resource extraction, tourism and increasing human populations. The Northern Ecosystem Initiative (NEI) is a program aimed at supporting the sustainability of northern communities, and at improving our understanding of how northern ecosystems respond to these environmental stressors. A key element of the NEI is to establish partnerships between all levels of government, non-governmental environmental agencies, and northern residents. The NEI is an important source of financial support critical for social and environmental scientists as well as northern residents and their community and regional organizations. Initiated in 1998, the NEI has supported numerous northern scientific and capacity-building projects, and has evaluated the information gained from this work to refine and focus its future support to address key information gaps and northern needs.

Across various projects in the 1960s and ’70s, Joan Jonas created forms of self-portraiture enmeshed within environments. Engaging a range of media including mirrors, water, and video, Jonas repeatedly emphasized her body’s interrelation with surrounding natural and media ecologies. The resultant ecological portraits offer a model of being that encourages audiences to acknowledge their own embodiment in encounters with nature, whether experienced directly or through mediation. This article excavates this intermedia practice and explores the forms of ecocritical thought her performances and records might produce. Working in an era of expanding media experiments across performance, sculpture, and video, Jonas’s multimedia projects collaborate with the surrounding environment to explore the emergent openness of art in the 1970s. This article takes Jonas’s Disturbances (1974) as its starting point, arguing that Jonas featured the reflective and refractive properties of water to meditate upon the ecological resonances of the myth of Narcissus, the distorting optics of video, and the mediation of nature broadly. Similarly, in recent projection-based projects, Jonas has continued her exploration of the body’s relationship to both nature and media by incorporating her body into projected nature videos. In keeping with her stated unwillingness to “penetrate space,” ecological portraits across Jonas’s career reveal her multidirectional entanglements with spaces near and far, from waves in a pool to global oceanic crises.