Catastrophic Climate Research Articles

Sustainability marketing beyond sustainable development: towards a degrowth agenda

ABSTRACT Drawing on ecological economics, post-development studies, and political ecology, this paper argues that sustainable development notions have run their course within sustainability marketing debates and proposes degrowth as an alternative framework to steer disciplinary debates in new directions. We chart unexplored territory, offering sustainability marketing scholars tools to navigate degrowth-minded policies, transformative frameworks, and business models. In doing so, our work contributes to existing sustainability marketing debates in three ways: first, we respond to the paucity of studies engaging with the political economy of sustainability marketing. Second, we make visible the tensions and contradictions that arise as marketers seek to reconcile imperatives of economic growth and sustainability. Finally, we foreground degrowth as an emerging sustainability proposition, with potential for inspiring the radical set of transformations required to avert catastrophic climate change and keep global temperatures well below +2°C (relative to pre-industrial levels), as pledged in the Paris Agreement.

Terzi, Alessio, Growth for good: reshaping capitalism to save humanity from climate catastrophe

Terzi, Alessio, Growth for good: reshaping capitalism to save humanity from climate catastrophe

Reflections on how education can be for democracy in the twenty-first century

ABSTRACT This paper is one of two that bring together a range of education scholars to consider how education might be for democracy in a time of complex challenges facing twenty-first century societies. In this paper, scholars from Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom consider how sites of formal and informal education can respond to multiple unfolding crises, including the COVID-19 global pandemic, catastrophic climate change and ecological collapse, political upheaval, and growing social and economic inequality. What emerges is a wide-ranging set of reflections that engage with these complexities and challenges in a considered and hopeful way.

Strategies to enhance energy availability in Mozambique: A comparison of national electricity market regulations and strategies to encourage grid-integrated distributed renewable energy generation

The energy sector in Mozambique faces huge challenges that include low generation capacity and efficiency, affordability, unstable and unreliable energy supplies, low access rates, amongst others. The situation is being worsened by high environmental, social vulnerability and extreme events influenced by climate catastrophes. With the demand of energy consistently on the rise, there is critical need to address policy, investment, market and technical barriers to energy sector development. Mozambican government has made tremendous effort in developing electricity sector regulatory frameworks. However, progress has been uneven across the country. Thus, the aim of the study was to identify potential opportunities to promote the introduction of new distributed generation policies and technologies from renewable sources in Mozambique by analyzing technological and regulatory components of the energy sector in Argentina, Italy and Mexico. Methodologically, the study uses a comprehensive literature review, several national policy frameworks and statistical data from various official sources, with public policy and sectoral performance, as well as organizational and regulatory changes in consideration. Understanding national electricity market regulations and strategies, it will enable to gain a sense of perspective of the major determinants of the sector performance, and both the potential for and constraints on regulatory reform. It was observed that for achieving efficiency in energy provision, fair pricing, equality of access and environmental sustainability, it is important to strengthen the independence of the regulator.

Terrestrial martian analogues from the Indian subcontinent: Implications for hydrological activity on Mars

Martian geology and surface geomorphic features are grouped under Noachian, Hesperian, and Amazonian eras, based on the crater retention ages and resurfacing ages by crater densities. Comparing the similarities and differences between Martian landforms and their terrestrial analogues promotes an understanding of how surface processes operated on both planets. The study focusses on the processes responsible for the evolution of fluvial valleys on the flanks of volcanic craters and the fluvial terraces with an objective towards ascertaining the role of changing climate, tectonic, and volcanic conditions. We have studied the channels that developed on the flank of volcanic crater Ceraunius Tholus and compared with the monogenetic volcanic field of Dhinodhar Hill which have been significantly modified by fluvial processes. Similarly, the fluvial basins developed on the Hesperian volcanic units of Echus plateau were compared with the Alaldari drainage of Upper Tapi river basin, showing the development of theater-headed channels and valleys, and relative fluvial features showing the strong influence of catastrophic climate and tectonic, which is also supported by the morphometric analysis in modulating the topography. The fluvial terraces developed in the Nubra and Shyok rivers of Ladakh and Upper and Middle reaches of Satluj in Central Himalayas are compared with Noctis fossae on Mars both developed due to the interplay of tectonism and climate.

Concurrent 13. Presentation for: PESA Australia business environment review 2021

Presented on Wednesday 18 May: Session 13 With a backdrop of energy transition and an accelerating need to decarbonise, the oil and gas business environment was complex and conflicted through 2021. The complexity of the energy transition was continually highlighted by academia and international agencies. While asserting gas and LNG as a fuel critical to the energy transition, they continued to warn that the transition away from fossil fuels is not occurring fast enough to arrest catastrophic climate change. International cooperation culminating at COP26 somewhat faltered in the face of the immense challenges the energy transition poses. Complexity was also demonstrated through the rise in LNG spot prices as Asia’s demand for energy rebounded. Though high spot LNG prices through this period proved lucrative for producers, the surge in prices pushed some Asian markets back to emission-intensive yet low-cost coal for energy generation, signalling the volatility and challenges of LNG’s position as an energy transition fuel. Conflict was seen when environmentally focused activist investors disrupted business-as-usual operations for several Australian and international firms, with all signs pointing to an intensification of this trend in the coming years. In response, capital markets rallied behind low-carbon energy investments with trillions of dollars flowing towards renewables, hydrogen and CCS projects. Finally, to compound the complexity of the myriad external forces, oil and gas firms coalesced around four key decarbonisation responses. Oil and gas firms focused efforts on: (1) strengthening and refining net zero commitments; (2) operational decarbonisation including CCS investment; (3) investment in low-carbon fuels including hydrogen; and (4) consolidation, to strengthen balance sheets, build business model resilience and diversify their portfolios. To access the presentation click the link on the right. To read the full paper click here

Notes from the Editors, June 2022

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 Time is running out for the world to carry out the social transformations necessary to avert irreversible climate catastrophe, keeping the increase in global average temperatures below 1.5°C (or below 2°C). The most optimistic scenario currently provided by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describes a pathway in which the increase in temperature will not rise to 1.5°C until 2040, peaking at 1.6°C, and then falling back to 1.4°C by the end of this century. But to achieve this will require revolutionary scale transformational change in global social relations affecting the human relation to the climate and the planetary environment as a whole.

The GHG Protein Ratio: An Indicator Whose Time Has Come

The Carbon Footprint (CF) of agriculture must be substantially reduced to help avoid catastrophic climate change. This paper examines the ratio of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions to protein as an indicator of the CF of the major Canadian livestock commodities using previously published results. The GHG emissions for these commodities were estimated with a spreadsheet model that accounted for all three GHGs, the complete life cycles of each livestock type and the livestock interactions with the agricultural land base. The indicator results reviewed here included the responses to livestock types and diets, livestock versus plant protein sources, spatial scales and geographic differences. The sensitivity of the results shown suggest that GHG-protein ratios could provide valuable guidance for producers and consumers to reduce their GHG emissions. For example, diverting feed grains from beef feedlots to hog production would substantially reduce the CF of red meat, although still not as low as the CF of poultry products. The complete proteins derived from pulses have much lower CF values than all livestock products.

From the President and IFST News

From the President and <scp>IFST</scp> News

Toward a New Theory of Earth Crustal Displacement

Snapshot/Lay Summary—In 1958 Charles Hapgood proposed that mass imbalances created by a buildup of polar ice could displace the earth’s crust over the mantle and that resulting pole shifts were the cause of catastrophic climate changes and ice ages. We contrast the first part of his theory with plate tectonics and true polar wander and propose a new mechanism that is triggered by short-term reversals of the geomagnetic field that “unlock” the crust from the mantle, driven by earth–moon–sun tidal forces, the same forces that move earth’s oceans. It is shown that by combining a modified version of the second part of Hapgood’s theory with elements of existing climate theories it may be possible to account for periodic sea-level changes associated with the buildup and melting of polar ice over past glacial cycles with a combination of Milanković cycles and Hapgood pole shifts.&#x0D; &#x0D; Abstract—In previous studies of more than two hundred archaeological sites, it was discovered that the alignments of almost half of the sites could not be explained, and about 80% of the unexplained sites appear to reference four locations within 30° of the North Pole. Based on their correlation with Hapgood’s estimated positions of the North Pole over the past 100,000 years, we proposed that, by association, sites aligned to these locations could be tens to hundreds of thousands of years old. That such an extraordinary claim rests on Hapgood’s unproven theory of earth crustal displacement/pole shifts is problematic, even given the extraordinary number of aligned sites (more than several hundred) that have been discovered thus far. Using a numerical model we test his hypothesis that mass imbalances in the crust due to a buildup of polar ice are sufficient to displace the crust to the extent required in his theory. We discover in the process that the crust is not currently in equilibrium with the whole earth in terms of its moments of inertia. Based on a review of the literature that reveals a possible connection between the timing of short-term reversals of the geomagnetic field (geomagnetic excursions), super-volcanic eruptions, and glacial events, we hypothesize that crustal displacements might be triggered by geomagnetic excursions that “unlock” the crust from the mantle to the extent that available forces, specifically earth–moon–sun tidal forces, the same forces that move earth’s oceans, can displace the crust over the mantle. It is demonstrated how such a model, when combined with existing climate change theory, may be able to explain periodic changes in sea level associated with the buildup and melting of polar ice over past glacial cycles by a combination of Milanković cycles and Hapgood pole shifts.

Greenwashing in Palestine/Israel: Settler colonialism and environmental injustice in the age of climate catastrophe

Israeli innovations in “green” technology are ostensibly aimed at sustainable resource management and climate change mitigation. But sustainable development and environmental (in)justice in Palestine/Israel need to be examined through interdisciplinary perspectives that account for the broader settler colonial and neoliberal contexts in which they occur. Taking into account the historical and geographic context of Israel's scientific development, we argue that Israel's green technologies are fundamentally structured by the Zionist project of appropriating Palestinian lands. Within settler colonial analysis, environmental injustice comprises part of a broader pattern of settler domination of Indigenous ecological relations, requiring attending not to ‘equity’ in relations with the state and environment but a reckoning with settler privilege and the return of land to Indigenous communities. We analyze the use of environmental infrastructures—specifically in the areas of waste management, renewable energy, and agricultural technologies (“agritech”)—as mechanisms for land appropriation and dispossession in Palestine/Israel. Our analysis of ‘greenwashing’ as a rhetorical strategy asserts that regardless of the ecological impact of individual technologies, in Israel's settler colonial context they further indigenous dispossession and elimination and are therefore incommensurable with long-term socio-ecological resilience. Through this analysis of Israeli greenwashing, we discuss Israeli sustainability initiatives and technological innovations not as ahistorical discourses, commodities, or technologies, but as elements of a historically situated settler colonial project.

PESA Australia business environment review 2021

With a backdrop of energy transition and an accelerating need to decarbonise, the oil and gas business environment was complex and conflicted through 2021. The complexity of the energy transition was continually highlighted by academia and international agencies. While asserting gas and LNG as a fuel critical to the energy transition, they continued to warn that the transition away from fossil fuels is not occurring fast enough to arrest catastrophic climate change. International cooperation culminating at COP26 somewhat faltered in the face of the immense challenges the energy transition poses. Complexity was also demonstrated through the rise in LNG spot prices as Asia’s demand for energy rebounded. Though high spot LNG prices through this period proved lucrative for producers, the surge in prices pushed some Asian markets back to emission-intensive yet low-cost coal for energy generation, signalling the volatility and challenges of LNG’s position as an energy transition fuel. Conflict was seen when environmentally focused activist investors disrupted business-as-usual operations for several Australian and international firms, with all signs pointing to an intensification of this trend in the coming years. In response, capital markets rallied behind low-carbon energy investments with trillions of dollars flowing towards renewables, hydrogen and CCS projects. Finally, to compound the complexity of the myriad external forces, oil and gas firms coalesced around four key decarbonisation responses. Oil and gas firms focused efforts on: (1) strengthening and refining net zero commitments; (2) operational decarbonisation including CCS investment; (3) investment in low-carbon fuels including hydrogen; and (4) consolidation, to strengthen balance sheets, build business model resilience and diversify their portfolios.

Give the Planet a Seat at the Table

Abstract Business Architect, Suzanne Maxted MBCS explains how impact transparency is helping to connect everyday projects to the UN Sustainable Development Goals — to reverse climate catastrophe and biodiversity loss, the digital world needs to go back to the future!

Ethical AI and the Environment

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Scientists have warned of the effects of global climate change for decades, and its impacts are increasingly experienced and understood worldwide. Despite calls to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and resources in general, many believe in corporate and governmental ability to ‘innovate out’ of climate catastrophe. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a common theme among nearly all existing and upcoming technological climate solutions, however, AI’s environmental impacts are relatively unknown. This paper first highlights a few examples of how AI systems can help fight climate change and follows with an analysis of the various negative environmental implications driven by the need for greater computing power, and a general lack of AI governance policies. By analyzing existing literature and policy structures, this review finds that the most responsible methods to avoid cataclysmic climate impacts involve reducing our reliance on existing infrastructures, which propagate rising global temperatures, rather than relying on untested, saviour technologies.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

Energy-food nexus scarcity risk and the synergic impact of climate policy: A global production network perspective

Carbon neutrality has been a global consensus to navigate away from catastrophic climate change. In particular, such climate changes also generate inevitable influences on economic securities, such as energy security and food security, through energy structure transformation etc. Energy and food are essential elements for human beings, and they are naturally linked to sustainable development. Usually, emergency events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, may threaten energy security or food security in a region, the risk of which would be amplified due to the energy-food nexus effect. This is no doubt also a challenge and an opportunity for countries to achieve carbon neutrality. To realize the stable pathways to carbon neutrality, it is important to analyze the energy scarcity risk and food scarcity risk of each industry and country as well as the nexus effect between energy and food. In this paper, we combine multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis with network control analysis (NCA) to investigate the dependence degree of each country and region on energy and food resources as well as the risk transmission network of the energy-food scarcity nexus. Base on this, the impact of climate policy on energy-food nexus scarcity risk is analyzed. We found some interesting conclusions. First, regarding the risk transmission network of the energy-food scarcity nexus, China, Germany and the US are the main generators, and the main receptors are Taiwan, Mexico and the Netherlands. These results imply that international trade transfers energy/food scarcity to geographically distant regions via the international supply chain. Second, as for the scarcity risk per unit of output, small economies that rely heavily on imported energy or food (such as Cyprus and Luxemburg) have the highest scarcity risk and are among the top receptors of transmitted risks. We suggest collaborative conservation and management of energy and food resources. Third, the analyses that assess the emission intensity and scarcity risk find that implementation of emission control policies could significantly decrease initial energy scarcity risk and energy-food nexus scarcity risk. This implies that besides emission reduction achievement, climate policies bring co-benefits of energy-food nexus security. Moreover, the co-benefit of energy and food nexus security for low income economies associated with climate policy is much higher than that for high income economies.

Role of Media and Indigenous Communities to Combat Climate Change

Since the industrial revolution, the greenhouse gas emissions have been on the constant rise and the global average temperature has increased by 1.1 degree Celsius as compared to pre-industrial era. This alarming climate change situation caused by human activities has already been causing devastating effects everywhere on the planet. The melting of sea ice, thawing of the permafrost, increase in natural hazards and their frequencies, reduction in the biodiversity of ecological areas, increase in sea levels, deterioration of species &amp; wild populations, etc. are all pointing towards a direct threat to human well-being posed by the climate change. This research paper, whose idea germinated in the mind of the author while attending Arctic Circle Assembly 2021 in Reykjavik Iceland, circles around the role and position of media and indigenous communities in climate change mitigation and adaption by exploring key questions like challenges and narratives of climate coverage by media, a requirement for revolutionizing the institution of media, the importance of indigenous peoples and traditional knowledge for combatting climate change to name a few. The paper argues various elements affecting media and indigenous communities and concludes the crucial involvement for media and indigenous peoples to act for saving the planet considering the huge scale of this catastrophic climate change scenario.

National Families and Private Companies: Narrative Structure and Economies of Exchange in Jane Smiley’s the Last Hundred Years Trilogy

ABSTRACT This essay argues that the formal structure of Jane Smiley’s The Last Hundred Years Trilogy (2014–2015) integrates interpersonal modes of exchange with modes of exchange constitutive of free market capitalism. Meshing the intimate conventions of the “family saga” with mechanisms associated with neoliberal financial systems, Smiley implicates relationships often perceived as natural and uniquely personal in the large-scale economic regimes driving catastrophic climate change and exploitive income disparities. Drawing on the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Frederic Jameson, Hayden White, and Wendy Brown, I argue that by coupling a quick-paced one chapter/one year format with a circulating third-person narrative perspective, The Last Hundred Years reiterates the conflicts expressed in national discourses that define the U.S. as both a democracy dedicated to shared egalitarian ideals and the world’s primary arena of self-interested striving. If the form of a literary work mediates the contradictions of its age, the unique narrative structure Smiley devises for the Trilogy both reproduces and repudiates capitalist modes of exchange – emotional and material, economic and intimate – expressing her critique of the economic and political systems she holds responsible for bringing humanity to the brink of its “last” hundred years.

GÖÇ, RUH SAĞLIĞINI NASIL ETKİLEMEKTEDİR?

A geographical relocation of people for a permanent or temporary duration in order to spend all or part of their future lives is characterized as migration. War, ethnic or religious conflicts, political pressure, inequities, unemployment rates, poverty, hope for improved living standards, familial reasons, proximity to health care services, climate, and natural catastrophes are all factors that might lead to migration. People who have changed their environment owing to migration experience post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorder, depression disorder, schizophrenia and related disorders, culture shock, handicap, abuse, and suicidal ideation/attempt, especially among migrating women and children. Immigrants' mental difficulties are treated with psychosocial intervention methods such as individual/group trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, narrative exposure therapy, and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). However, the number of evidence-based psychological intervention programs for immigrants must be increased. The goal of this review is to look at the research that indicates immigrant mental problems.

Sanctions and international interaction improve cooperation to avert climate change.

Imposing sanctions on non-compliant parties to international agreements is advocated as a remedy for international cooperation failure. Nevertheless, sanctions are costly, and rational choice theory predicts their ineffectiveness in improving cooperation. We test sanctions effectiveness experimentally in international collective-risk social dilemmas simulating efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change. We involve individuals from countries where sanctions were shown to be effective (Germany) or ineffective (Russia) in increasing cooperation. Here, we show that, while this result still holds nationally, international interaction backed by sanctions is beneficial. Cooperation by low cooperator groups increases relative to national cooperation and converges to the levels of high cooperators. This result holds regardless of revealing other group members' nationality, suggesting that participants' specific attitudes or stereotypes over the other country were irrelevant. Groups interacting under sanctions contribute more to catastrophe prevention than what would maximize expected group payoffs. This behaviour signals a strong propensity for protection against collective risks.

Decades of Coral Reef Degradation and the Climate Catastrophe

Photo 1. Seringapatam reef, within the Scott system of reefs, rises from hundreds of meters depth near the edge of northwest Australia’s continental shelf. Having escaped the chronic pressures degrading other reefs around the world, these oceanic reefs are increasingly affected by recurrent heat stress and coral bleaching. Photo credit: Nick Thake. Photo 2. During the first global coral bleaching event in 1998, coral cover across the Scott reefs was reduced by ~80%. Given their isolation and the lack of larval connectivity to other reefs in the region, recovery was predicted take decades. Photo credit: Luke Smith. Photo 3. Twelve years after (2010) the 1998 mass bleaching, the Scott reefs had largely returned to their previous cover and diversity. Recovery was faster than expected due to high growth and survival of coral recruits, thanks to healthy fish stocks, good water quality, and the lack of heat stress and coral bleaching for more than a decade. However, not all coral groups had fully recovered and ocean temperatures had continued to increase. Photo credit: James Gilmour. Photo 4. Following moderate bleaching in 2010, 2011, and 2013, the Scott reefs were again affected by extreme heat stress and mass bleaching in 2016. Most of the branching corals that provided structure critical to fish and other reef-associated organisms were again lost, with smaller reductions in the more massive and encrusting corals. Photo credit: James Gilmour. Photo 5. Five years (2021) after the 2016 mass bleaching, coral recruits were evident at many sites. However, the corals that had not fully recovered from the 1998 mass bleaching were absent from most sites and many of the new recruits were “weedy” species that are more susceptible to ongoing temperature increases. Indeed, patchy bleaching was observed in 2021 and recurrent heat stress had occurred during most recent years (2017, 2019, and 2020). As the frequency of mass bleaching increases, and the window for recovery decreases, even our healthiest coral reefs will transition to a chronically degraded state. Photo credit: James Gilmour. These photographs illustrate the article “A tale of two reef systems: local conditions, disturbances, coral life histories, and the climate catastrophe” by James P. Gilmour, Kylie L. Cook, Nicole M. Ryan, Marjetta L. Puotinen, Rebecca H. Green and Andrew J. Heyward published in Ecological Applications. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2509.