Consequences For Human Well-being Research Articles

Holistic and integrated systemic policies and practices for decarbonization

AbstractA bold, visionary, transforming, systemic, holistic, integrated, caring, inclusive, equitable, sustainable, and resilient paradigm for fast transitions toward a clean energy and decarbonized future is imperative and urgently needed. Business as usual and silo approaches are not viable with the changes that are occurring. These changes are linked and interacting systems of physical, natural, health, social, economic, finance, governance, and institution.The effects and impacts are dire, existential, and pervasive.The 2021 IPCC Report Physical Science Basis: Summary for Policymakers, in clear language stated “it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans and land”.The scientific communities in the US, Europe, Asia and other regions all subscribe to this situation.Well documented global empirical evidence is also confirming the profound systems and systemic transformations that are occurring.Business, industry, and the general public, in particular youths, worldwide are all increasingly demanding actions – that transcend words of what needs to be done to deeds of how and now.In the US, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, would allocate US 370 billion for combating climate change and clean energy production. The IRA is the largest climate spending package ever.President Biden has called for 100% clean electricity by 2035 and pledged to cut carbon emissions by 50%–52% below 2005 levels by the end of this decade, doubling the previous target.A decarbonized future was endorsed by Leaders at the 2021 G‐7 Carbis, UK Summit. There is growing realization that the global climate change crisis requires strengthened and expanded global cooperation with new, innovative and non‐bureaucratic mechanisms for collaboration.The 2021 IPCC Report summarized that global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least the mid‐ century under all emissions' scenarios considered. “Global warming of 1.5 and 2°C will be exceeded during the 21st century unless deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.” The UNEP and IEA contends reducing anthropogenic methane emissions will help mitigate climate change and is a cost‐effective proposition.The release of methane and micro‐organisms from melting of permafrost needs to be better studied and understood., The confluence of increased heat, humidity, fine particulates air pollution, water contaminants and the COVID pandemic, will exacerbate health burdens. This will have serious consequences for human wellbeing, and cascading into national and global security. With climate change, therapeutics and vaccines will not work.The article provides a brief overview of the unprecedented climate related hurricanes, storms, floods and wildfires disasters occurring in all regions of the world. It highlights of some of the key effects, impacts and consequences with current policies and practices with regard to the energy‐climate conundrum. There is an imperative to change course toward a decarbonized future.A number of systemic expeditious interventions are delineated. These include actions by all on:The* fundamental need to change behavior; *afforestation, reforestation, rehabilitation of wetlands, mangroves, wastelands and coral reefs to restore ecosystem functions which would also create significant number of employment and livelihoods' opportunities; *retrofitting existing structures to be more energy efficient, incorporate increasing renewable energy, sustainability and resiliency criteria, – to “build back better” and provide jobs; *the life cycle of food and agriculture practices need to be systemically examined to reduce adverse impacts on climate, Energy, environment and health.There are difficulties and challenges. The commensurate opportunities and benefits of a decarbonized paradigm include clean and safe jobs; healthy quality of life; and a sustained and resilient future for current and future generations.

Landscape heterogeneity and forest cover shape cavity-nesting hymenopteran communities in a multi-scale perspective

Increasing biodiversity loss due to human activities may compromise ecosystem functions and services, with serious consequences for human well-being. Pollination and biological control are among the ecosystem services most affected by landscape changes, where cavity-nesting hymenopteran species are important agents of such services. We analyzed how cavity-nesting bee and wasp communities are affected by landscape structure at different scales since a multi-scale perspective is more efficient in detecting landscape effects on species, communities, and ecological processes. The study was carried out in the Cantareira-Mantiqueira Corridor (CCM) located within the Atlantic Forest, São Paulo, Brazil. We used trap-nests distributed in 29 sampling points following a nested design of ten regional landscapes with three nested local landscapes. We recorded 25 bee species, 21 wasp species, and 25 species of brood cell parasites. The bee and wasp communities were explained by landscape heterogeneity and forest cover: at the local level, landscape heterogeneity had a positive effect on almost all response variables, while forest cover was also important at the regional level, mainly for bee diversity and wasp abundance. Our results highlight the need to conduct studies at multiple scales to understand how landscape heterogeneity and forest cover affect the diversity of pollinating and predatory insects.

Air pollution emission from the copper smelter Complex Bor in Serbia

Ever since the industrial revolution, air got significantly polluted by the industry. Air pollution is even more concentrated in cities that have an industrial zone. Especially in these zones, the presence of Sulfur-dioxide (SO2) and suspended Particles (PM) in the air is very high. Prolonged exposure to SO2 and PM can cause cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory disorders in humans. The aim of this paper was to a review available literature on air pollution by sulfur dioxide and suspended particles in the air region of Bor Copper complex, as well as to determine whether the investigated results are contradictory. Studies from prior years (2004-2015), as well as 2019, indicate rise of SO2 and PM air pollutants in the atmosphere in the region of the copper smelter of the Bor Complex in Serbia, which can cause serious consequences for human well-being. However, the results of research by different authors for the same years are not in agreement, with that said, a review of the literature indicates significant differences. In addition, no continuous research on any air pollutants has been done for several consecutive years. This can be an interesting question for the scientific public in Serbia. Review of available literature indicates that in Serbia, solving this problem must be taken more seriously.

Effects of depleted uranium on human health and positive energy computational on its source in life

Depleted uranium (DU) is commonly viewed as a rising contamination, first widely brought into condition under mid nineties under Iraq, at the time of military activity defined “Desert Storm”. DU has been conjectured to speak to an unsafe component both for fighters uncovered just as for occupants of contaminated zones under combat areas. Under this audit, potential outcomes on human wellbeing of DU discharged under earth have been fundamentally investigated. Under initial segment, the synthetic properties of DU & chief common & military utilization have been outlined. A succinct examination of the components basic ingestion, blood transport, tissue conveyance & discharge of DU under the body of human has been subject of 2nd piece of this research. Accompanying segments manage obsessive condition putatively connected along through exposure to DU. Formative & birth absconds, Persian Gulf disorder, & a kidney illness which was related to DU has been contentions treated under 3rd area. At long last, information along respect to DU introduction & malignant growth insurrection will be basically investigated, including leukaemia/lymphoma, lung disease, uterine cervix malignancy, bosom disease, bladder disease & testicular malignancy. The point of the creators was to provide a commitment to discussion on DU & its consequences for human wellbeing & ailment.

Addressing the Missing Link for Sustainable African Continental Free Trade: Lessons from Ghana’s Manufacturing Industry

Expected benefits from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) hang on the production of sufficient real output within the region. Real investment will secure sufficient capital stock to drive sustained economic growth from AfCFTA. This can however be curtailed by high adjustment costs for investment, characteristic of Africa. The study examined how local manufacturing firms could increase their contribution to the African economy. As a starting point, it assessed the investment behavior of domestically incorporated manufacturing companies listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE), Ghana being the AfCFTA secretariat. Panel data was analyzed to estimate adjustment costs subject to the environmental consequences of manufacturing and trade, for Africa’s capital stock. The study found a positive and highly significant relationship between the value of capital and investment at the 5% significance level. It also found a 77% erosion of initial manufacturing sector capital stock due to environmental damage. The evidence of pollution haven and race to the bottom phenomena were strongly demonstrated. The net benefit of AfCFTA, based on current arrangements was found to be negative. The findings have offsetting effects on both the rate and magnitude of private local investment in Ghana’s manufacturing sector, with consequences for human welfare and AfCFTA. The study recommends a halt of all plans to start AfCFTA trading till a fully functional environmental policy has been put in place, to avert a further deterioration of the African environment and welfare of its people.

Artificial cognition: How experimental psychology can help generate explainable artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence powered by deep neural networks has reached a level of complexity where it can be difficult or impossible to express how a model makes its decisions. This black-box problem is especially concerning when the model makes decisions with consequences for human well-being. In response, an emerging field called explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) aims to increase the interpretability, fairness, and transparency of machine learning. In this paper, we describe how cognitive psychologists can make contributions to XAI. The human mind is also a black box, and cognitive psychologists have over 150 years of experience modeling it through experimentation. We ought to translate the methods and rigor of cognitive psychology to the study of artificial black boxes in the service of explainability. We provide a review of XAI for psychologists, arguing that current methods possess a blind spot that can be complemented by the experimental cognitive tradition. We also provide a framework for research in XAI, highlight exemplary cases of experimentation within XAI inspired by psychological science, and provide a tutorial on experimenting with machines. We end by noting the advantages of an experimental approach and invite other psychologists to conduct research in this exciting new field.

Accounting for risk transitions of ocean ecosystems under climate change: an economic justification for more ambitious policy responses

Despite the ocean’s role in regulating the climate and providing ecosystem services, the importance of the ocean has only recently gained appropriate attention in the context of international climate change policies. This concerns the impacts of climate change on ocean ecosystems and the role of the ocean in climate change mitigation. Since impacts can be cumulative, future climate risks for the ocean and dependent human communities emphasize the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Here, we make the case that assessing these impacts and their consequences for human welfare would provide not only an ethical but also an economic justification for strengthening policy responses to a substantial degree.

Impact of land use change on ecosystem services: A review

Changes in land use and ecosystem services influence each other and such changes have consequences for human wellbeing. In this paper, we review the research literature on how different types of ecosystem services are affected by LUC, and the consequences for human well-being. We begin with a review of the different types of ecosystem services. We examine the influence of LUC on provisioning ecosystem services due to mismatches between agricultural production and hydrological systems. We continue with a review of the impacts of LUC on supporting ecosystem services through the conversion of an ecosystem to cultivated land, and the resulting changes in soil properties and the hydrological balance. Next, We also discuss the regulating ecosystem services which are affected by LUC and alters water purification processes, as well as the effects on cultural ecosystem services. We conclude with a review of the valuation and quantification of the effects of LUC on the management of ecosystem services, and propose future research directions. Most of the research reveals a negative impact of LUC on ecosystem services, despite research gaps related to methods for valuing ecosystem services more accurately and for collecting social responses to the impacts of LUC on different ecosystem services.

Climate and land-use change homogenise terrestrial biodiversity, with consequences for ecosystem functioning and human well-being.

Biodiversity continues to decline under the effect of multiple human pressures. We give a brief overview of the main pressures on biodiversity, before focusing on the two that have a predominant effect: land-use and climate change. We discuss how interactions between land-use and climate change in terrestrial systems are likely to have greater impacts than expected when only considering these pressures in isolation. Understanding biodiversity changes is complicated by the fact that such changes are likely to be uneven among different geographic regions and species. We review the evidence for variation in terrestrial biodiversity changes, relating differences among species to key ecological characteristics, and explaining how disproportionate impacts on certain species are leading to a spatial homogenisation of ecological communities. Finally, we explain how the overall losses and homogenisation of biodiversity, and the larger impacts upon certain types of species, are likely to lead to strong negative consequences for the functioning of ecosystems, and consequently for human well-being.

Trading Natural Riparian Forests for Urban Shelterbelt Plantations—A Sustainability Assessment of the Kökyar Protection Forest in NW China

Cities at the fringe of the Taklimakan desert in NW China are prone to dust and sand storms with serious consequences for human well-being. The Kökyar Protection Forest was established in the 1980s as an ecological engineering project with the intent of protecting the city of Aksu, NW China, from these impacts. It is designed as a combination of poplar shelterbelts and orchards, irrigated by river water from the Aksu River, the main tributary of the Tarim River. Prevalent literature describes it as an afforestation project for combatting desertification with manifold positive effects for the economic, social, and environmental dimension of sustainable development. This paper sets out to challenge these claims by a sustainability assessment in which the plantation is examined from a broader perspective, embedding it to the wider context of social and environmental problems in South Xinjiang. Methods comprise evapotranspiration calculations, interviews, a socioeconomic household survey, stakeholder dialogues, and literature research. Results affirm its economic sustainability, but see a mixed record for the social sphere. From the nature conservation point of view, it has to be classified as unsustainable because its high irrigation water consumption results in the downstream desiccation and desertification of natural riparian forests along the Tarim River, causing a forest loss in the downstream area twice the size of the forest gain in the upstream area. There is a trade-off between artificial shelterbelt plantations for urban ecosystem services on the one hand side, and natural riparian forests and their biodiversity on the other hand side. The paper recommends restricting agricultural extension, and using locally adapted less water consuming agroforestry schemes to protect urban dwellers from dust stress.

Introducing the qualitative performance gap: stories about a sustainable building

ABSTRACTIn the design and operations industries, the performance gap is a common discrepancy found between predicted building energy performance and actual energy performance. The performance gap is considered to have negative impacts for the brand of ‘green’ buildings, designers and operators. A socially based analogue is proposed here: the qualitative performance gap, defined as the perceived gap between what inhabitants expect and their actual experience of the building environment. This concept is explored at a regenerative Living Lab: the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) in Vancouver, Canada. ‘Official’ and ‘lived’ stories about the building were interpreted from sources of building information and interviews. Expectations about and forgiveness of building performance were gained from pre- and post-occupancy evaluations and interviews. The solution to the qualitative performance gap is not to eliminate it, but, in line with the concept of interactive adaptivity, to use the gap to generate new stories and new consequences for human wellbeing. The qualitative performance gap is thus conceived as positively generative, of new stories of place and identity. This work recommends crafting an ‘official story’ of social aspirations, and a communication feedback loop amongst designers, operators and building inhabitants, transparently sharing successes and failures.

Political Order and Inequality: Their Foundations and Their Consequences for Human Welfare. By Carles Boix. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 334p. $67.00 cloth, $23.99 paper.

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Response to Francis Fukuyama’s review of Political Order and Inequality: Their Foundations and Their Consequences for Human Welfare

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Book Review: Carles Boix, Political Order and Inequality: Their Foundations and Their Consequences for Human Welfare.

Book Review: Carles Boix, <i>Political Order and Inequality: Their Foundations and Their Consequences for Human Welfare.</i>

Impacts of population density and wealth on the quantity and structure of urban green space in tropical Southeast Asia

Urban green spaces provide ecosystem services, including climate regulation, food, and opportunities for recreation. The quantity and structure of green space in a city may therefore have consequences for human well-being. Cities in Southeast Asia are rapidly changing as they must accommodate larger populations, and their residents are becoming wealthier. Such changes may have impacts on urban green spaces and the ecosystem services that they provide. To assess the potential impacts of future urbanisation in the region, we analysed existing relationships between city size, wealth, and population density, and (1) the percentage cover of green space, (2) the quantity of green space per capita, and (3) the aggregation of green space. We used remote sensing analysis of Landsat 7 data to classify green space in 111 urban areas in Southeast Asia. Cities with higher population densities had less green space and less green space per capita. Cities with higher GDP per capita had higher percentage coverage of green space. Larger cities had lower percentage coverage of green space and less green space per capita. Cities with higher percentage cover of green space had more aggregated green spaces. Authorities in developing cities should consider protecting ecological assets such as remnant forest patches and river corridors, as re-creating habitats at a later stage of development rarely provides comparable levels of ecosystem services.

From qualitative to quantitative environmental scenarios: Translating storylines into biophysical modeling inputs at the watershed scale

Scenarios are increasingly used for envisioning future social-ecological changes and consequences for human well-being. One approach integrates qualitative storylines and biophysical models to explore potential futures quantitatively and maximize public engagement. However, this integration process is challenging and sometimes oversimplified. Using the Yahara Watershed (Wisconsin, USA) as a case study, we present a transparent and reproducible roadmap to develop spatiotemporally explicit biophysical inputs [climate, land use/cover (LULC), and nutrients] that are consistent with scenario narratives and can be linked to a process-based biophysical modeling suite to simulate long-term dynamics of a watershed and a range of ecosystem services. Our transferrable approach produces daily weather inputs by combining climate model projections and a stochastic weather generator, annual narrative-based watershed-scale LULC distributed spatially using transition rules, and annual manure and fertilizer (nitrogen and phosphorus) inputs based on current farm and livestock data that are consistent with each scenario narrative.

Political order and inequality: their foundations and their consequences for human welfare

The fundamental question of political theory, one that precedes all other questions about the nature of political life, is why there is a state at all. Is human cooperation feasible without a political authority enforcing it? Or do we need a state to live together? This problem then opens up two further questions. If a state is necessary to establish order, how does it come into place? And, when it does, what are the consequences for the political status and economic welfare of its citizens? Combining ethnographical material, historical cases, and statistical analysis, this book describes the foundations of stateless societies, why and how states emerge, and the basis of political obligation. As a result of this inquiry, it explains the economic and political roots of inequality, describes the causes of the stagnation of the preindustrial world, and explores what led to the West's prosperity of the past two centuries.

Political Order and Inequality: Their Foundations and Their Consequences for Human Welfare by Carles Boix. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 334 pp. $22.99 (cloth).

Political Order and Inequality: Their Foundations and Their Consequences for Human Welfare by Carles Boix. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 334 pp. $22.99 (cloth).

Political order and inequality: their foundations and their consequences for human welfare. By Carles Boix

Political order and inequality: their foundations and their consequences for human welfare. By Carles Boix

Applying an ecosystem services approach to support land-use planning: a case study in Koboko district, Uganda

IntroductionThis paper presents a case study of the application of an ecosystem services framework to support land-use planning. The district of Koboko, in northwestern Uganda, formed the study area. The overall purpose was to improve the understanding of links between human actions, their impact on ecosystems and the services they provide, and, ultimately, consequences for human wellbeing. The framework developed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was used as a main conceptual reference.The analysis comprised four main stages: (1) identification of the main ecosystems and their services; (2) analysis of human wellbeing components, focusing on poverty issues; (3) assessment of the interrelations between ecosystem services and human wellbeing; (4) identification of the main drivers of change and development of future spatial development scenarios.ResultsThe scenarios were developed starting from the main drivers of change and show the dependency of human wellbeing on ecosystems services, identifying how spatial development strategies can affect that dependency. Quantitative information was not easily available, therefore scenario development made use of both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The results of qualitative and quantitative approaches were consistent, proving the strength and flexibility of the method.ConclusionsScenario results aim to provide guidance for local government land-use planning, focusing on the promotion of sustainability through ecosystem services preservation. The spatially explicit analysis illustrated how different policies affect urban development; it was clearly shown that even with very different demographic outcomes, the impact of sectorial policies guaranteed a good level of suitability for new residential areas.