Ecological Realities Research Articles

The Role of the Ecological Worldview Position in Coping with Problems Caused by Global Environmental Change

The purpose of the study, conducted on the sample of 293 persons, was to identify the role of the ecological worldview position in choosing the ways of coping with problems caused by global environmental change. The ecological worldview position is determined by what exactly is perceived and considered by the person as the basics of his life support: the biosphere/ecological systems or the financial and economic system, represented through commodity and money relations. Using structural equation modeling methods, the influence of the ecological position on the choice of coping strategies as responses to environmental stress was confirmed, as well as its involvement in the regulation of pro-ecological everyday behavior. It was revealed that the ecological worldview position influences the choice of both problem-oriented and emotionally-oriented strategies that allow coping with stressful environmental conditions. The way in which the ecological position influences coping strategies depends on what meanings are decisive in the perception of ecological reality. The dominance of biocentric views promotes the pro-environmental orientation of behavior, while the predominance of monetary and economic meanings enhances non-problem coping. At the same time, the positive influence of the ecological position on problem-focused coping is largely carried out indirectly through the inhibition of deproblematization-focused coping – emotionally oriented coping strategies such as reducing problems and the denial of guilt. The decisive influence of the ecological position on pro-ecological everyday behavior is carried out indirectly – through the strategy of problem solving (positive influence), as well as the strategy of de-emphasizing the threat (negative influence). The direct influence of the ecological position on behavior, as well as an influence exerted indirectly through the denial of guilt is very weak. The negative impact of deproblematization-focused coping on everyday behavior is mediated by the suppression of problem coping.

THE OTTOMANS DURING THE GLOBAL CRISES OF CHOLERA AND PLAGUE: THE VIEW FROM IRAQ AND THE GULF

AbstractThe cholera and plague pandemics of the 19th and early 20h centuries shaped Ottoman state-building and expansionist efforts in Iraq and the Gulf in significant ways. For Ottoman officials, these pandemics brought attention to the possible role of Qajar and British subjects in spreading cholera and plague, as well as the relationship between Iraq's ecology and recurring outbreaks. These developments paved the way for the expansion of Ottoman health institutions, such as quarantines, and the emergence of new conceptions of public health in the region. Specifically, quarantines proved instrumental not only to the delineation of the Ottoman–Qajar border, but also to defining an emerging Ottoman role in shaping Gulf affairs. Moreover, the Ottomans’ use of quarantines and simultaneous efforts to develop sanitary policies informed by local ecological realities signal a localized and ad hoc approach to disease prevention that has been overlooked. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that environmental factors operating on global and regional scales were just as important as geopolitical factors in shaping Ottoman rule in Iraq and the Gulf during the late Ottoman period.

A Multispecies Collective Planting Trees: Tending to Life and Making Meaning Outside of the Conservation Heroic

To what extent do our narratives support the work of ecological care? While working in anti-extinction conservation requires paying careful attention to the realities of precarity and ambiguity, this is not necessarily reflected in our public narratives of such work. Instead, as is typified in Jean Giono’s 1953 short story ‘The man who planted trees’, many conservation narratives are pitched in heroic modes, framing conservation labour as working to secure an obvious ‘good’ in perpetuity. In this paper, I think with practicing Buddhist and volunteer tree planter, Errol Greaves, and his work organising and working with dedicated humans helping to regenerate native forest on Te Ahumairangi Hill at the edge of Wellington City. Aiming to create a flourishing native habitat to support the endangered kākā (Nestor meridionalis), Errol’s work is largely in line with mainstream anti-extinction conservation goals in Aoteaora/New Zealand. However, his labour is framed by distinctly non-heroic narratives emphasising cooperation, ambiguity and precarity—emphases more closely related to the comedic, a mode of narration which Joseph Meeker identifies as better allowing for both ecological accommodation and responsiveness. In this paper, I consider the resources offered by various relational ontologies and non-heroic narratives for both responding well to ecological realities and sustaining work for a flourishing world, particularly in our current times of radically apparent precarity.

A Multispecies Collective Planting Trees: Tending to Life and Making Meaning Outside of the Conservation Heroic

To what extent do our narratives support the work of ecological care? While working in anti-extinction conservation requires paying careful attention to the realities of precarity and ambiguity, this is not necessarily reflected in our public narratives of such work. Instead, as is typified in Jean Giono’s 1953 short story ‘The man who planted trees’, many conservation narratives are pitched in heroic modes, framing conservation labour as working to secure an obvious ‘good’ in perpetuity. In this paper, I think with practicing Buddhist and volunteer tree planter, Errol Greaves, and his work organising and working with dedicated humans helping to regenerate native forest on Te Ahumairangi Hill at the edge of Wellington City. Aiming to create a flourishing native habitat to support the endangered kākā (Nestor meridionalis), Errol’s work is largely in line with mainstream anti-extinction conservation goals in Aoteaora/New Zealand. However, his labour is framed by distinctly non-heroic narratives emphasising cooperation, ambiguity and precarity—emphases more closely related to the comedic, a mode of narration which Joseph Meeker identifies as better allowing for both ecological accommodation and responsiveness. In this paper, I consider the resources offered by various relational ontologies and non-heroic narratives for both responding well to ecological realities and sustaining work for a flourishing world, particularly in our current times of radically apparent precarity.

The Postecological World of John Burnside: Dark Green Nature, Pollution, and Eco-Grief in Glister

Bu makale, çevresel ve bedensel kirlenmeyi ve bu kirlenmenin bir İskoç kasabasında günlük yaşamın sosyal ve ahlaki yapılarına etkilerini odak noktasına alır; insanlar ve doğa arasındaki değişen ilişkiyi açıklayarak John Burnside'ın Glister (2008) adlı romanını karanlık ekolojinin bir romanı olarak inceler. İnsanların gezegendeki ekosistemleri değiştiren jeolojik bir güç olduğu yeni jeolojik çağ Antroposen'in gözlerimizin önüne serdiği garip değişimlerin izini sürerken bu makale, Timothy Morton ve Paul Kingsnorth'un ortaya çıkardıkları karanlık ekolojiler ve kirlilik ile ilgili günümüz insansonrası ekoeleştirel tartışmalar bağlamına Glister romanını koymaktadır. Burnside, yeşil ekolojinin reddine dayanan karanlık ekolojinin iki farklı versiyonunu aynı hizaya getirir; insan ve insan-dışı dünyanın birlikte varoluşu karanlık ve korkutucu olursa da insanların, insandan öte dünyayla temel olarak ağ gibi sarılı ve birbirine bağlı olduğu “karanlık yeşil” bir ekolojik vizyon ortaya koyar. Böylece bu çalışma, Burnside'ın çevrenin gerçek ve spektral olmasının yanı sıra hem yeşil hem de karanlık olduğu yeni bir doğa tanımı öne sürerek nasıl bir “ekolojisonrası” gerçekliği öngördüğünü göstermektedir. Öte yandan çalışma, romanın vurguladığı insan ve insan-dışı varlıklar arasındaki eşikteliğin ve radikal olarak birbirine bağlı olmanın altını çizerek “ekolojik ağ örgüsü” ile “yabansı yabancı” gibi Morton'ın kavramsal araçlarının tartışmasıyla Burnside'ın savını geliştirmektedir. Garip varoluşta diğer bedensel doğaların yanı sıra insanların başına gelen toksik beladan kaçışın imkansız olduğunu belirten Burnside, sadece insan kaybı için değil, insanın ekolojik gerçeklikten kopuşu için de ekolojik bir keder uyandırarak karanlık yeşil doğayı sorgulamasını derinleştirir.

Why Ecopsychology Needs Natural History

As human-nature relationships become ever more tenuous, the promise of ecopsychology is more important than ever. But ecopsychology has tended to focus its attentive power on the human side of this relationship, on psychology, and has thus also tended to generalize when engaging the beyond-human, “eco” half of the equation. Often, nature stands in as an abstraction rather than a complex web of significant relationships. Natural history, as a practice of intentionally focused attention to specifics of the nonhuman world, offers a method for learning to see a richly animated world—and the patterns that connect us all. In the practice of doing natural history, signals originating from ecological realities alter sensory habits and perceptual expectations—and shape new ways of seeing. We become more perceptive, more ecologically informed, and more wholesome as our shifting sensibilities influence consciousness and actions. While the myriad nonhuman others gain proper names and identities and a literal presence in our minds, we become iteratively more receptive to the world beyond our human constructions. Here, we speculate that our modern human malaise becomes less salient as nonhuman wonders enter and reshape our minds.

Beyond the Model: Expert Knowledge Improves Predictions of Species’ Fates under Climate Change

The need to proactively manage landscapes and species to aid their adaptation to climate change is widely acknowledged. Current approaches to prioritizing investment in species conservation generally rely on correlative models, which predict the likely fate of species under different climate change scenarios. Yet, while model statistics can be improved by refining modeling techniques, gaps remain in understanding the relationship between model performance and ecological reality. To investigate this, we compared standard correlative species distribution models to highly accurate, fine-scale, distribution models. We critically assessed the ecological realism of each species' model, using expert knowledge of the geography and habitat in the study area and the biology of the study species. Using interactive software and an iterative vetting with experts, we identified seven general principles that explain why the distribution modeling under- or overestimated habitat suitability, under both current and predicted future climates. Importantly, we found that, while temperature estimates can be dramatically improved through better climate downscaling, many models still inaccurately reflected moisture availability. Furthermore, the correlative models did not account for biotic factors, such as disease or competitor species, and were unable to account for the likely presence of micro refugia. Under-performing current models resulted in widely divergent future projections of species' distributions. Expert vetting identified regions that were likely to contain micro refugia, even where the fine-scale future projections of species distributions predicted population losses. Based on the results, we identify four priority conservation actions required for more effective climate change adaptation responses. This approach to improving the ecological realism of correlative models to understand climate change impacts on species can be applied broadly to improve the evidence base underpinning management responses.

Colombian energy planning - Neither for energy, nor for Colombia

In the layperson's imagination, energy is an abstract concept, disconnected from social and ecological realities, while in reality it is the cornerstone of all human and natural interactions; thus, energy policy can be seen as a representation of how part of nature has been appropriated, managed, and represented. This article offers an analysis of Colombian energy policy through its National Energy Plans, and an examination of the energy transitions that the country has experienced in the last forty years. The analysis of the Colombian case demonstrates that the central objective of energy planning and its institutional framework has been the advancement and maximization of the exploitation of energy resources for export purposes, instead of providing a guide to reorganize the system towards the reduction of energy consumption, the progressive replacement of non-renewable resources in favor of renewable sources, or energy justice.

Beyond the model: expert knowledge improves predictions of species' fates under climate change.

The need to proactively manage landscapes and species to aid their adaptation to climate change is widely acknowledged. Current approaches to prioritizing investment in species conservation generally rely on correlative models, which predict the likely fate of species under different climate change scenarios. Yet, while model statistics can be improved by refining modeling techniques, gaps remain in understanding the relationship between model performance and ecological reality. To investigate this, we compared standard correlative species distribution models to highly accurate, fine-scale, distribution models. We critically assessed the ecological realism of each species' model, using expert knowledge of the geography and habitat in the study area and the biology of the study species. Using interactive software and an iterative vetting with experts, we identified seven general principles that explain why the distribution modeling under- or overestimated habitat suitability, under both current and predicted future climates. Importantly, we found that, while temperature estimates can be dramatically improved through better climate downscaling, many models still inaccurately reflected moisture availability. Furthermore, the correlative models did not account for biotic factors, such as disease or competitor species, and were unable to account for the likely presence of micro refugia. Under-performing current models resulted in widely divergent future projections of species' distributions. Expert vetting identified regions that were likely to contain micro refugia, even where the fine-scale future projections of species distributions predicted population losses. Based on the results, we identify four priority conservation actions required for more effective climate change adaptation responses. This approach to improving the ecological realism of correlative models to understand climate change impacts on species can be applied broadly to improve the evidence base underpinning management responses.

Thermal power engineering. Fuel and ecology and climatic issues, development prospects.

Problem. The 21st century is challenging thermal power engineering as a fundamental basis of the global economy, with the historically momentous task of its development with account of the following factors: limited reserves of conventionally exploited non-renewable natural energy carriers, principally, oil and natural gas; extending the consumption of renewable energy carriers with greater efficiency. Goal. The need to reduce substantially the technogenic (ecologically hazardous) impact on nature and humans. Methodology. The present fuel and ecological crisis of global thermal power, including global climate warming, is found to be a man-induced and ecological reality linked to the following factors: the explosive growth of the planet's population and its depredation of NATURE; the ever-increasing level of ineffective utilization of natural resources; the critically hazardous environmental pollution with supertoxic materials; and the degradation, deterioration and destruction of biosphere systems, including the global biota. The fallout of all this is a declining quality of the biota's functioning, including such functions as bio productivity, environment formation and climate stabilization. Results.This global crisis can be overcome by changing the vector of global economic development, including economising and greening of all areas of human activity, stabilizing the population size and restoring critical natural ecosphere regulators, and among them, the planet's climate.

Transforming Dubai: Oasis to Tourist’s Paradise

Owing to fast pace of urbanization and associated development, Dubai rose to global prominence in a matter of a few years. Dubai has transformed its geographical incapacities to phantasmagorical way of living; from building the superlative structures to its magnificent architectural fantasies, to the reconfiguring of a desert into an urban hub of business, logistics, tourism, and retail shopping paradise. In the race to achieve global competence, it has changed its ecological realities into pursuits driven by enigma of capital and desire of hyper-consumerism. The creation of the cityscape paralleled by vanishing natural and cultural spaces of the recent past, retrofitted with global desires like shopping complexes, beach resorts, luxurious hotels, ski clubs, art museums, operas, etc. The article is situated in the context of the urban spatial transformation of Dubai, driven by neoliberal politics and the changing human–nature relationships riding on the accelerating capital circulation.

‘There are still songs to sing beyond mankind’: Sounds of a troubled world = songs for serenity

Robertina Šebjanič, a Ljubljana artist, describes in this text her research-based artworks dealing with cultural, (bio)political and ecological realities of human imprint on aquatic environments and its consequences and challenges. Based on Paul Celan’s quotation: ‘there are still songs to sing beyond mankind’, the author propose in this article to explore an odyssey of interspecies communication, a way of discovering parameters to restore a deep relationship within all of life and a key to better understanding of the earth’s environment. The Aurelia 1+Hz project is divided in two parts: the performance Aurelia 1+Hz / proto viva sonification looks into a new critical redefinition of social values and new attitude towards cohabitation of interspecies, while the installation Aurelia 1+Hz / proto viva generator deals with the biopolicy of prolonging life. In the project Aquatocene, the artist investigates the phenomenon of underwater noise pollution created by humankind in the seas and oceans. It encourages rethinking the human impact on the (under)water habitats.

Demografia Ecológica: população e desenvolvimento numa perspectiva ecocêntrica

Population and economic growth have a huge impact on the environment. Since the beginning of the Holocene, about 12,000 years ago, humanity has gone from about 5 million people to billions, and probably reaching over 11 billion by 2100. It was and still has been a spectacular demographic growth. However, the increase of economic activities was several times greater. Global economic growth has accelerated with the beginning of modernity and the European expansion, especially after the Great Navigations and the process of colonization and exploitation of the natural resources of the Americas, though, economic growth became exponential after the Industrial and Energetic Revolution that began in the late eighteenth century. In the period, known as classical modernity, there was great human progress, but, at the same time, environmental regression. This opposition between the material advances of humanity and the material and energetic retreat of ecosystems was maintained and deepened in the late modernity (or postmodernity), allowing even the emergence of a new geological age. In this context, the emergence of the ecocentric environmental sociology came up to analyze the ecological reality of postmodernity. In the field of demography, on the contrary, theoretical and empirical approaches that seek to relate population dynamics with ecological dynamics are still a promise. The objective of this paper is to discuss the relationship between population and development in the Anthropocene and to talk about the challenges posed by the demographic dynamic that takes into account an ecocentric perspective.

Making high-stakes decisions in complex acoustic environments: Revisiting the Cocktail Party problem in a multimodal sensory context

Ambient noise in its many forms represents an ecological reality and evolutionary driver that influences numerous expressions of animal behavior, especially those associated with communication. Noise often extends across sensory modalities, resulting in channel-specific effects that can range from non-additive to synergistic. Here, we describe how noise modality influences female preference for a preferred signal trait (low dominant frequency) in the lek-mating prairie mole cricket, Gryllotalpa major, a species whose mating system has evolved in the ecological context of both biotic and abiotic noise. We conducted two-choice playback experiments with females presented with male signals of the preferred vs. non-preferred trait in the context of isomodal (male chorus), cross-modal (substrate-borne vibration) and multimodal noise (both) conditions. We found that female preference for lower DF signals was robust to isomodal noise, but preference was weakened in treatments with a cross-modal stimulus only. Female performance in multimodal noise was comparable to control and isomodal treatments, suggesting that while cues obtained via the subgenual organs can mask salient airborne information, biotic noise may act as a releaser from this interference.

Feminist and Ecofeminist Christology

The Incarnation of Christ, known by the eastern fathers as Christological perichoresis as a theological idea becomes experienced ecological reality, if we realize its kenotic, Christological, relating cosmic dimensions. It shows how we can bring together different entities, such as God and nature, look at them in unity, as the one person of Christ, and acknowledge the perichoresis between divine and human and nature. Christ lived as one person: both God-Creator and creature. If ecofeminist theologies need a place in the Christian church, they must seek a Christological salvific foundation. Our encounter with God in Christ is a transformation and a renewal of ourselves so as to discern the will of God and follow it; a kenosis of our egocentric self so that Christ to be reborn in us. Paul sees the encounter with God as a rebirth, not as intellectually gained knowledge.

Radical Homemaking in Contemporary American Environmental Fiction

Ursula K. Heise in ‘Ecocriticism and the Transnational Turn in American Studies’ critiques ‘the portrayal of multicultural and sometimes transnational nuclear families as the narrative solution to environmental and political problems’ (Heise, 2008: 383). This essay places Heise’s critique of the ‘ecological family romance’ in conversation with three other ecological domestic fictions: T. C. Boyle’s A Friend of the Earth (2000), Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom (2010), and Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior (2012). Heise’s critique and Shannon Hayes’ Radical Homemakers (2010) frame my close readings of the novels’ interconnected themes of radical homemaking, transnationalism, and environmentalism. My reading of the novels highlights their shared use of marginalized, racially-other characters to develop their entwined romantic and environmental plots (Lalitha in Freedom, several minor characters in A Friend of the Earth, and Ovid in Flight Behavior) and their use of sentimental deaths, especially of key female characters (Lalitha in Freedom, Sierra in A Friend of the Earth, and Dellarobia’s uncertain fate in Flight Behavior). By adopting the sentimental, domestic romance plot for ecological aims, the three novels highlight how environmental aims get stymied when cultural and ecological diversity are relegated to the margins. They also suggest that more is gained than lost through their use of ecological allegory. While the fictions do not offer solutions, they do push their readers to confront the Anthropocene’s ecological realities and their radical domestic-environmental politics.

<strong>Forms of Attention:</strong> Notes from Harryette Mullen's Tanka Diary

Harryette Mullen's Urban Tumbleweed: Notes from a Tanka Diary (2014) advances a quotidian archive of ephemera that brings into focus the convergence of ordinary affects, environment, and racial politics. This assemblage of 366 poems conceived as part of Mullen's daily walking practice also stresses the significance of race and racism to the genre of walk poem. Mullen's writing distills routine experiences, observations, and sensations into poetic forms, and her resulting collection illuminates environmental damage and systemic inequalities based on class and race, ultimately modeling how a sharpened awareness of body and place cultivates attention to broader social and ecological realities.

Transgenerational stress-adaption: an opportunity for ecological epigenetics.

In the recent years, there has been considerable interest to investigate the adaptive transgenerational plasticity of plants and how a "stress memory" can be transmitted to the following generation. Although, increasing evidence suggests that transgenerational adaptive responses have widespread ecological relevance, the underlying epigenetic processes have rarely been elucidated. On the other hand, model plant species have been deeply investigated in their genome-wide methylation landscape without connecting this to the ecological reality of the plant. What we need is the combination of an ecological understanding which plant species would benefit from transgenerational epigenetic stress-adaption in their natural habitat, combined with a deeper molecular analysis of non-model organisms. Only such interdisciplinary linkage in an ecological epigenetic study could unravel the full potential that epigenetics could play for the transgenerational stress-adaption of plants.

The shared nature of Africa's elephants

The world's biodiversity is shared by countries that are increasingly recognizing the need for effective responses to human influence and climate change impacts through coordinated management and protection of nature beyond national borders. The case of elephants, a highly mobile and widely distributed mammal that plays crucial ecological and economic roles in savanna and forest landscapes, exemplifies the need for approaches to conservation that transcend geopolitical frontiers. Transboundary cooperation can bring substantial conservation and economic benefits but also presents challenges for policy, governance, and diplomacy. While some multilateral environmental agreements have explicitly incorporated transboundary commitments into their frameworks, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) continues to focus on the sovereignty of individual nations in regulating trade of wildlife. This inward-looking approach is embodied by the continued “split-listing” by range States of African elephants between countries affording two levels of protection—Appendix I (no international commercial trade) and Appendix II (regulated trade). Using data from the African Elephant Status Report 2016, where savanna elephant data are based mostly on the recently completed Great Elephant Census, we show that 76% of elephants are found in populations spread across one or more national borders. This blurring of strictly national populations makes a split-listing of elephants between two CITES appendices—and varying levels of protection—inconsistent with ecological reality and conservation best practice. At the 17th CITES Conference of Parties (CoP17), in September–October 2016, influential parties prevented acceptance of a proposal, supported by the majority of elephant range states, that would have unified all African elephants under Appendix I. The real reasons for perpetuating the split-listing at CoP17 were ideological and political, and threaten to undermine the convention as an evidence-based and coordinated mechanism for conserving threatened species. Isolationist policies and politically motivated compromises will help neither elephants nor people in an interdependent world facing common environmental challenges needful of harmonized agendas and scaled-up cooperation.

What's ontology got to do with it? On nature and knowledge in a political ecology of the 'green economy'

Abstract Contemporary market-based (i.e. neoliberal) 'green economy' approaches to environmental degradation emphasise exchanges whereby quantified units of environmental harm are traded or 'offset' for compensating units of environmental health. Also encouraged is a view that economic growth can be 'greened' through 'decoupling' economic value from material ecological realities. Such approaches tend to frame biophysical natures in terms of aggregates, such as an 'aggregate natural capital rule' and 'net zero carbon.' Naturesbeyond-the-human are thereby understood and enacted as calculable, exchangeable, substitutable and commensurable between different spatial and temporal sites, making up an 'aggregate' or 'net' value overall. This article uses a comparative cross-cultural engagement to problematize ontological assumptions regarding the nature of nature underscoring the rationality of these aggregating and offsetting 'solutions.' Drawing on literatures from environmental anthropology and environmental ethics, combined with ethnographic material from long-term field research in north-west Namibia, the article considers elements of alternative cultural ontologies and the ways these may give rise to a different array of practices with value for conceiving and generating 'sustainability.' It adheres to a critical political ecology perspective in understanding the ways that power structures the ontologies that become both privileged and occluded in neoliberal strategies for green economy governance. In doing so, the article argues that sensitivity to the ontological politics through which spaces and entities are defined and known and which thereby shape environmental conflicts, may be key to recognising with more depth the sometimes significantly different 'natures' being struggled over in such conflicts. Key words: ontology; green economy; offsetting; decoupling; sustainability; value; natures-beyond-thehuman; neoliberalism; political ecology