Existential Threat Research Articles

Thematic mapping of biosecurity highlights divergent conceptual foundations in human, animal, plant and ecosystem health

Effective biosecurity policies are essential to address several major sociological and environmental challenges facing humankind including existential pandemic risks, threats to food security, loss of ecosystem services and public resistance to pesticides and vaccines. Yet biosecurity is subject to multiple interpretations that include dealing with the threats from bioterrorism, managing laboratory biosafety to prevent the escape of pathogenic organisms, handling food and agricultural production systems to prevent disease introduction and addressing the threat of introduced organisms to flora, fauna and humans. The absence of a shared vision of what biosecurity encompasses means that decision-makers are often challenged to design appropriate biosecurity policies at national and global scales. The design of effective policy strategies requires an understanding of the methodological and conceptual barriers that constrain attempts to build an interdisciplinary approach to biosecurity. Here, the first thematic map of the biosecurity research landscape is undertaken to assess just how diverse the interpretation of biosecurity is amongst the global research community and the extent to which the articles published since 2000 represent a common conceptual foundation or are largely clustered within sectors. Co-citation, bibliographic coupling and co-word analyses highlighted that the field of biosecurity encompasses a wide range of domains from biochemistry through to political science, but the research supporting different sectors largely draws from a distinct literature base. While ecosystem and plant health were clustered together within the broad grouping of biological invasions, there was a clear separation from both human and animal health. Yet, there is considerable scope for the management of biological invasions to benefit from insights derived from social perspectives in human and animal health. Biosecurity remains divided by conceptual differences and specialised vocabularies that limit the effectiveness of biosecurity policies addressing biodiversity conservation, public health and food security. To overcome these constraints requires the building of a global biosecurity community that accepts a broader definition of biosecurity, avoids sectorial jargon and establishes mechanisms to cultivate interdisciplinarity through specialised collaborative centres, cross-sectorial research programmes and conceptually rich training programmes.

Explore the AI Anxiety Attitude of E-Commerce Employees

With the rapid development and widespread application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the e-commerce industry, understanding practitioners’ attitudes and psychological reactions to AI has become critical. This study explores the impact of AI on the anxiety of e-commerce professionals, establishes a structural equation model by constructing an integrated Artificial Intelligence Anxiety (AIA) framework, and analyzes the path relationships between various anxiety factors. The results show that Learning Anxiety and Job Replacement Anxiety are associated with Existential Risk Anxiety, AI Configuration Anxiety, and Sociotechnical Blindness Anxiety. The study further extends its analysis using a machine learning algorithm to assess the impact of each AIA variable and individual variables on job optimism. The results indicate that among the AIA variables, Job Replacement Anxiety has a significant negative impact on job optimism, while among the individual variables, gender has a significant negative impact. This study provides important insights into understanding the AI-related anxiety of e-commerce practitioners and offers implications for the management and development of AI in practice.

Securitization of the 2017 Kurdistan independence referendum

The Kurdish right to self-determination within Iraq has consistently been framed as a security issue by successive Iraqi governments. This paper applies securitization theory to analyze the Iraqi Government’s response to the Kurdistan Region’s unilateral independence referendum held on September 25, 2017. The referendum, which resulted in a strong vote in favor of independence, was viewed as a serious threat to Iraq’s unity by Iraqi Arab political and military forces, as well as Turkmen groups. In response, the Iraqi Government chose to take military action. On October 16, 2017, the Iraqi military, along with Popular Mobilization Forces (PM), launched an attack on Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the disputed territories, taking control of them. While many studies have explored various aspects of the Kurdistan referendum, including its timing, motivations, and consequences, there has been limited focus on how the Iraqi federal government’s securitization of the referendum facilitated military interventions in the contested territories. This article explores how Iraqi leaders’ rhetoric and securitizing language framed the referendum as an existential threat.

Attitudes towards migrants and preferences for asylum and refugee policies before and during russian invasion of ukraine: The case of slovakia

Extant literature shows that well-being is one of the key drivers of attitudes towards migrants as well as preferences for asylum and refugee policies. Less in is known, however, about the relationship between well-being and attitudes towards migrants during sudden micro-level events that may elicit the sense of existential threat. To investigate the underpinnings of these relationships, two studies on samples of 600 Slovaks each were conducted before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and during its initial phase. The results show that well-being had a stable positive relationship with attitudes towards migrants across the studies, albeit not with preferences for asylum and refugee policies. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the negative feelings elicited by the war predicted preferences for asylum and refugee policies beyond well-being. The results indicate that incorporating psychological factors, such as emotional responses to the looming threat of war, may considerably inform the debate surrounding the support for inclusive asylum and refugee policies.

From soldiers to vigilantes: the Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Association in Northern Ireland on the brink of civil war

ABSTRACT This article assesses the importance of an often-ignored vigilante group; the Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Association. 1969 saw the mobilisation of Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland who had served in the British Army as part of ad-hoc vigilante groups defending nationalist areas. These groups protected Catholic neighbourhoods from loyalist assault and from incursion by the security forces who were increasingly seen as a hostile force. In 1971, this ex-service personnel formed an all-Ireland organisation: the Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Association. At their peak in the early 1970s, they claimed a membership of 17,000 and an ability to mobilise a further 20,000 in a ‘doomsday scenario’. CESA’s prominence waned by the late 1970s. CESA has received very little academic attention. This article aims to ameliorate that, supplementing the scant secondary literature with newspaper and archival material to account for the emergence of the Catholic Ex-Servicemen’s Association, analysing their importance in shaping the trajectory of the Troubles and saying something of the complexities of identity in the nationalist community in the early period of the conflict.

Uwarunkowania i dotychczasowe skutki inwazji Rosji na Ukrainę – (nie)bezpieczeństwo ontologiczne, przetrwanie reżimu czy dewiacja ideologiczna?

The article explains the reasons for the Russian offensive against Ukraine in terms of national security and Putin’s regime’s fear of democratization. It also offers a reflection upon ideological foundations prevalent in the Russian society. Such an approach will facilitate the understanding of how, in light of the core values and characteristics of that society, Ukraine has been portrayed as both a threat for Russian identity and an existential threat for Russia itself. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was undoubtedly aimed at gaining support at home and strengthening Putin’s regime. However, war is also integral to Putin’s project of Russia. Putin’s imperial thrust is rooted in the internal dynamics of this system. The current Russian regime is not so much based on ideology as it is striving to turn its propaganda clichés into an ideological platform. On the other hand, the war is accelerating the process of change in Russia – the current situation could lead to the collapse of Putin’s regime and even the disintegration of the Russian Federation itself, which harkens back to the collapse of the USSR.

For resilient rural shorelines: reviewing Nature-based Solutions for flood risk reduction in small coastal communities

Coastal flood risk poses a serious, existential threat to shoreline populations around the world both now and in the future. Unsurprisingly, global decision makers are considering their options – one of these being Nature-based Solutions – for effective disaster risk reduction which specifically targets coastal flooding. While strides have been made in the field of Nature-based Solutions for coastal flooding, much of this attention has been directed towards the urban setting, with a wealth of scholastic documentation to support this notion. The sizeable rural populations scattered throughout the world's small coastal communities, meanwhile, have been largely neglected in academic literature. Without this information, it is impossible to properly capture the full potential of Nature-based Solutions in (global) flood risk modelling endeavours or understand their role in the future of equitable disaster risk reduction. In light of this gap, we have reviewed the limited amount of existing literature from around the world involving the implementation and effectiveness of Nature-based Solutions in small coastal communities. We analysed 28 peer-reviewed studies to gather common themes and insights about the barriers and opportunities unique to these rural shorelines. Takeaways we have identified include a near consistent scarcity of resources (e.g., technical, financial, institutional) to implement disaster risk reduction measures; an abundance of space and opportune land use regimes which make Nature-based Solutions a highly plausible option; amplified nature contributions to people leading to larger benefits reaped from investments into Nature-based Solutions; and the presence of local knowledge regarding societal norms, climate patterns, and ecosystem capabilities. We argue that these four common themes point to the fact that more attention must be given to coastal flooding-focused Nature-based Solutions in the rural setting. As such, we present this collation as a starting point for future projects of similar setting and scope. We also recommend improving benefit-cost analysis methods as well as including local knowledge and other perspectives in future global assessments of coastal flood risk.

Diverse Attitudes of French Pacifists and Socialists Towards the ‘Yellow Peril’ in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

This essay examines the various ways in which pacificists and socialists in France responded to the ‘yellow peril’ from the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) to the end of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). I identify and examine four different attitudes they developed towards the ‘yellow peril’. On the one hand, some pacificists and socialists perceived it as a reality and used it as a means of exposing the problems of expansionism but differed on their views of what Asia would become for the West: whereas pacifists like Paul d’Estournelles de Constant invoked Asia as a potential existential threat, certain socialists welcomed ‘yellow’ workers as future comrades. On the other hand, there were people who viewed the ‘yellow peril’ as a myth or some sort of ideological smokescreen. Roughly speaking, they fell into two groups: socialists who treated it as a set of false ideas created to justify Tsarist imperialism, which practically led them to embrace Japanese imperialism, and revolutionary syndicalists who, opposing capitalist exploitation and expansionism in general, dismissed it as part of bourgeois ideology. Thus, I ultimately argue that the ‘yellow peril’ was less of an imperialist ideology consisting of negative racial stereotypes about East Asians than a versatile concept that was used against as well as for racial stereotyping and expansionism.

Enabling sustainable consumer choices with CarbonShunya: India’s first solution to measure and mitigate carbon impact of consumer transactions in real-time**The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the organization(s) to which the authors are affiliated. This work is an independent effort to support collective action to

Abstract Among the myriad challenges facing humanity, air pollution and climate change emerge as the most formidable existential threats to our future. Ironically, both these are direct fallouts of human activities such as indiscriminate consumption of consumer products/services and burning of fossil fuels. Purchase of consumer goods in 2024 is projected to be in excess of $22.6 trillion worldwide. How these consumers buy, use or dispose consumer goods will profoundly impact all life on the planet. Therefore, it is an imperative to embed sustainability in every Rupee of consumer spending. Hence a robust digital solution, CarbonShunya, has been developed with the purpose to empower a billion consumers to make sustainable purchase and lifestyle choices. CarbonShunya is India’s 1st solution that can measure and mitigate the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) footprint of consumer transactions in real-time. It provides consumers with actionable insights at the point-of-purchase and post-purchase to shape a shift in consumer beliefs, attitudes and behavior. This paper presents the methodology, assumptions and processes which have been adopted to develop the CarbonShunya life-cycle assessment framework and solution in Indian context. It also presents a case study, using the CarbonShunya framework, to measure and mitigate GHG impacts of monthly consumer expenditure on several categories of products/services across various states of India, based on a primary survey of over 174 000 households. The results from the case-study provide actionable insights and conclusions for policymakers and practitioners. CarbonShunya has cross-cutting applications across sectors so as to enable consuming economies to embrace conserving behaviors.

Climate change and forced migration

Abstract Climate change is increasingly recognized as a significant driver of migration patterns worldwide. As the global temperatures rise, extreme weather events become more frequent, leading to disruptions in livelihoods displacement, and migration. Every day, climate change becomes a more urgent economic, social and existential threat to countries and their people. Climate changes are becoming more and more evident every day, a factor that undoubtedly directly or indirectly affects the displacement of populations. This article provides answers to basic questions starting with how, and where climate change triggers migration and displacement, the second question is if we have a definition for the climate migration, or climate refugee, can they have protection from the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the last analysis is the inadequacy of the protection afforded by international law and European Union law and the Albania Legislation to individuals who leave their country of origin for reasons related to environmental issues. The methodology used to answer the questions of this paper includes desk review on existing literature, legal texts, reports from international organizations, legal framework regulating climate migration rights and the decision of the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) regarding the “climate refugees”, the case of Teitiota v New Zealand.

Mistakes in the Moral Mathematics of Existential Risk

Mistakes in the Moral Mathematics of Existential Risk

Spatial analysis of disaster resilience research: A bibliometric study

We analyzed the global disaster resilience research literature to advance understanding of its geographical context. A key objective was to map the variation in disaster research resilience activity to identify hotspots and areas of less activity. The motivation is to reveal regional imbalances in resilience research and collaboration to contribute to the global narrative regarding marginalized regions. The methodology involves an in-depth examination of Web of Science (WoS) bibliographic data from 2010 to 2020, using keywords to develop a comprehensive perspective of disaster resilience research. Additionally, the study incorporates empirical data from the Emergency Events Data (EM-DAT) maintained by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Hazards at the Université Catholique de Louvain (CRED/UCLouvain) to provide context on the impact of disasters. A key innovation of this study is the Disaster Resilience Research Score (DRRS), a quantifiable metric to evaluate the state of disaster resilience research globally by country. The DRRS considers publications, citations, and institutional involvement to provide a well-rounded view of each country's contributions to the field. The results highlight the leading role in disaster resilience research of countries including the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy. However, there is a notable lack of research activity in countries such as Ecuador, Algeria, Kenya, Cambodia, and Myanmar, which also exhibit relatively high vulnerability to environmental hazards. Our findings indicate that countries identified as resilience hotspots predominantly collaborate within their country. This study highlights opportunities for strengthening collaborations between resilience research hotspots and locations less represented in the resilience research literature. It underscores the importance of identifying hot and cold spots to direct future research and foster a more equitable and sustainable response to climate change and hazards.

Global Disasters and World Society: The Ecological Dimension of Modern World-System Crises

The International Conference on Global Disasters and World Society: The Ecological Dimension of Modern World-System Crises, hosted by the Research Group on Political Economy of the World-System, and co-organized by the University of California Disaster Resilience Network, was held in Florianopolis, Brazil fr om 25 to 27 March, 2024. The conference convened scholars, activists, politicians, and government officials to exchange ideas and analyses of current climate crises from a world-historical perspective. Its objective was to formulate strategies for surviving and mitigating increasingly frequent and severe global and local natural and anthropogenic disasters, and to pave the way for a more just, democratic, and collectively rational world society. To achieve this goal, the conference organizers encouraged re-searchers to investigate the evolution of the modern world-system and to devise plans for moving towards a less unequal and more cooperative world society.

International Responses over Nontraditional Security Threats: A Comparative Analysis into Rational and Sources

Security concerns of the contemporary period have gone beyond the traditional form of existential threats caused by conventional military forces to a vast range of non-conventional security concerns, including climate change, pandemics, and cyber threats. The direct spillover effects of these non-traditional security issues do not just influence national relations but require global cooperation and a comprehensive approach. In conclusion, increased international cooperation will be essential along with the principle of equitable resource distribution and the pursuit of novel technological solutions to attain lasting resilience against NTS threats. As such pressures on human security continue to unfold, it is critical that the global community facilitate adaptive measures and strong frameworks for global security and stability. This paper represents the value added to the scientific debate on nontraditional security, as effectiveness is linked to international responses, with further recommendations for better action toward implementation.

Terrorism in Pakistan Impact on National Security

Terrorism presents a substantial obstacle in the current global political landscape, leading to changes in approaches to national security. The 9/11 attacks had a significant and far-reaching effect, on South Asia, notably in Pakistan, prompting leaders such as President George W. Bush to intensify worldwide counter-terrorism efforts. This research examines the relationship between terrorism and national security, focusing on Pakistan's experience with cross-border terrorism from Afghanistan, particularly in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The study argues that terrorism surpasses conventional conflict standards and poses existential risks to national security. The study also highlights the impact of terrorist spillover from Afghanistan on Pakistan's territorial integrity, political sovereignty, and core institutions. The study also highlights the degradation of civil freedoms, economic pressures, and social divides due to terrorism. The research advocates for strong counter-terrorism strategies and global collaboration to strengthen national security and maintain global peace. The research advocates for a comprehensive strategy to address terrorism, emphasizing self-sufficiency and global cooperation, aiming to successfully battle terrorism while preserving national autonomy and democratic government in international affairs.

Becoming ‘Wild Citizens’: Children’s Articulation of Environmental Citizenship in the Context of Biodiversity Loss

AbstractCalls to tackle the global disasters of climate change and loss of biodiversity are becoming more and more prominent and urgent. Such calls require environmental citizens, that is citizens who act at local, national and transnational scales, assuming environmental agency through pro-environmental behaviours, attitudes and values in public and private spheres. To enable children to become active environmental citizens, we collaborated with five inner city primary schools in the south-east of England in co-designing a school-based, outdoor ‘Wild Citizens’ programme, underpinned by socioscientific inquiry-based learning, focusing on biodiversity loss. Approximately 130 primary school children (6–10 years old) explored their school grounds, discussed, decided on, and implemented interventions to enhance biodiversity, and communicated their findings within their community (schools, peers, parents, teachers). Semi-structured group interviews were conducted with a sub-sample (60%) exploring how children articulate environmental citizenship within this context. We found that environmental citizenship was articulated at both local and global scales of influence in relation to (a) environmental awareness, (b) values and (c) action competence. Children articulate the links between their performed actions to the impact these might have at a global scale, showing their ability to conceptualise and discuss implications and consequences of issues such as biodiversity loss in simple terms. Their articulation of actions as relevant and impactful to their school’s grounds, transforms the issue of biodiversity loss from a slow, invisible disaster to an observable phenomenon for children, which they then act to mitigate against. This work provides empirical grounding towards the operationalisation of environmental citizenship at the primary school level in the context of a less discussed, but as urgent, ecological disaster, that of biodiversity loss.

Evaluating Flood Damage to Paddy Rice Fields Using PlanetScope and Sentinel-1 Data in North-Western Nigeria: Towards Potential Climate Adaptation Strategies

Floods are significant global disasters, but their impact in developing countries is greater due to the lower shock tolerance, many subsistence farmers, land fragmentation, poor adaptation strategies, and low technical capacity, which worsen food security and livelihoods. Therefore, accurate and timely monitoring of flooded crop areas is crucial for both disaster impact assessments and adaptation strategies. However, most existing methods for monitoring flooded crops using remote sensing focus solely on estimating the flood damage, neglecting the need for adaptation decisions. To address these issues, we have developed an approach to mapping flooded rice fields using Earth observation and machine learning. This approach integrates high-resolution multispectral satellite images with Sentinel-1 data. We have demonstrated the reliability and applicability of this approach by using a manually labelled dataset related to a devastating flood event in north-western Nigeria. Additionally, we have developed a land suitability model to evaluate potential areas for paddy rice cultivation. Our crop extent and land use/land cover classifications achieved an overall accuracy of between 93% and 95%, while our flood mapping achieved an overall accuracy of 99%. Our findings indicate that the flood event caused damage to almost 60% of the paddy rice fields. Based on the land suitability assessment, our results indicate that more land is suitable for cultivation during natural floods than is currently being used. We propose several recommendations as adaptation measures for stakeholders to improve livelihoods and mitigate flood disasters. This study highlights the importance of integrating multispectral and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data for flood crop mapping using machine learning. Decision-makers will benefit from the flood crop mapping framework developed in this study in a number of spatial planning applications.

Scientific and Technological Development Strategy as a New Paradigm of Socioeconomic Modernization of Russia in the Context of Global Challenges

The article analyzes the provisions of the new Scientific and Technological Development Strategy of the Russian Federation. Attention is drawn to the reasons for changing the course of the state science and technology policy. It outlines the essence of the goals, priorities and prospects of scientific and technological development of Russia and gives an assessment of the key directions of state policy in the field of scientific and technological development, as well as mechanisms and tools for their implementation. Using analytical and formal legal methods, we consider the practice of regulating the issues related to organizing the directions of strategic scientific and technological development in Russia and reveal the systemic connections in law as well features of legal acts in the sphere of Russian public relations. The author believes that thoughtful and balanced government decisions in the development of an innovative economy might play a positive role in ensuring the national security of Russia and stabilizing the sociopolitical system of the country. In turn, the dominant ideas outlined in the Strategy are a part of the mechanism for countering existential threats towards contemporary Russia and ensure its national sovereignty in the long term.

Estrategias empresariales: Adaptación y Supervivencia en tiempos de crisis

Economic crises pose an existential threat to many companies, but those that manage to adapt and reinvent themselves can not only survive, but even grow stronger in these periods. The objective of this article has been to examine the determining strategies in the initiatives adopted by companies that successfully weathered the different crises in recent years. This article consists of a systematic review with a qualitative approach, which was carried out with the PRISMA method, for which a quick review was made of the most relevant research in this field in recent years, selecting 66 articles from the main scientific databases. The results show that the value of technology through digital channels of commerce, remote work and Artificial Intelligence solutions facilitates adaptation to the new environment, and highlights the renewal of the supply of products and services oriented to the consumer as a way of experimentation and survival. Finally, they note the multiplication of alliances between companies as a key factor in resilience and strengthening in times of uncertainty.

Is superintelligence necessarily moral?

Abstract Numerous authors have expressed concern that advanced artificial intelligence (AI) poses an existential risk to humanity. These authors argue that we might build AI which is vastly intellectually superior to humans (a ‘superintelligence’), and which optimizes for goals that strike us as morally bad, or even irrational. Thus this argument assumes that a superintelligence might have morally bad goals. However, according to some views, a superintelligence necessarily has morally adequate goals. This might be the case either because abilities for moral reasoning and intelligence mutually depend on each other, or because moral realism and moral internalism are true. I argue that the former argument misconstrues the view that intelligence and goals are independent, and that the latter argument misunderstands the implications of moral internalism. Moreover, the current state of AI research provides additional reasons to think that a superintelligence could have bad goals.