Environmental Change And The World S Futures

Climate change and ecological instability have the potential to disrupt human societies and their futures. Cultural, social and ethical life in all societies is directed towards a future that can never be observed, and never be directly acted upon, and yet is always interacting with us. Thinking and acting towards the future involves efforts of imagination that are linked to our sense of being in the world and the ecological pressures we experience. The three key ideas of this book – ecologies, ontologies and mythologies – help us understand the ways people in many different societies attempt to predict and shape their futures. Each chapter places a different emphasis on the linked domains of environmental change, embodied experience, myth and fantasy, politics, technology and intellectual reflection, in relation to imagined futures. The diverse geographic scope of the chapters includes rural Nepal, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, Sweden, coastal Scotland, North America, and remote, rural and urban Australia. This book will appeal to researchers and students in anthropology, sociology, environmental studies, cultural studies, psychology and politics.

This anthology provides an historical overview of the scientific ideas behind environmental prediction and how, as predictions about environmental change have been taken more seriously and widely, they have affected politics, policy, and public perception. Through an array of texts and commentaries that examine the themes of progress, population, environment, biodiversity and sustainability from a global perspective, it explores the meaning of the future in the twenty-first century. Providing access and reference points to the origins and development of key disciplines and methods, it will encourage policy makers, professionals, and students to reflect on the roots of their own theories and practices.

The futures discussed in this book primarily arise from awareness of the potentially disruptive impact of climate change and ecological instability on human societies. Part of the paradox of cultural, social and ethical life in all societies is that it is directed towards a future that can never be observed, and never be directly acted upon, and yet is always interacting with us. As a result actions depend on imagination and political action. Future-loaded terms like 'anthropogenic climate change', 'food security', 'sustainability', 'energy security', and 'biodiversity' evoke a specific politics that privileges scientific or economic knowledge, while potentially suppressing the contestations within, and between, those knowledges. Remedies like carbon taxes, carbon trading, renewable energy and nature conservation risk obscuring forms of social and cultural difference in favour of the proposed moral unity of 'global humanity' on a threatened planet. These are 'holistic' projects that suppress parts of the world, or particular social dynamics, in favour of others. By contrast, this book's framework embraces an appreciation of difference and non-holism, as it is unlikely that one solution to the many disruptive futures perceived throughout the world can be found. Indeed any such 'one solution' may increase the disruptive effects found in local situations. Each chapter invites reflection on diverse ways of comprehending global warming and other manifestations of major environmental change, as well as on the forms, and shapers, of agency that influence people's understanding and response. In order to encourage the appreciation of the different future worlds either imagined and emergent in the present, the scope of the chapters extends beyond the usual geopolitical focus on the North Atlantic world, to encompass Nepal, islands in the Pacific, Sweden, coastal Scotland and remote, regional and urban Australia. The book is uniquely informed by empirically based and multidisciplinary social science modes of inquiry, together with a broad-ranging examination of the 'futures' based discourse, policy and politics that have become an intrinsic part of the contemporary world. It will appeal to researchers and postgraduate students in environmental anthropology, environmental studies, psychology and politics.

In one hundred years, or even fifty, the Arctic will look dramatically different than it does today. As polar ice retreats and animals and plants migrate northward, the Arctic landscape is morphing into something new and very different from what it once was. While these changes may seem remote, they will have a profound impact on a host of global issues, from international politics to animal migrations. In Future Arctic, journalist and explorer Edward Struzik offers a clear-eyed look at the rapidly shifting dynamics in the Arctic region, a harbinger of changes that will reverberate throughout our entire world. Future Arctic reveals the inside story of how politics and climate change are altering the polar world in a way that will have profound effects on economics, culture, and the environment as we know it. Struzik takes readers up mountains and cliffs, and along for the ride on snowmobiles and helicopters, sailboats and icebreakers. His travel companions, from wildlife scientists to military strategists to indigenous peoples, share diverse insights into the science, culture and geopolitical tensions of this captivating place. With their help, Struzik begins piecing together an environmental puzzle: How might the land’s most iconic species—caribou, polar bears, narwhal—survive? Where will migrating birds flock to? How will ocean currents shift? What fundamental changes will oil and gas exploration have on economies and ecosystems? How will vast unclaimed regions of the Arctic be divided? A unique combination of extensive on-the-ground research, compelling storytelling, and policy analysis, Future Arctic offers a new look at the changes occurring in this remote, mysterious region and their far-reaching effects.

Coming in October, 2022. Climate change is already affecting millions of people. Governments talk about taking action to limit global heating to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but the greenhouse gas emissions allowed by their policies have the Earth on track to heating far more than that by the end of the century - a level of heating that will have truly disastrous consequences. Visionary plans for how to slash emissions and make society better at the same time abound, including various Green New Deals. But how can we make the changes that are so urgently needed? Future on Fire argues that a just transition from fossil fuels and other drivers of climate change will not be delivered by businesspeople or politicians that support the status quo. Nor will electing green left leaders be enough to overcome the opposition of capitalists and state bureaucrats. Only the power of disruptive mass social movements has the potential to force governments to make the changes we need, so supporters of climate justice should commit to building them. Confronting the question — what if heating above 2 degrees becomes unavoidable — and refusing to despair, David Camfield argues that even a ravaged planet is worth fighting for and that ultimately the only solution to the ecological crisis created by capitalism is a transition to ecosocialism.

Climate change is a complex and dynamic environmental, cultural and political phenomenon that is reshaping our relationship to nature. Climate change is a global force, with global impacts. Viable solutions on what to do must involve dialogues and decision-making with many agencies, stakeholder groups and communities crossing all sectors and scales. Current policy approaches are inadequate and finding a consensus on how to reduce levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere through international protocols has proven difficult. Gaps between science and society limit government and industry capacity to engage with communities to broker innovative solutions to climate change. Drawing on leading-edge research and creative programming initiatives, this collection details the important roles and agencies that cultural institutions (in particular, natural history and science museums and science centres) can play within these gaps as resources, catalysts and change agents in climate change debates and decision-making processes; as unique public and trans-national spaces where diverse stakeholders, government and communities can meet; where knowledge can be mediated, competing discourses and agendas tabled and debated; and where both individual and collective action might be activated.

#NoDAPL : native American and indigenous science, fiction, and futurisms -- Climate refugees in the greenhouse world : archiving global warming with Octavia E. Butler -- Climate change as a world problem : shaping change in the wake of disaster

This book goes beyond current ways that the impact of climate change upon the city are understood. In doing so it addresses climate in a variety of its connotations. It looks to the nomadic behaviour patterns of the past for lessons for today’s population unsettlement, and argues that as human survival will increasingly be linked directly to movement, the city can no longer be defined as a constrained space. The impacts of climate change must be understood as a combination of the actual and the expected, and have to be addressed both practically and culturally. City Futures in an Age of Changing Climate looks at how cities can adapt and respond to the unsustainable conditions they are now facing. The book considers possible post-urban futures, exposing a range of very different urban forms, and addresses the concept of fragmentation; the breaking up of any coherent economic or cultural nucleic urban spaces. Urban planners, designers, development practitioners, and anyone seeking to understand what the future is likely to look like for our cities, and how to prepare for it, will find this an essential read.