Finding Our Place
Featured Worth Living Urban Life View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Vitor Manuel Dinis Pereira
Urban life is not worth living because the concept of home is mistakenly understood to fall under the concept of economy. For example, if we intend to buy a house, we typically apply for a bank loan, because the income from our work is intended to be insufficient for us to buy it outright. But on the contrary, it is the concept of economy that falls under the concept of home. The concept of economy derives from the organisation of our lives at home. Without a house, there is no economy. But as things are misunderstood, as the economy is misconceived as coming before the house, the city houses we live in (for example, Lisbon, Portugal) don't have any quality beyond, say, a certain kind of heap of bricks. The city houses we live in (for example, Lisbon, Portugal) are prone to heat waves in summer and cold waves in winter; their humidity and mould are not healthy. In addition to making us sick inside our homes, the typical noise of cities is not just on the streets of the city; it is also inside our homes (and, because it's so difficult for us to sleep, we get sick inside our homes because we don't sleep healthily). However, if the house was conceived before the economy, the city houses we live in (for example, Lisbon, Portugal) would have qualities such as being thermally and acoustically insulated. For example, they could include a rainwater pipeline for sanitary water.
Featured Coping and Adapting to Climate Change Impacts from African Perspective: What Complementary Role Could African Indigenous Science Play? View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Philip Egbule
It is an indisputable truism that in a fragile and conflict-affected setting with limited governance, political instability and visionless leadership, communities are ill-equipped to cope with a changing climate and associated environmental hazards. Although there have being numerous discourses on climate change and the consequent environmental hazards, still a call for proactive approach to halt the envisaged ruin is indispensible. This paper, therefore, is a clarion call on African researchers to delve into their own indigenous science systems for proactive approaches towards addressing climate change crisis. Unfortunately, one major challenge that may likely bedevil this call is the erroneous believe that most African traditional ideas and practices are fetish. This paper argues that climate science, like other branches of knowledge, needs to be broadened and decolonized; that Africa should search within its own knowledge systems for appropriate ideas and approaches to many of its development challenges. In fact, it examines how our growing vulnerability could be addressed through the collaboration of western science/environmental education with relevant indigenous science in Africa. The effects of climate change and environmental hazards on the socio-economic activities in Africans is also reviewed. In conclusion, the paper notes that environmental and socio-economic effects of climate change on Africans include poor health, poverty, increased migration, food scarcity, the occurrence of crime or violence, as well as displacement. However, it expresses optimism that indigenous knowledge and practice can contribute towards managing natural resource management, environmental protection and climate change adaptation in Africa.
Public Investment in Hazard Mitigation: Effectiveness and the Role of Community Diversity View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ivan Petkov
I estimate the loss-reducing effect of local public investments against natural hazards with new measures of damages, weather risk, and spending for a panel of 904 US coastal counties in 2000-2020. I distinguish federally- and county-funded projects and rely on a quasi-experimental strategy, matching counties by economic development, population, and weather risk. Risk predictions come from the random forest learning algorithm, using granular data on resident vulnerability and severe weather frequency. Public spending on adaptation is effective -- the average high-spending county avoids a significant portion of losses -- and efficient -- $1 prevents up to $3 in losses over 20 years. The evidence suggests that federal spending is focused on high-risk areas, while local spending is effectively implemented in medium-risk counties. Finally, I show that fractionalization among residents about the priority of climate-change policy can be a limiting factor in adaptation spending. Total spending is significantly lower in areas with high diversity in policy preferences, and more so when opinions are equally split.
Climate, Energy, and Environmental Education: A Discourse Analysis of Digital Pedagogy in Alberta Museums View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Francesca Patten, Gregory Lowan-Trudeau
Cultural institutions and educators are increasingly recognizing their role in intersectional climate education. As digital technologies continue to advance, these institutions are increasingly taking advantage of new opportunities to connect with learners online on issues of climate and environment. Current scholarship suggests that cultural institutions, which are often seen as community-centered and benefiting from reputations as authoritative sites of knowledge, play an interesting role in advancing environmental education. Museums, in particular, are uniquely situated to effectively broach both difficult topics and contested knowledge fields. However, this position is not without conflict; museums exist in relation to their communities and their stakeholders, which can result in complex funding relationships, conflicting political and social objectives, and a lack of sector-wide cohesion. As such, how museums approach climate and energy education is a complicated pedagogical phenomenon to observe. Drawing on Eisner’s three curricula, this study utilizes discourse analysis to examine the various dynamics and tensions present in digital museum contexts related to climate and energy education. The study focused on websites, blogs, social media, and other digitally mediated and remotely accessible material. The institutions studied are of various sizes and settings, but all are located in Alberta, Canada and have foci on science, environment, energy, or conservation. As a long-standing energy economy, Alberta provides an interesting, and often contested, setting to observe climate and energy education in practice at museums, many of which exist in communities and within governance and stakeholder networks which are connected to the energy industry.
Compounding Disasters and Adaptive Governance: A Case from an Indian State View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Souryabrata Mohapatra, Sumanta Banerjee
The climate-induced shocks, coupled with the pandemic, lead to complex and intersecting disasters. This work presents the success story of adaptive governance in managing compounding disasters. Adaptive governance helps address the challenges of climate-induced natural disasters and pandemics through its approach, which entails flexibility, collaboration, and continuous learning. The state of Odisha in India is considered to be one of the disaster hotspots states in India. Odisha has faced the wrath of many disasters, and the devastation caused by the super cyclone 1999, which killed around ten thousand people, has been the most severe. However, since then, the Government of Odisha has set an example for other states and countries to emulate its disaster management model. This paper explores how the Government of Odisha has been successful in dealing with compounding disasters through its adaptive model of governance. The methodology comprises a desk review of its disaster management policies for the state and on-field discussions with a wide array of stakeholders ranging from Government officials, INGOs, NGOs, people representatives and communities for understanding measures, processes followed, governance and its disaster model. The implications of this research will help other developing countries learn and replicate Odisha's success story in dealing with compounding disasters.
