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Our Ice Is Vanishing / Sikuvut Nunguliqtuq
The Arctic is ruled by ice. For Inuit, it is a highway, a hunting ground, and the platform on which life is lived. While the international community argues about sovereignty, security, and resource development at the top of the world, the Inuit remind us that they are the original inhabitants of this magnificent place - and that it is undergoing a dangerous transformation. The Arctic ice is melting at an alarming rate and Inuit have become the direct witnesses and messengers of climate change. Through an examination of Inuit history and culture, alongside the experiences of newcomers to the Arctic seeking land, wealth, adventure, and power, Our Ice Is Vanishing describes the legacies of exploration, intervention, and resilience. Combining scientific and legal information with political and individual perspectives, Shelley Wright follows the history of the Canadian presence in the Arctic and shares her own journey in recollections and photographs, presenting the far North as few people have seen it. Climate change is redrawing the boundaries of what Inuit and non-Inuit have learned to expect from our world. Our Ice Is Vanishing demonstrates that we must engage with the knowledge of the Inuit in order to understand and negotiate issues of climate change and sovereignty claims in the region.
eBook
Cultural Dynamics of \u2028Climate Change and \u2028the Environment in \u2028Northern America
In Cultural Dynamics of Climate Change and the Environment in Northern America academics from various fields such as anthropology, art history, cultural studies, environmental science, history, political science, and sociology explore society–nature interactions in – culturally as well as ecologically – one of the most diverse regions of the world.; Readership: All interested in the cultural dimensions of climate change, and anyone concerned with environmental history, environmental sociology as well as environmental policy in North America.
eBook
Changing climates in North American politics
North American policy responses to global climate change are complex and sometimes contradictory and reach across multiple levels of government. For example, the U.S. federal government rejected the Kyoto Protocol and mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) restrictions, but California developed some of the world's most comprehensive climate change law and regulation; Canada's federal government ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but Canadian GHG emissions increased even faster than those of the United States; and Mexico's state-owned oil company addressed climate change issues in the 1990s, in stark contrast to leading U.S. and Canadian energy firms. This book is the first to examine and compare political action for climate change across North America, at levels ranging from continental to municipal, in locations ranging from Mexico City to Toronto to Portland, Maine. Changing Climates in North American Politics investigates new or emerging institutions, policies, and practices in North American climate governance; the roles played by public, private, and civil society actors; the diffusion of policy across different jurisdictions; and the effectiveness of multilevel North American climate change governance. It finds that although national climate policies vary widely, the complexities and divergences are even greater at the subnational level. Policy initiatives are developed separately in states, provinces, cities, large corporations, NAFTA bodies, universities, NGOs, and private firms, and this lack of coordination limits the effectiveness of multilevel climate change governance. In North America, unlike much of Europe, climate change governance has been largely bottom-up rather than top-down. Summary reprinted by permission of MIT Press
eBook
Universities confronting climate change: beyond sustainable development and solutionism
This article reflects on recent calls for universities to deepen their commitments to sustainability in the face of climate change. It suggests that because climate change is a “wicked problem” that is hyper-complex, lacks clear solutions, and affects multiple communities in different ways, universities are unlikely to achieve consensus around a single approach to sustainability. The article reviews emerging critiques of existing university sustainability efforts, including critiques of greenwashing, climate colonialism, and (techno)solutionism. It also offers a social cartography of three different approaches to sustainability: mainstream sustainability, critical sustainability, and beyond sustainability. Rather than advocate for one particular approach, the article suggests that if universities are to maintain their relevance in the context of wicked problems like climate change, they will need to foster spaces for critically informed, complexity-based, and socially and ecologically accountable conversations about the role of higher education institutions in pluralizing possible futures on a shared, living planet.
Journal Article
A Globally Integrated Climate Policy for Canada
Canada has been an engaged participant in global climate change negotiations since the late 1980s. Until recently, Canadian policy seemed to be driven in large part by a desire to join in multilateral efforts to address climate change. By contrast, current policy is seeking a made in Canada approach to the issue. Recent government-sponsored analytic efforts as well as the government's own stated policies have been focused almost entirely on domestic regulation and incentives, domestic opportunities for technological responses, domestic costs, domestic carbon markets, and the setting of a domestic carbon price at a level that sends the appropriate marketplace signal to produce needed reductions.
A Globally Integrated Climate Policy for Canada builds on the premise that Canada is in need of an approach that effectively integrates domestic priorities and global policy imperatives. Leading Canadian and international experts explore policy ideas and options from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including science, law, political science, economics, and sociology. Chapters explore the costs, opportunities, or imperatives to participate in international diplomatic initiatives and regimes, the opportunities and impacts of regional or global carbon markets, the proper mix of domestic policy tools, the parameters of Canadian energy policy, and the dynamics that propel or hinder the Canadian policy process.
eBook
The Five Canadas of Climate Change: Using audience segmentation to inform communication on climate policy
This study examines how unique audience segments within the Canadian population think and act toward climate change, and explores whether and how the level of audience engagement moderates the effect of various messages on support for climate policy. Drawing on a random probability sample of Canadian residents (N = 1207) conducted in October 2017, we first identify and describe five distinct audiences that vary in their attitudes, perceptions and behaviours with respect to climate change: the Alarmed (25%), Concerned (45%), Disengaged (5%), Doubtful (17%) and Dismissive (8%). We then explore how each segment responds to different messages about carbon pricing in Canada. We find that messages alluding to earmarking (i.e., “Invest in solutions”) or leveling the playing field for alternative energy sources (i.e., “Relative price”) increase support for a higher carbon price among the population as a whole. However, these messages decreased support for carbon pricing among more engaged audiences (e.g., Alarmed) when a low carbon price was specified to the respondent. Meanwhile, the “Relative price” is the only message that increased policy support among less engaged audiences–the Concerned and the Doubtful. In addition to highlighting the importance of tailoring and targeting messages for differently engaged segments, these results suggest that communicating around the specific consequences of carbon taxes for the prices of some goods may be a fruitful way to enhance support for carbon taxes among relatively less engaged audiences.
Journal Article
Navigating on the Titanic
Navigating on the Titanic outlines the brief history of economic growth and the private and public institutions - markets, corporations, households, and governments - which underpin that growth. Bryne Purchase examines mega-risks related to our economy's use of fossil fuels and specifically looks at resource depletion, energy security, and climate change - all \"mega-risks\" because they are both global in scope and potentially existential in impact. Focusing on North America, with a particular emphasis on the United States, Purchase's central argument is that the institutions which have produced spectacular economic growth are not capable of acting with prudence to deal with these mega-risks before they become a real danger. He identifies certain institutional design flaws that, while underwriting economic growth, leave society open to potentially catastrophic failure and reveals how these design flaws have been compounded by the stresses of the growing income inequality in society.
eBook
Climate solution or corporate co-optation? US and Canadian publics’ views on agricultural gene editing
The dexterity and affordability of gene-editing technologies promise wide-ranging applications in agriculture. Aiming to take advantage of this, proponents emphasize benefits such as the climate-mitigating promises of gene editing. Critics, on the other hand, argue that gene editing will perpetuate industrialized forms of agriculture and its concomitant environmental and social problems. Across a representative sample of US and Canadian residents (n = 1478), we investigate public views and perceptions of agricultural gene editing. We advance existing survey-based studies, which tend to focus on whether knowledge, familiarity, trust, or perceptions of naturalness predict views on gene editing. Instead, we examine whether broader societal concerns about industrialized food systems—a key claim about genetic engineering launched by critics—predicts comfort with gene editing. We also explore the predictive power of views of climate change as an urgent problem, following proponent arguments. Survey results explore gene editing views in reference to specific cases (e.g., drought-tolerant wheat) and specific alternatives (e.g., versus pesticide use). We find that people critical of industrialized food systems were most likely to express overall absolute opposition to the technology, whereas those concerned with the imminence of climate change were more likely to support climate-relevant gene editing. Our findings suggest the need for further research into the conditions upon which public groups find gene editing compelling or not—namely, if applications enhance or counter industrial food systems, or offer particular climate adaptive benefits. Furthermore, we argue that attention to broader societal priorities in surveys of perceptions may help address calls for responsible research and innovation as concerns gene editing.
Journal Article