Developing sustainable practices to adapt to the impacts of climate change: a case study of agricultural systems in eastern England (UK)

The weight of scientific evidence suggests that human activities are noticeably influencing the world's climate. However, the effects of global climate change will be unevenly spread, due to local variations in vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Using downscaled projections of future UK climates over the next 50 years, this paper investigates the impacts of, and possible responses to, climate change in one small area in eastern England, selected as a test-bed for sustainable agriculture. It shows that local agricultural systems are vulnerable to changes in the climate. At present, however, these considerations have a limited effect on agricultural operations, which are mainly driven by short-term events and 'non-climate' policies, such as agricultural price support. The capacity of agricultural systems to adapt successfully to climate change will be determined by the ability of producers to integrate climate change into their planning strategies with a view to ultimately ensuring sustainable agricultural practices in the long term. Electronic Publication     

Community knowledge networks: an action-orientated approach to energy research

The Climate Change Act 2008 commits the UK to reducing carbon emissions by 80% of 1990 levels by 2050. With household emissions constituting more than a quarter of current total energy use in the UK, energy practices in the home have taken on increased policy attention. In this paper, we argue that the UK government's approach is founded upon a variant of methodological individualism that assumes that providing greater energy information to individuals will effect behaviour change in relation to energy use. Such an approach is potentially limited in its effectiveness and does not afford appropriate recognition to all those affected by energy policy. In contrast to this approach, we set out an alternative perspective, a community knowledge networks approach to energy and justice which recognises the contexts and relationships in which people live and use energy. Such an approach emphasises situated knowledge and practices in order to gain a greater understanding of how individuals and communities use energy, but, importantly, offers a means for affording greater recognitional justice to different social groups.     

Overcoming Endpoint Bias in Climate Change Communication: The Case of Arctic Sea Ice Trends

Unusually cold winters, a slowing in upward global temperatures, or an increase in Arctic sea ice extent are often falsely cast as here-and-now disconfirmation of the scientific consensus on climate change. Such conclusions are examples of “end point bias,” the well documented psychological tendency to interpret a recent short-term fluctuation as a reversal of a long-term trend. End point bias poses a challenge to those trying to communicate cross-decade climate warming trends. In this study, we demonstrate that exposure to misleading scientific information on FoxNews.com that evokes end point bias can affect the beliefs of liberals and moderates as well as conservatives. We also show that the leveraging-involving-visualizing-analogizing communication model can reduce the effects of endpoint bias among moderates and liberals at the same time as it dampens both the ideological and endpoint biasing of conservatives.     

The 2014 Walrus Haul Out: A Case Study of Selective Exposure to Environmental News Coverage

In this article we examine in real time the political selective exposure process involved when the public confronted the “walrus haul out” of October 2014, a news event attributed by some climate change researchers to the effects of the climate change-driven reduction of Arctic sea ice. Analyzing data assessing the amount of major TV and cable news network coverage of the haul out, and evaluating public opinion data collected from a rolling cross-sectional survey of US adults take at the time, we show that coverage of this event was not equitably distributed across news media news sources, that exposure to news source is related to the respondents’ ideological dispositions, and that exposure to coverage of the walrus haul out is related to ideology, the selectivity of political news habits, and climate change knowledge. We conclude with a discussion of the apparent inevitability of selective exposure to media coverage of climate change-related events and the implications for effective climate change communication.     

The extraction and utilization of local and scientific geospatial knowledge within the Bluff oyster fishery, New Zealand

This paper assesses the Bluff oyster fishery in New Zealand as a case study in common pool resource management. It discusses ways in which modern information technology, augmented by low-tech data gathering strategies and community ethnography, can be used to produce an integrated scientific and local knowledge-inspired fishery database that lends itself to fostering collaboration in resource management and planning. The specific context and state of the oyster fishery in Bluff are described. Issues regarding undocumented and ephemeral intergenerational knowledge, much of which is geospatial in nature, on the fishery, the current crisis that many see in the future of the fishery, and a lack of cohesion or common sense of purpose between the stakeholder groups are discussed. It is argued that the digital resource that results from the integration of local and scientific knowledge and the potential community building processes that can ensue from collaboration and dialogue around this centrepiece are of central importance in developing an oyster fishery management plan that is holistic in concept and sustainable in purpose.     

Improving the Integration of Recreation Management with Management of Other Natural Resources by Applying Concepts of Scale from Ecology

In this article, we examine how issues of scale affect the integration of recreation management with the management of other natural resources on public lands. We present two theories used to address scale issues in ecology and explore how they can improve the two most widely applied recreation-planning frameworks. The theory of patch dynamics and hierarchy theory are applied to the recreation opportunity spectrum (ROS) and the limits of acceptable change (LAC) recreation-planning frameworks. These frameworks have been widely adopted internationally, and improving their ability to integrate with other aspects of natural resource management has significant social and conservation implications. We propose that incorporating ecologic criteria and scale concepts into these recreation-planning frameworks will improve the foundation for integrated land management by resolving issues of incongruent boundaries, mismatched scales, and multiple-scale analysis. Specifically, we argue that whereas the spatially explicit process of the ROS facilitates integrated decision making, its lack of ecologic criteria, broad extent, and large patch size decrease its usefulness for integration at finer scales. The LAC provides explicit considerations for weighing competing values, but measurement of recreation disturbances within an LAC analysis is often done at too fine a grain and at too narrow an extent for integration with other recreation and resource concerns. We suggest that planners should perform analysis at multiple scales when making management decisions that involve trade-offs among competing values. The United States Forest Service is used as an example to discuss how resource-management agencies can improve this integration.     

Quantification of hydrochloric acid and particulate deposition resulting from space shuttle launches at John F. Kennedy space center,Florida, USA

Observations of damage to vegetation, acute reductions in surface water pH, and kills of small fish prompted the Biomedical Operations and Research Office at the John F. Kennedy Space Center to initiate intensive environmental evaluations of possible acute and long-term chronic impacts that may be produced by repeated launches of the space shuttle. An important step in this evaluation was the identification of deposition patterns and the quantification of ecosystem loading rates of exhaust constituents from the solid rocket motors (SRMs) in the area of the launch pad. These constituents are primarily aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) and hydrochloric acid (HCl). During three launches of the space transportation system (STS-11, 13, and 14) up to 100 bulk deposition collectors, 83 mm in diameter containing 100 ml of deionized water, were deployed in a grid pattern covering 12.6 ha north of launch pad 39-A. Estimates of HCl and particulate deposition levels were made based on laboratory measurements of items entrained in the collectors. Captured particulates consisted of a variety of items including Al₂O₃, sand grains, sea shell fragments, paint chips, and other debris ablated from the launch pad surface by the initial thrust of the SRMs. Estimated ranges of HCl and particulate deposition in the study area were 0–127 g/m² and 0–246 g/m², respectively. Deposition patterns were highly influenced by wind speed and direction. These measurements indicate that, under certain meteorological conditions, up to 7.1 × 10³ kg of particulates and 3.4 × 10³ kg of HCl can be deposited to the near-field environment beyond the launch pad perimeter fence.