Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Acting To Address The Ocean-Related Impacts Of Climate Change On Human And National Security, With Recommendations For Priority Actions Drawn From The Discussions Of The Global Conference On Oceans, Climate And Security At The University Of Massachusetts Boston, Robbin Peach, Felix Dodds, Michael Strauss, Collaborative Institute For Oceans, Climate And Security, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Collaborative Institute for Oceans, Climate and Security Publications

In the course of the past calendar year the United States has been struck by a series of droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, wildfires, and floods whose size and path of resulting damage defy previously established patterns. The U.S. thus joins nations on every continent that have increasingly experienced extreme and extremely damaging weather events over the past two decades.

At the same time, the world’s oceans have been exhibiting a less-visible but equally dangerous sequence of temperature rise, acidification increase, fish kills, coastal erosion, salinity shifts, algae blooms, and steady decreases in commercially available fish and shellfish species.

Those impacts …

The Living Labs: Nantucket Island, Anamarija Frankic, Robyn Hannigan, Sarah Oktay

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Living Labs are a practical response to growing environmental challenges, including habitat degradation, loss of biodiversity, and global climate change. Nantucket Living Labs develops and implements holistic solutions to environmental challenges right here and now. The School for the Environment (SFE) established this concept in Conjunction with the Nantucket Field Station, Nantucket Conservation Foundation and ReMain Nantucket, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting a year-round community in the town center.

Preparing For The Rising Tide, Ellen Douglas, Paul Kirshen, Vivian Li, Chris Watson, Julie Wormser

Environmental, Earth, and Ocean Sciences Faculty Publication Series

On October 29, 2012, one of the largest Atlantic basin storms in recorded history hit the East Coast. Although Superstorm Sandy centered around New Jersey and New York when it made landfall, the massive storm system spanned 1,000 miles north to south, over three times the size of a typical hurricane.

Luckily for Boston, Sandy’s storm surge hit the city near low tide, causing relatively minor coastal flooding. Had the storm hit 5½ hours earlier, 6.6 percent of the city could have been flooded, with floodwaters reaching City Hall.

Events such as Superstorm Sandy highlight the growing relevance of climate …

Contested Imaginaries And The Cultural Political Economy Of Climate Change, David L. Levy, Andre Spicer

David L. Levy

This article analyses the evolving cultural political economy of climate change by developing the concept of ‘climate imaginaries’. These are shared socio-semiotic systems that structure a field around a set of shared understandings of the climate. Climate imaginaries imply a particular mode of organizing production and consumption, and a prioritization of environmental and cultural values. We use this concept to examine the struggle among NGOs, business and state agencies over four core climate imaginaries. These are ‘fossil fuels forever’, ‘climate apocalypse’, ‘technomarket’ and ‘sustainable lifestyles’. These imaginaries play a key role in contentions over responses to climate change, and we …