Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Socioeconomic Geographies And Municipal Decision Making Of New York's Climate Smart Communities Program, Stephen Corbisiero

Digital and Data Studies Student Scholarship

Nearly all of New York’s residents live in a municipality designated as a Climate Smart Community, but few are familiar with one of the state’s major legislative accomplishments. The initiative allows municipalities to earn points toward a climate smart certification by implementing sustainable technologies in their communities, which in turn makes them eligible for increased grant funding from New York State. As climate change begins to have a greater impact on human and natural life, investing in green infrastructure has never been more important. New York’s Climate Smart Communities program is widespread, but adoption rates vary greatly throughout the state …

Evaluating Benefits From Transportation Investments Aligned With The Climate Action Plan For Transportation Infrastructure (Capti), Serena Alexander, Shams Tanvir, T. William Lester

Mineta Transportation Institute

Building upon two executive orders targeting the mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in California, the Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure (CAPTI) offers a comprehensive plan to work toward a more unified vision for transportation that prioritizes climate, health, and social equity. The purpose of this project was to help evaluate the benefits from transportation investments across the State of California. With support from Caltrans, the research team provided a holistic evaluation framework that involved an analysis of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and emissions impacts, an economic impact analysis, and an equity analysis of transportation investments in California. Findings …

The Legal Case For Equity In Local Climate Action Planning, Amy E. Turner

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Over the last half decade, local climate action plans have regularly come to incorporate considerations of racial and socioeconomic equity, recognizing the ways in which low-income communities and communities of color experience earlier and worse consequences from global warming, and these communities are also at risk of being harmed by policies meant to address climate change. Until now, however, the discourse on equity in climate action planning has largely pertained to policy; it acknowledges the disproportionate harm that certain communities experience as a result of climate change and policies to address climate change, and suggests policy tools that can address …

In Africa, "Climate-Smart" Conservation Must Be Coupled With Poverty Alleviation, Saleem H. Ali, Penda Diallo, Apoli Bertrand Kameni, Philippe Le Billon, Kopo Oromeng, Kyle Frankel Davis, Edward Carr

Geography

In August, the Seventh Assembly of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) concluded in Vancouver, Canada, with a pledge. A total of 185 countries agreed to protect 30% of land and coastal areas by 2030 (known as the “30 by 30 pledge”). But while this surge of conservation funding is heartening, there are serious concerns. Projects and programs that appear to produce both environmental and developmental goals could actually obscure the continuing marginalization of poor and vulnerable populations. Here, we suggest that such coupling of conservation and extraction needs to pay greater attention to poverty alleviation. Otherwise, it risks further marginalizing …

Book Review Of The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables For A Planet In Crisis By Amitav Ghosh, Cynthia Twyford Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

Amitav Ghosh, a celebrated author of fiction and nonfiction, earned a doctorate in social anthropology from Oxford. In this iteration of his nonfiction oeuvre, Ghosh’s mapping of the historical entanglement of human rights abuses and environmental exploitation is framed upon the pillars of postcolonialism and posthumanism. Many of the processes he writes about in his acclaimed book The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis overlap with the interests of Human Ecology readers. Chapters 4 “Terraforming,” 5 “We Shall be Gone Shortly,” and 6 “Bonds of Earth” may feel familiar to students of environmental histories and aficionados of Alfred …

Carbon Sequestration Capacities Of Different Land Cover Types And Climate Change, Nicole L. Melnick, Annabel Gorman, Adam F. Warren

Student Publications

Human-caused climate change creates a positive feedback loop that emits more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere instead of being sequestered in the Earth or its oceans. A major contributor to this feedback loop is deforestation in order to use land for agriculture and livestock. This study aims to investigate differences in carbon sequestration capabilities of forests, pastures, and cropland through soil and tree sampling in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The main hypothesis of this study is that forested land will be the most effective at carbon sequestration. The loss on ignition method (LOI) was used to determine the percent organic material in …

Communicating About Extreme Heat: Results From Card Sorting And Think Aloud Interviews With Experts From Differing Domains, Jeannette Sutton, Nicholas Waugh, Savannah Olivas

Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity Faculty Scholarship

Climate trends indicate that extreme heat events are becoming more common and more severe over time, requiring improved strategies to communicate heat risk and protective actions. However, there exists a disconnect in heat-related communication from experts, who commonly include heat related jargon (i.e., technical language), to decision makers and the general public. The use of jargon has been shown to reduce meaningful engagement with and understanding of messages written by experts. Translating technical language into comprehensible messages that encourage decision makers to take action has been identified as a priority to enable impact-based decision support. Knowing what concepts and terms …

Calling Time: How To Remove Fossil Fuel Sponsorships From Sports, Arts & Events, Ashlee Morgan, Sophia Nimphius, Genevieve Stewart, Jennifer Rayner, Ashleigh Croucher, Simon Bradshaw

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Sports, arts and major events are deeply embedded in the Australian way of life. Weekend matches, concerts and festivals bring us together - to cheer, to share pride and excitement, to feel connected to each other and to keep building our national story.

When we barrack for our beloved teams, discover the work of a new local artist or laugh until our cheeks hurt at a comedy show, we are taking part in a ritual that has shaped social and cultural life in Australia for generations.

Climate change – driven by burning coal, oil and gas – is putting all …