scholarly journals Effects of climate change on environmental sustainability

2021 ◽  
Vol 250 ◽  
pp. 01005
Author(s):  
Manuela Tvaronavičienė

Adaptation strategies to the climate change include measures that can be taken to take account of the new climatic conditions. This paper aims at assessing the effects of climate change on environmental sustainability. This sustainability constitutes a major problem in many countries and regions around the world that experience industrial pollution, degradation of land as well as natural disasters caused by the global warming. The paper shows that adaptation strategies are often parallel strategies that can be integrated simultaneously with the management of natural resources. They can make resources more efficient and resilient to climate change. The paper shows that reducing the carbon footprint by more than 50 percent by 2030 and eliminating it by 2050 might be a viable solution how to tackle the climate change and support the environmental sustainability.

Author(s):  
B. E. Ikumbur ◽  
S. Iornumbe

Climate change is the single biggest environmental issue facing the world today. It has become a great challenge to our generation and its impact is felt in almost every society in the world. Nigeria is one of the most vulnerable countries in Africa. Nigeria as a developing nation with a population of about 200 million people is likely to be adversely impacted by climate change due to its vulnerability and low coping capabilities. Climate change is evidently linked to human actions, and in particular from the burning of fossil fuels and changes in global patterns of land use. The impacts of human activities, as well as those of natural phenomena on global warming, climate change, and the environment, were presented and discussed. Various manifestations of its impact are evident in Nigeria, which includes temperature rise, increase in draught, and scarcity of food instigated by irregularities in rainfall, over flooding, and so on. This paper examines the concepts of global warming and climate change; its impact on the Nigeria ecosystems. It highlights the climate change-related risks and hazards the nation could face if best practices are not employed to prevent and mitigate its impact. Two sets of measures have been advocated for confronting climate change, these are mitigation and adaptation measures. The review explores possible adaptation strategies that are required to respond to the climatic variations and suggests ways that these adaptation strategies can be implemented.


Author(s):  
J. R. McNeill

This chapter discusses the emergence of environmental history, which developed in the context of the environmental concerns that began in the 1960s with worries about local industrial pollution, but which has since evolved into a full-scale global crisis of climate change. Environmental history is ‘the history of the relationship between human societies and the rest of nature’. It includes three chief areas of inquiry: the study of material environmental history, political and policy-related environmental history, and a form of environmental history which concerns what humans have thought, believed, written, and more rarely, painted, sculpted, sung, or danced that deals with the relationship between society and nature. Since 1980, environmental history has come to flourish in many corners of the world, and scholars everywhere have found models, approaches, and perspectives rather different from those developed for the US context.


Agronomy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Helder Fraga ◽  
Marco Moriondo ◽  
Luisa Leolini ◽  
João A. Santos

The olive tree (Olea europaea L.) is an ancient traditional crop in the Mediterranean Basin. In the Mediterranean region, traditional olive orchards are distinguishable by their prevailing climatic conditions. Olive trees are indeed considered one of the most suitable and best-adapted species to the Mediterranean-type climate. However, new challenges are predicted to arise from climate change, threatening this traditional crop. The Mediterranean Basin is considered a climate change “hotspot,” as future projections hint at considerable warming and drying trends. Changes in olive tree suitability have already been reported over the last few decades. In this context, climate change may become particularly challenging for olive growers. The growing evidence for significant climate change in the upcoming decades urges adaptation measures to be taken. To effectively cope with the projected changes, both short and long-term adaptation strategies must be timely planned by the sector stakeholders and decision-makers to adapt for a warmer and dryer future. The current manuscript is devoted to illustrating the main impacts of climate change on olive tree cultivation in the Mediterranean Basin, by reviewing the most recent studies on this subject. Additionally, an analysis of possible adaptation strategies against the potentially negative impacts of climate change was also performed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1795
Author(s):  
Pedro Dorta Antequera ◽  
Jaime Díaz Pacheco ◽  
Abel López Díez ◽  
Celia Bethencourt Herrera

Many small islands base their economy on tourism. This activity, based to a large extent on the movement of millions of people by air transport, depends on the use of fossil fuels and, therefore, generates a large amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this work, these emissions are evaluated by means of various carbon calculators, taking the Canary Islands as an example, which is one of the most highly developed tourist archipelagos in the world. The result is that more than 6.4 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2 are produced per year exclusively due to the massive transport of tourists over an average distance of more than 3000 km. The relative weight of these emissions is of such magnitude that they are equivalent to more than 50% of the total amount produced by the socioeconomic activity of the archipelago. Although, individually, it is travelers from Russia and Nordic countries who generate the highest carbon footprint due to their greater traveling distance, the British and German tourists account for the greatest weight in the total, with two-thirds of emissions.


2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 1003-1011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Martin Fearnside

Global warming has potentially catastrophic impacts in Amazonia, while at the same time maintenance of the Amazon forest offers one of the most valuable and cost-effective options for mitigating climate change. We know that the El Niño phenomenon, caused by temperature oscillations of surface water in the Pacific, has serious impacts in Amazonia, causing droughts and forest fires (as in 1997-1998). Temperature oscillations in the Atlantic also provoke severe droughts (as in 2005). We also know that Amazonian trees die both from fires and from water stress under hot, dry conditions. In addition, water recycled through the forest provides rainfall that maintains climatic conditions appropriate for tropical forest, especially in the dry season. What we need to know quickly, through intensified research, includes progress in representing El Niño and the Atlantic oscillations in climatic models, representation of biotic feedbacks in models used for decision-making about global warming, and narrowing the range of estimating climate sensitivity to reduce uncertainty about the probability of very severe impacts. Items that need to be negotiated include the definition of "dangerous" climate change, with the corresponding maximum levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Mitigation of global warming must include maintaining the Amazon forest, which has benefits for combating global warming from two separate roles: cutting the flow the emissions of carbon each year from the rapid pace of deforestation, and avoiding emission of the stock of carbon in the remaining forest that can be released by various ways, including climate change itself. Barriers to rewarding forest maintenance include the need for financial rewards for both of these roles. Other needs are for continued reduction of uncertainty regarding emissions and deforestation processes, as well as agreement on the basis of carbon accounting. As one of the countries most subject to impacts of climate change, Brazil must assume the leadership in fighting global warming.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-84
Author(s):  
Sumaira Nawaz ◽  
Dr. Shah Moeen ud Din Hashmi

Article endeavors to analyze the prophetic guiding principles regarding human behaviors related to plants and trees being an important component of our environment. The discussion mainly deals with the key environmental issues emphasizing plantation and its significance for balancing the equilibrium of the environment. Additionally, it thrashes out that humans are urged to seedling the plantation even the world is to be ended in Islam. The present study is delimited to the present ecological crises faced by society and a great challenge to the globe. The current ecological problems i.e global warming and climate change are interpreted just to analyze the environmental behaviors in Hadith literature. However, a profundity descriptive study has been conducted in the most influential way to examine the prophetic rules for human behaviors related to trees and plants being environment friendly. Furthermore, the existing practices of humans related to such an environmental sphere also been aptly figure out to highlight all possible ways in the light of prophetic guidance to deal with prevailing environmental issues. Inconsistency between religious teachings and human behaviors need the keen interest of religious scholars and social scientists to carefully harmonize both for maintaining the ecological balance in nature.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-111
Author(s):  
Andrea Di Maria ◽  
◽  
Annie Levasseur ◽  
Karel Van Acker ◽  
◽  
...  

<abstract> <p>The interest in circular economy for the construction sector is constantly increasing, and Global Warming Potential (GWP) is often used to assess the carbon footprint of buildings and building materials. However, GWP presents some methodological challenges when assessing the environmental impacts of construction materials. Due to the long life of construction materials, GWP calculation should take into consideration also time-related aspects. However, in the current GWP, any temporal information is lost, making traditional static GWP better suited for retrospective assessment rather than forecasting purposes. Building on this need, this study uses a time-dependent GWP to assess the carbon footprint of two newly developed construction materials, produced through the recycling of industrial residues (stainless steel slag and industrial goethite). The results for both materials are further compared with the results of traditional ordinary Portland cement (OPC) based concrete, presenting similar characteristics. The results of the dynamic GWP (D_GWP) are also compared to the results of traditional static GWP (S_GWP), to see how the methodological development of D_GWP may influence the final environmental evaluation for construction materials. The results show the criticality of the recycling processes, especially in the case of goethite valorization. The analysis shows also that, although the D_GWP did not result in a shift in the ranking between the three materials compared with S_GWP, it provides a clearer picture of emission flows and their effect on climate change over time.</p> </abstract>


2021 ◽  
Vol 14(63) (1) ◽  
pp. 129-136
Author(s):  
Kateryna VASYLKOVSKA ◽  
Oleksii VASYLKOVSKYI ◽  
Svitlana POPOVA ◽  
Valentyna Malakhovska

"The production and yield of grain crops in Ukraine from 2000 to 2019 was analysed in the article. The comparative analysis of gross harvest and export of grain during these years was carried out and the dependence of exports on gross harvest and its share was determined. The results point out that the export of grain crops has increased over the years under research, which indicates Ukraine’s significant export potential. Thus, leaving for the needs of the country from 16.0 to 36.6 million tons of grain (on average, 25.9 million tons), Ukrainian farmers export an average of 40.7% of the crop. During the period from 2000 to 2019, the gross harvest of grains in the country averaged 48.4 million tons resulting in the annual potential share of exports of at least 22.4 million tons. It was also found that the increase in the share of exports was made possible by a qualitative change in yield, which was due to the changes in crop growing technology. However, with global warming and climate change, new challenges for agricultural producers are emerging. The recommendations were given in order to improve the crop growing technology that will allow to overcome these challenges, further increase yields and Ukraine's export potential. "


Author(s):  
Philip Jenkins

My own interest in the topics of this book dates back a good many years. In fact, it predates the emergence of the modern field of climate history, or the identification of global warming as an incipient menace. In saying that, I am claiming no status as a prodigy, still less a prophet. Rather, in my teenage years, I read a great deal of speculative fiction, science fiction, in which themes of climate change and cataclysm have long percolated, at least since the latter years of the nineteenth century. We can debate how accurate the scientific analyses or predictions were in many of these works—in many cases, the level of accurate knowledge was minimal—but those works had the inordinate advantage of thinking through the human and cultural consequences of catastrophe, commonly speculating about religious dimensions. Obviously, some works succeeded better than others in that regard, but the essential project was critically important. If we are foretelling that the world will be assailed by lethal menaces, then we cannot fail to go on to imagine what the political or cultural consequences would or should be....


Author(s):  
David Day

How vulnerable to climate change are Antarctica’s fauna? Antarctica’s fauna are very vulnerable to climate change. All we have to do is look at the penguins. With the recent dramatic loss of ice in the Arctic, the world has focused on whether polar bears are...


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