{"title":"Clumsy solutions and climate change: A retrospective","authors":"M. Verweij","doi":"10.1002/wcc.804","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.804","url":null,"abstract":"In 1989, Steve Rayner chided fellow anthropologists for “fiddling while the world warms.” This was the starting point of a decades‐long application to human‐made climate change of the cultural theory that he had developed with Mary Douglas and Michael Thompson. It culminated in a call to develop “clumsy” solutions for addressing the issue. Since then, the concept of clumsy solutions has been applied, praised, and criticised. To clarify its strengths and weaknesses, I first set out cultural theory and explain how the notion of clumsy solutions was derived from it. I then assess the extent to which this notion has increased our understanding of climate change governance. I do so by breaking up the application of this concept into seven predictions, concerning: (1) the major perspectives among stakeholders on how to resolve climate change; (2) the fate of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol; (3) the feasibility of international emissions trading; (4) the possibility of making renewable energy competitive; (5) the need for domestic governmental action to realize this possibility; (6) the effectiveness of a nonbinding global treaty to combat climate change; and (7) the need to explore adaptation, carbon capture, and geoengineering. I show that these predictions have stood the test of time. Finally, I discuss the roles that the concept of clumsy solutions can play in future climate change governance. This article is written in memory of Steve Rayner, one of the first social scientists to focus on climate change.","PeriodicalId":23695,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41996670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Who is the climate‐induced trapped figure?","authors":"S. Ayeb‐Karlsson, Andrew W. Baldwin, D. Kniveton","doi":"10.1002/wcc.803","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.803","url":null,"abstract":"Many will remember the 1990s alarmist narratives of how a human tide of up to a billion climate refugees would flood “our” borders by 2050. By 2011, a new character joined the discourse: the trapped figure. No longer would climatically vulnerable people be forced to move, they could also end up immobile. This review examines the narratives that surround the trapped figure. The article highlights the trapped figure's (i) characterisation, (ii) geography, and (iii) storytellers. The material includes the 2011 Foresight Report, 64 English peer‐reviewed journal articles, and seven UNFCCC policy reports. The textual analysis furthers our understanding of the values that shape the meaning of the trapped figure within the wider discursive economy. Out of the 64 articles, 48 located the trapped figure in Asia, while 34 placed the figure in Africa. Meanwhile, the majority of articles—62 in total—were written by scholars based at European research institutes. The study shows that the trapped figure, much as the mythical climate refugee and migrant, is constructed as both a victim in need of rescuing and as an ambiguous security threat. It is ethically problematic that planned relocation was often put forward as an effective tool to “move” the figure out of harm's way. The review also found a range of binary opposites in the discourse on trapped populations, including those of order–disorder, freedom–unfreedom, and victim–savior. This suggests that however well‐intentioned the liberal discourse on trapped populations appear, it remains embedded in power relations which demands for critical scrutiny.","PeriodicalId":23695,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48385052","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Climate change in contemporary British and Irish poetry and poetic criticism: Literary representation and environmental activism","authors":"Chao Xie","doi":"10.1002/wcc.807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.807","url":null,"abstract":"Much ink has been spilt on the study of climate change fiction (cli‐fi), whereas relatively less attention has been devoted to the burgeoning growth of climate change poetry. As a sub‐genre of ecopoetry which aims at dealing with realistic environmental issues and raising readers' awareness to protect the earth, climate change poetry not only represents the ongoing climatic crises in varied ways, be they realistic or imaginative, but also actively engages in provoking ecological responsibilities and environmental activism. This article is an overview of contemporary British and Irish climate change poetry and its literary criticism. Having emerged at the end of the 20th century in the United Kingdom, this poetic genre cuts across literature and environment, rising both as a prominent literary mode and an important environmental phenomenon. Interdisciplinarity, multiple topics, environmental activism, and experimentation are its primary characteristics. Current scholarship on contemporary British and Irish climate change poetry is limited and it mainly adopts theories of ecocriticism and the Anthropocene. Climate justice, poetry and activism, and comparative literary perspective are among promising avenues for the future study of this new poetic genre. Contemporary British and Irish climate change poetry, and its criticism, indicate both poets and critics' efforts to represent and, more importantly, to grapple with ongoing climate change.","PeriodicalId":23695,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47990727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Climate tipping points and expert judgment","authors":"Vincent Lam, Mason Majszak","doi":"10.1002/wcc.805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.805","url":null,"abstract":"Expert judgment can be seen throughout climate science and even more prominently when discussing climate tipping points. To provide an accurate characterization of expert judgment we begin by evaluating the existing literature on expertise as it relates to climate science as a whole, before then focusing the literature review on the role of expert judgment in the unique context of climate tipping points. From this we turn our attention to the structured expert elicitation protocols specifically developed for producing expert judgments about tipping points. We highlight that expert elicitation is not only used for the quantification of uncertainty in this context, but also for the very identification and characterization of tipping points and their interactions, making expert judgment in itself a genuine scientific output. The central role of expert judgment in this domain raises several epistemic issues that require careful attention. Among other topics, we discuss the relationship between expert judgment and modeling, as well as the nonepistemic values that are involved in the production of expert judgments, highlighting how the elicitation protocols can be used to manage these values. In the perspective of climate change, clarifying the epistemic foundations of expert judgment in this context can help to navigate the epistemic situation between self‐defeating alarmism and blind dismissal, thus contributing to a better understanding of the challenges related to climate (and Earth system) tipping points.","PeriodicalId":23695,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47111470","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Southern Ocean precipitation: Toward a process‐level understanding","authors":"S. Siems, Yi Huang, M. Manton","doi":"10.1002/wcc.800","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.800","url":null,"abstract":"Large differences continue to exist between current precipitation products over the Southern Ocean (SO). This limits our ability to close the hydrological cycle over the SO and Antarctica, as well as limiting our understanding of a range of climatological and meteorological processes. This uncertainty arises from the absence of long‐term, high‐quality surface observational records of precipitation suitable for evaluation across a range of temporal and spatial scales. We have no “truth” for precipitation across this region that covers ~15% of the Earth's surface. These differences extend to spatial and temporal distributions and trends. Precipitation products that have been calibrated and evaluated against established observations in the Northern Hemisphere potentially may be biased due to fundamental differences in the dynamics and microphysics over the remote SO. This review first considers recent advances in our understanding of the precipitation of the SO, including spatial and temporal variability, thermodynamic phase, and response to climate drivers. We then examine several commonly used precipitation products derived from satellite observations (both passive and active), reanalyses, and merged products. Where possible, we examine the skill of these products across a range of precipitation processes that commonly occur across the SO. Finally, we look briefly at the potential of new resources, such as dual‐polarized radars and maritime disdrometers, that can be used in field campaigns specifically designed to observe precipitation at the process level, and ultimately used to evaluate precipitation products over the SO.","PeriodicalId":23695,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.2,"publicationDate":"2022-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44376615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conserving biodiversity in the face of rapid climate change requires a shift in priorities","authors":"M. Schlaepfer, J. Lawler","doi":"10.1002/wcc.798","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.798","url":null,"abstract":"The field of conservation aims to protect biodiversity—the diversity of life on earth in all its forms. Traditional conservation objectives and measures have already been expanded and modified in response to shifting social values and climate‐related challenges. As climate change progresses, we argue that these changes will need to be accelerated. First, an even greater fraction of conservation objectives will need to prioritize the basic well‐being of humans, especially in areas where humans are strongly dependent on their natural surroundings. For example, urban biodiversity and low‐impact forms of agriculture and forestry that reconcile biodiversity and contributions to humans should increasingly be viewed as compatible with conservation objectives. Second, more conservation measures will need to allow for, and even foster, changes in biodiversity. Indeed, changing species' characteristics and biotic community composition are not only adaptive responses to inevitable climate change but will, in many instances, also be necessary to maintain functioning ecosystems. Conversely, attempts to maintain biodiversity in a historical state will likely become increasingly difficult, expensive, and possibly counterproductive. Finally, in addition to continuing climate adaptation work, conservation efforts will need to focus more on reducing atmospheric carbon concentrations. We explore how collectively these changes are transforming the field of conservation and how they have the potential to lead to a more just and sustainable world despite impending climate change.","PeriodicalId":23695,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.2,"publicationDate":"2022-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49162566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Science‐state alliances and climate engineering: A ‘longue durée’ picture","authors":"Julia Schubert","doi":"10.1002/wcc.801","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.801","url":null,"abstract":"Since the early 2000s, proposals to deliberately modify the Earth's climate have gained political traction as a controversial last resort measure against dangerous global warming. The article provides a ‘longue durée’ picture of such climate engineering proposals. It traces their historical trajectory from the late 1950s to their most recent arrival on mainstream climate policy agendas. This perspective suggests that the history of climate engineering unfolds not only along historically specific modes of understanding climatic change. It also corresponds to changing alliances between climate science and the state. By bringing together historical scholarship with contributions from sociology and science policy studies, the article sheds new light on the rise of climate engineering proposals. It recontextualizes these proposals within the bigger history of the political cultivation of climate science. This perspective highlights how deeply entwined efforts to understand and efforts to govern climatic change have always been.","PeriodicalId":23695,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47532940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A review of air travel behavior and climate change","authors":"S. Gössling, S. Dolnicar","doi":"10.1002/wcc.802","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.802","url":null,"abstract":"Air transport challenges the world's net‐zero carbon ambitions. The sector has consistently grown and causes warming as a result of both CO2 and other, short‐lived emissions. Two principal solutions have been proposed to reduce the contribution of aviation to climate change: innovations of technology and the development of interventions to trigger behavioral change. Technological innovations include new propulsion technologies and the use of sustainable aviation fuels. Behavioral change includes flight avoidance, substitution with other means of transport, the choice of efficient flight options, and carbon offsetting. This article focuses on behavior; it offers an overview of factors that lead to consumers traveling by air and discusses demand distribution complexities. The importance of price for air travel decisions is assessed, and evidence of travel “wants” are contrasted with “needs,” the latter investigated in light of the COVID‐19 pandemic. The review of relevant scholarly work culminates in an action list enabling air travelers, policy makers, the aviation industry, researchers and society to meaningfully advance low‐carbon air transport trajectories.","PeriodicalId":23695,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47056756","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
K. Reed, N. Goldenson, R. Grotjahn, W. Gutowski, K. Jagannathan, A. Jones, L. Leung, S. McGinnis, S. Pryor, A. Srivastava, P. Ullrich, C. Zarzycki
{"title":"Metrics as tools for bridging climate science and applications","authors":"K. Reed, N. Goldenson, R. Grotjahn, W. Gutowski, K. Jagannathan, A. Jones, L. Leung, S. McGinnis, S. Pryor, A. Srivastava, P. Ullrich, C. Zarzycki","doi":"10.1002/wcc.799","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.799","url":null,"abstract":"In climate science and applications, the term “metric” is used to describe the distillation of complex, multifaceted evaluations to summarize the overall quality of a model simulation, or other data product, and/or as a means to quantify some response to climate change. Metrics provide insights into the fidelity of processes and outcomes from climate models and can assist with both differentiating models' representation of variables or processes and informing whether models are “fit for purpose.” Metrics can also provide a valuable reference point for co‐production of knowledge between climate scientists and climate impact practitioners. Although continued metric developments enable model developers to better understand the impacts of decisions made in the model design process, metrics also have implications for the characterization of uncertainty and facilitating analyses of underlying physical processes. As a result, comprehensive evaluation with multiple metrics enhances usability of climate information by both scientific and stakeholder communities. This paper presents examples of insights gained from the development and appropriate use of metrics, and provides examples of how metrics can be used to engage with stakeholders and inform decision‐making.","PeriodicalId":23695,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43843951","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}