Tag: Environment and Climate

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Designs for the Pluriverse

Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds

Arturo Escobar | March 2018, Duke University Press

In this book, Arturo Escobar – a Colombian-American anthropologist and professor emeritus of Anthropology – presents a new vision of design theory and practice aimed at channelling design’s world-making capacity toward ways of being and doing that are deeply attuned to justice and the Earth.

The author rethinks the entire concept of design. Pluriverse, in fact, is the coexistence of plural meanings and connotations. So, the design should be built within practices situated in plurality: participatory, socially oriented, and open-ended.

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Failing Forward

The Rise and Fall of Neoliberal Conservation

Robert Fletcher | March 2023, University of California Press

Failing Forward documents the global rise of neoliberal conservation as a response to biodiversity loss and unpacks how this approach has managed to “fail forward” over time despite its ineffectiveness.

“Why so many planning efforts, in international development and elsewhere, have so often “failed” in their intended aims has long been a central concern for a wide range of critical analysts, who have offered various explanations to account for this reality.”

At its core, neoliberal conservation promotes market-based instruments intended to reconcile environmental preservation and economic development. Preservation is generally harnessed as the source of conservation finance and capital accumulation.

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UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

United Nations | 21 March 1992

Today, the framework has near-universal membership. The 198 countries ratified the Convention are called Parties to the Convention. The ultimate aim of the UNFCCC is to prevent “dangerous” human interference with the climate system.

The Convention recognized that there was a problem. The UNFCCC borrowed an essential line from one of the most successful multilateral environmental treaties in history (the Montreal Protocol, in 1987): it bound member states to act in the interests of human safety despite scientific uncertainty.

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Territorial Approach on Climate and Resilience

OECD | December 2023

Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C as early as 2030, with current climate action falling short of meeting the Paris Agreement goals and a mounting risk of tipping beyond the ability of human societies to adapt.

Building on broader OECD work on climate, this report proposes a new OECD territorial climate indicator framework. It demonstrates that different territories have different potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, adapt to climate impacts, and address vulnerabilities.

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Worst Case Sea Level Rise

Jack Kruf en ChatGPT| March 2024, en • nl

One of my children asked me about the worst-case scenario of rising sea levels. My father was heavily involved in rescue operations in the 1953 Dutch flooding disaster, so I read most of the reports. In my youth, the sea level grew because of the many stories of this disaster in my hometown Halsteren. I had my notes and asked ChatGPT, my personal Einstein friend, to help me summarize and elaborate on this. Well.

• Eén van mijn kinderen vroeg mij naar het worst-case scenario van de stijgende zeespiegel. Als kind van een vader die diep betrokken was bij reddingsoperaties tijdens de Nederlandse overstromingsramp van 1953, heb ik de meeste rapporten hierover gelezen. De zeespiegel is in mijn jeugd in mij gegroeid door de talloze verhalen van die ramp in mijn dorp Halsteren. Ik heb mijn aantekeningen en vroeg ChatGPT, mijn persoonlijke Einstein-vriend, om me te helpen dit samen te vatten en uit te werken. Wel.

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A Bigger Picture

My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis

Vanessa Nakate | 2021

This memoir delves into Nakate’s journey as a Ugandan climate activist. It chronicles her experiences growing up in Uganda, awakening to the environmental crisis, and rising as a prominent voice in the global climate movement.

Vanessa Nakate shares personal anecdotes, reflecting on her childhood in Kampala and how her early experiences with climate change impacts, such as droughts and floods, shaped her activism. She discusses her initial frustrations with the lack of attention given to African voices in the climate conversation and her determination to advocate for environmental justice for marginalized communities.

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Down to Earth

Politics in the New Climatic Regime

Bruno Latour | 2018, Polity

Ecological mutation has organized the political landscape for the last thirty years. This could explain the deadly cocktail of exploding inequalities, massive deregulation, and the conversion of the dream of globalization into a nightmare for most people.

What connects these three phenomena is the conviction, shared by some influential people, that the ecological threat is accurate and that the only way for them to survive is to abandon any pretence of sharing a common future with the rest of the world. Hence, their flight offshore and their massive investment in climate change denial.

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