A Critical Reading of Solastalgia Through Indigenous and Care Ethics Lenses

Climate-amplified emergencies are vital sites for Indigenous resistance and resurgence, even as climate change compounds layers of colonial oppression. Drawing on the experiences of the Tŝilhqot’in Nation before, during and after record-breaking wildfires in the Nation’s territory (in British Columbia, Canada), this article describes how the Tŝilhqot’in employ strategies of resistance to presumed state authority and resurgence of their own laws and jurisdiction in response to the climate emergency. These record-breaking wildfires vividly illustrate how colonial laws and policies have converged over a century to produce the climate emergency. And yet, dominant discourses around climate change and emergency reproduce Indigenous erasure, vulnerability and marginalization. Counter to these discourses, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation has advanced sophisticated emergency responses in relation to the state. Moreover, the wildfires have prompted Tŝilhqot’in communities to revitalize deep-seated fire stewardship laws and responsibilities to properly care for the land, wildlife and each other in the face of the accelerating climate crisis. The Tŝilhqot’in Nation’s experiences reclaiming fire show how Indigenous resurgence provides pathways out of the climate crisis while also attending to its colonial roots and decolonizing the responses to it.

This paper articulates the necessity of emphasizing the absolute level of environmental degradation in different countries as a guide to understanding the links between such degradation and economic development. We argue the case for developing a composite environmental degradation index (EDI) and relating it to a better measure (in comparison to per capita income) of economic development, viz. the HDI with a view to developing a Global EKC (GEKC) across 174 countries. We put forward a methodology that would achieve this end. This has necessitated the use of principal components analysis to extract information and for forming an index of global environmental degradation. This index has then been related to the HDI. Some other conclusions of the paper are as follows. First, there seems to be an inverse link between HDI ranks and EDI. Second, the US alone has a highly disproportionate (adverse) influence on all the six environmental degradation indicators. Therefore, in the design of a regulatory mechanism for global environmental management this factor would have to be recognized explicitly. In the extant literature there is no consensus about the empirical basis for global environmental degradation (GED). All along the two contending views only try to verify whether or not an inverted U shaped EKC exists. Even if we agree that an inverted U shaped EKC does not exist it does not follow that an inverted N shaped global EKC exists. Our study argues precisely that an inverted N shaped global EKC does indeed exist and provides empirical support for this position. In the process we discover extreme inequalities in the contribution of low, medium and high country groups to GED with the low country group effectively ameliorating GED and the high group countries exacerbating it. There are several important implications of the results of this paper and a few of these may be mentioned here. First, it provides a framework for assessing the current state of environmental degradation and its distribution world-wide. Thus, it would provide important inputs to a global agency like a WEO that would be interested in monitoring environmental degradation and its geographical distribution. Second, by relating such degradation to HDI, this relationship would highlight the contributions of countries with different levels of human development and assist in assigning liability. The contention that GED is essentially 'caused' by a certain type of development characteristic of high (income) development countries is borne out by the results of this study. These conclusions clarify that the first and foremost concern of global environmental management, and the WEO, should be to reckon with the inequality in global environment degradation and its intrinsic relationship with inequalities across countries in levels of economic development.

An Inverse Global Environmental Kuznets Curve

Nowadays we were facing to the global warming which is causing climate changes. Global warming also promote by environmental degradation. Increment of human population and development on industrial realm are the main cause of environmental degradation. Wetland is one of environmental bufferwhich could enhance the environmental stress. Doing the wetland restoration is an effort to enhance ecological degradation. In this paper were discusses about wetland definition, functions, wetland restoration, effect of restoration and also some study cases of wetland restoration published by some researcher. Tidal Wetland Restoration itself could be defined as an actions taken in a converted or degraded natural wetland that result in the reestablishment of ecological processes, functions, and biotic/abiotic linkages and lead to a persistent, resilient system integrated within its landscape (Lewis, 1989). It must expect restoration could bring the better effluence to the ecology, however some time it’s not just happen like ideally. Some of the restoration activity could promote and lead the ecological degradation in the neighbor habitat from which restoration activity was conducted. Therefore to enhance the sustainability, restoration and good management should be applied in order and in good monitoring. Keywords : wetland, ecological, restoration, sustainability.

With intensifying water crisis, environmental and ecological degradation, as well as ongoing climate change worldwide, integrated water resources management, which considers surface water (SW) and groundwater (GW), is becoming increasingly important. As integrated surface–subsurface hydrological models are capable of simulating water processes in an integrated and holistic fashion, provide spatially and temporally detailed description of the catchment-scale hydrological cycle, enable scenario analysis, and may be coupled with other models (e.g. solute transport model),  they are essential and useful tools in integrated water resources management. The SWAT-MODFLOW is such a surface-subsurface model. Excessive groundwater abstractions can decrease the groundwater table, and thereby affect the aquifer-connected surface water bodies, which may deteriorate the quality of aquatic ecosystems. At the same time, climate change affects inland water ecosystems not only by increasing the water temperatures but also by influencing hydrological processes (e.g. evapotranspiration) and thereby alter the flow regime. The overall objective of my Ph.D. project was to further develop and apply a newly integrated surface-subsurface model SWAT-MODFLOW in order to improve the understanding of SW-GW interactions, and to assess the impacts of groundwater abstractions and climate change on the hydrological regime and on stream biota. In the first part of my study (presented in manuscript 1), we further developed the SWAT-MODFLOW complex based on the previous publically available version (v.2) to enable the application of a Drain Package and an auto-irrigation routine. To better understand how groundwater pumping wells may influence streamflow patterns, we applied both the semi-distributed SWAT model and the further developed the integrated surface–subsurface hydrological, SWAT-MODFLOW model to a Danish, lowland, groundwater-dominated catchment - the Uggerby River Catchment (357 km2). Both models were calibrated and validated, and an approach based on PEST (Model-Independent Parameter Estimation and Uncertainty Analysis) was developed and utilized to enable simultaneous calibration of SWAT and MODFLOW parameters. The performance of the models when simulating streamflow and the simulated streamflow signals when running four groundwater abstraction scenarios through the two models were analyzed and compared. Both models demonstrated generally good performance of the temporal pattern of streamflow, albeit SWAT-MODFLOW performed somewhat better. In general, the simulated signals of SWAT-MODFLOW appeared more plausible than those of SWAT, and the SWAT-MODFLOW decrease in streamflow was much closer to the actual volume abstracted. The impact of drinking water abstraction on streamflow depletion simulated by SWAT was unrealistically low, and the streamflow increase caused by irrigation abstraction was exaggerated compared with SWAT-MODFLOW. To quantitatively assess the effects of groundwater abstractions and climate change on the hydrological regime and on stream biota, we combined the SWAT-MODFLOW model with novel nationwide-scale flow-biota empirical models for three key biological taxonomic identities (fish, macroinvertebrates, and macrophytes). We applied the integrated approach to the Uggerby River Catchment and assessed to what extent the flow regime and key biota in stream segments of different sizes may be altered by groundwater abstractions and climate change. In the second part of my study (presented in manuscript 2), we therefore analyzed and assessed the impacts of the present level of groundwater abstractions and a scenario with extreme groundwater abstraction for three subbasin outlets representing stream segments of different sizes. The current groundwater abstraction level had only minor impacts on the flow regime and stream biotic indices at the three subbasin outlets. The simulated extreme abstractions, however, led to significant impacts on the smallest stream but had comparatively minor effects on the larger streams. The fish index responded most negatively to the groundwater abstractions, followed by the macrophyte index, decreasing, respectively, by 23.5% and 11.2% in the small stream in the extreme groundwater abstraction scenario. No apparent impact was found on the macroinvertebrate index s in any of the three subbasin outlets. In the third part of my study (presented in manuscript 3), we analyzed and assessed the effects of predicted climate change towards the end of this century in two climate change scenarios of different greenhouse gas emission levels (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5) for all subbasin outlets classified into streams of three size classes, and we compared the results with the reference period (1996-2005). The overall streamflow and groundwater discharge in the catchment decreased slightly in the RCP2.6 scenario, while it increased in the RCP8.5 scenario. The differently sized streams underwent different alterations in flow regime and also demonstrated different biotic responses to climate change as represented by the fish and macrophyte indices. Large and some small streams suffered most from climate change, as the fish and macrophyte quality indices decreased up to 14.4% and 11.2%, respectively, whereas these indices increased by up to 14.4% and 6.0% respectively, in medium and some small streams. The climate change effects were larger in the RCP8.5 scenario than in the RCP2.6 scenario, as expected. In conclusion, the further developed SWAT-MODFLOW model calibrated by PEST provided a better hydrological simulation performance and much more realistic signals relative to the semi-distributed SWAT model when assessing the impacts of groundwater abstractions for either irrigation or drinking water on streamflow; hence, it has great potential to be a useful tool in water resources management in groundwater-dominated catchments. The novel approach of combining SWAT-MODFLOW and flow-regime biota models is a useful tool to quantitatively assess the effects of groundwater abstractions on stream biota and thereby support water planning and regulations related to groundwater abstractions. To the best of my knowledge, the third part of my study is the first to quantitatively assess the impacts of streamflow alterations induced by climate change on stream biota beyond specific species, which would assist in water planning and regulations in the response to the challenges posed by climate change.

This chapter introduces climate justice and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a special focus on the Indigenous peoples, whose contribution to GHG emission is very low, yet they are among the first to suffer the progression of climate change via the degradation of the environment and the displacement of communities. It critiques the possible contradictions of the SDGs, namely Climate Action (SDG13) and Life on Land (SDG15), with Indigenous reality, claiming that these frameworks are often crafted without taking into consideration Indigenous people's rights. The chapter also argues for the inclusion of Indigenous people in climate change mitigation and sustainable development plans, providing case studies of such native practices. It further looks at how social work and community-initiated projects seek to resolve the systemic challenges endured by the Indigenous people. The chapter wraps up with practical advice aimed at climate and development policymakers to incorporate Indigenous people's viewpoints in their strategies for development thereby fostering equitable growth.

Ours is an age of unprecedented levels of environmental alteration and biodiversity loss. Beyond the exposure to environmental hazards, conditions such as environmental degradation, biotic impoverishment, climate change, and the loss of ecosystem services create important health threats by changing the ecology of many pathogens and increasing the incidence and/or severity of certain noncommunicable conditions. They also threaten health in the future by weakening the Earth's life support systems.Although physicians remain one of the most often accessed and most trusted sources of information about the environment, there is currently little emphasis on educating medical professionals about these environmental issues. This lack of training reduces the ability of most physicians to be efficient science-public interfaces and makes them ineffective at contributing to address the fundamental causes of environmental problems or participate in substantive environmental policy discussions. This is an important challenge facing medical education today.To turn medical students into effective physician-citizens, an already-overwhelmed medical school curriculum must make way for a thoughtful exploration of environmental stressors and their impacts on human health. The overarching question before medical educators is how to develop the competencies, standards, and curricula for this educational endeavor. To this end, the authors highlight some of the critical linkages between health and the environment and suggest a subset of key practical issues that need to be addressed in order to create environmental education standards for the physician of the future.

We extend the analysis of Jha and Murthy (2003) to relate consumption to environmental degradation (conceived of as a composite) within a cross-country framework. We use the method of Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to construct an Environmental Degradation Index (EDI) for each country and global environmental degradation (GED) as the sum of the EDI’s. We then identify outliers and influential observations among both the environmental and consumption related variables. Canonical Discriminant analysis is then used to classify development classes along environmental lines. We then estimate a simultaneous equation model to analyze the pattern of causation between per capita income, consumption and environmental degradation. We estimate a Global Environmental Kuznets curve (GEKC) as a relation between EDI ranks and ranks of the consumption-based EDI. A cubic representation is most appropriate with high-consumption countries contributing excessively to GED and middleconsumption countries slightly less. Low-consumption countries are contributing insignificantly to GED. Finally we present an alternative consumption-based Human Development Index to UNDP’s income-based Human Development Index. We then compare the ranking of countries according to the consumption-based HDI ranks with their ranking according to their EDI. Two sets of data drawn from the Human Development Report (HDR) UNDP(2000)) are used in the analysis. One relates to the environment and the other to developmental variables. For the formation of a composite index that would enable the estimation of a GEKC for 174 countries, we used cross-sectional data used in the HDR. The two main contributions of this paper are to build a consumption based HDI and to estimate a Global EKC based on consumption. A simultaneous equations model explains the causal structure that is responsible for Global Environmental Degradation. Further, with Canonical Discriminant Analysis it has been shown that GED does not have geo-physical basis but an anthropogenic basis. As a part of the system of equations a Global Consumption Function has been estimated that displays interesting results. In net, the paper attempts to establish that a certain ‘type of development’ that characterizes high consumption countries is primarily responsible for Global Environmental Degradation.

This paper examines the relevance of ‘ethics of care’ in the furtherance of a harmonious relationship between the Federal government, multi-national oil companies with the indigenous communities in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria. The paper is of the view that when the ‘ethics of care’ is properly applied to the Niger-Delta conflict and communal eruptions that is currently threatening the unity of Nigeria on one hand, and her image internationally among committee of nations on the other hand, it is in our considered opinion that the ‘sun of hope will beam’ on the wretch region once more. By extension, normal activities of peaceful co-existence between the trio i.e the Nigerian government, the various multi-national oil companies and the indigenous people, will again flourish in the region. Then tolerance, agreeable relationship that fosters mutual co-existence and cooperation toward sustainable development of the area would have come to stay. The paper concludes that communal conflict in Niger-Delta will be greatly reduced and sufficiently managed by the incorporation of the ethical principles, which constitute the ‘ethics of care’.

Under the joint influence of climate change and human production and living activities on land and sea, the morphology and use function of the coastline have undergone notable changes, triggering more significant environmental and ecological effects. In this paper, we quantified the evolution characteristics of the coastline over the past 30 years and measured the possible environmental pollution and ecological degradation by means of spatiotemporal coupling analysis in terms of spatial form and land-use function. The Chinese Bohai Rim region was taken as an example, and the Google Earth Engine was applied to achieve a long time series of interannually continuous land use function classification of the coastal zone. The study shows that: (1) from 1987–2020, the coastline of Bohai Rim showed an overall trend of seaward expansion, with the length of the coastline increasing by 15.6%, most significantly from 2003 to 2011; (2) the proportion of construction function coastline increased from 14.66% to 42.8%, while the proportion of cropland coastline decreased from 52.01% to 18.16% during 2000–2020, with the natural ecological coastline decreasing in the early stage and recovering in the later stage, thus becoming more stable overall; (3) 82.73% of coastal districts and counties showed a linear correlation between changes in coastline function and water quality level, and 77.8% showed a consistent degree of change of coastline function and loss of ecological land, indicating that changes in the coastline have triggered significant problems in terms of environmental pollution and ecological degradation. With the exception of localized areas such as the Yellow River Delta, where coastline change is somewhat more significantly influenced by environmental climate change, most other coastline changes are primarily due to human land-based development; therefore, coastal policy constraints bring obvious mitigation.

In the face of escalating climate change, humanity confronts a defining challenge marked by rising global temperatures, extreme weather, and environmental degradation. Africa, particularly vulnerable to these realities, finds hope in climate entrepreneurship where innovation meets sustainability. This paper explores the dynamic role of entrepreneurship in addressing environmental issues, emphasizing how startups and SMEs are pioneering renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture, and sustainable waste management. Using a quantitative research approach, the study analyzes statistical relationships between demographic variables and perceptions of climate entrepreneurship. Descriptive statistics indicated gender-based differences in responses (M = 33, SD = 22.24 for males; M = 42.5, SD = 20.64 for females), though a t-test revealed no significant difference (t(67) = -1.83, p = .072). Several one-way ANOVA tests examined variables such as age, prior participation in climate initiatives, and perceptions of government support. Despite medium to large effect sizes in some cases (e.g., η² = 0.13 for government policy support), no statistically significant differences were found. These findings suggest that while perceptions and beliefs about climate entrepreneurship vary, they are not strongly divided along demographic lines. Barriers such as limited funding access, unsupportive policies, and market dynamics remain critical. Yet, entrepreneurship remains a powerful tool for innovation and sustainable development. The paper concludes that fostering supportive ecosystems—through policy reform, investment, and education can unlock the full potential of climate-focused entrepreneurship to combat climate change and build resilient communities.

Rural communities are subjected to impact of climate change and children are the most vulnerable. Adaptation to climate change poses, great challenge to Zambia, planners and decision makers need to appreciate application of strategic management. The study desired to establish the extent and impact of climate change on realization of children’s fundamental rights in rural agriculture dependent households, management and child protection systems in Zambia as well as to assess key factors of climate change and how it has contributed to inabilities of rural agricultural dependent households to fulfill fundamental rights of children. Contribute to the body of knowledge through proposing some measures that can address climate changes, with strategic management approach, community engagement, integrated with child rights approach. National Climate Change Policy sets two objectives with immediate relevance responding to climate change, public health and need strategic management, decisions: “To promote, strengthen implementation of adaptation and disaster risk reduction measures to reduce vulnerability to climate variability and change.” “To strengthen, institutional and human resource capacity, to effectively and efficiently address all aspects of climate change at, national, provincial, district and local levels.” There is need to strengthen, policies, promote application of prediction models and technologies to determine vulnerability sectors to climate change, support higher learning and research institutions on climate related research that supports child rights governance and protection. The study used combined methodology, action and explanatory. Much of the study methodology was explanatory in nature as it attempted to identify circumstances surrounding the extent and impact of climate change on realization of children’s fundamental rights in rural households. Key results includes Stakeholders, have not appreciated the application of strategic management in their planning and implementation of interventions on climate change with a child right’s lens. Climate change and environmental degradation are creating various crisis situations for children and rural households including social and economic crisis hence increasing vulnerability and poverty.

Human behavior and deeds occupy center stage in every major environmental problem confronting humankind. Environmental degradation seems to be related to a hypercompetitive economic system, consumerism, population growth, urbanization, intensification of agriculture, and luxurious lifestyle, which supports ‘self-indulgence into desires’ and not ‘needs-based life.’ This article describes how two key factors, hyper-competitiveness, and consumerism, are associated with evil motives, selfishness, and unethical behavior among individuals and contributing to environmental and social degradation. In a nutshell, consumerism seems to be a slow societal suicide. Hyper-competitiveness articulates greed, and such people are not only manipulative but also adopt vicious and conspicuous methods in besting others. It is inferred from our study that adverse psychological health effects of consumerism and hyper-competitiveness are contributing towards environmental and social degradation.

On April 17, 2019, the University of Bristol became the first university in the United Kingdom (UK) to declare a climate emergency. Against a backdrop of high visibility and public concern about climate change, as well as climate emergency declarations from other sectors, another 36 UK universities followed suit over the next year. This paper explores what these climate emergency declarations show about how UK universities are responding to climate change and wider sustainability concerns, as well as how they view and present themselves in relation to this. Critical Discourse Analysis of the declarations allowed for in-depth scrutiny of the purpose and wider social context of the documents, demonstrating that they function as promotional statements, as presenting a collective voice, and showing a commitment from the universities to action. We argue that while these provide the potential for advancing sustainability within the sector, the tendency to use declarations as publicity and promotional material does detract from new commitments and action. The research contributes to the discussion around the role of universities as institutions with a responsibility both to act on climate change and to shape the broader societal response to it. It also provides insights as to how future research can evaluate universities in relation to their commitments and strategies, and provides suggestions to help ensure they live up to the promises and intentions that they have publicly made.

The rising concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and the associated impacts of climate change have prompted the urgent need to reduce GHG emissions. In response, the cities of Manchester and Melbourne declared climate emergencies in 2019, calling for radical resource mobilisation to address global warming. Despite the increasing discourse on climate change policies and ambitions, there is limited evidence on the current practices in the built environment following these climate emergency declarations. To address this gap, this research conducted a comparative analysis of the building sector practices in Manchester and Melbourne. Through 63 in-depth interviews with building professionals and policy experts, this study sheds light on the alignment of these practices with climate goals. The findings reveal that while the United Kingdom has made notable progress in establishing its net-zero pathway, little attention has been given to driving this transformation at the building project level. In Melbourne, stricter regulations are necessary, particularly in the residential sector, to facilitate emission reductions and behavioural change. This paper, therefore, proposes a holistic cultural reform framework to support the transition of the sector towards a performance-based culture. By contextualising this analysis within the broader policy landscape and gathering insights from building professionals and policy experts, this research contributes to global efforts in climate change mitigation and offers practical implications for the building sector.