Northern Archaeology and Cosmology: A Relational View

There is a growing consensus that climate change will have severe and disproportionate consequences for often-invisible and overlooked communities, places, and the people within them. The extractivist ideas and practices implicated in resource extraction and climate change play a dual role in this disproportionality. These ideas and practices not only illustrate a compelling need to think about how the experiences and knowledges of often-invisible people can become more prominent in policy processes that govern natural resource extraction, but also highlight the need for more sustainability-focused public policy. The knowledge and expertise of those overlooked within communities affected by resource extraction is urgently needed to counterbalance the corporate push for extraction and the direct role of extractive industries in fuelling climate change. Over the past ten years, the authors have collaborated with Indigenous and northern women in several northern Canadian communities to better understand not only their experiences living in resource-affected areas, but also their preferences for engaging in policy decisions that affect their lives. Concurrently, the authors have carefully examined the application (or lack thereof) of intersectionality in public policy, particularly in impact assessments, which are central to major resource extraction and development-related decisions. Drawing on this work, Levac and colleagues argue that applying GBA+ (an intersectionality-informed framework) in impact assessments offers the potential to improve climate change responses because GBA+ can strengthen communities’ adaptive capacities, foreground Indigenous knowledges, bolster meaningful engagement, and counter the extractivist mindset which values private profit over widespread economic and social costs. In making this argument, they explain how northern and Indigenous women’s experiences and preferences for policy engagement can be better reflected in impact assessments, and how more inclusive engagement processes can challenge extractivism, and thus mitigate climate change.

This article describes connections between resource extraction, prostitution, poverty, and climate change. Although resource extraction and prostitution have been viewed as separate phenomena, this article suggests that they are related harms that result in multiple violations of indigenous peoples’ human rights.

It is commonly recognized that in pursuit of climate justice we must navigate many conflicting claims over natural resources. This has long been obvious in the case of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas sinks including the atmosphere and forests; but it is ever more apparent that responses to climate change also threaten to spur new competition over land and extractive resources. This makes climate change an instance of a broader, more enduring and—for many—all too familiar problem: the problem of human conflict over how the natural world should be cared for, protected, shared, used, and managed. This work develops a new theory of global egalitarianism for natural resources, rejecting both permanent sovereignty and equal division, which is then used to examine the problem of climate change. It formulates principles of resource right designed to protect the ability of all human beings to satisfy their basic needs as members of self-determining political communities, where it is understood that the genuine exercise of collective self-determination is not possible from a position of significant disadvantage in global wealth and power relations. These principles are used to address the question of where to set the ceiling on future greenhouse gas emissions and how to share the resulting emissions budget, in the face of conflicting claims to fossil fuels, climate sinks, and land. It is also used to defend an unorthodox understanding of responsibility for climate change as a problem of global justice, based on its provenance in historical injustice concerning natural resources.

Climate change is the most significant global risk of our time. Environmental shifts are already creating multiple insecurities for humans, land, oceans and whole life systems, including the potential loss of nation-states and mass population displacements. Despite this, the mass uncertainties caused by industrial emissions are persistently denied and minimized by states and corporations focused on economic growth, technological development, institutional competitiveness and resource extraction. This chapter reflects on how modern societies have responded to climate change risks by developing increasingly secure border controls. It exposes three principal risk-prevention techniques—hostile legalities, hostile solidarities and hostile hospitalities—that together operate to blame, responsibilize and control those least responsible for climate change, while taking the focus away from polluting states and corporations to address their globally threatening activities.

A three-generation planning model incorporating uncertain climate change is developed. Each generation features a production activity based on capital and an exhaustible resource. An irreversible climate change may occur in period two or three, reducing the productivity for this and the remaining generation. The model is solved by stochastic dynamic programming. If the climate impact and climate change probability is constant, the optimal period one (and two) resource extraction is larger than for the reference case of climate stability. If, however, climate impact and climate change probability increases with increased aggregate resource use, this result is reversed.

On December 25, 2019, by an order of the Government of the Russian Federation, the National Plan of Measures for the first stage of adaptation to the climate change for the period until 2022 was approved. This plan pays considerable attention to the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. In 2020-2021, it is planned to develop and approve a separate sectoral plan for adaptation to the climate change in the macroregion. In general, among the key problems of the socio-economic development of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation, the unpreparedness of all types of infrastructure for the possible consequences of the global climate change is particularly notable. Climate change occurring in the macroregion is superimposed by additional anthropogenic factors, including chemical pollution, excess catch of aquatic biological resources, changes in land use, population growth, and changes in the structure of the economy. The problem of the impact of climate processes on socio-economic development is fundamental and has its positive or negative manifestations in all spheres of life. The negative manifestations of the climate change primarily include consequences for ecosystems, the environment, infrastructure, especially coastal areas, public health and traditional local lifestyles. The positive effects of climate change include reducing heating costs, expanding opportunities for agriculture and forestry, developing shipping along routes in the Northern Sea, as well as expanding access and increasing the extraction of mineral and marine biological resources.

There is a growing tendency to argue that the capitalist mode of production is fundamentally incompatible with climate stability and that ‘system change’ is needed to prevent apocalyptic ‘climate change’. This position overstates capitalism's dependence on fossil fuels. Rather than fossil fuels per se, capitalism requires abundant, secure and predictable energy sources. Furthermore, capitalism cannot postpone the stabilization of the earth's climate indefinitely, as doing so threatens core systemic imperatives: the generation and accumulation of profits and reproduction of capitalism across space and time. The growth in renewable energy generation could bring about a transition from ‘fossil capitalism’ to ‘renewables capitalism’. While this could potentially eliminate the ecological risks of climate change, it would most likely exacerbate existing socio‐economic inequalities and environmental injustices associated with increased extraction and consumption of natural resources. The role of counter‐hegemonic movements remains crucial for the creation of a democratic and equitable system of production and distribution.

In this research, the impact of the human factors and climate change on groundwater level fluctuations affected by uncertainty within 27-year upcoming period (2018–2045) in the Razan Plain is examined. To simulate the aquifer performance, the GMS model is calibrated and verified for two 18-month periods, respectively. To forecast climate variables changes in the future time-frame, six CMIP5 models with three scenarios Rcp 2.6, Rcp 4.5 and Rcp 8.5 are utilized. To study the prediction uncertainty of the climate change models, the method of probabilistic levels of precipitation and temperature changes were used. In this technique, by combining 6 climate change models and 3 mentioned scenarios for each month, 18 prediction values for ∆T and ∆P in upcoming years were approximated. After that, by implementing appropriate distribution for each month, next values of ∆T and ∆P in the probabilistic levels of 50% and 90% are estimated. Finally, in two probabilistic levels of 50% and 90% considering the uncertainty of general circulation models, the climate variables of precipitation and temperature were forecasted. Eventually, based on the probabilistic level technique and using the GMS model, the influence of the human factors and climate change on the groundwater level variations under these scenarios are determined. Results showed that climatic factors have a lesser contribution in reducing the groundwater level in the plain, and the largest contribution is related to human factors and excessive withdrawal from the aquifer. The contribution of climate change in the reduction of the groundwater level in probability scenarios of 0.9 and 0.5 and emission scenarios Rcp8.5, Rcp4.5 and Rcp2.6 is about 40.8, 24.3, 32.3, 27.6 and 22.2 percent respectively. Based on these results, the first priority for aquifer planning and management should be focused on human activities and controlling the amount of withdrawal from the aquifer. These results clearly show that the main cause of creating sinkholes and the sharp reduction of the groundwater level in the region is the excessive extraction of groundwater resources as a result of human activities, including agriculture and industrial demands, and not climate change.

Foreword by Dipesh Chakrabarty Introduction: A Postcolonial Environmental Humanities Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Jill Didur, and Anthony Carrigan Part I: Politics of Earth: Forests, Gardens, Plantations 1. Narrativizing Nature: India, Empire, and Environment David Arnold 2. The Perverse Little People of the Hills: Unearthing Ecology and Transculturation in Reginald Farrer's Alpine Plant-Hunting Jill Didur 3. Bagasse: Caribbean Art and the Debris of the Sugar Plantation Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert 4. Writing a Native Garden?: Environmental Language and Post-Mabo Literature in Australia Susan K. Martin Part II: Disaster, Vulnerability, and Resilience 5. Towards a Postcolonial Disaster Studies Anthony Carrigan 6. Nuclear Disaster: Marshall Islands Experience and Lessons for a Post-Fukushima World Barbara Rose Johnston 7. Island Vulnerability and Resilience: Combining Knowledges for Disaster Risk Reduction Including Climate Change Adaptation Ilan Kelman, J.C. Gaillard, Jessica Mercer, James Lewis, and Anthony Carrigan Part III: Political Ecologies and Environmental Justice 8. Edgework of the Clerk: Resilience in Arundhati Roy's Walking With the Comrades Susie O'Brien 9. Filming the Emergence of Popular Environmentalism in Latin America: Postcolonialism and Buen Vivir Jorge Marcone 10. Witnessing the Nature of Violence: Resource Extraction and Political Ecologies in the Contemporary African Novel Byron Caminero-Santangelo Part IV: Mapping World Ecologies 11. Narrating a Global Future: Our Common Future and the Public Hearings of the World Commission on Environment and Development Cheryl Lousley 12. Oil on Sugar: Commodity Frontiers and Peripheral Aesthetics Michael Niblett 13. Ghost Mountains and Stone Maidens: Ecological Imperialism, Compound Catastrophe, and the Post-Soviet Ecogothic Sharae Deckard Part V: Terraforming, Climate Change, and the Anthropocene 14. Terraforming Planet Earth Joseph Masco 15. Climate Change, Cosmology, and Poetry: Case of Derek Walcott's Omeros George B. Handley 16. Ordinary Futures: Interspecies Worldings in the Anthropocene Elizabeth DeLoughrey

Our reliance upon the oceans and their resources for food, transport, culture and recreation remains as important today as in the past. This is clearly illustrated by the emergence of multiple agendas focused on blue growth and wealth from the oceans. These initiatives seek to balance economic activities with broader concerns across the range of ocean activities including fishing, other resource extraction, tourism, energy and shipping. Achieving long-term blue economy goals requires healthy oceans and depends upon sustainable activities. In particular, attention must be paid to environmental concerns and particularly the emerging and future impacts of climate change. This chapter seeks to highlight opportunities and challenges by focusing upon the intersection of climate change and fisheries management in the Indian Ocean region and specifically the small island states. The activities of key regional organizations are analysed, as well as international treaty regimes and inter-governmental organizations operating in the regional setting. The chapter analyses how these organizations and regimes are engaging with critical climate change and fisheries issues for the small island states and what further action is needed to support blue growth agenda.

IT has a role to play in the current debate on climate change. The current discourse on IT and climate change views IT in a negative light, as a polluter. What remains unrecognised is the critical role of IT as a source of solutions to the climate change problem. We live in a massive, inter-connected Planet Earth Supply Chain. IT provides a range of tools to model, manage and optimise this supply chain.The University of Wollongong Carbon-Centric Computing Initiative (CCCI) seeks to seed a program of research that addresses the climate change problem with a range of computing technologies including (but not limited to): optimisation technologies, supply chain management technologies, business process management/process improvement technologies, grid computing (e.g., utility grid) and virtualisation technologies, ICT-enabled conferencing and collaboration technologies as well as ICT for knowledge sharing and network-centric advocacy.The contours of this new and exciting space for research and industry development are described in this report. The report provides insights into a set of representative points within this new space. It describes how existing web infrastructure could be leveraged to devise the optimising web a massive, globally inter-connected network of optimisers helping support decisions that would reduce the global carbon footprint. It describes how computer simulation models can provide the basis for sustainable manufacturing and environmental management in the enterprise. It describes how IT based techniques can help support supply chain optimisation audits to determine if and how value might be best derived from the judicious use of optimisation technology. It describes the critical role ICT-enabled collaboration technologies can play in reducing the carbon footprint. It also addresses the key role ICT-based knowledge sharing and network-centric advocacy can play in obtaining broader social engagement in this debate. The report addresses the policy dimension to these issues and the need for an industry-academia consortium to drive such an agenda forward.The DSL: The Decision Systems Lab has engaged in cutting-edge research in the areas of industrial optimisation, business process management, service-oriented computing, software engineering and the applications of artificial intelligence technology for over a decade. It prides itself in being able to effectively span the spectrum from basic to applied research, and has generated a range of high-impact insights and industry applications.ATUL: As the Activity Theory Usability Laboratory, ATUL was opened in 2001. Able to support both research and practice, ATUL was then equipped to conduct holistic and realistic usability evaluations of computer applications and websites. Since its opening ATUL has expanded to acquire an exciting range of tools in innovative areas of business analysis and training: team-building, group decision support, systems modeling, content analysis among these. Copyright 2009 Aditya Ghose, Helen Hasan and Trevor Spedding. No part of this article may be reproduced by any means without the written consent of the publisher.

The increase in global average temperatures caused by the regular but uncontrolled extraction and degradation of natural resources by either artificial or natural means has initiated noticeable amounts of aberrations in climatic conditions of many regions of the world. Scientists are now busy searching for the causes of rising temperature and different methods of mitigation to counteract the impacts of climate changes that are now “very visible.” India is no exception but is at the top of the list of vulnerable countries. The uncertainties imposed on the climate have already displaced and destroyed large numbers of people and their households. Every year the list of casualties due to extreme weather conditions increases. Regions with high levels of regular rainfall now receive less than the average amount of precipitation, which in turn creates a scarcity of water where water was abundant even 20–30 years ago. As the destruction and exploitation of natural resources continue, the situation grows more alarming. The recent hostilities between Kerala and Karnataka over the sharing of Periyar Dam water are a vivid representation of the impact of climatic aberrations. Sundarban Biosphere Reserve is one of the world’s largest mangrove forests. Popular for its Royal Bengal tigers, it is situated in the eastern peninsular. The reserve is home to crocodiles, king cobras, and many other rare and endangered species. The impact of climate change has influenced the ecological equilibrium of this biosphere reserve. The saline water intrusion and regular decrease in yearly rainfall have limited the water availability of the islands. The uncontrolled extraction of wooden resources has reduced the forest cover that had earlier acted as a protection from cyclonic storms. Alarmingly very few studies have been conducted to measure the level of climatic impacts on the Sundarban Islands or its inhabitants. The availability of fresh water is a matter of concern for the livelihood of the people and the endangered wildlife living on the islands. But no study to identify climatic impacts on the availability of freshwater to local habitants has been undertaken to date. That is why the present project tries to quantify the effects of climate change on freshwater availability with the help of a new index known as hydrologic sensitivity. A combinatorial database considering all possible situations was constructed and applied to predict hydrologic sensitivity, which represents climate change impacts on water resource conditions of the world’s only mangrove tiger land.

Building on structuralist perspectives of the world economy, a small but growing group of researchers have forged a new literature on `ecologically unequal exchange' and documented that energy and materials disproportionately flow from the Global South to the Global North. These findings have begun to influence efforts to negotiate a `post-Kyoto' global climate regime. Since the extraction of resources and energy is one of the most damaging stages of the chain of commodity production, a logical next step is the mounting cry from developing countries that they are owed an `ecological debt' by the North. The G-77 and China have seized on these ideas and a movement for `climate justice' is now gaining strength in and exerting influence in international negotiations, including the UNFCCC meetings in Delhi, Bali, and Poznań. This article reviews the history of these related three ideas and examines their potential to reshape the discussion of `burden sharing' in the post-Kyoto world where development is constrained by climate change.

The trajectory of Australia's foreign policy during the 2010s was set remarkably early in the decade. Over a period of just five months, beginning in April 2010, then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd abandoned his Emissions Trading Scheme, Rudd's Labour colleagues subsequently dumped him as leader in favour of Julia Gillard, and Hugh White's essay Power Shift: Australia's Future between Washington and Beijing was published.1 These events decisively framed three enduring and unresolved national questions that defined the past decade of Australian foreign policy: how should we respond to climate change?; are our political leaders still capable of delivering large-scale reform in the national interest?; and how do we navigate a world in which our key security partner and our key economic partner are not the same?

Dystopian/Utopian Theatre in Britain after 2000 and Its Political Spaces, Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung / Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), University of Bielefeld, March 11–13, 2021