We examined whether differences in climate-friendly choices between the supporters of left-wing and right-wing ideologies are based on different moral foundations. Moreover, we compared general and issue-specific endorsement of moral foundations applied to climate change. Study 1 examined the endorsement of general moral foundations of university students living in Finland. Individualizing foundations were associated with increased climate-friendly choices and binding foundations were associated with decreased climate-friendly choices; the endorsement of moral foundations made the (...) effect of political orientation disappear. In Study 2 we developed and tested an issue-specific measure of moral foundations. The issue-specific endorsement of both types of foundations was directly associated with increased climate-friendly consumption. Binding foundations were associated with the avoidance of climate-friendly choices through right-wing orientation. These findings increase our understanding of differences between general and issue-specific moral concerns and their association to political orientation and pro-environmental behavior. (shrink)

Communication campaigns often highlight environmental progress to encourage further pro-environmental behaviour. Consequently, the drop in carbon emissions caused by the COVID-19 restrictions has been framed as a positive environmental outcome of the pandemic. We conducted an experimental study with a US-representative sample (N = 500) to show that raising awareness of emissions reduction has the contrary effect: an increase in moral self-concept facilitated a negative spillover, namely, it reduced climate-friendly behavioural intentions. Normative influence was able to prevent this (...) negative spillover because activating environmental norms inhibited compensatory feelings. Besides, awareness of recent emissions reduction was less likely to increase the moral self-concept of participants with a strong environmental self-identity. Our findings demonstrate that environmental progress increases moral self-concept which, in turn, could cause a negative spillover (i.e., reduce climate-friendly low-carbon behaviour and increase climate-harmful high-carbon behaviour). Normative influences and environmental self-identity can inhibit this negative spillover. (shrink)

The impulse to establish a self-managed hospital for Integrative Anthroposophical Medicine in Berlin arose in the period following the fall of the Berlin Wall, between 1989 and 1995. It originated from individuals who had spent their youth and early professional years in the divided city of Berlin and inspired by the atmosphere of new beginnings after reunification, sought to make a meaningful impact in this transformative environment. Among these founders were also people from what was then “West Germany.”.

The current situation of climate change at a global level clearly requires policy changes at local levels. Global efforts to reach a consensus regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions have so far been focused on developing Climate-Friendly Technologies (CFTs). The problem is that in order for these efforts to have an actual impact at a global level we need to be concerned with more than just promotion and info-dissemination on the already existing CFTs, but also with (...) costs, implementation and the international intellectual property and trade system necessary for this strategy to work. Currently, almost 80% of all patent applications belong to OECD countries like Japan, US, Germany, South Korea, Great Britain and France. The obligations climate change imposes on developing countries represent a technological shift that depends on Technology Transfer (TT) and implementation of IP laws. The current IP framework, especially patent law, copyright and trade secrets produces another kind of obligations. The main question is if the conjunction of these two sets of obligations (rules) is fair from a global justice point of view. Also, it is questionable whether this conjunction helps developing countries to produce their own CFTs. When discussing the demands of global justice one cannot skip the very important distinction Pogge makes between negative and positive obligations. In the context of global warming and the measures that the world’s states ought to take to prevent it, there seems to lie another conjunction between the positive obligation of preserving the natural environment that we all share and a negative obligation of allowing the less developed countries to help us all do so. Because one cannot impose regulations that cannot be put into practice, it is more and more obvious that a new framework of action and development needs to be drawn in the field of TT of CFTs. (shrink)

The effects of anthropogenic climate change may be devastating. Nevertheless, most people do not seem to be seriously concerned. We consume as much as we always did, drive as much as we always did, eat as much meat as we always did. What can we do to overcome this collective apathy? In order to be able to develop effective measures, we must first get clear about the causes of climate change inaction. In this paper I ask whether moral (...) nihilism is a significant cause of climate change inaction. The answer to this question depends mainly on the extent to which being a moral nihilist reduces one's likelihood of taking action against climate change. At first sight, the extent seems to be considerable. I argue, however, that this assumption is false. Only slightly more non-nihilists than nihilists are led to climate-friendly actions by moral considerations. And in absolute terms, morality plays such a minor role in leading people to act that the difference is barely noticeable. (shrink)

This essay, a postscript to the Common Knowledge symposium “Antipolitics,” analyzes the particular challenges that the climate emergency poses for representative democracy. It asks how ways of conducting political conflict can be shaped in a broadly speaking climate-friendly way. It also probes an institutional alternative to representative assemblies of winners in free and fair elections among political parties: mini-publics of citizens chosen at random. Some advantages of this alternative are identified, but doubt is cast on any attempt (...) to have it replace elections and assemblies of professional politicians. (shrink)

This chapter provides readers with an introduction to the field of environmental ethics. To begin, I consider whether it's morally wrong to crush grasshoppers. In the process, I identify a moral principle that can be applied to the problem of climate change. With the help of that principle, I argue that most people are morally obligated to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, offset their remaining emissions, and advocate for climate-friendly policies and politicians. Why? Because failing to do (...) these things is irresponsible. (shrink)

Financial markets play a critical role in climate finance as they are a major source of funding for many of the projects and initiatives aimed at addressing climate change. For instance, banks and investors can provide loans and capital to companies that are developing renewable energy projects, building energy-efficient infrastructure, or implementing climate-smart agricultural practices. Moreover, the importance of climate finance in financial markets goes beyond just funding environmental initiatives. Investors and financial institutions are increasingly factoring (...) in climate risks and opportunities into their decision-making processes, including assessing the financial risks posed by climate change and the potential impact of new regulations and policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This book is a collection of recent developments in climate change and climate finance. As the global community seeks to address the impacts of climate change, financial institutions are being called upon to play a larger role in supporting the transition to a sustainable economy. This includes incorporating climate risks into investment decisions, developing new financial products that support climate-friendly investments, and promoting greater transparency and accountability in the financial sector. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of how climate change is impacting the global financial system and explores the potential solutions that can help address these challenges. The contributions aim to examine the complex interplay between climate change and finance, and the potential for innovative financial instruments and policies to support the transition to a low-carbon economy. (shrink)

International negotiations on anthropogenic climate change are far from running smoothly. Opinions are deeply divided on what are the respective responsibilities of developed and developing countries with regard to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the alleviation of the negative effects of global warming. A major bone of contention concerns the role of intellectual property rights (especially patents) in the development and diffusion of climate-friendly technologies. While developing countries consider IPRs as a formidable barrier to the (...) rapid transfer and the widest possible diffusion of such technologies, developed countries, by contrast, see IPRs as a vital prerequisite for the development and transfer of these same technologies. This debate shows some similarity with the earlier debate on patents and access to lifesaving medicines, although there are also important differences. In our contribution we will explore both the analogies and the differences with this earlier debate. To provide a focus for our discussion, we will examine whether something similar to the Health Impact Fund (HIF), which has been proposed by philosopher Thomas Pogge as a reasonable solution to the ethical dilemmas of protection and accessibility in the field of pharmaceuticals, can also be elaborated for the development and diffusion of climate-friendly technologies. Thus the central question is how an analogous ‘Climate Impact Fund’ would look like and how it would work. This whole exercise will also yield a normative yardstick for assessing the various designs for a Green Climate Fund or a Technology Mechanism that are currently on the table of the international climate negotiations. (shrink)

We conduct an empirical investigation into whether the Christian religiosity prevalent in a company's headquarters community influences its top management's decisions on climate change. The study tests two opposing theoretical frameworks: a stewardship hypothesis, which predicts a positive relationship in which managers act as environmental stewards, and a dominion hypothesis, which predicts a negative relationship in which managers exercise a harmful dominion over nature. The results present a compelling contrast. We find that general Christian religiosity is negatively associated with (...) corporate climate initiatives, supporting the dominion hypothesis. Conversely, the specific Catholic religiosity within a community is associated positively with Catholic religiosity, supporting the stewardship hypothesis. This pattern is reinforced by data on managers' personal religiosity, showing that Catholic managers favor climate-friendly initiatives, while Protestant managers disfavor them. (shrink)

This article sketches ways in which business ethics should contribute to addressing the climate emergency. I consider some ways in which normative contributions to the debate on climate change and global warming have been defended, and how international thinking about environmental issues has moved from consequentialist to justice- and rights-based thinking. A recent case that came before the Hague District Court between a Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth, Milieudefensie, and Royal Dutch Shell (Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch (...) Shell), serves as an illustration of how human rights have taken centre stage in climate change litigation – and how business ethics has entered the courtroom. I use this case also to show where the contributions of our field lie: to think about consequences and principles, to include various stakeholders in our evaluations, and to conceptualize the responsibilities of business and politics. (shrink)

Confronted with the reality that our environment is dying, we must navigate feelings of grief and mourning. In this article, I set out to understand the emotion of climate grief, using the LBT model of emotions. I define climate grief as an emotion whose object is the loss of the local and global ecosystems as we rely on, value and relate to them. The rating of climate grief is strongly negative, such that we bleakly perceive our existence (...) and our survival as an ecosystem. In addition, I explore how self-defeating practical syllogisms can transform the healthy emotional grieving process into a destructive process. In particular, I investigate the LBT fallacies of "awfulizing", "damnation" and "can'tstipation". Finally, I propose a set of "climate-friendly virtues" and look at what all of us can do to mobilize our emotions of climate grief toward healthy, positive and sustainable action. (shrink)

Climate change has increasingly been recognised and associated with consumer behaviour: Practitioners are developing their strategies to reduce environmental degradation while increasing the management of sustainable consumption; it needs to better understand consumer attitudes and eco-friendly factors about the issue. Therefore, the current study focused to understand the effects of pro-environmental factors on individuals’ environmental attitudes through the lens of theory of planned behaviour in a cross-cultural setting. Moreover, present research focuses on the moderating role that religiosity plays (...) in causal pathways between certain determinants and intentions in this context. A multi-wave time-lagged research design was employed in this study, and university students from two developing countries were surveyed. The findings revealed pronounced similarities between the two examined countries. Overwhelmingly, pro-environmental factors examined were found to be positively related to attitude formation. Further results showed that attitude and subjective norms are significant predictors of the intention to purchase products with recycled packaging. Moreover, with the exception of perceived behavioural control, religiosity moderates the relationships between all the determinants of TPB and intention to purchase recycled packaged products. Present study offers insightful implications to management of these emerging and/or similar cultural markets regarding customer value for green products. Using TPB, present study broadened and deepen extant stream of literature on consumption of recycled packaged products in two highly emerging markets; Pakistan and Malaysia. (shrink)

Recently, several scholars have argued that governments worldwide should seriously consider using direct human engineering to curb global climate change. Prominent proposals include (1) cognitive enhancement, (2) moral bioenhancement, (3) preference modification, and (4) physiological modification. These direct human engineering programs could alleviate global climate change by reducing the consumption of resources, improving the understanding of the danger of climate change, and increasing moral motivations to adopt eco-friendly behaviors. Yet, each of these proposals raises several ethical (...) concerns. This chapter provides a review of the rationale behind human engineering and the current state of the literature on human engineering and climate change, concluding that at the moment human engineering raises more problems than it solves. (shrink)

One of the most attractive, but nevertheless highly controversial proposals to alleviate the negative effects of today’s international patent regime is the Health Impact Fund (HIF). Although the HIF has been drafted to facilitate access to medicines and boost pharmaceutical research, we have analysed the burdens for the global poor a similar proposal designed to promote the use and development of climate-friendly technologies would have. Drawing parallels from the access to medicines debate, we suspect that an analogous “ (...) class='Hi'>Climate Impact Fund” will increase the already very high scientific and technological supremacy of the developed world over the Global South. We advocate countering this dominance on the ground that countries with scarce research and development capacities will be in a difficult position to reject technologies and will not have a say on how such technologies should look like. Further, addressing global hazards should be an inclusive endeavour and not only a privilege reserved for the developed world. Incentivizing grassroots innovation would be a major step to promote scientific and technological inclusion. (shrink)

The effects of anthropogenic climate change will be devastating. Nevertheless, most people do not seem to be seriously concerned. We consume as much as we always did, drive as much as we always did, eat as much meat as we always did. What can we do to overcome this collective apathy? In order to be able to develop effective measures, we must first get clear about the causes of climate change inaction. In this paper I ask whether moral (...) nihilism (the denial of moral truths) is a significant cause of climate change inaction. The answer to this question depends mainly on the extent to which being a moral nihilist reduces one’s likelihood of taking action against climate change. At first sight, the extent seems to be considerable. I will argue, however, that this assumption is false. Only slightly more non-nihilists than nihilists are led to climate-friendly actions by moral considerations. And in absolute terms, morality plays such a minor role in leading people to act that the difference is barely noticeable. (shrink)

Climate change is one of the main challenges of our time, yet public support for climate action is lacking. This study scrutinizes the role of the media in educating the public on climate change and examines how media use relates to citizens’ climate-related public opinion. We test two models of opinion formation: the deficit model, which posits that media dissemination of scientific information can enhance climate knowledge, leading to increased climate-friendly attitudes and behavior; (...) and the motivated reasoning model, which suggests that citizens interpret information in a biased manner. Conducted in a context where climate coverage is mostly science-based, our cross-sectional survey provides evidence for both models. The relationship between media use and climate knowledge varies by media type and citizens’ ideology. Additionally, media use influences not only citizens’ cognitions but also their climate predispositions. (shrink)

In this paper, we will propose an idea of education as conversations between friends on matters of common concern. In a scholarly and pedagogical climate of competition, testing and accountability, there seems to be little room for true pedagogical and scholarly conversation. What we aim to develop here, is a vocabulary that is able to capture some educational experiences that are being repressed in the current educational and academic discourse and practice. Starting from our own experiences as higher education (...) workers, we argue for a way of speaking about educational practices that focus on the matters of common concern that gather – and put into conversation - students and teachers. We call this conversation a studious discourse so as to distinguish it from other forms of conversation and outline a definition of the kinds of friendships that potentially revolve around this form of communication. We base our argument on a reading of Jürgen Oelkers and Martin Wagenschein’s pedagogical and didactical reflections and propose ultimately that education is not about the inner development of measurable skills or competences, but rather about becoming part of particular forms of communication about matters of common concern. (shrink)

Being evasive as it is, philosophers have often tried to do without consciousness. Despite this, it has played a key role in the endeavours of philosophy of mind, as witnessed by its reputation as a "mark of the mental" and works of philosophers like John Searle and Daniel Dennett. Intentionality has shared a similar role, such that one and the other have often been brought together in a symbiotic relationship (Searle 1990) or deemed coextensive (Crane 1998). Such promiscuity is not (...) necessary. The revolution brought about by embodied and situated approaches seem to leave little place for such an association. Intentionality is seldom studied in the new paradigm, and when it is, new models of it are applicable to biological and robotic structures which, by most accounts, probably have no consciousness (Millikan 1984, Menary 2006). Menary (2009) also notes that the same could be said of scholastic accounts of intentionality. On the other hand, consciousness is being studied and various ways which do not involve intentionality or anything similar. I suggest that the association between these two notions has to do with the particular intellectual environment that prevailed in traditional philosophy of mind. Considerations about access and the good fortune of cognitivism, among other factors, made for a culture that emphasized the gap between behaviour on one hand and the the mental states that characterize us when we are in a disposition to cause behaviour on the other. In such conditions, concepts like intentionality and consciousness acted as bridge and allowed for a language which enabled accounts of the mind that remained somewhat comprehensive and unified, while leaving the gap unfilled. As they were covering the most problematic and elusive parts of our understanding of the mind, there was both enough similarity in the ways we used those concepts, and enough vagueness in how we accounted for their realization in physical systems, to make a rapprochement inevitable. When a new paradigm swept away the cognitivist conception of representation, some philosophers and cognitive scientists turned to more embodied and situated models of cognition. Representations in this paradigm (such as Millikan’s (1995) and Clark’s (1997)) are “action-oriented”, thus leaving no gap between action and representation – getting an account of the complex representations that we communicate in propositions is thus seen as a matter of empirical investigation. If there is no gap, concepts like intentionality and consciousness are called to play different roles in accounts of the mind – roles which do not permit any confusion. The poster will highlight relevant differences in the philosophical climate as they project themselves in accounts of representation (following Gallagher 2008), and make salient the link between this climate and the role of cognition in philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Over the last twenty years, the idea that climate change – and indeed global environmental change more generally – is fundamentally a moral challenge has become mainstream. But most have supposed that the challenge is one of acting morally, rather than to our morality itself. Dale Jamieson is a notable exception to this trend. From the earliest days of climate ethics, he has argued that successfully addressing the problem will involve a fundamental paradigm shift in ethics. In general, (...) Jamieson believes that our current values evolved relatively recently in “low-population-density and low-technology societies, with seemingly unlimited access to land and other resources,” and so are ill-suited to a globalized world. More specifically, he asserts that these values include as a central component an account of responsibility which “presupposes that harms and their causes are individual, that they can be readily identified, and that they are local in time and space.” But, he claims, global environmental problems such as climate change fit none of these criteria, so that a new value system is needed, one which addresses “fundamental questions” about “how we ought to live, what kinds of societies we want, and how we should relate to nature and other forms of life.” In particular, he declares that there is little hope of success without direct appeal to a hitherto underappreciated “duty of respect for nature.” In my view, Jamieson is right to question the adequacy of conventional ethical thinking for addressing global environmental problems. However, I also contend that the situation with respect to responsibility is less clear cut than he suggests. In this paper, I offer several objections to Jamieson’s main arguments, and propose an alternative, less revisionary, account of our predicament. Nevertheless, I also suggest that much of the spirit of Jamieson’s position remains intact, so that my proposal is more of a “friendly amendment” to his view than an outright rejection of it. According to this amendment, climate change involves a failure of our attempts to delegate responsibility to political institutions charged with acting on our behalf. Such failures are jarring, since they throw many of our normal practices into doubt, and threaten to restore to us demanding social burdens to which we have become largely unaccustomed. This situation need not cast doubt on our basic account of ethical responsibility. Indeed, that account helps to illuminate what is going on. Still, it does imply that we face a large (although somewhat familiar) moral and political challenge. (shrink)

In this paper we analyse and discuss the views of Swedish stakeholders on how to mitigate climate change to the extent it is caused by meat production. The stakeholders include meat producer organisations, governmental agencies with direct influence on meat production, political parties as well as non-governmental organisations. Representatives of twelve organisations were interviewed. Several organisations argued against the mitigation option of reducing beef production despite the higher greenhouse gas intensity of beef compared to pork and chicken meat (according (...) to life cycle analysis). Regarding feed production some organisations proposed use of the best available industrial fertilizers, others were against all use of such fertilizers. Several organizations suggested domestic production of more protein-rich fodder and use of manure for biogas production. Regarding meat consumption the focus was on throwing away less food as waste and on eating less meat but the best (most climate friendly) meat, which was considered to be Swedish meat in contrast to imported meat. There was agreement on many issues. Most disagreement was found regarding political steering. We find many of the stakeholders’ mitigation proposals regarding meat production and consumption acceptable. However, we are to some extent critical to their defence of Swedish beef production. We also point out certain problems with the suggestion to reduce consumption of imported meat but not of domestically produced meat. (shrink)

This Special Collection focuses on both theoretical and practical dimensions of the smart healthy age-friendly environments (SHAFE). The SHAFE concept is more and more widely discussed and used in the fields and interventions related to population ageing and intergenerational relationships around the world. The SHAFE idea is one of the most recent iterations of the age-friendly cities and communities (AFCC) concept that was introduced by the World Health Organization in 2007. The discourse on the development of standards for (...) adapting cities and communities to the needs of older adults and ageing societies initially focused on eight domains: housing, transportation, outdoor spaces and buildings, community support and health services, communication and information, social participation, respect, and social inclusion as well as civil participation and employment. The SHAFE concept launched in 2018 by the Cáritas Diocesana de Coimbra, AFEdemy, and their Stakeholders Network is adding three additional layers to the AFCC in order to more dynamically take into account diverse needs and capacities of ageing societies, design accessible products, services and infrastructure to people of all ages as well as solutions related to the contemporary social, health, and environmental challenges. In the first layer, the SHAFE idea supports citizen development in terms of digital skills needed in using smart age-friendly solutions, understanding data processing and management, increasing health literacy, improving civil participation and engagement, as well as maintaining or improving their social networks and relationships. In the second layer, the SHAFE concept focuses on environmental-oriented solutions such as retrofitting and adapting the housing stock, fostering accessibility of public spaces and transport, implementing climate-neutral solutions, and promoting health and well-being in the workplace. Finally, the third layer of the SHAFE concept concentrates on health and care by promoting reliable, safe and accessible big data and artificial intelligence-based solutions, implementation of robust and interoperable digital infrastructures, fostering the development of integrated, personalised, affordable and person-centred solutions, implementing new guidelines and long-term funding solutions and business models as well as training care professionals on digital skills. Goals of this Special Collection: (1) to discuss the theoretical basis of the SHAFE, including critical appraisal and review of this concept; (2) to identify and share the best practices and innovations related to the implementation of SHAFE; (3) to debate on governance modes, management solutions as well as evaluation and impact assessment tools relevant for SHAFE; (4) to gather knowledge and know-how regarding challenges in the areas of management, financing, designing, implementing, testing, and maintaining the sustainability of SHAFE-related products, services, and infrastructures; and (5) to recognise and analyse insights for the potential revisions and updates of the SHAFE concept. (shrink)

This study sheds light on the role of economic instruments in pushing countries into compliance with the provisions of international agreements for the protection of the environment. Such instruments include the use of trade policy instruments, applying environmental fees, approving loans for environmentally friendly projects, emission trading, and the “polluter pays” principle. The study addresses the lack of Jordanian legislative systems aiming to develop economic instruments that incentivize the adoption of environmentally friendly international policies, compared to the abundance (...) of legislations that only impose financial and penal fines for violators of the environmental law, which were not effective in reducing environmental pollution. On the contrary, the cost of repairing damage is exorbitant and escalating, according to international reports. (shrink)

Regardless of political orientation, the majority of Germans—despite the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and persistently high inflation rates—consider climate change to be one of the most pressing societal problems of our time as of July 2023. It is not up to observers to decide whether the climate crisis exhibits the characteristics of a crisis or not. The only standard that matters is the people who suffer from human-induced climate change. Vulnerable groups threatened by climate (...) change include people over 65, those with chronic illnesses, and children, at least in Europe. For millions of people in other regions of the world, human-induced climate change is a catastrophe. AfD members and likely their supporters do not see this, or they do not want to see it. Whether the population accepts human-induced climate change or not, whether people support or reject climate-friendly measures, whether they do so for political or financial reasons, what stands out are the often escalating debates between opponents and proponents. These disputes are carried out in popular science books, magazines, on television, in sessions of the Bundestag and state parliaments, and primarily on online platforms. Opponents and deniers of human-induced climate change include pseudoscientists, journalists, politicians, YouTube celebrities, conservative think tanks, and right-wing populist and right-wing extremist organizations and parties. However, current governmental and political guidelines are not always particularly motivating for climate-friendly actions by individuals or groups. As is well known, communication about climate change between stakeholders leaves much to be desired. (shrink)

The planet is in crisis. Time is short, but it is still possible to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions before disaster overtakes us all. Renowned philosopher Robin Attfield explains the moral reasons for urgent action based on current harms, threats to future generations, and to the species with which we share the planet. In compelling and student-friendly prose, he explores the science of climate change, biodiversity loss and air pollution, climate injustices, political implications of the crisis, and possible (...) responses. Among other things, he argues that measures to introduce climate justice should be paid for by countries able to pay, and by the big polluters in particular. The recently agreed Loss and Damage fund can play a central part in climate funding. Related political measures, such as the introduction of Ecocide as an international crime alongside war crimes, also give cause for hope. Attfield’s passionately argued twentieth book, _The Ethics of the Climate Crisis,_ is crucial reading for our times. (shrink)

This chapter explores the intersection of age-friendliness and environmental sustainability in Japanese cities and communities, a topic of increasing urgency given Japan’s rapidly ageing population and escalating climate challenges. As of 2024, over 29% of Japan’s population is aged 65 and older, and the country also faces rising greenhouse gas emissions and frequent natural disasters. These dual pressures demand integrated approaches to urban development that simultaneously promote healthy ageing and environmental resilience. Drawing on national frameworks such as the WHO’s (...) Age-friendly Cities and Communities (AFCC) model and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the chapter outlines how Japanese policy and practice have begun to merge these agendas.Through a multidisciplinary lens incorporating urban planning, social policy, and environmental science, the chapter analyses conceptual overlaps and gaps between age-friendly and sustainable cities. Case studies from Akita City, Kanagawa Prefecture and Takarazuka City illustrate local innovations in inclusive design, green infrastructure and participatory governance. The role of community engagement and social capital is emphasised, showcasing how older adults contribute to co-creating resilient and livable environments. National and local policy efforts, including Smart City initiatives and urban development ordinances, are examined alongside challenges such as institutional fragmentation and technological accessibility.The chapter concludes by advocating for holistic, cross-sectoral governance and intergenerational collaboration to realise inclusive, climate-resilient urban futures. Japan’s experience offers valuable insights for other ageing societies navigating similar environmental and demographic transitions, positioning it as a testing ground for globally relevant urban strategies. (shrink)

In an effort to illustrate both why and how children should be incorporated more fully into our world’s political proceedings, this article explores the utopian potential of Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 12 pertains to children’s “right to be heard.” More specifically, this article theorizes a radically inclusive approach to democracy described herein as a “caring,” “child-friendly” politics. This is a theory of politics that calls for children to be welcomed (...) as equal citizens within our world’s various spaces of democracy. Accordingly, during a time beset by a complex series of overlapping, systemic global crises, this article reconsiders the possibility—a matter of hope—of allowing children to act as political equals alongside their adult counterparts. While climate change is the main international issue studied as a part of this article’s discussion of children and their agency, this piece of international political theory is ultimately about what it might mean for more radical political action to be taken to care for the world and those who will ultimately come to inherit it. (shrink)

On the basis of the normative theory of sustainability just laid out, effective implementation measures can be identified. In a first step, a number of promising starting points can be identified for individual and entrepreneurial action as well as for educational measures. Education, voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) and consumer engagement can play a role, but they cannot eliminate the need to contain capitalist economic activity and daily life through effective policy instruments, especially with regard to sustainability. Knowledge and intrinsic (...) (self-interested or value-driven) motivation alone cannot trigger the necessary transformation. At the level of the individual person or company, it is also not possible prescribe sufficiently precise what each of the actors has to achieve individually. In addition, there are some general governance problems with regard to addressing single actions (such as shifting effects and rebound effects: see below).At the political level, there has been an impressive collection of sustainability programmes and declarations on an international, EU and national level to date, although this collection is conflicting with the still large ecological footprint per capita. This also applies to the much-discussed stipulations in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in the Kyoto Protocol and now in the Paris Agreement, which sets a very ambitious temperature limit, but falls far short in all details of establishing instruments of implementation. The previous sustainability governance in terms of command-and-control law, information law, subsidy law, and procurement law offers a diverse picture which, overall, is not very effective measured against the ambitious (!) objectives (and only this way the effectiveness of instruments can be analysed). Keywords for severe governance problems especially with regard to sustainability include direct and indirect rebound effects (which also include wealth effects), resource-related, sectoral, and spatial shifting effects, lack of rigour, enforcement problems and problems of depictability. These governance problems can only be solved if sustainability issues are consistently understood as (mostly) quantity problems and which require ambitious quantity limits. Thus, those need to be established as core instrument of sustainability policy.The most promising approach of quantity governance in terms of sustainability would be a cap (and trade) approach or a similarly structured levies on central noxious agents. Given this is construed in a substantially and geographically broad way and with a clear orientation towards ambitious goals, the above-mentioned governance problems can be solved. Furthermore, the diagnosed motivational situations of citizens, companies and politicians (self-interest, conceptions or normality, etc.) can be adequately addressed – in a freedom- and democracy-friendly manner. Questions such as “certificate markets or levies”, “overall market or submarkets” or “costefficiency” are mostly overestimated, as is the question of which instruments should be labelled as economic or regulatory. The idea that the controlling effect of prices is only limited (allegedly due to price elasticity of demand) is based on several false assumptions. The existing EU emissions trading system (ETS) in the climate sector, however, solves almost none of the problems just listed, and neither do various tax approaches.The key instrument for climate protection as well as for other environmental problems would be a strict cap on fossil fuels in line with the temperature limit in Article 2 para. 1 PA. This could be achieved by means of a completely revised emissions trading scheme that integrates all fossil fuels (instead of merely some industrial sectors) and commits to strict caps and closed loopholes. This could be started by the EU and other willing states and thus gradually removing fossil fuels from the market within two decades. For individual citizens and businesses, this would result in increasing and soon relatively massive price incentives in favour of more efficiency, more renewable resources and, as is mostly neglected, frugality (whose necessity due to the very ambitious target is typically ignored in the economic discourse). The approach could gradually be extended to a global scale. The revenues of the system would essentially contribute to financing mitigation and adaptation in the participating countries of the Global South. An important complementary instrument are border adjustments towards non-willing states for imports and exports. Shifting effects for emissions or resource consumption (and competitive disadvantages) are thus avoided, and pressure is exerted on other states to participate in the system. At the same time, the economic viability of an effective sustainability policy can be demonstrated, ultimately paving the way for later global agreements. A quantity-controlling approach can be even advantageous from the point of view of social distribution, especially on a global scale, but also with regard to social inequalities within industrialised countries. It addresses both the long-term fatal social impacts of climate change and resource depletion as well as poverty reduction in developing countries. In addition, the model favours the establishment of administrative, educational and welfare institutions in developing countries, which will probably lead to slower population growth (which, like demographic change in general, is overinflated as a cause of problems and too little recognised as their consequence). Furthermore, in the North and South, permanently available and affordable energy is secured, a global race to the bottom in terms of eco-social standards is avoided, and positive effects on the labour market are also likely. In addition, compensation on a global scale and to a lesser extent also for the socially weaker in the industrialised countries is conceivable from the revenues of a quantity governance system. Global concepts for resource and sink problems can thus be linked to combatting poverty.If an integrated solution is to be sought for various environmental problems (climate, biodiversity, nitrogen, phosphorus, soils, water), a rapid phasing-out of fossil fuels is key. But a cap for livestock farming is similarly important. In connection with capping fossil fuels, this would trigger far-reaching changes also in agriculture, e.g. in the direction of organic farming, pasture farming and significantly lower consumption of animal food, which would in total greatly relieve biodiversity, soils, water, nitrogen (and phosphorus) cycles and public health. Other pricing instruments are also conceivable.In addition, in order to avoid hot spot problems and path dependencies, a number of supplementary command-and-control rules and prohibitions remain important in the area of sustainability, for example as additional tool to save biodiversity. This would, however, be more selective and, moreover, would involve stricter and more stringent regulatory law in terms of content and enforcement than is currently the case. The same applies to informational and planning instruments. In contrast, direct pricing of control variables that are difficult to grasp, such as biodiversity, is not very effective.A sustainability policy that is pursued by a group of willing states has to assert itself against a global, borderless world economy. Cross-border free trade in particular has typical social and ecological defects and calls for regulatory containment of capitalist economic activity. This is true not only in terms of sustainability (in order to avoid shifting effects) but also in terms of democracy which is put under pressure by globalisation minimising the decisive power of domestic parliaments (legally and factually). The current state of establishing global liberal-democratic institutions is ethically and legally only partially compatible with the justification of a universal, global and intertemporal liberal-democratic law and ethics. At least, a sustainability pioneering role of some states is not prohibited under international trade law, including border adjustments for imports and exports. All in all, a categorical rejection of free market systems remains unconvincing even considering the concept of free trade. (shrink)

On the basis of the normative theory of sustainability just laid out, effective implementation measures can be identified. In a first step, a number of promising starting points can be identified for individual and entrepreneurial action as well as for educational measures. Education, voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) and consumer engagement can play a role, but they cannot eliminate the need to contain capitalist economic activity and daily life through effective policy instruments, especially with regard to sustainability. Knowledge and intrinsic (...) (self-interested or value-driven) motivation alone cannot trigger the necessary transformation. At the level of the individual person or company, it is also not possible prescribe sufficiently precise what each of the actors has to achieve individually. In addition, there are some general governance problems with regard to addressing single actions (such as shifting effects and rebound effects: see below).At the political level, there has been an impressive collection of sustainability programmes and declarations on an international, EU and national level to date, although this collection is conflicting with the still large ecological footprint per capita. This also applies to the much-discussed stipulations in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in the Kyoto Protocol and now in the Paris Agreement, which sets a very ambitious temperature limit, but falls far short in all details of establishing instruments of implementation. The previous sustainability governance in terms of command-and-control law, information law, subsidy law, and procurement law offers a diverse picture which, overall, is not very effective measured against the ambitious (!) objectives (and only this way the effectiveness of instruments can be analysed). Keywords for severe governance problems especially with regard to sustainability include direct and indirect rebound effects (which also include wealth effects), resource-related, sectoral, and spatial shifting effects, lack of rigour, enforcement problems and problems of depicting. These governance problems can only be solved if sustainability issues are consistently understood as (mostly) quantity problems and which require ambitious quantity limits. Thus, those need to be established as core instrument of sustainability policy.The most promising approach of quantity governance in terms of sustainability would be a cap (and trade) approach or a similarly structured levies on central noxious agents. Given this is construed in a substantially and geographically broad way and with a clear orientation towards ambitious goals, the above-mentioned governance problems can be solved. Furthermore, the diagnosed motivational situations of citizens, companies and politicians (self-interest, conceptions or normality, etc.) can be adequately addressed—in a freedom- and democracy-friendly manner. Questions such as “certificate markets or levies”, “overall market or submarkets” or “costefficiency” are mostly overestimated, as is the question of which instruments should be labelled as economic or regulatory. The idea that the controlling effect of prices is only limited (allegedly due to price elasticity of demand) is based on several false assumptions. The existing EU emissions trading system (ETS) in the climate sector, however, solves almost none of the problems just listed, and neither do various tax approaches.The key instrument for climate protection as well as for other environmental problems would be a strict cap on fossil fuels in line with the temperature limit in Article 2 para. 1 Paris Agreement. This could be achieved by means of a completely revised emissions trading scheme that integrates all fossil fuels (instead of merely some industrial sectors) and commits to strict caps and closed loopholes. This could be started by the EU and other willing states and thus gradually removing fossil fuels from the market by 2030 or 2035. For individual citizens and businesses, this would result in increasing and soon relatively massive price incentives in favour of more efficiency, more renewable resources and, as is mostly neglected, frugality (whose necessity due to the very ambitious target is typically ignored in the economic discourse). The approach could gradually be extended to a global scale. The revenues of the system would essentially contribute to financing mitigation and adaptation in the participating countries of the Global South. An important complementary instrument are border adjustments towards non-willing states for imports and exports. Shifting effects for emissions or resource consumption (and competitive disadvantages) are thus avoided, and pressure is exerted on other states to participate in the system. At the same time, the economic viability of an effective sustainability policy can be demonstrated, ultimately paving the way for later global agreements. A quantity-controlling approach can be even advantageous from the point of view of social distribution, especially on a global scale, but also with regard to social inequalities within industrialised countries. It addresses both the long-term fatal social impacts of climate change and resource depletion as well as poverty reduction in developing countries. In addition, the model favours the establishment of administrative, educational and welfare institutions in developing countries, which will probably lead to slower population growth (which, like demographic change in general, is overinflated as a cause of problems and too little recognised as their consequence). Furthermore, in the North and South, permanently available and affordable energy is secured, a global race to the bottom in terms of eco-social standards is avoided, and positive effects on the labour market are also likely. In addition, compensation on a global scale and to a lesser extent also for the socially weaker in the industrialised countries is conceivable from the revenues of a quantity governance system. Global concepts for resource and sink problems can thus be linked to combatting poverty.If an integrated solution is to be sought for various environmental problems (climate, biodiversity, nitrogen, phosphorus, soils, water), a rapid phasing-out of fossil fuels is key. But a cap for livestock farming is similarly important. In connection with capping fossil fuels, this would trigger far-reaching changes also in agriculture, e.g. in the direction of organic farming, pasture farming and significantly lower consumption of animal food, which would in total greatly relieve biodiversity, soils, water, nitrogen (and phosphorus) cycles and public health. Other pricing instruments are also conceivable.In addition, in order to avoid hot spot problems and path dependencies, a number of supplementary command-and-control rules and subsidies (public money only for public goods and phasing-out of harmful subsidies) remain important in the area of sustainability, for example as additional tool for peatlands, forests and biodiversity protection. This would, however, be more selective and, moreover, would involve stricter and more stringent regulatory law in terms of content and enforcement than is currently the case. The same applies to informational and planning instruments. In contrast, direct pricing of control variables that are difficult to grasp, such as biodiversity, is not very effective.A sustainability policy that is pursued by a group of willing states has to assert itself against a global, borderless world economy. Cross-border free trade in particular has typical social and ecological defects and calls for regulatory containment of capitalist economic activity. This is true not only in terms of sustainability (in order to avoid shifting effects) but also in terms of democracy which is put under pressure by globalisation minimising the decisive power of domestic parliaments (legally and factually). The current state of establishing global liberal-democratic institutions is ethically and legally only partially compatible with the justification of a universal, global and intertemporal liberal-democratic law and ethics. At least, a sustainability pioneering role of some states is not prohibited under international trade law, including border adjustments for imports and exports. All in all, a categorical rejection of free market systems remains unconvincing even considering the concept of free trade. But whether open societies—and world peace—will survive the current (and very often fossil-fuel-based) challenges by autocracies, remains an open question. (shrink)

Behind the headlines, a struggle between two opposing philosophical visions has shaped the course of international efforts to save the planet from global warming. The liberal cosmopolitanism of the great Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant has been up against the darker vision of an authoritarian global order of great power rivals developed by Carl Schmitt, 'Crown Jurist of the Third Reich'. Clive Hamilton shows how the influence of Schmitt's once-taboo ideas has recently spread around the world – in Trump's America, in (...) Xi Jinping's China, and in Europe with the rise of right-wing populism. His book maps how the actions of these three great powers have defined the course of global climate negotiations. The Kantian vision, best represented by the European Union, has common sense on its side – a threat to everyone that can be solved by collective responses. In practice, however, UN agreements have triggered resistance from surging anti-globalist forces influenced by the Nazi jurist's ideas, a world defined by friends and enemies and where weaker states submit to powerful ones. As the Earth hurtles towards a hot and perilous future, which of these worldviews prevails, Kant's or Schmitt's, could determine humanity's fate. (shrink)

Whereas mainstream theories of environmental art and sustainable development consider art as a domain suitable for the application of environmentally friendly procedures, such as the circular economy, trash management and digitization, this research article focuses on the internal development of the autopoetic and self-referential art machine, which generates an art-specific sustainability. The circular environmental economy coexists with the circular art economy, which implies changes in the aesthetics and poetics of the artwork; it deploys upcycling to use art trash in (...) creating a new, higher value object. Art-specific sustainability contributes to the power and complexity of the art machine with new conceptual interventions and devices. These devices allow art to resist threats from other fields and to redefine itself. As sustainable development agendas of international organizations take into account the social, political, and economic initiatives that promote ethics, inclusion, and tolerance, this article discusses the contributions of contemporary environmental art to expanded concepts of the political and science. In particular, art activism, in cooperation with civil society, can be an important driver in areas that parliamentary politics overlooks. (shrink)

In this commentary on Darrel Moellendorf’s Mobilizing Hope: Climate Change & Global Poverty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), I discuss his use of the precautionary principle, whether his hope for climate-friendly ‘green growth’ is realistic given the tendency for inequality to accelerate as it gets higher, and what I call his assumption of a liberal baseline. That is, I worry that the audience to whom the book is addressed are those who already accept the environmental and economic (...) values to which Moellendorf appeals, while those who are blocking effective action on climate change in fact reject those values and are therefore unlikely to be moved by the arguments the book presents. (shrink)

This paper studies consumers’ reactions and resistance to being responsibilized for making climate-friendly food choices. While resistance to consumer responsibilization has been studied from an individual experiential perspective, we examine its collective characteristics. We do this by tracing the controversial marketing campaign of a Swedish poultry producer, encouraging consumers to “do something simple for the climate” by eating chicken rather than beef. In our analysis of social media comments and formal complaints to the consumer protection authority, we (...) mobilize Foucault’s notion of counter-conduct to analyse subtle forms of resistance to consumer responsibilization. We identified four interrelated yet distinct forms of consumer counter-conduct: _challenging truth claims, demanding ‘more,’ constructing ‘the misled consumer,’_ and _rejecting vilification._ By theorizing these counter-conducts, we demonstrate how consumers collectively contested both the means and ends of responsibilization—but not the underlying premise of individualized responsibility. Thus, our study helps to explain how consumers’ resistance reproduces, rather than undermines, responsibilization. (shrink)

Joshua Parker’s article on green inhaler prescribing is important and timely. I agree with much of it, specifically regarding the institutional duty to make climate-friendly changes (from environmentally expensive prescriptions to ‘greener,’ similarly effective ones). The challenge, however, comes in determining how that institutional obligation impacts the rights and duties of patients. In this commentary, I want to offer a friendly alternative to Parker’s view of individual patient obligation, which I suggest is important for reasons that go (...) beyond this one case. Parker’s broad view is that, because metered-dose inhalers (MDIs) emit far more greenhouse gases (GHG) than do dry powder inhalers (DPIs), and the two are equally effective for most patients, the healthcare system should switch most patients on MDIs to DPIs, and the patients have a pro tanto duty to accept this change.1 The problem is that no individual inhaler use causes harmful climate change, and so it is difficult to explain a duty not to use MDIs. It seems that my individual behaviour ‘makes no difference’ to climate change, so familiar more principles have a difficult time justifying a prohibition of such behaviour. Parker’s response to this worry fits into the consequentialist tradition,2 3 as he argues that each individual contribution to climate change causes some amount of ‘expected harm,’ because it contributes a little bit to future climate changes which will cause harm. And since we have a duty to minimise expected harm, we have a duty not to make such small contributions to climate change. I think we should be sceptical of this sort of argument. It makes the most sense if we endorse a bathtub metaphor, in which the atmosphere is like a bathtub, and once it is full, every …. (shrink)

As the race towards global Net Zero emissions continues, governments and businesses alike are increasingly being held accountable to sustainability pledges. Organisations are pressured to engage in environmentally friendly practices through policy, regulation, or market influences. Although many individuals and organisations recognise the importance of climate positive behaviour, they may struggle to consistently engage for various reasons. Often, these challenges arise due to organisations lacking structures or social orientations that prioritise environmental well-being, as many were established before (...) class='Hi'>climate concerns became as widespread as they are today. Consequently, individuals are often working against the organisational machine to switch to pro-environmental behaviours. Matching conventional wisdom: doing the right thing is rarely easy. To address this, we suggest that familiar business efficiency methodologies are reframed to incorporate and sustain pro-environmental behaviours within organisations. Specifically, we propose a ‘Sustainable-by-Design’ approach, drawing from established Lean principles to improve efficiency in an organisation by reducing waste. Waste reduction is often associated with a reduction in internal cost and embodied greenhouse gas emissions. The true Lean principles foster a more pleasant and less frustrated customer and employee experience, contrasting historic associations with unempathetic ‘efficiency improvements’ for maximising profits in manufacturing industry. Rather than solely focusing on output efficiency, true Lean principles focus on harmony (sustainability) of a system. The Sustainable-by-Design approach is based upon this ‘Lean, not mean’ ideal. We propose adding value by combining this approach with behavioural science principles, such that the Lean, climate-friendly behaviours become the ‘path of least resistance’. This is achieved by working closely with the organisation to identify their specific behavioural, cultural, psychological, and social barriers and enablers to the target behaviours. Empathetic engagement with the organisation’s people facilitates the embedding of concurrent structural and social changes, resulting in an optimised organisation that encourages sustained, sustainable behaviours at its core. (shrink)

To contribute to a better understanding of the determinants of climate-friendly organizational behavior, we study the potential of behavioral policy interventions and social norms to foster individual contributions to organizational decarbonization initiatives. We investigate the effects of different types of behavioral policy interventions (default nudges vs. short-term boosts) in isolation and when they are combined with normative appeals to adopt climate-friendly behaviors in an organizational context. In a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment, we find that default (...) nudges generally induced higher individual contributions to organizational carbon compensation programs than short-term boosts. Moreover, injunctive social norm information decreased the effectiveness of both types of behavioral interventions but affected the effectiveness of short-term boosts to a stronger extent than the effectiveness of default nudges. Contributing to the nascent literature on motivating climate change mitigating behaviors in organizational contexts, we additionally explore whether factors such as personality traits, pro-social and pro-environmental beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, and the degree of organizational identification exert an influence on the effectiveness of the interventions and provide qualitative insights into participants’ reasoning for their decisions. (shrink)

Promoting plant-based diets as a response to climate crisis has clear implications for producers of animal derived foods, but surprisingly little research considers their perspectives on this. Our exploration focused on farming strongly associated with meat production in Wales, UK. Mindful of polarised debates around plant-based diets, we considered dietary transition as an opportunity to produce for new markets. The first aim was to identify whether transition towards plant-based diets might trigger transformation of livestock agriculture. Findings indicate a potential (...) trigger event once livestock farmers are certain that consumer trends and climate mitigation require change. Livestock farmers who regard their meat as climate-friendly might resist transitions felt to unfairly disadvantage them. We then considered livestock farmers’ likely capacity to produce plant crops, and how this transformational capacity might be enhanced. Participants highlighted forms of financial and environmental inflexibility, plus social norms regarding “good” Welsh farmers, combining to make transformation risky. Transformational capacity might be enhanced through levering occupational and place attachments by portraying plant crops as a revival of historic practices from traditional farming landscapes. Improved linking capacity will also be beneficial, as producing for new markets requires connections to new supply chains, and learning across divisions within rural communities. We present these preliminary insights to livestock farmers’ attitudes and transformational capacity to inform future research with them to advance just agricultural transitions. Our study indicates potential to avoid confrontational discussion of dietary transition and we hope that others will pursue its focus on opportunities for farmers. (shrink)

As the global urgency for environmental sustainability intensifies, leadership plays a pivotal role in shaping eco-friendly behaviors within organizations and beyond. This study examines the role of green inclusive leadership (GIL) in fostering pro-environmental behaviors within the hospitality industry, utilizing the ability, motivation, and opportunity (AMO) theory as a conceptual framework to explain how GIL influences sustainable behaviors. The study highlights AMO as a theoretical model that outlines how AMO can drive organizational success, while addressing motivation as a practical (...) driver of employee behavior. Time-lagged data were gathered from hotel employees and managers in Pakistan. The findings demonstrate that GIL positively affects employees' voluntary green behaviors both at work and in their personal lives. This relationship is mediated by a green work climate and environmental commitment, highlighting the spillover effect from workplace behaviors to daily life. The originality of this work lies in its novel application of AMO theory beyond the workplace, offering insights into how leadership can inspire sustainable actions that extend beyond organizational boundaries, especially in a high-impact sector like hospitality. (shrink)

Problems of climate change present new challenges for social theory. In this article we focus on the task of understanding and analyzing car dependence, using this as a case through which to introduce and explore what we take to be central but underdeveloped questions about how infrastructures and complexes of social practice connect across space and time. In taking this approach we work with the proposition that forms of energy consumption, including those associated with automobility, are usefully understood as (...) outcomes of interconnected patterns of social practices, including working, shopping, visiting friends and family, going to school, and so forth. We also acknowledge that social practices are partly constituted by, and always embedded in material arrangements. Linking these two features together, we suggest that forms of car dependence emerge through the intersection of infrastructural arrangements that are integral to the conduct of many practices at once. We consequently explore the significance of professional – and not only ‘ordinary’ – practices, especially those of planners and designers who are involved in reconfiguring infrastructures of different scales, and in the practice dynamics that follow. (shrink)

Following an established two-dimensional dichotomy for environmental leadership, environmentally friendly behavior as a leadership style has become an important topic in both research and practice. However, so far, it has remained unclear how these new concepts relate to well-established leadership styles such as transformational leadership, responsible leadership, and leaders' organizational citizenship behavior. In this study, we provide an in-depth examination of the environmentally focused substyles in contrast to their well-established counterparts, their antecedents, and the incremental value in predicting corporate (...) environmental responsiveness (CER). For that purpose, we surveyed N = 211 German leaders: Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and path model analyses suggest that, overall, established leadership styles and their respective environmentally specific substyle are empirically distinct constructs. Moreover, environmentally specific leadership behaviors explained significant variance beyond established concepts in predicting corporate environmental sustainability. Finally, our analyses suggest that leaders' extraversion and political orientation emerge as valid predictors (i.e., antecedents) of environmental leadership behavior. Overall, this study shows that CER is influenced on an individual level, underlining the important role of leaders' behavior in a rapidly worsening climate crisis. (shrink)

This chapter considers an interesting possibility related to human psychology and explores its relevance with respect to understanding and impacting behavior in the face of climate change understood as a “creeping environmental problem.” The possibility is that one’s best bet in terms of predicting and understanding someone’s take on her individually trivial contributions to positive or negative outcomes is not to look for clues about whether she is individualistic or group-oriented, but instead to figure out whether an individualistic take (...) or a group-oriented take will facilitate her seeing herself as praiseworthy, or at least not blameworthy: insofar as one take is better suited to facilitating self-praise, or avoiding self-blame, with respect to the behavior at hand, it will, other things equal, be adopted. If this is right, it has important implications with respect to attempts at promoting environmentally friendly behavior by activating motivations associated with the prospect of self-praise or self-blame. (shrink)

Bloggers confessing that they waste food, non-governmental organizations naming corporations selling unsustainably harvested seafood, and veterans apologizing to Native Americans at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation for environmental and social devastation caused by the United States government all signal the existence of action-oriented guilt and identity-oriented shame about participation in environmental degradation. Environmental Guilt and Shamedemonstrates that these moral emotions are common among environmentally friendly segments of the United States but have received little attention from environmental ethicists though they (...) can catalyze or hinder environmental action. Concern about environmental guilt and shame among "everyday environmentalists"reveals the practical, emotional, ethical, and existential issues raised by environmental guilt and shame and ethical insights about guilt, shame, responsibility, agency, and identity. A typology of guilt and shame enables the development and evaluation of these ethical insights.Environmental Guilt and Shame makes three major claims: first, individuals and collectives, including the diffuse collectives that cause climate change, can have identity, agency, and responsibility and thus guilt and shame. Second, some agents, including collectives, should feel guilt and/or shame for environmental degradation if they hold environmental values and think that their actions shape and reveal their identity. Third, a number of conditions are required to conceptually,existentially, and practically deal with guilt and shame's effects on agents. These conditions can be developed and maintained through rituals. Existing rituals need more development to fully deal with individual and collective guilt and shame as well as the anthropogenic environmental degradation that may sparkthem."-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Global climate change arouses people’s attention to environmental protection and, therefore, changes consumption habits. Food overconsumption not only produces extra waste but also pollutes the environment. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that motivate people to eat green, an eco-friendly way to consume food. To keep the body in good shape, the fitnessers concern more about diet than the general people. This study explored intrinsic motivations, such as social recognition, environmental ethics, curiosity, joy of purchase, perceived (...) usefulness, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control as constructs that affect fitnesser’s green eating intention. All constructs except curiosity have significant impacts on behavior intention. The results demonstrate that social recognition and environmental ethics have significant effects on curiosity, joy of purchase, perceived usefulness, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control. The mediation effects between social recognition and behavior intention are not supported. The mediators between environmental ethics and behavior intention are joy of purchase, perceived usefulness, subjective norm, and perceived behavior control. (shrink)

Nature-based solutions (NbS) have in recent years occupied a central position in conservation and climate discussions among both scientists and policy makers. NbS generally refer to a set of strategies which use nature, or natural objects, to address societal (human) issues while simultaneously supporting the broader environment. This paper examines the concept of NbS to determine whether it is a useful and well-motivated category to guide future climate and conservation efforts. I argue that NbS may in fact be (...) a valuable contribution to environmental thought and policy, but not for the reasons that they are typically thought to be. Specifically: while we have reason to doubt that NbS should be prioritized over other environmental strategies on the grounds that they are uniquely environmentally-friendly or supportive of biodiversity, they may nevertheless have an advantage insofar as they play a vital aesthetic role in developing a healthier relationship between humans and the nonhuman world. (shrink)

_ This scholarly article explores the pivotal role of green technologies and innovation in shaping a sustainable future. With the growing concern over environmental degradation and climate change, there is an increasing need for transformative solutions. This article investigates the current landscape of green technologies, their potential impact on sustainability, and the role of innovation in driving positive change. By examining case studies and emerging trends, it aims to provide insights into the promising avenues for creating a more environmentally (...) conscious and resilient world._. (shrink)

The environmentally friendly or ‘sustainable’ products have been launched in various markets in response to the growing concerns for the environmental deterioration and the alarming effects of climate change in past years. However, the uptake of green products does not seem to fully reflect the self-claimed pro-environmental concerns and attitudes. Consumers who profess to be environmentally conscious and believe they could help slow down environmental deterioration do not necessarily purchase eco-friendly products. This discrepancy between behaviour and attitude (...) has been termed as ‘intention-behaviour gap’ or ‘green gap’. This study aims at exploring the green gap in the purchases of high-involvement products such as skincare products. Focus groups and thematic analysis were conducted. It was found that environmental concern was virtually non-existent in making purchase decisions with regard to skincare products because the perceived product effectiveness is found to be the key determinant of the choice of skincare products. Other factors such as weak social norm, weak perceived consumer effectiveness, and a sense of powerlessness facing the environment degradation, to some degree, attribute to the consumers’ justification of their non-green consumption practices. Implications for closing the gap have been drawn for marketing practitioners and policy makers. Directions for future research are also provided. (shrink)

With concerns regarding climate change rising, companies and policy makers seek to understand the precursors to environmentally-friendly consumer choice. Decision modes are the qualitatively different psychological processes employed to arrive at decisions. Across six studies, the present project establishes (a) which decision modes are employed by consumers to decide between electricity plans that differ in environmental impact, and (b) how employed decision modes affect those choices. We demonstrate that consumers are most likely to use Calculation Modes when facing (...) such choices. Importantly, we find that Affect or Role Modes promote more environmentally-friendly choices, while Calculation Modes decrease environmentally-friendly choices. Experimentally promoting use of a Role Mode over a Calculation Mode increases selection of environmentally-friendly alternatives, and the relative degree of employing the Role Mode mediates this effect. Our findings provide insight into how decision mode usage can alter environmental decisions, and suggest mechanisms and tools for marketers and policy makers to influence consumer choice. (shrink)

In Speaking for Others: The Ethics of Informal Political Representation, I provide a novel conceptual and normative theory of informal political representatives (IPRs), who speak or act for others despite having been neither elected nor selected to do so by means of a systematized election or selection procedure. IPRs are everywhere. Some are internationally recognized leaders of social movements. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. informally represented Black Montgomerians during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and Black Americans generally throughout the course (...) of the civil rights movement. Me Too movement leader Tarana Burke informally represents survivors of sexual assault, abuse, and harassment. Greta Thunberg informally represents Generation Z or, as she has put it, “we who have to live with the consequences” of climate change. Others are just our neighbors and friends. But when they go to the city council meeting to give voice to our neighborhood’s shared interests, they become our representatives, too. Despite IPRs’ ubiquity and significance to our political lives, their role is conceptually puzzling, morally troubling, and markedly undertheorized. The central ethical challenge of informal political representation is that IPRs can provide valuable political goods to those they represent; yet they are neither institutionally nor procedurally constrained in the ways formal political representatives (FPRs) like legislators are. Moreover, IPRs are often the only political actors working to advance the interests of oppressed and marginalized groups, meaning these groups rely on their IPRs. As a result, relationships between represented groups and their IPRs can be inegalitarian and oppressive. How may IPRs permissibly undertake activities central to their roles without thereby wronging those they represent? This is the question that drives my book. (shrink)

New materialisms argue for a more science-friendly humanities, ventilating questions about methodology and subject matter and the importance of the non-human. However, these new sites of attention - climate, biology, affect, geology, animals and objects - tend to leverage their difference against language and the discursive. Similarly, questions about ontology have come to eclipse, and even eschew, those of epistemology. While this collection of essays is in kinship with this radical shake-up of how and what we study, the (...) aim is to re-navigate what constitutes materiality. These efforts are encapsulated by a rewriting of the Derridean axiom, 'there is no outside text' as 'there is no outside nature.' What if nature has always been literate, numerate, social? And what happens to 'the human' if its exceptional identity and status is conceded quantum, non-local and ecological implication? (shrink)