Info, news & views for anyone interested in biodiversity conservation and good environmental decision making
“Watch it all burn, then dance in the ashes! This, roughly speaking, is how the dismissal of climate action is now being justified: the argument has shifted from science denial to outright nihilism.”
George Monbiot [see item 4]
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In this issue of Dbytes
1. How are the rights of nature kindling policy and decision-making change, a transnational perspective
2. Earth System Law, Governing Planetary Transformations in the Anthropocene
3. Against expectations: Many ‘successful’ restoration efforts occur in undemocratic contexts
4. Murderous heat, an endangered food supply and no net zero: this is the life the radical right wants you to have
5. Marine heatwaves are cooking our ocean ecosystems – and will only become more common
6. Psychological inoculation against climate doom
7. Australia is the planet’s extinction hotspot, but one animal offers a glimmer of hope
8. Advancing science by designing for surprise
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1. How are the rights of nature kindling policy and decision-making change, a transnational perspective
The recognition of the rights of Nature has turned into an opportunity to bring to the fore non-anthropocentric value systems to policy making and planning. This elicits the question: how does planning and policy-making change with the recognition of natural entities’ rights? Examining five case studies across three countries (Colombia, Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia) where nature’s rights were legally recognized, this paper offers insights on the types of transformations that the recognition of the rights of nature is eliciting in the policy and planning making cycle. The study finds that across a transnational set of cases this recognition invites more relational ways of understanding the human-Nature relationship, triggers the inclusion of a wide spectrum of stakeholders and foster new institutional arrangement. What is more policy formulation and implementation are transformed by new attempts at co-management and institutional collaboration, and the consideration of new economic and development rationales that are attuned to place. Further research, however, should examine whether these changes persist overtime, what are the challenges that emerge in adopting these changes, and whether policy changes still occur when the rights of Nature are symbolically recognized but not legally enforceable.
How are the rights of nature kindling policy and decision-making change, a transnational perspective – ScienceDirect
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2. Earth System Law, Governing Planetary Transformations in the Anthropocene
Written by leading experts, this open access book provides the first comprehensive and critical exploration of Earth system law. Environmental law, as it stands, does not meet the challenge of governing the many complex planetary transformations of the Anthropocene. Earth system law marks a new legal paradigm-replacing the fragmented, human-centred, state-based approach with an integrated, Earth-centred approach to planetary governance, purpose-built for our turbulent epoch. The book offers innovative proposals for legal principles, actors, institutions, and ethics designed to safeguard the stability and integrity of Earth’s life-support systems. It also delivers the first full stocktake of the Earth system law framework and its scholarship, coupled with a forward-looking research and implementation agenda.
Earth System Law: Governing Planetary Transformations in the Anthropocene: Louis J Kotzé: Hart Publishing – Bloomsbury
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3. Against expectations: Many ‘successful’ restoration efforts occur in undemocratic contexts
Within the restoration debate it is often assumed that restoration is successful when it is bottom-up, participatory, and democratically governed. As nice and straightforward as this sounds, there is evidence that reality isn’t quite so simple, and that this assumption might even be contradicted. To explore whether restoration mainly happens in democratic contexts or not, Sigman et al. compiled a list of restoration initiatives publicly designated as “successful” through the UN World Restoration Flagships program. They then cross-referenced those initiatives with the Economist Democracy Index (EDI) to classify the political regimes under which these initiatives take place. Given the above-mentioned assumption, you’d expect these flagship successes to cluster in full democracies. However, the majority of named successes were not located in full democracies. This raises the question the authors set out to explore: if participatory democracy is supposed to be a requisite for restoration success, why do so many “successful” restoration initiatives appear to be taking place under undemocratic regimes?
Against expectations: Many ‘successful’ restoration efforts occur in undemocratic contexts | Ideas for Sustainability
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4. Murderous heat, an endangered food supply and no net zero: this is the life the radical right wants you to have
As climate disaster stares us in the face, the radical right says ‘Embrace the Mediterranean life’. Embrace death, more like it.
Murderous heat, an endangered food supply and no net zero: this is the life the radical right wants you to have | George Monbiot | The Guardian
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5. Marine heatwaves are cooking our ocean ecosystems – and will only become more common
You may have heard reports of fish die-offs or seen photos of hauntingly bleached coral. Those are just two signs a marine heatwave has swept through the sea. Marine heatwaves happen when the ocean remains abnormally hot for an extended period. While they may be invisible from the shore, their impacts can wreak havoc underwater – killing various kinds of coral, seagrass and fish. As climate change continues to warm the ocean, marine heatwaves will only become more frequent and severe. While we cannot stop these marine disasters happening, we can work to better understand them and reduce their impacts on vulnerable ocean ecosystems.
Marine heatwaves are cooking our ocean ecosystems – and will only become more common
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6. Psychological inoculation against climate doom
Individuals encounter “climate doom,” extreme portrayals of climate change, on social media. While climate doom may be intended to motivate action, it may also be perceived as manipulative or elicit hopelessness. Yet, no research has examined whether psychological inoculation helps to improve recognition of climate doom or influences engagement with it on social media. In this preregistered study (n = 521), we tested whether inoculation improves discernment of climate doom and influences engagement with it by collecting behavioral data using a social media simulator. We find that inoculation substantially improves discernment of climate doom and that this is due to increased perceived manipulation of doom messaging specifically (d = 0.68). There was no interaction between the inoculation condition and political leaning and while higher perceived manipulation of doom content predicted lower behavioral intentions, inoculation did not moderate this relationship. Inoculation increased engagement, particularly disliking and flagging of doom content, and decreased sharing. Overall, our results should lead climate communicators to reconsider doom messaging as a mobilization strategy and demonstrate that inoculation is an effective tool for increasing recognition of, and critical engagement with, climate doom across the political spectrum.
Psychological inoculation against climate doom | PNAS
Editor’s note: If ‘climate doom’ is your thing, see also
The Fundamental Theorem of Doomism
Strawman argument alert! A response to psychological inoculation against climate doom
by Eliot Jacobson
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7. Australia is the planet’s extinction hotspot, but one animal offers a glimmer of hope
Australia has long been celebrated as a nature haven, home to some of the world’s most unique plant and animal species. More than 80% cannot be found anywhere else. But it has arguably become the extinction capital of the world, losing roughly four species every decade – and the decline is only worsening.
Australia is the planet’s extinction hotspot, but one animal offers a glimmer of hope
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8. Advancing science by designing for surprise
The job of a scientist is to explain and predict the world, and a vital part of this objective is to deliver knowledge in a way that updates the understandings and expectations of the largest audience. However, scientists have long treated “framing” as a secondary art form. Students are advised to do rigorous empirical work, sprinkled with creative brilliance for which there is neither definition nor strict formula. But what if audiences’ expectations and understandings could be measured and used to guide what scientists choose to study, what conclusions they draw from the evidence, and how they frame findings for distribution? What if the framing and choice of audience are adjustable parameters of a new, broader theory of inference? The question grows particularly urgent as literature becomes flooded with machine-produced papers written by no one, for no one. Papers are typically written as cautious confirmations. They marshal evidence for a pre-existing hypothesis, build incrementally on prior work, and frame results as expected extensions of existing knowledge. This style is designed to reflect new findings back to the writers’ home community. But it also slows scientific progress.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aej4257
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About Dbytes
Dbytes is a weekly eNewsletter presenting news and views on biodiversity conservation and environmental decision science. ‘D’ stands for ‘Decision’ and refers to all the ingredients that go into good, fair and just decision-making in relation to the environment.
From 2007-2018 Dbytes was supported by a variety of research networks and primarily the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED). From 2019 Dbytes is being produced by David Salt (Ywords). David was formerly the Editor of Decision Point, the research magazine of CEED.
Dbytes is supported by the Global Water Forum.
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