climate crisis – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Navigating divorce and environmental challenges: Implications in a changing world

Posted on October 30, 2023February 16, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Broken heart on wooden table. In an ever-evolving world, societal dynamics are continually shifting, reflecting the multifaceted nature of the human experience. One of the most profound changes we have witnessed in recent decades is the transformation of family structures, with divorce becoming a common facet of modern life across various societies. For instance, according to Office for National Statistics as of 2021, 42% of marriages in England and Wales end in divorce. Alongside this social evolution, we grapple with an equally pressing issue—the burgeoning environmental emergency. These two forces converge dramatically in more profound ways than we might realise. In this blog, I will explore the profound impact of dealing with divorce within the context of logistical and emotional anxiety brought about by the existential threat to our environment.

The complex landscape of divorce

Divorce, a life-altering event, affects not just the couple but an entire ecosystem—that is to say, the nuclear family. My PhD research findings illuminated the diverse experiences of young people whose parents divorced in different cultural contexts. After interviewing forty-four young people aged between 11 and 16 in Türkiye and England, what emerged strongly was a nuanced understanding of the variegated effects – both uplifting and otherwise, of divorce particularly for children.

For instance, more than half of the Turkish young people reported changing schools due to their parents’ divorce. While many didn’t directly attribute their school performance to the divorce, several children noted that changing schools positively impacted their performance. This aligns with global trends. A changing world demands adaptability, and some young people see education as their anchor, providing hope and a chance to take control of their lives, as reported by older participants in my study.

Emotional turmoil is a common aspect of divorce, with sadness and confusion being initial reactions. However, as my research indicates, many young people learn to adapt and grow from their experiences over time. Young people also emphasised the pivotal role that the home environment plays in shaping children’s experiences during and after divorce. Exposure to violence or maltreatment within the family environment can have a lasting negative impact.

Environmental challenges as an added layer

While navigating the intricate terrain of divorce, families now face an additional layer of complexity—the environmental challenges we face as a society. The world around us is changing rapidly due to issues such as climate change, pollution, and resource depletion. These challenges bring new dynamics to the fore within family life. A changing world presents economic challenges for families. Natural disasters, resource scarcity, or environmental policies have disrupted livelihoods and strained family finances, each feeding into existing marital tensions and ultimately increasing the likelihood of divorce. According to the World Economic Forum, climate change and related disasters could cost the global economy $360 billion annually by 2030.

Environmental crises force families to relocate or to become displaced persons, creating stress and uncertainty. The number of internally displaced people around the world reached 71.1 million as of the end of 2022, an increase of 20% from the previous year, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre’s flagship annual report. Today’s displacement crises are growing in scale, complexity and scope, and factors like food insecurity, climate change, and escalating and protracted conflicts are adding new layers to this phenomenon.

The emotional toll of witnessing environmental devastation can affect family members’ mental health. Anxiety, depression, and a sense of helplessness may surface, adding to the existing emotional challenges of divorce. The Mental Health Foundation in the UK has highlighted the impact of environmental issues and climate change on mental health, that stress and anxiety are rising.

A call for resilience and adaptation

As we stand at the crossroads of these two significant societal shifts—divorce and environmental challenges—it becomes clear that resilience and adaptation are paramount. Families must not only weather the storms of marital dissolution but must also equip themselves to confront the environmental storms of a changing world.

Empowering young people with education and awareness about both divorce and environmental issues is crucial. They need the tools to understand, adapt, and make positive contributions to their lives and the world around them. Families need robust support systems. This includes access to mental health services for emotional well-being and community networks that can assist during economic hardship or environmental crises.

Having to separate houses also means having to double the expenses for two different households. While divorce can bring about significant changes and challenges, it is important to recognise that it can also have positive aspects, such as the potential for personal growth and the opportunity to create healthier family dynamics. In my research, 95% of the young people said they feel happier after their parents’ divorce than before and during. Therefore, sustainable living practices can help mitigate the impact of both divorce and environmental challenges. This not only contributes to the preservation of the planet but also instils values of responsibility and resilience in younger generations. Divorce cannot solely be seen as a breakdown of a family unit. On the contrary, families can advocate for action on environmental issues, fostering a sense of purpose and unity. Addressing these challenges collectively can lead to positive changes that benefit the family unit and the world.

In our rapidly changing world, families often find themselves at the intersection of two transformative forces—personal and environmental upheaval. At first glance, divorce and environmental challenges may seem unrelated. However, the two have a profound connection. Studies have shown that the environment plays a significant role in shaping our mental health and well-being. The increasing prevalence of climate change-related stress and anxiety, as documented by the American Psychological Association, highlights this link.

When we realise that environmental changes impact our mental health, we can begin to see the intricate relations between these forces. By acknowledging the complexity of divorce within the context of a changing world, understanding the implications of environmental challenges on our emotional well-being, and fostering resilience and adaptation, we can empower families to not only survive but thrive in this shifting landscape. Ultimately, through these challenges, we can shape a more compassionate, resilient, and sustainable world for generations to come.

This blog is written by Dr Gozde Burger, whose PhD is on young people’s experiences of parental divorce in Türkiye and England. She is currently working as part of the GW4 Alliance as a Senior Research Coordinator. Contact: Gozde.burger@bristol.ac.uk.

Just Stop Oil: do radical protests turn the public away from a cause? Here’s the evidence

Posted on October 24, 2022March 29, 2023 by janet.crompton

Members of the protest group Just Stop Oil recently threw soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery in London. The action once again triggered debate about what kinds of protest are most effective.

After a quick clean of the glass, the painting was back on display. But critics argued that the real damage had been done, by alienating the public from the cause itself (the demand that the UK government reverse its support for opening new oil and gas fields in the North Sea).

Supporters of more militant forms of protest often point to historical examples such as the suffragettes. In contrast with Just Stop Oil’s action, when the suffragette Mary Richardson went to the National Gallery to attack a painting called The Rokeby Venus, she slashed the canvas, causing major damage.

painting of woman's rear, with slash marks — The Rokeby Venus: the 17th century painting by Diego Velázquez was slashed by a suffragette, though later repaired.
National Gallery / wiki

However, many historians argue that the contribution of the suffragettes to women getting the vote was negligible or even counterproductive. Such discussions often seem to rely on people’s gut feelings about the impact of protest. But as a professor of cognitive psychology, I know that we don’t have to rely on intuition – these are hypotheses that can be tested.

The activist’s dilemma

In one set of experiments researchers showed people descriptions of protests and then measured their support for the protesters and the cause. Some participants read articles describing moderate protests such as peaceful marches. Others read articles describing more extreme and sometimes violent protests, for example a fictitious action in which animal rights activists drugged a security guard in order to break into a lab and remove animals.

Protesters who undertook extreme actions were perceived to be more immoral, and participants reported lower levels of emotional connection and social identification with these “extreme” protesters. The effects of this kind of action on support for the cause were somewhat mixed (and negative effects may be specific to actions that incorporate the threat of violence).

Overall, these results paint a picture of the so-called activist’s dilemma: activists must choose between moderate actions that are largely ignored and more extreme actions that succeed in gaining attention, but may be counterproductive to their aims as they tend to make people think less of the protesters.

Activists themselves tend to offer a different perspective: they say that accepting personal unpopularity is simply the price to be paid for the media attention they rely on to “get the conversation going” and win public support for the issue. But is this the right approach? Could activists be hurting their own cause?

Hating protesters doesn’t affect support

I’ve conducted several experiments to answer such questions, often in collaboration with students at the University of Bristol. To influence participants’ views of protesters we made use of a well-known framing effect whereby (even subtle) differences in how protests are reported have a pronounced impact, often serving to delegitimise the protest.

For example, the Daily Mail article reporting the Van Gogh protest referred to it as a “stunt” which is part of a “campaign of chaos” by “rebellious eco-zealots”. The article does not mention the protesters’ demand.

Our experiments took advantage of this framing effect to test the relationship between attitudes to the protesters themselves and to their cause. If the public’s support for a cause depends on how they feel about the protesters, then a negative framing – which leads to less positive attitudes toward protesters – should result in lower levels of support for the demands.

But that’s not what we found. In fact, experimental manipulations that reduced support for the protesters had no impact on support for the demands of those protesters.

We’ve replicated this finding across a range of different types of nonviolent protest, including protests about racial justice, abortion rights and climate change, and across British, American and Polish participants (this work is being prepared for publication). When members of the public say, “I agree with your cause, I just don’t like your methods,” we should take them at their word.

Decreasing the extent to which the public identifies with you may not be helpful for building a mass movement. But high publicity actions may actually be a very effective way to increase recruitment, given relatively few people ever become activists. The existence of a radical flank also seems to increase support for more moderate factions of a social movement, by making these factions appear less radical.

Protest can set the agenda

Another concern may be that most of the attention obtained by radical actions is not about the issue, focusing instead on what the protesters did. However, even where this is true, the public conversation opens up the space for some discussion of the issue itself.

Protest plays a role in agenda seeding. It doesn’t necessarily tell people what to think, but influences what they think about. Last year’s Insulate Britain protests are a good example. In the months after the protests began on September 13 2021, the number of mentions of the word “insulation” (not “Insulate”) in UK print media doubled.

Graph showing mentions of 'insulation' in UK news media over time with a sharp rise between August and September 2021 — Spot when the Insulate Britain protests began. (Author’s own research, using Factiva database to search UK broadsheet and tabloid newspapers)
Colin Davis, Author provided

Some people don’t investigate the details of an issue, yet media attention may nevertheless promote the issue in their mind. A YouGov poll released in early June 2019 showed “the environment” ranked in the public’s top three most important issues for the first time.

Pollsters concluded that the “sudden surge in concern is undoubtedly boosted by the publicity raised for the environmental cause by Extinction Rebellion” (which had recently occupied prominent sites in central London for two weeks). There’s also evidence that home insulation has risen up the policy agenda since Insulate Britain’s protests.

Dramatic protest isn’t going away. Protagonists will continue to be the subject of (mostly) negative media attention, which will lead to widespread public disapproval. But when we look at public support for the protesters’ demands, there isn’t any compelling evidence for nonviolent protest being counterproductive. People may “shoot the messenger”, but they do – at least, sometimes – hear the message.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Professor Colin Davis, Chair in Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Colin Davis

Climate change will not impact everyone the same way; but we do not know how

Posted on October 18, 2022March 29, 2023 by janet.crompton

The National Guard rescuing a flood victim. Credit The National Guard, Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

Climate change is affecting the lives of billions of people. The impacts range from water scarcity and food production to health and wellbeing. Climate change impacts are felt in the cities and settlements where people live. We have heard many times that we need to ensure no one is left behind in climate change adaptation and mitigation. To ensure that every voice matters, the impacts of climate change on different groups have to be taken into account. Many individuals or groups are disproportionately affected by climate change as they have less capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from climate-related hazards. Worldwide, there are more than one billion persons with disabilities, 15% of the world’s population. The preamble of the Paris Agreement states that parties should respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights and the rights of persons with disabilities, when taking action to address climate change.

Hence, IPCC working group II (WGII) 6th assessment report which was released earlier this year emphasizes not only the warming, drought and floods, but also how much we are exposed to these hazards. There is a renewed focus on vulnerability to climate change which varies strongly between regions and groups of people.

Germany currently holds the G7 presidency, an inter-governmental political forum consisting of several large global north industrial nations. The German Federal Government Commissioner for the Interests of the Disabled called for an Inclusion summit, the first of its kind, in September in Berlin. The main aim was to address questions around impacts of COVID-19, Artificial Intelligence, and climate change on persons with disabilities.

I have never before taken part in such an event, and it was a steep learning curve. Not only were there bilateral meetings between nations, but also the Internal Disability Alliance (IDA), had bilateral meetings with the academics who were invited to speak. The presentations were translated to international sign language, subtitled, and we implemented guidance to make these more accessible. Presenting to a group where many of the participants had visual impairments is different to the typical presentations a natural scientist is focusing on.

The climate change research was presented by Sebastien Jodoin (from McGill) and myself. Sebastien focused on the lack of inclusion of disability rights in the climate emergency. Fewer than one in four countries mentioned disabled people in their national climate plans. My contribution focused on pointing out the lack of knowledge on impacts of and adaptation to climate change in the context of persons with disability. The limited research in the climate change context focusses on heat and other extreme events. Vulnerability to climate change of persons with disabilities is not covered in the literature and therefore not assessed in the report. Disability is therefore only discussed as a category of vulnerability, as part of lists of old people, young people, marginalized and disabled. But these groups have different challenges and vulnerabilities.

So what was the outcome? IDA emphasized the importance of inclusion as a driver for change. The Chairs summary emphasized the importance of comprehensive statistical and research data to inform the design of policy aiming to identify and address barriers faced by persons with disabilities in exercising their rights.

Environmental justice ensures that socially vulnerable segments of the population should not be disproportionately affected by adverse environmental impacts or hazards. Often actions start at a local scale. In Bristol the Bristol Disability and Equality Forum is working towards inclusion on the city scale, based on their community climate action plan. Emma Green, their climate action coordinator, helped me to consider costs and benefits of climate adaptation more broadly than I did before. Environmental justice asks us all to make sure we consider the needs of everyone while we adapt to and mitigate to climate change. Subregional disaggregation will allow us to determine groups who have the information, skills and funds to implement climate adaptation and reduce their vulnerability, and those who will need support.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Professor Daniela Schmidt, School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol. Daniela is an IPCC report lead author and lead on the recent IPCC WGII chapter on Europe.

Professor Daniela Schmidt

Stockholm+50: No way to have a conversation about climate change

Posted on June 13, 2022April 16, 2023 by janet.crompton

I’m just back from Stockholm+50, the summit convened to mark 50 years since the first UN conference on ‘the human environment’ that led to the founding of the UN Environment Programme. Could the participants then have imagined that half a century later we would be living through mass extinctions and still be trying to work out how to stop (some) humans creating a hothouse world?

Perhaps they would, if they’d seen what these conferences have become. While ‘jaw jaw’ remains better than ‘war war’, there is no doubt that these climate conferences have become a parody performance of international negotiations. Children sang and presented flowers; the UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez restated the ‘code red’ call he’s been making for a while now; John Kerry stated publicly that world leaders were on a ‘collective suicide mission’, which, given that he’s the United States Ambassador on Climate Change, should have made more headlines, but was instead greeted with a collective ‘meh’. ‘Interactive’ dialogue sessions promised to open up the agenda, but invited only pre-selected agencies all of whom said, again, what they’d been saying for years.

This is no way to have a conversation.

Over two days, ministers and civil servants from every UN country and associated organisations make five minute speeches on the main stage designed to appeal to the media back home rather than make any breakthroughs in the room. There are the usual obligatory selfie walls and hordes of professional sustainability experts in suits taking advantage of them to burnish their green international network credentials. Civil society groups have to fight discriminatory visa systems and lack of funds to even get to the summit, only to find out that there is no access to the processes by which the summit decisions and texts are being made. The youth delegations express their now familiar (and understandable) frustration with the older generation and demand of tired, under-funded UN representatives that they ‘use their privilege’ and power to make the changes needed. It resembles nothing so much as a pyramid selling scheme, with everyone fighting to get closer and closer to a centre of power which, in the end, turns out to be illusory.

As an outsider, watching this process in Stockholm, just as I watched COP last year in Glasgow, was like watching an old world dying. You could see old institutions struggle and fail to deal with state capture by fossil fuel interests, observe exponential natural changes meet incremental policy negotiations, feel the chaotic speed of ecosystem transformations meet lock-in and predatory delay of social systems.

And yet, where there is death there is also, always, life.

All around the official event were people using the summit as an excuse to gather, as a way of using the old systems to create something new. A new generation of policy actors, youth movements, academics, unions and civil society, energised by lessons learned from COP26, gathered in informal associated events and activities. This is where the energy was, where dialogue was taking place, where people were learning from each other and naming the obstacles that needed to be overcome.

You could feel the energy in the work of the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty movement which is creating serious alliances across countries and interests and is beginning to exert enough pressure to get commitments to fossil fuel phase-out on the formal agenda; you could see it in the brilliant legal escapades of the ‘Stop Ecocide’ movement making the case for the rights of nature and getting faith leaders around the world signed up to protecting nature. And more than energy, you could see serious, feasible new ideas emerging in the hard economic thinking mobilised by the Stockholm Resilience Centre in their new Earth4all report, which outlines concrete steps towards non-ecocidal and non-suicidal economic arrangements; and in the principled and practical work of the Rainforest Coalition demonstrating what real carbon capture actually looks like and tracing routes towards sustaining it.

What characterises many of these activities is a commitment to a different sort of conversation – to processes of unlearning, of listening, of deep attention to others in the room, of naming the hard problems and working together on them. They point the way to a new sort of conversation – one from which the organisers of future UN conferences might learn. And one which we can all begin to model and practice in each country, network or community that we are part of back home.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Keri Facer, Professor of Social and Educational Futures at the University of Bristol.

Insulate Britain: blocking roads will alienate some people – but it’s still likely to be effective

Posted on September 21, 2021April 16, 2023 by janet.crompton

Insulate Britain is a campaign group urging government action on greenhouse gas emissions and fuel poverty in the country’s housing stock. Their methods have recently landed them in the news, as activists blocked parts of the M25 – the motorway surrounding London – by sitting on slip roads and in the carriageway until their removal by police.

The long delays their protests caused drew outrage from motorists and much of the media that reported it. So what is the purpose of this kind of disruption, made popular in recent years by Extinction Rebellion (XR)?

The American sociologist Charles Tilly argued that all protest actions were what he called WUNC displays: shows of worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment. The goal was not to stop or make something happen directly, but to demonstrate the strength and appeal and values of the protesters, so that both those in power and the general public would listen to their message.

Direct action groups tend to be slightly different from traditional social movements: their actions typically carry higher risks, and they tend to have fewer organisational resources. While they are very committed, being “respectable” isn’t necessarily so important, and the actions are typically carried out by relatively small numbers of people. Creating disruption helps make up for these shortcomings.

Novelty and attention

Protest is the language of people denied access to power – it is designed to draw attention, to be seen and heard. It is much more likely for protesters to achieve something if they inconvenience others in the process, rather than (as more established groups tend to do) leading a march or a demo. Many activists in Britain drew that lesson from the massive anti-Iraq war protests of 2003, which mobilised so many people and yet achieved little.

Recently, researchers have shown this to be true by comparing various kinds of protest over the past decade. Strikes, sit-ins, occupations and blockades have proven more likely to achieve some degree of success than less disruptive protests such as marches, demos or petitions.

One reason for the efficiency of disruption is that it is much more likely to provide press coverage, particularly when it is novel. It’s instructive to compare the Insulate Britain protests with the recent Extinction Rebellion protests. In April 2019, XR were able to garner widespread media and political attention by occupying central London for nearly two weeks. Since then however, doing the same thing has brought diminishing returns: the police are better prepared, the actions are less disruptive, they mobilise fewer people, and the media has turned elsewhere.

Yet people stopping traffic on the M25 has attracted attention. And the small group of activists have managed to get their demands – insulate all social housing by 2025 and all homes by 2030 – printed in national newspapers. Their clear demands are an evolution of XR’s preference for leaving details of what policies are needed to tackle climate change to a future citizens’ assembly.

A worker in blue overalls rolls out wool in an attic. — A nationwide retrofit and insulation campaign could slash emissions and fuel poverty.
Irin-k/Shutterstock

Is annoying people worthwhile?

Critics say that blocking roads hurts vulnerable people. In this case, talk radio hosts highlighted delays to one girl’s taxi journey to her special needs school. In the case of anti-fracking activists who blocked the A583 in Lancashire in July 2017, the trial judge argued that the inconvenience caused – the police had to set up a contraflow – justified sending three of them to jail on a public nuisance charge.

But as any motorist can tell you, these things happen every day. If you drive a car to work, you’ll know how often you are delayed, by accidents, roadworks, sheer weight of traffic.

Other critics will point to the confused logic of blocking roads for the cause of insulating homes. There is, indeed, little connection between the two, unlike activists occupying the Science Museum to protest Shell’s sponsorship of its climate change exhibition, or blockades of fracking sites. But then again, there isn’t much of a direct connection between marching through London and demanding that British forces don’t invade Iraq, either.

Where groups engage in more indirect forms of disruption, it’s necessary to do more behind the scenes for the protest to make sense, including making the link explicit for onlookers. Insulate Britain held banners with their name and logo – a quick search on the web takes you to a website outlining what the group wants. It is, in other words, all about the target audience, the public, which activists reach through the media. Nothing will be achieved there and then. Britain’s homes will not be insulated as a result of this particular protest.

Of course, disruptive protest annoys people, and protesters sometimes lose support because of this. YouGov measured public support for XR recently and found that nearly half of those polled have a negative opinion of the group. But broad popularity isn’t all that relevant. Direct action groups aren’t running for elections. They don’t need to be supported by a majority. At least 73% of those polled had heard of XR – more than Momentum (33%), Stonewall (50%), ActionAid (60%), or the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (64%).

What Insulate Britain want is to highlight political inertia and force the government to take action. And it is unlikely that people will be against insulating homes just because they get annoyed at protesters. An estimated four million UK households currently live in fuel poverty. Insulating homes is an essential part of lowering Britain’s emissions – and saving British households a lot of money. So, while Insulate Britain may well not be popular, their strategy appears to be to take the hit among some groups who might be irked by their methods in order to get home insulation in the news and up the government’s agenda.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Dr Oscar Berglund, Lecturer in International Public and Social Policy, University of Bristol and Graeme Hayes, Reader in Political Sociology, Aston University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Tackling urban landslides in an uncertain future

Posted on September 21, 2021March 30, 2023 by janet.crompton

One of the challenges of the 21st century is how to reconcile global urban growth with the prevention and mitigation of environmental disasters, such as those caused by landslides. Every year 300 million people are exposed to landslides worldwide, with over 4,000 fatalities, 250,000 of people affected, and billions of US dollars of economic damage. However, impacts might be worse in the future for two main reasons. First, severe precipitations might become more frequent under climate change, causing more rainfall-triggered landslides. Second, growing urban population will lead more people to live in areas exposed to landslides globally, and in particular in developing countries where low-income dwellers are starting to overcrowd landslide-prone areas such as steep slopes. With more hurricanes to come and more people at risk, understanding where and when landslides might occur is becoming increasingly crucial.

Current predictions are too uncertain to support decisions

One method to predict landslides in the future is to look at landslides in the past. The analysis of historical records allows the identification of those hillslopes that have failed in the past. Currently stable hillslopes where similar conditions exist (for example, similar slope gradients) are ‘tagged’ with high landslide probability. These areas might be then excluded for construction development or might be the first to be alerted when a severe precipitation is expected.

This approach to landslide prediction is, however, often insufficient. Landslides and rainfall records as well as data on hillslope properties are often affected by large errors or unavailable in sufficient detail. In addition, what happened in the past might not be representative of what may happen in the future, making historical records less useful for long-term projections. Climate and socio-economic models can be used to build scenarios of how rainfall patters and cities might look like in the future. Unfortunately, these scenarios can vary significantly because they depend on highly uncertain factors such as future carbon emissions. As a result, landslide estimates can also be very different and sometimes even contradictory – some predicting an increase and others a decrease in landslides occurrence – undermining their practical use for risk management.

From ‘predict then act’ to ‘act now with low regrets’

Instead of trying to predict how climate and urban expansion will evolve in the future, I used a different approach centred on decision making. I ask the question: how much climate and/or urban expansion needs to change before landslide hazard significantly increases?

The scientific method behind my analysis (Bozzolan et al. 2020, NHESS) first generates thousands of synthetic but realistic hillslopes representations of the study area. Then, it imposes hypothetical scenarios of increasing rainfall severities and urban expansion, also considering different construction features that could affect slope stability (for example, the presence or not of adequate slope drainage such as roof gutters on houses).

Finally, it uses a computer model to assess the stability of these virtual hillslopes, generating a new synthetic library of landslide records. By exploring the library is now possible to identify those combinations of rainfall and urban development conditions (e.g., with or without roof gutters) for which hillslopes are most likely to fail. ‘Low-regret’ mitigation actions will be those that perform well across scenarios and therefore should be prioritised even if future rainfall and urban predictions remain unknown.

A practical tool for decision makers

This new method which explores many ‘what if’ scenarios is a useful tool for decision makers in landslide risk management and reduction. For example, figure 1 shows how a map of landslide probability in Saint Lucia (Eastern Caribbean) might look like if the severity of a destructive rainstorm such as the 2010 Hurricane Tomas were to increase under climate change or if unregulated housing expanded on slopes susceptible to failure. The analysis also shows that when both scenarios are included landslide probability disproportionally increases, revealing that ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’. This information could be used to assess the risk and damages associated with each scenario and to identify low-regret nation-wide risk reduction and risk transfer strategies.


Figure 1: Maps of landslide probability in Saint Lucia under different ‘what if’ scenarios. The percentage (+%) indicates the increase of areas with high landslide probability.

The same method can also be applied to quantify the cost-benefit ratio of different landslide mitigation options, such as improving urban drainage or tree planting at the community/household scale. In Freetown (Sierra Leone), for example, I collaborated with the engineering firm Arup to identify those landslide hazard mitigation actions that would lead to the largest reduction in landslide probability for certain locations or types of slopes, and should thus be prioritised. The information generated through this analysis not only provides evidence to governments and investors for informing urban planning, but it might also encourage landslide probability from low to high micro-insurance in disaster prevention, where insurers offer lower premiums to reward risk-reducing behaviours.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member, Dr Elisa Bozzolan from the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Bristol.

Airport towns like Luton and Hounslow are suffering as people fly less often – here’s how to help them

Posted on August 5, 2021April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

Thousands of aircraft were grounded during the pandemic. Now research is showing people might fly less.
JetKat/Shutterstock

Tens of thousands of aircraft have been grounded for well over a year due to the pandemic. In April 2020 air travel around the world was cut by 94% from April 2019. By June 2021 it was still 60% down on June 2019 thanks to holidays being cancelled, work trips shelved, and long-planned journeys to see family and friends moved to another time.

Never has any global industry collapsed with such speed. In climate terms, this has been a cause for celebration. It has represented a chance for reducing emissions that contribute significantly to climate change and pollute our air.

Some people who live close to an airport may also have welcomed the drop in noise. But many others will be worrying about the effect the long-term reduction in air travel may have on their community’s economy.

Will the industry bounce back?

Industrial bodies estimate that it might take five years for passenger demand to return to pre-pandemic levels. That’s a longer expected recovery than any other mode of transport. Globally, an estimated 46 million jobs have been deemed at risk. This isn’t just pilots or cabin crew; it’s also those who screen your baggage or make your lunch.

But will the air industry even bounce back in five years? Research our team conducted in early 2021 in Bristol, an English city with an airport and a century-old aviation industry, found that close to 60% of those surveyed expect to fly less in the future. Many of our respondents gave climate change and the pandemic as equally important reasons. Other polling has shown that many elsewhere remain wary of flying in the future too.

Businesses may also operate differently. Polling has found that four in ten business travellers are likely to fly less in the future. Business-class seats are an important part of airline income – on some flights corporate travel can represent 75% of revenue.

Setting aside ideas about electric planes for now, it seems obvious that we will need to fly less to move to a zero-carbon economy. Two-thirds of people want a post-pandemic economic recovery to prioritise climate change. This means fewer planes, and fewer jobs for crew and baggage handlers and so on.

Rebuilding communities

The decline of older industries such as mining, textiles or pottery resulted in high unemployment in towns which were massively dependent on one of them. We are all familiar with how the closure of a local pit or car plant caused the decline of once vibrant towns, leaving a generation to struggle with unemployment and the need to retrain.

Steel mills were nestled deep in the fabric of nearby communities. Their closure removed the pivot around which lives, work and leisure were based. So with the pandemic, whole communities are at risk of a similar economic decline.

In summer 2020 the rate of those jobless (be it unemployed or on furlough) was higher in areas near UK airports. In Hounslow (near London Heathrow) this was 40% of the population – with an estimated £1 billion loss to the borough’s economy. At Gatwick airport in 2020, there were job losses for 40% of its workforce, many of whom live in nearby towns such as Crawley.

Towns like Hounslow are highly dependent on the nearby airport for employment.
BasPhoto/Shutterstock

Many towns and communities are economically dependent on nearby airports. Luton Airport is estimated to have sustained over 27,000 jobs (directly and indirectly) and is a major employer in the region. The decline of the sector has broader effects on subsidiary industries too, such as taxis, maintenance, catering and hotels.

So what is to be done? The Green Jobs Taskforce, an industry and government initiative set up in 2020 to look at future employment, has called on the UK government to invest in jobs related to wind turbines, electric trains and replacing gas boilers.

Any version of a green new deal is necessarily a job-heavy economy, with a great deal of work needed to alter the infrastructure that powers our current lifestyle. The UK government’s Ten Point Plan for Green Industrial Revolution pledges 250,000 green jobs. The political question here is whether politicians and policymakers will be brave enough to resist a bounce back for aviation and invest in a longer term future for these airport towns, to avoid them suffering a decade of decline.

This is likely to see aviation jobs lost, and will require very targeted support for cities or regions reliant on airport employment. To build back better, a green recovery must seek to support these communities and provide them with new opportunities and livelihoods.

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This blog was written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members Dr Ed Atkins, Lecturer, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol and Professor Martin Parker, Professor of Organisation Studies, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Martin Parker

Ed Atkins

Five satellite images that show how fast our planet is changing

Posted on July 19, 2021April 16, 2023 by janet.crompton

You have probably seen satellite images of the planet through applications like Google Earth. These provide a fascinating view of the surface of the planet from a unique vantage point and can be both beautiful to look at and useful aids for planning. But satellite observations can provide far more insights than that. In fact, they are essential for understanding how our planet is changing and responding to global heating and can do so much more than just “taking pictures”.

It really is rocket science and the kind of information we can now obtain from what are called Earth observation satellites is revolutionising our ability to carry out a comprehensive and timely health check on the planetary systems we rely on for our survival. We can measure changes in sea level down to a single millimetre, changes in how much water is stored in underground rocks, the temperature of the land and ocean and the spread of atmospheric pollutants and greenhouse gases, all from space.

Here I have selected five striking images that illustrate how Earth observation data is informing climate scientists about the changing characteristics of the planet we call home.

1. The sea level is rising – but where?

The sea is rising quickly – but not evenly.
ESA/CLS/LEGOS, CC BY-SA

Sea level rise is predicted to be one of the most serious consequences of global heating: under the more extreme “business-as-usual” scenario, a two-metre rise would flood 600 million people by the end of this century. The pattern of sea surface height change, however, is not uniform across the oceans.

This image shows mean sea level trends over 13 years in which the global average rise was about 3.2mm a year. But the rate was three or four times faster in some places, like the south western Pacific to the east of Indonesia and New Zealand, where there are numerous small islands and atolls that are already very vulnerable to sea level rise. Meanwhile in other parts of the ocean the sea level has barely changed, such as in the Pacific to the west of North America.

2. Permafrost is thawing

Permafrost is permanently frozen ground and the vast majority of it lies in the Arctic. It stores huge quantities of carbon but when it thaws, that carbon is released as CO₂ and an even more potent greenhouse gas: methane. Permafrost stores about 1,500 billion tonnes of carbon – twice as much as in the whole of the atmosphere – and it is incredibly important that carbon stays in the ground.

This animation combines satellite, ground-based measurements of soil temperature and computer modelling to map the permafrost temperature at depth across the Arctic and how it is changing with time, giving an indication of where it is thawing.

3. Lockdown cleans Europe’s skies

Nitrogen dioxide is an atmospheric pollutant that can have serious health impacts, especially for those who are asthmatic or have weakened lung function, and it can increase the acidity of rainfall with damaging effects on sensitive ecosystems and plant health. A major source is from internal combustion engines found in cars and other vehicles.

This animation shows the difference in NO₂ concentrations over Europe before national pandemic-related lockdowns began in March 2020 and just after. The latter shows a dramatic reduction in concentration over major conurbations such as Madrid, Milan and Paris.

4. Deforestation in the Amazon

Credits: ESA/USGS/Deimos Imaging

Tropical forests have been described as the lungs of the planet, breathing in CO₂ and storing it in woody biomass while exhaling oxygen. Deforestation in Amazonia has been in the news recently because of deregulation and increased forest clearing in Brazil but it had been taking place, perhaps not so rapidly, for decades. This animation shows dramatic loss of rainforest in the western Brazilian state of Rondonia between 1986 and 2010, as observed by satellites.

5. A megacity-sized iceberg

The Antarctic Ice Sheet contains enough frozen water to raise global sea level by 58 metres if it all ended up in the ocean. The floating ice shelves that fringe the continent act as a buffer and barrier between the warm ocean and inland ice but they are vulnerable to both oceanic and atmospheric warming.

This animation shows the break-off of a huge iceberg dubbed A-74, captured by satellite radar images that have the advantage they can “see” through clouds and operate day or night and are thus unaffected by the 24 hours of darkness that occurs during the Antarctic winter. The iceberg that forms is 1,270 km² in area which is about the same size as Greater London.

These examples illustrate just a few ways in which satellite data are providing unique, global observations of key components of the climate system and biosphere that are essential for our understanding of how the planet is changing. We can use this data to monitor those changes and improve models used to predict future change. In the run up to the vitally important UN climate conference, COP26 in Glasgow this November, colleagues and I have produced a briefing paper to highlight the role Earth observation satellites will play in safeguarding the climate and other systems that we rely on to make this beautiful, fragile planet habitable.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Jonathan Bamber, Professor of Physical Geography, University of Bristol.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Jonathan Bamber

How scientists and policymakers collaborate towards sustainable Bristol

Posted on June 15, 2021April 4, 2023 by janet.crompton

In the world facing increasingly complex and interdisciplinary challenges, our job descriptions expand to account for new collaborations, duties, and types of knowledge to engage with. Civil servants are now expected to ground their policies in evidence, while scientists are required to translate their findings so that they’re useful to the citizens, industry practitioners or politicians.

Climate action is no different. It comes to life at the curious intersection of activism, political will, market incentives, democratic mandate and, of course, scientific knowledge. As a university researcher, I am on a mission to ensure academic knowledge serves Bristol’s transition to the sustainable city.

An effective collaboration across the worlds of science and policy requires some professional unlearning. Convoluted and jargon-filled academic writing style is not going to cut it if we’re serious about influencing ‘the real world’ (sorry). Similarly, our traditional output formats are simply too long to be accessible for policymakers. I also firmly believe that we ought to advance public debates, rather than solely our respective disciplinary conversations; for that matter we need to invite a broader set of discussants to the table.

After 4 years of researching city-level climate policymaking, my head was filled with ideas and recommendations to the key local decisionmakers. Luckily, upon the completion of my PhD I have been offered a role on the Bristol’s Advisory Committee for Climate Change (BACCC). Over the past two years (well, nearly), we have been scrutinising the development of One City Climate Strategy and advising the local council on their policy development.

What does it involve in practice? – You might be asking. Our work so far has been mostly focusing on synthesising the academic evidence and communicating it in an effective way (with lots of help from a team in PolicyBristol, thank you!). Knowing ‘what works’ to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is one thing, conveying the message to convince politicians and citizens is no less a challenge!

Below, I’d like to tell you about three ways experts at BACCC collaborated with policymakers on local climate action:

Submission of evidence to the national government inquiry: Covid impact on transport
Analysis of policy gaps and opportunities: Energy White Paper
Rapid review of evidence: Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

Submission of evidence to the national government inquiry

Over autumn 2020, Bristol City Council approached us for comments on the national inquiry exploring Covid-19 impacts on transport. At BACCC, we advised the council on the scope of the evidence submission, communication strategy and appropriate ways to present the data. We wanted to convey a message of a city that sees the covid-19 response as a leverage to ‘bounce forward’ to innovative and sustainable transport solutions rather than ‘bounce back’ to the old ways we deemed as normal:

“The council’s long-term ambition is to make the new road layouts permanent, creating cleaner air and better bus, walking and cycling journeys, alongside ongoing plans for a mass transit public transport system. The pandemic has had huge impacts on usual travel habits and, despite its challenges, air pollution levels dropped by almost half during the months of lockdown with big increases in walking and cycling. It would be prudent to capture those benefits and protect the long-term public health of the city”.

We are hoping that this submission, together with wealth of data on how people move will encourage the national government to devolve significant proportions of transport funding so that city leaders can turn covid emergency measures (e.g. bollards, signage, temporary closures) into high quality urban infrastructure.

Access the evidence here.

Analysis of policy gaps and opportunities

Policy landscape is dynamic; no single person has time to keep up with all the strategic documents, funding announcements and consultation opportunities. It is vital, therefore, that we are able to align the national policy direction with the local climate strategy. In early Spring 2021, we delivered a rapid assessment of gaps & opportunities, following our analysis of the National Government “Energy White Paper” and “10 Point plan”. While there are clear overlaps (e.g. in the funding for electric vehicles, retrofits, heat pumps installation), certain local ambitions cannot be clearly mapped to the national agenda. As such, we risk that Bristol’s plans in the realms of zero-carbon freight consolidation, solar generation or business carbon emissions will not come to fruition.

Read the full paper here.

Rapid review of evidence

Energised by the fierce (yet polarising) debate on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, we set ourselves to review the literature on the impacts, risks and opportunities on this controversial topic. We reviewed academic literature (from statistical public health analysis to qualitative human geography), news items and policy reports to provide a balanced feedback to the local planners. In particular, we wanted to disentangle empty rhetoric from genuine concerns to cool down the temperature of the conversation.

We provided six key recommendations:

Reassure that the co-design process is taking place to deliver Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
Show compelling evidence on: the benefits to health, safety and lower traffic speed.
Clarify misconceptions about: potential traffic displacement, lack of accessibility for emergency services, lack of access for deliveries and blue badge holders, loss in customer footfall.
Acknowledge complexities to do with the potential for short-term disruptions and the risk of gentrification
Challenge sensationalist media reporting by dispelling unverified claims, exposing exaggerated claims and monitoring the evolving conversation.
Above all, set out the narrative:

- We need to make positive changes: we cannot continue as now for the health and wellbeing of our communities and beyond.
- Some disruption is inevitable, and we will try to mitigate this and work with those affected, though the benefits are real and important.
- What will be delivered will improve the environment for local people – and help to address national and international ambitions.

Access the full review and detailed recommendations.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Ola Michalec, a social scientist based at the University of Bristol, researching regulation in the domain of digital innovations for sustainable energy. Ola also serves as a member of the Bristol Advisory Committee for Climate Change.

Dr Ola Michalec

Conference connects Climate Change Education with latest research

Posted on May 28, 2021March 30, 2023 by janet.crompton

The Climate Change Education Research Network (CCERN), a GW4 funded project, hosted the first in a series of online conferences on 20th April 2021. The event saw 300 attendees register from across the education sector and beyond.

The conference kicked off with a video compilation of youth climate activists explaining why they believe the climate emergency should be top of all teachers’ priority list – watch the Youth Voice video here. The inspirational words from the young activists addressed the ‘why’ teachers ought to respond to the climate crisis, the next question was ‘how’. To tackle this from a research-informed perspective, we interviewed Martha Monroe of the University of Florida to establish the theoretical context. Monroe shared findings from a recent review into effective strategies in climate change education. Watch the full interview with Martha Monroe here and read the review here.

The next section of the event was a series of quickfire presentations from a multitude of experienced practitioners sharing best practice from the classroom. We heard valuable contributions from teachers from across the CCERN network – watch them here. Sam Williams of Cotham Garden Primary School spoke about his work embedding a climate change curriculum in the primary school setting. Robert Walker of Fairfield High School offered a secondary school perspective from his role as Global Learning Co-ordinator. John Davidson and Simon Ross of Geography Southwest gave an insightful presentation of some of the common misconceptions around climate change. Celia Tidmarsh (University of Bristol) and Will Roberts (Fairfield High School) spoke about various initiatives on the PGCE course which seek to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to climate change education, including the Green Apple project. The Nature Relations group presented a beautiful series of photos to provoke new perspectives in how we think about our relationships with the natural world. Finally, the Primary focus group presented learnings from success stories from their own classrooms.

A further purpose of the conference was to launch the CCERN School Survey – an innovative approach to researching the current state of climate change education in schools using teachers as researchers to gather data on the ground. Find out more and get involved here.

While meeting on Zoom can never fully replace the connections made at in-person events, the conference certainly gave a feeling of being part of something bigger than oneself. The chat was used to make introductions and share ideas – see the chat text here.

The next CCERN conference will happen towards the end of June. Sign up to our mailing list and follow us on Twitter to stay in the loop. If you want to get more involved please contact us at ed-climate@bristol.ac.uk.

The Climate Change Education Research Network (CCERN) is an initiative of the University of Bristol, University of Bath, Cardiff University and the University of Exeter. We exist to connect academic researchers and educators to address the big questions in Climate Change Education (CCE) together.

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This blog is written by Lauren Hennessy. Lauren is the Research Associate on the Climate Change Education Research Network. She is also a Maths teacher by training and her research interests are youth climate activism and effective strategies for delivering climate change education with a focus on social justice.

Lauren Hennessey