Tag: research

Who is Cabot Institute? Sophie Ross-Smith

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Sophie Ross-Smith

In conversation with Sophie Ross-Smith, Manager at the Cabot Institute 

What is your role at Cabot Institute?

I am the Manager for Cabot Institute for the Environment, responsible for the day-to-day running of the Cabot Institute, contributing to and delivering our strategy, supporting our community, and managing Cabot’s dedicated professional services team.

How long have you been part of Cabot?

I joined Cabot in March 2021 but have enjoyed collaborating with Cabot in my previous roles at the University, so super excited to have joined the Cabot team.

What is your background?

I studied Biological Sciences at Bristol and then went on to work at the University, where I’ve held numerous roles focusing on research and project management, bid development and partnership management. I have working in numerous disciplinary areas from aerodynamics to the future of our communication system to city scale experimentation. I have also managed some of our university key partnerships and keen to grow our partnership within Cabot.  Having worked in lots of different areas, I have a great university network and passionate about bring people together to solve some of the most complex challenges we face today.

Why did you want to join the team?

I find working on interdisciplinary projects inspiring, rewarding and a continuous learning experience, coupled with Cabot’s focus on environmental research and our mission to ‘protect the environment and identifying better ways to live in our changing planet’, it was a team really wanted to join. To wake up every morning and know that what you are doing daily is making our planet a better place to live, is awesome!

What do you think is the biggest environmental challenge facing us today?

Climate change and the implementation of the changes we need to take to tackle our climate and ecological emergency. If you want to find out more about some of our biggest environmental challenges, check out our Cabot Conversations.

What is your favorite part of your job?

Ooh, not sure I can pick a favorite, but here are a few highlights: working with the fantastic Cabot team and Community, meeting passionate and inspiring Caboteers daily, the vibrant and can-do culture of Cabot meaning every day is different.

What are you most looking forward to over the next 10 years of Cabot?

We have an incredible community of over 600 experts, who are working across multiple boundaries to help solve complex environment issues. I am looking forward to continuing to support this community to grow from strength to strength and continuing to help people connect across the University. I think we have an exciting opportunity over the next 10 years to build upon our strong community foundations, to increase our profile and develop partnerships to amplify the impact of our research.  Our pioneering Cabot Master’s by Research Programme, which spans across all faculties, is training our future leaders in global environmental challenges and I’m excited to see how we can continue to develop and nurture talent through educational and development opportunities.  I am looking forward to continuing to work with Guy and the rest of our senior leadership team, the Cabot team, our Co-theme leaders, and our wider community to realise our ambition goals.

Find out more about Sophie here.

#CabotNext10 Spotlight on Water

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Dr Katerina Michaelides

In conversation with Dr Katerina Michaelides, co-theme lead at the Cabot Institute

Why did you choose to become a theme leader at Cabot Institute?

I was particularly attracted to this role because I am strongly committed to increasing the visibility of the great water-related work going on in the University, and because I feel strongly about developing the water research community within Bristol and further afield. Over the years since its creation, Cabot Institute has been instrumental in developing my connections with others within the University, in fostering new collaborations and in encouraging new and creative avenues of research. In that same spirit, I relished the opportunity to perform a similar role within the Cabot Water theme and give back to the community by helping to foster collaborations, contacts, and new avenues of research. I believe in the Cabot mission and ethos and felt that I can help strengthen the Water theme in this more formal role.

In your opinion, what is one of the biggest global challenges associated with your theme? (Feel free to name others if there is more than one)

One of the biggest impacts of climate change is on the water cycle. In fact, climate change can be thought of as synonymous with changes in the water cycle with far reaching implications for lives and livelihoods. Think catastrophic storms, droughts, floods, declining water quality. Water is such a fundamental part of life that many in the global north take for granted. So if I was to say one biggest challenge, I would say: addressing global water scarcity and food insecurity challenges under climate change and anthropogenic pressures. There are of course, many other challenges….

Across the portfolio of projects in your theme, what type of institutions are you working with? (For example, governments, NGO’s)

Our theme members work with a huge range of non-academic institutions – from insurance companies, charities, climate services providers, NGOs, local businesses among others.

What disciplines are currently represented within your theme?

We have a broad set of disciplines within the Water theme. These range from water and sanitation, climate impacts on water balance, flood risk and hazard modelling, flooding and infrastructure resilience, freshwater biogeochemistry (water quality), hydrometeorology, dryland hydrology, tropical hydrology, hydrological modelling, forecasting floods and droughts, water, and humanities. And much more!

In your opinion, why is it important to highlight interdisciplinary research both in general and here at Bristol?

Global challenges related to water and climate impacts are inherently multi- and interdisciplinary in their nature. It starts from understanding how climate is changing, to how these changes impact the water balance on the ground hydrology) and may lead to destructive floods or devastating droughts through their effect on agriculture and drinking water. Ultimately, because water intersects society on so many different levels (from natural disasters, to agriculture, to water resources, to droughts) research needs to be interdisciplinary and consider both environmental and social aspects of the problem.

Are there any projects which are currently underway in your theme which are interdisciplinary that you believe should be highlighted in this campaign?

There are lots of interdisciplinary projects across the Water theme. Personally, our research focusses on water scarcity, as highlighted by these two projects below:

Drought Resilience in East African dryland Regions (DRIER) – This is a collaboration between hydrologists, climatologists, social scientists, livelihoods experts, climate adaptation experts. Awarded a Royal Society Grant of £500K for 2020-2023, with Bristol leading and colleagues from Cardiff, UEA, University of Nairobi, and Addis Ababa University. DRIER has been selected as case study for the Royal Society Challenge-Led grant scheme and by BEIS for the GCRF.

Mobile App Development for Drought Adaptation in Drylands (MADDAD) – This interdisciplinary project between hydrologists and computer scientists, funded by a GCRF Translational Award (2019-2021) is developing a mobile phone app to deliver water status forecasts to remote communities in Kenyan drylands. Under climate change droughts are set to become more intense and frequent and there is a pressing need for relevant, timely, and practical information about water resources, particularly with a view to climate change adaptation. However, rural agro-pastoral populations are sparse and distant from decision-making centres making it hugely challenging to disseminate useable information in a timely manner. The provision of a mobile phone app has the potential to transform decision-making and drought adaptation for a large number of people in remote, rural dryland regions of East Africa that currently do not have access to useable and relevant information about the short- and long-term changes in water scarcity in their location.

Down2Earth – Translation of climate information into multilevel decision support for social adaptation, policy development, and resilience to water scarcity in the Horn of Africa Drylands. Awarded an EU H2020 Grant of €6.7M for 2020-2024, with Cardiff University as the lead Institution and ~€1M to University of Bristol. In total, 15 Institutions across UK, EU, East Africa, are involved, including many non-academic actors. This project is completely multi-disciplinary in nature.

For more information, visit Water.

Introducing #CabotNext10

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Bristol Harbourside

This week, here at Cabot Institute we will be re-introducing ourselves!

You may be asking yourself “Why? I already know and love them!”

Well, it’s because this year the Cabot Institute is celebrating its 10th anniversary! And what better way to do it than to look to the future to see what the next 10 years have in store and to introduce the team that makes it all happen.

As part of this, we want to highlight the aims and research from each theme here at Cabot Institute, and to show how being part of this wider university (and often beyond) network is aiding in achieving interdisciplinarity, global challenges.

Over the next week, you can expect to hear from theme leads and researches from each of our six themes: Water, Low Carbon Energy, City
Futures, Natural Hazards and Disaster Risk, Food Security and Environmental Change. As well as insights into the day-to-day Cabot Institute operations, how Cabot Institute came to be, why it is important, and what to look out for over the next 10 years, in a blog mini-series, from the small but perfectly formed team that is the Cabot Institute.

This year, we are calling for the need for heightened interdisciplinarity to solve complex global challenges.

Over the past 10 years a lot has been achieved. Here at Cabot Institute, we plan on going from strength to strength – so come and join us!
 

This campaign was created and delivered by Olivia Reddy, Cabot Campaigns Assistant and PhD
Researcher in the Department of Civil Engineering.

You can follow Olivia on Twitter @OliviaReddy_ and find out more about her background on LinkedIn.

Countries may be under-reporting their greenhouse gas emissions – that’s why accurate monitoring is crucial

Posted on by janet.crompton
Luciann Photography / Pexels

Pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions are very welcome – but accurate monitoring across the globe is crucial if we are to meet targets and combat the devastating consequences of global warming.

During COP26 in Glasgow, many countries have set out their targets to reach net-zero by the middle of this century.

But a serious note of caution was raised in a report in the Washington Post. It revealed that many countries may be under-reporting their emissions, with a gap between actual emissions into the atmosphere and what is being reported to the UN.

This is clearly a problem: if we are uncertain about what we are emitting now, we will not know for certain that we have achieved our emission reduction targets in the future.

Quantifying emissions

Currently, countries must follow international guidelines when it comes to reporting emissions. These reports are based on “bottom-up” methods, in which national emissions are tallied up by combining measures of socioeconomic activity with estimates on the intensity of emissions involved in those activities. For example, if you know how many cows you have in your country and how much methane a typical cow produces, you can estimate the total methane emitted from all the cows.

There are internationally agreed guidelines that specify how this kind of accountancy should be done, and there is a system of cross-checking to ensure that the process is being followed appropriately.

But, according to the Washington Post article, there appear to be some unexpected differences in emissions being reported between similar countries.

The reporting expectations between countries are also considerably different. Developed countries must report detailed, comprehensive reports each year. But, acknowledging the administrative burden of this process, developing countries can currently report much more infrequently.

Plus, there are some noteable gaps in terms of what needs to be reported. For example, the potent greenhouse gases that were responsible for the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer – such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) – are not included.

A ‘top-down’ view from the atmosphere

To address these issues, scientists have been developing increasingly sophisticated techniques that use atmospheric greenhouse gas observations to keep track of emissions. This “top-down” view measures what is in the atmosphere, and then uses computer models to work backwards to figure out what must have been emitted upwind of the measurements.

To demonstrate the technique, an international team of scientists converged on Glasgow, to observe how carbon dioxide and methane has changed during the COP26 conference.

While this approach cannot provide the level of detail on emission sectors (such as cows, leaks from pipes, fossil fuels or cars) that the “bottom–up” methods attempt, scientists have demonstrated that it can show whether the overall inventory for a particular gas is accurate or not.

The UK was the first country, now one of three along with Switzerland and Australia, to routinely publish top-down emission estimates in its annual National Inventory Report to the United Nations.

A network of five measurement sites around the UK and Ireland continuously monitors the levels of all the main greenhouse gases in the air using tall towers in rural regions.

Emissions are estimated from the measurements using computer models developed by the Met Office. And the results of this work have been extremely enlightening.

In a recent study, we showed that the reported downward trend in the UK’s methane emissions over the last decade is mirrored in the atmospheric data. But a large reported drop before 2010 is not, suggesting the methane emissions were over-estimated earlier in the record.

In another, we found that the UK had been over-estimating emissions of a potent greenhouse gas used in car air conditioners for many years. These studies are discussed with the UK inventory team and used to improve future inventories.

While there is currently no requirement for countries to use top-down methods as part of their reporting, the most recent guidelines and a new World Meteorological Organisation initiative advocate their use as best practice.

If we are to move from only three countries evaluating their emissions in this way, to a global system, there are a number of challenges that we would need to overcome.

Satellites may provide part of the solution. For carbon dioxide and methane, the two most important greenhouse gases, observations from space have been available for more than a decade. The technology has improved dramatically in this time, to the extent that imaging of some individual methane plumes is now possible from orbit.

In 2018, India, which does not have a national monitoring network, used these techniques to include a snapshot of its methane emissions in its report to the UN.

But satellites are unlikely to provide enough information alone.

To move towards a global emissions monitoring system, space-based and surface-based measurements will be required together. The cost to establish ground-based systems such as the UK’s will be somewhere between one million and tens of millions of dollars per country per year.

But that level of funding seems achievable when we consider that billions have been pledged for climate protection initiatives. So, if the outcome is more accurate emissions reporting, and a better understanding of how well we are meeting our emissions targets, such expenditure seems like excellent value for money.

It will be up to the UN and global leaders to ensure that the international systems of measurement and top-down emissions evaluation can be scaled-up to meet the demands of a monitoring system that is fit for purpose. Without robust emissions data from multiple sources, the accuracy of future claims of emission reductions may be called into question.The Conversation

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Professor Matt Rigby, Reader in Atmospheric Chemistry, University of Bristol

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

Humanity is compressing millions of years of natural change into just a few centuries

Posted on by janet.crompton
The near future may be similar to the mid-Pliocene warm period a few million years ago.
Daniel Eskridge / shutterstock

Many numbers are swirling around the climate negotiations at the UN climate summit in Glasgow, COP26. These include global warming targets of 1.5℃ and 2.0℃, recent warming of 1.1℃, remaining CO₂ budget of 400 billion tonnes, or current atmospheric CO₂ of 415 parts per million.

It’s often hard to grasp the significance of these numbers. But the study of ancient climates can give us an appreciation of their scale compared to what has occurred naturally in the past. Our knowledge of ancient climate change also allows scientists to calibrate their models and therefore improve predictions of what the future may hold.

Recent climate changes in context.
IPCC AR6, chapter 2

Recent work, summarised in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has allowed scientists to refine their understanding and measurement of past climate changes. These changes are recorded in rocky outcrops, sediments from the ocean floor and lakes, in polar ice sheets, and in other shorter-term archives such as tree rings and corals. As scientists discover more of these archives and get better at using them, we have become increasingly able to compare recent and future climate change with what has happened in the past, and to provide important context to the numbers involved in climate negotiations.

For instance one headline finding in the IPCC report was that global temperature (currently 1.1℃ above a pre-industrial baseline) is higher than at any time in at least the past 120,000 or so years. That’s because the last warm period between ice ages peaked about 125,000 years ago – in contrast to today, warmth at that time was driven not by CO₂, but by changes in Earth’s orbit and spin axis. Another finding regards the rate of current warming, which is faster than at any time in the past 2,000 years – and probably much longer.

But it is not only past temperature that can be reconstructed from the geological record. For instance, tiny gas bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice can record atmospheric CO₂ concentrations back to 800,000 years ago. Beyond that, scientists can turn to microscopic fossils preserved in seabed sediments. These properties (such as the types of elements that make up the fossil shells) are related to how much CO₂ was in the ocean when the fossilised organisms were alive, which itself is related to how much was in the atmosphere. As we get better at using these “proxies” for atmospheric CO₂, recent work has shown that the current atmospheric CO₂ concentration of around 415 parts per million (compared to 280 ppm prior to industrialisation in the early 1800s), is greater than at any time in at least the past 2 million years.

chart showing climate changes over history
An IPCC graphic showing climate changes at various points since 56 million years ago. Note most rows show changes over thousands or millions of years, while the top row (recent changes) is just a few decades.
IPCC AR6, chapter 2 (modified by Darrell Kaufman)

Other climate variables can also be compared to past changes. These include the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide (now greater than at any time in at least 800,000 years), late summer Arctic sea ice area (smaller than at any time in at least the past 1,000 years), glacier retreat (unprecedented in at least 2,000 years) sea level (rising faster than at any point in at least 3,000 years), and ocean acidity (unusually acidic compared to the past 2 million years).

In addition, changes predicted by climate models can be compared to the past. For instance an “intermediate” amount of emissions will likely lead to global warming of between 2.3°C and 4.6°C by the year 2300, which is similar to the mid-Pliocene warm period of about 3.2 million years ago. Extremely high emissions would lead to warming of somewhere between 6.6°C and 14.1°C, which just overlaps with the warmest period since the demise of the dinosaurs – the “Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum” kicked off by massive volcanic eruptions about 55 million years ago. As such, humanity is currently on the path to compressing millions of years of temperature change into just a couple of centuries.

Small animals in a forest
Many mammals, like these horse-ancestors ‘Eohippus’, first appeared after a sudden warm period 55 million years ago.
Daniel Eskridge / shutterstock

Distant past can held predict the near future

For the first time in an IPCC report, the latest report uses ancient time periods to refine projections of climate change. In previous IPCC reports, future projections have been produced simply by averaging results from all climate models, and using their spread as a measure of uncertainty. But for this new report, temperature and rainfall and sea level projections relied more heavily on those models that did the best job of simulating known climate changes.

Part of this process was based on each individual model’s “climate sensitivity” – the amount it warms when atmospheric CO₂ is doubled. The “correct” value (and uncertainty range) of sensitivity is known from a number of different lines of evidence, one of which comes from certain times in the ancient past when global temperature changes were driven by natural changes in CO₂, caused for example by volcanic eruptions or change in the amount of carbon removed from the atmosphere as rocks are eroded away. Combining estimates of ancient CO₂ and temperature therefore allows scientists to estimate the “correct” value of climate sensitivity, and so refine their future projections by relying more heavily on those models with more accurate climate sensitivities.

Overall, past climates show us that recent changes across all aspects of the Earth system are unprecedented in at least thousands of years. Unless emissions are reduced rapidly and dramatically, global warming will reach a level that has not been seen for millions of years. Let’s hope those attending COP26 are listening to messages from the past.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dan Lunt, Professor of Climate Science, University of Bristol and Darrell Kaufman, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Northern Arizona University

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

Dan Lunt

 

 

Read all blogs in our COP26 blog series:

The ‘Ecological Emergency’ and what The Cabot Institute for the Environment are doing about it

Posted on by janet.crompton
The white rhino. Image credit: Meg Barstow, Postgraduate Student at the University of Bristol.

Biodiversity loss and ecological decline pose enormous threats to humans and ecosystems alike, yet due to human activity they are occurring on a scale not seen since the last mass extinction. As part of our campaign running alongside the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15), this blog will highlight The Cabot Institute for the Environment’s research contributions to the fight against the ‘Ecological Emergency’. 

The Ecological Emergency and the need for evidence 

Human activity is pushing the natural world beyond the limits of its own resilience, causing populations of species to plummet and ecosystems to collapse. As well as the widely appreciated beauty of the natural world and our responsibility to protect it, our reliance on ecosystems makes their survival essential to our own. Ecosystems provide us with food, oxygen, carbon capture, air and water purification, nutrient cycling as well as protection from erosion, floods and droughts. Under current trends, we could see ecosystems and the fundamental services they provide disintegrate within a lifetime.

The urgent need for action is starting to be recognised; a number of UK councils and organizations have declared ‘Ecological Emergency’ and the Climate and Ecological Emergency bill has recently been put forward to replace the ‘outdated’ 2008 Climate Change Act. Last year’s UN Summit on Biodiversity saw leaders from all regions of the world take the ‘Leader’s Pledge for Nature’, which commits to reversing alarming global trends and putting biodiversity and nature on the path to recovery by 2030. If ambitious but necessary targets are to be met, a strong evidence base surrounding ecological decline and its drivers will be fundamental in devising effective restoration and conservation strategies.

Caboteers have made significant contributions to global knowledge, directly influencing both local, national and international policy. Using statements from our experts, this blog will highlight some of our key research contributions to the field and discuss why they are so important in the fight against the ecological emergency. This is as part of the Cabot ‘Ecological Emergency’ Campaign, which is running alongside COP15, the UN Biodiversity Conference, which is taking place this week.

A coral reef. Image credit: Meg Barstow, Postgraduate Student at the University of Bristol.

Restoration ecology 

Restoration ecology is the science which underpins ecological restoration – the much-needed repair of damaged and degraded ecosystems. Professor Jane Memmott, leader of the restoration ecology group, explained, “We work on the links betweenspecies, things like pollination, seed dispersal and predation, as it’s really important to reinstate these links between species, as well as the species themselves. We are particularly interested in species that have disproportionately beneficial effects – keystone species – as these can be used to help jump start restoration programmes.”

Identifying which habitats are the most effective to target in restoration strategies is another key element of the Memmott groups research. For example, ‘The Urban Pollinators Project’ led by Jane, was a inter-city, study surveying urban, natural and farmland pollinator habitats run over four years, with the aim of establishing urban restoration opportunities.

While urbanisation is known to be one of the drivers of biodiversity loss, the project found that cities in fact provide unique restoration opportunities. It found that the most beneficial actions for supporting pollinator networks were increasing the area of allotments, which were pollinator hot-spots, as well as strategic management of gardens and green space through incorporation of pollinator-supporting flower margins and meadows. Our reliance on insects to pollinate 75% of our crops and the alarming rate at which their populations are declining make this research particularly fundamental, and the findings have gone on to advise both local and national policy.

A bee, or ‘pollinator’.  Image credit: Meg Barstow, Postgraduate Student at the University of Bristol.

Experimental conservation 

Experimental conservation is research involving the testing and optimisation of conservation strategies. The experimental ecology and conservation group use mathematical models, small-scale experimental systems and long-term wild population data to do this. These techniques have the advantage of being generally non-invasive, leaving the ecosystems largely undisturbed, while giving huge amounts of crucial conservation information.

Dr Chris Clements, the experimental conservation group leader, explains, “My group develops and tests models which might help us to make more reliable conservation decisions. Our work covers a range of topics, including trying to predict what species and populations might be at most risk of collapse or extinction to understanding how multiple anthropogenically derived stressors might interact to increase extinction risk.” As time is limited and extinction is irreversible, ensuring conservation strategies are optimized and supported by a strong scientific evidence base is crucial to their success.

Forest ecosystems 

Forests are home to more than 80% of all land species of animals, plants and insects and are fundamental to our climate, as an integral part of the carbon cycle. Numerous global changes are causing their coverage to rapidly decline, and as well as this exacerbating climate change through reducing their ability to sequester carbon, it poses an extinction threat to the many species that call them home.

Dr Tommaso Jucker leads research investigating forests and the processes which shape their structure, composition and function. Tommaso explains “We hope to not only understand how forest ecosystems are responding to rapid global change, but also lead research that directly informs the conservation and restoration of the world’s forests.” Establishing a clear picture of what the world’s forests might look like in future is crucial to the conservation of the creatures which inhabit them, as well as for preparing for the impacts on people and climate.

A sloth in its forest habitat. Image credit: Sam J. England, PhD student at the University of Bristol.

Aquatic habitats and oceans 

The ocean constitutes over 90% of habitable space on the planet and the ecosystems within it contribute enormously to biodiversity, livelihoods, the carbon cycle and our food supply. This makes understanding the impact of human activity on these submerged worlds essential. As well as the pressure put on ecosystems by over-exploitation, pollution and habitat destruction, rising CO2 levels and are causing environmental changes in oceans, including warming and acidification.

Microbial ecologist, Professor Marian Yallop, and her group investigate aquatic microorganisms, such as algae and cyanobacteria, and their responses to environmental changes such as temperature, pH and pollutants. These often invisible microorganisms are pivotal to global oxygen production and carbon dioxide absorption, as well as occupying a critical position at the base of many food chains. This makes their fate crucial to that of the planet and all of the organisms on it.

Under the sea. Image credit: Meg Barstow, Postgraduate Student at the University of Bristol.

Behavioral and evolutionary ecology 

Evolution and adaptations are at the core of a species ability to survive. In animals, a key element of this is behaviour. Rapid global changes are having complex implications on species and in many cases, the implications of human activity on animal behaviour are only just starting to be realised. Cabot has a number of behavioural experts working to better understand a variety of species behavioural responses to human activity, in order to understand how we can better manage our environment for their conservation.

Professor Gareth Jones, who predominantly works on bats, investigates their behaviour, evolution and responses to human activity, for example, how anthropogenic light can affect them and their insect pray, as well as how they can be deterred from dangerous infrastructure, such as wind turbines.

Professor Andrew Radford is a behavioural ecologist working on bioacoustics, so the production and reception of sound, on species from all across the animal kingdom. Anthropogenic, or ‘man-made’ noise has significantly altered the sound scape of habitats throughout land and sea, therefore, it is essential to understand how this might interfere with development and behaviour so that negative effects can be mitigated. Incorporation of behavioural insights into conservation and restoration strategies can contribute significantly to their success, therefore, research in the field is a key pillar of conservation.

A bat in flight. Image credit: Meg Barstow,  Postgraduate Student at the University of Bristol.

Conservation Law 

If scientific research is to have a positive impact translated into the real world, it must be implemented in policy, meaning law is a hugely important element of conservation. Dr Margherita Pieraccini from the School of Law, who works predominantly on marine conservation law, explains “My research investigates the socio-legal aspects around ecological governance, with the aim of providing a critical understanding of existing conservation laws and envisaging ecologically just ways of governance.” Ecological decline will negatively affect everyone, however the consequences do not affect communities equally, therefore, evidence based conservation laws are essential to prevent inequality and poverty being exacerbated.

The Nocturnal Problem 

Establishing a full and accurate picture of where evidence is available, and where it is missing, is fundamental to shaping the future path of research and enabling us to protect all ecosystems. Dr Andrew Flack, an environmental and animal historian, is investigating what is known as ‘The Nocturnal Problem’, which is the significant underrepresentation of night-time ecologies in research. Dr Flack explains “My own historical research draws attention to the ways in which nocturnal ecologies and the threats to them have been understood, and that until very recently, scientists have neglected the impact of human activity on night-time ecologies.” Half of everything that has happened or will happen has happened in the night, therefore, nocturnal species make up significant proportions of our ecosystems. Neglecting nocturnal species in research can therefore have catastrophic consequences not only to those species, but to the diurnal (day-time) species that they are intertwined with through ecosystems.

A fox cub. Image credit: Adam Hearne, Student at the University of Bristol.

The University of Bristol’s action on ecology and climate 

As well as being at the forefront of research, Cabot’s home institute, the University of Bristol, has taken a number of actions to support ecology. Wildlife supporting infrastructure, such as wild-flower meadows, bug hotels and ‘living buildings’ are dotted strategically around the campus. The Universities green space, Royal Fort Garden, is a hub of wildlife and supports a variety of species, as well as hosting an installation, ‘Hollow’, made of fragments of 10,000 species of tree from all over the world, inspiring interest in global biodiversity. The University was also the first UK university to declare a climate emergency in April 2019, and has set world-leading targets to reach net-zero by 2030. Mitigating climate change is fundamental to protecting ecosystems, however, as ecological decline could continue alongside decarbonization, or even be exacerbated by the means to get to net-zero, it is essential that it is not overlooked in sustainability strategies.

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This blog was written by Hilary McCarthy, a University of Bristol PhD Student and part of the Cabot Communicators group.

 

Thank you to University of Bristol students and staff for wildlife photography submissions used in this blog and across the campaign: 
Adam Hearne (UoB Zoology student and wildlife photographer, www.adamhearnewildlife.co.uk, Instagram: @adamhearnewildlife) 
Meg Barstow (UoB, wildlife photographer, Instagram: @cardboard.rocket) 
Sam J. England (PhD student researching aerial electroreception in insects and wildlife photographer, Instagram @sam.j.england, https://www.samjengland.com)

Many conservatives have a difficult relationship with science – we wanted to find out why

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Shutterstock

Many scientific findings continue to be disputed by politicians and parts of the public long after a scholarly consensus has been established. For example, nearly a third of Americans still do not accept that fossil fuel emissions cause climate change, even though the scientific community settled on a consensus that they do decades ago.

Research into why people reject scientific facts has identified people’s political worldviews as the principal predictor variable. People with a libertarian or conservative worldview are more likely to reject climate change and evolution and are less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

What explains this propensity for rejection of science by some of the political right? Are there intrinsic attributes of the scientific enterprise that are uniquely challenging to people with conservative or libertarian worldviews? Or is the association merely the result of conflicting imperatives between scientific findings and their economic implications? In the case of climate change, for example, any mitigation necessarily entails interference with current economic practice.

We recently conducted two large-scale surveys that explored the first possibility – that some intrinsic attributes of science are in tension with aspects of conservative thinking. We focused on two aspects of science: the often tacit norms and principles that guide the scientific enterprise, and the history of how scientific progress has led us to understand that human beings are not the centre of the universe.

Sociologist Robert Merton famously proposed norms for the conduct of science in 1942. The norm of “communism” (different from the political philosophy of communism) holds that the results of scientific research should be the common property of the scientific community. “Universalism” postulates that knowledge should transcend racial, class, national or political barriers. “Disinteredness” mandates that scientists should conduct research for the benefit of the scientific enterprise rather than for personal gain.

These norms sit uneasily with strands of standard contemporary conservative thought. Conservatism is typically associated with nationalism and patriotism, at the expense of embracing cooperative internationalism. And the notion of disinterestedness may not mesh well with conservative emphasis on property rights.

Science has enabled us to explain the world around us but that may create further tensions – especially with religious conservatism. The idea that humans are exceptional is at the core of traditional Judeo-Christian thought, which sees the human as an imago Dei, an image of God, that is clearly separate from other beings and nature itself.

Against this human exceptionalism, the over-arching outcome of centuries of research since the scientific revolution has been a diminution of the status of human beings. We now recognise our planet to be a rather small and insignificant object in a universe full of an untold number of galaxies, rather than the centre of all creation.

Testing the issues

We tested how those two over-arching attributes of science – its intrinsic norms and its historical effect on how humans see themselves – might relate to conservative thought and acceptance of scientific facts in two large-scale studies. Each involved a representative sample of around 1,000 US residents.

We focused on three scientific issues; climate change, vaccinations, and the heritability of intelligence. The first two were chosen because of their known tendency to be rejected by people on the political right, allowing us to observe the potential moderating role of other predictors.

The latter was chosen because the belief that external forces such as education can improve people and their circumstances is a focus of liberalism. Conservatism, on the other hand, is skeptical of that possibility and leans more towards the idea that improvement comes from the individual – implying a lesser role for the malleability of intelligence.

The fact that individual differences in intelligence are related to genetic differences, with current estimates of heritability hovering around 50%, is therefore potentially challenging to liberals but might be endorsed by conservatives.

The two studies differed slightly in how we measured political views and people’s endorsement of the norms of science, but the overall findings were quite clear. Conservatives were less likely to accept the norms of science, suggesting that the worldviews of some people on the political right may be in intrinsic conflict with the scientific enterprise.

Those people who accepted the norms of science were also more likely to endorse vaccinations and support the need to fight climate change. This suggests that people who embrace the scientific enterprise as a whole are also more likely to accept specific scientific findings.

We found limited support for the possibility that belief in human exceptionalism would predispose people to be more sceptical in their acceptance of scientific propositions. Exceptionalism had little direct effect on scientific attitudes. Therefore, our study provided no evidence for the conjecture that the long history of science in displacing humans from the centre of the world contributes to conversatives’ uneasiness with science.

Finally, we found no strong evidence that people on the political left are more likely to reject the genetic contribution to individual variation in intelligence. This negative result adds to the evidence that science denial is harder to find on the left, even concerning issues where basic aspects of liberal thought – in this case the belief that people can be improved – are in potential conflict with the evidence.

The two studies help explain why conservatives are more likely to reject scientific findings than liberals. This rejection is not only dictated by political interests clashing with a specific body of scientific knowledge (such as human-caused climate change), but it appears to represent a deeper tension between conservatism and the spirit in which science is commonly conducted.The Conversation

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This blog has been written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol and Klaus Oberauer, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, University of Zurich. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

‘Together we’ve got this’ – creating space for social sustainability in Bristol

Posted on by janet.crompton

Towards the bottom of Park Street large white letters against a pink backdrop read ‘Together, we’ve got this’. Alongside it the words ‘Bristol together’ are framed above an inscription reading: ‘Bristol’s safely reopening. Help us keep it open by washing your hands, wearing a face covering and keeping a safe distance from other shoppers. Thank you and enjoy your visit.’ I first spotted this sign in September last year. However, in the months that have slowly crept by since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic filled with lockdowns, isolating and social distancing, the word ‘together’ seems to have popped up all over the city. It can be found on street corners and shop fronts all along the Park Street-Queens Road-Whiteladies Road corridor that runs through the University’s campus, connecting the harbour and city centre to the Downs. Along this strip, a sign outside a cafe encourages social distancing with the words ‘We stand together by standing apart’, while a notice on the glossy sliding doors of a supermarket and the red and yellow of a post office poster remind patrons that ‘We’re all in this together’. Yet my personal favourite is the board outside a frozen food shop I spotted one day proclaiming ‘Together never tasted this good’ above a picture of a cheesecake. But what is it about ‘together’ that tastes so good? And, perhaps more importantly, what is togetherness? (If not an Eton mess cheesecake).

Two years ago I set out to explore the question ‘How do people live together in cities?’ through a PhD. Growing up in post-apartheid South Africa the idea of togetherness has always haunted me like an ungraspable treasure chest at the end of our so-called rainbow nation. As many readers will appreciate the dominant narrative about post-apartheid South Africa is one in which the lasting legacy of segregation is well documented such that the ‘post’ of post-apartheid is rendered something of a fantasy and a failure. And yet I had noticed that despite the country’s long history of apartness, urban life in South Africa seemed to be full of small moments of togetherness which defy the common grammar of apartness with which accounts of South African cities are typically written. One such moment arrived in April 2020 when, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic a collective called ‘Cape Town Together’ was born. Through neighbourhood based mutual aid groups residents in Cape Town came together under to self-organise and share resources and information in response to the pandemic. My research has been dedicated to studying practices such as these in answer to the question: ‘How do people live together in cities?’ and the related question of what togetherness is.

Three themes emerged in response to these questions which I argue are not only applicable to Cape Town, but also to cities elsewhere such as Bristol. First, in answer to the question ‘What is togetherness?’, I learnt that it is as much, if not more, a practice as it is a sentiment or a state of being. This is significant because the implication is that, despite what form it takes (whether it be empathy, solidarity, or sharing,) togetherness takes practice; through repeated action we learn to be together by practicing togetherness and in doing so forming new habits and repertoires for living together. Secondly, I learnt that togetherness has a spatial component. Public space in the city provides an ever present training ground on which people can practice togetherness; rehearse social interactions, test, and develop new repertoires of being together. But the practices of togetherness which emerge also shape and are shaped by by the spaces in which they occur. This means that the quality of public space in the city matters because it has an impact on shaping social relations. Finally, togetherness is mediated by institutions just like the University of Bristol which provide places and repeated opportunities for practice along with guidelines, and pre-existing repertoires for social interactions.

Earlier this year the Cabot Institute for the Environment put out a call for short video submissions about activities and ideas for how the University could create positive impact by addressing a sustainability challenge in Bristol. This blog piece stems from the idea I pitched to create spaces where people can practice togetherness as a step towards realising greater social sustainability in our city. To return to the cheesecake, perhaps togetherness has never tasted this good because we’ve never craved it this much. In the wake of COVID-19, which has introduced a host of new ways to be apart and to be together, the University and city are thus presented with an opportunity to build truly inclusive spaces which not only bring or ‘throw’ (to use Geographer Doreen Massey’s term) people together but encourage engagement and practice in learning how to be together.

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This blog is written by Cara Mazetti Claassen, PhD Candidate at the Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Cutting edge collaborative research – using climate data to advance understanding

Posted on by janet.crompton

 

Perhaps you saw my recent blog post about an upcoming University of Bristol-led hackathon, which was to be part of a series following the Met Office’s Climate Data Challenge in March. The University of Bristol hackathon took place virtually earlier this month and was opened out to all UK researchers to produce cutting-edge research using Climate Model Intercomparison Project 6 (CMIP6) data. The event themes ranged from climate change to oceanography, biogeochemistry and more, and, as promised, here’s what happened.

An enabling environment

The event wouldn’t have run smoothly without the hard work of the organising team including James Thomas from the Jean Golding Institute who set up all the Github documentation and provided technical support prior and during the hackathon event. The hackathon was also a great opportunity to road test a new collaboration space that the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) have developed to provide a new digital platform, JASMIN Notebook Service.

As part of the introduction to the event, Professor Kate Robson Brown, Jean Golding Institute director, spoke about data science and space-enabled data. This was an excellent talk especially in terms of making connections through data and training events – you can watch her speech here. If you’re interested in more on this, there’s a data week 14-18 June 2021 for University of Bristol and external participants with details here.

Collaborating for results

Altogether there were over 100 participants at the hackathon with people involved from across the Met Office Academic Partnership (MOAP) universities and the Met Office as well as participants from across the world. There were ten project themes for delegates to work around and, as with the Met Office Climate Data Challenge, I was astounded by how far the teams got over the three days. Given the CMIP6 theme, it was great to see many projects advance our understanding by updating and improving previous model evaluation and projection analyses with the new CMIP6 datasets.

Given the work that I am involved in at the Met Office on visualisation and communication, I was particularly impressed by the thought that went into making important Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) figures interactive. In three days, the team working on this managed to process data and produce a working demonstration that made the results pop out of the page.

Also related to my work on using climate data to understand impacts, another project which caught my eye looked at how the Artic Tern’s migration would be affected by changes in wind regimes and sea ice in the CMIP6 ensemble. Of particular note was the creation of a “digital arctic tern” to simulate their migratory flight path.

What’s next?

There’s lots more I could say about this excellent event, and many thanks to colleagues at the University of Bristol for hosting the hackathon. Now I am looking forward to seeing how some of the work will develop further in terms of journal papers and potentially being showcased at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow in November.

#ClimateDataChallenge

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This blog is written by Dr Fai Fung, Science Manager at the Met Office and Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol.

Dr Fai Fung

 

 

Conference connects Climate Change Education with latest research

Posted on 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

 

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