scholarly journals The Opioid Crisis or Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 27-73
Author(s):  
Elizabeth W. De Leon
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Fast Food ◽  
Societal Issues ◽  
Settlement Agreement ◽  
Societal Problem ◽  
Aggregate Claims ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
American Cities ◽  
Corporate Wrongdoing ◽  
Tobacco Litigation

Societal problems can occasionally have legal solutions, and several tools exist to implement change, including litigation and regulation. However, what elements make a societal problem more suitable for litigation or regulation? This Article examines four different societal issues (tobacco use, obesity, opioid addiction, and climate change) to determine whether litigation or regulation is the more appropriate route for success. The tobacco litigation serves as a successful example, while the fast food litigation serves as an unsuccessful example. Six signs of success are derived from the tobacco litigation: a large settlement agreement, evidence of corporate wrongdoing, change in public opinion, the litigation inspiring regulations, new courtroom avenues, and the ability to aggregate claims. The Article concludes that opioid litigation will be more successful under the tobacco litigation model than climate change litigation, because opioid litigation adapts the tobacco model to end the opioid epidemic. Novel solutions include utilizing Multi-District Litigation and the first-ever “negotiation class” that allows all 30,000 American cities to participate in a global settlement agreement with Big Pharma.

scholarly journals Handling Societal Complexity: A Study of the Theory of the Methodology of Societal Complexity and the COMPRAM Methodology

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther Sorta Mauli Nababan ◽  
Nelson Siahaan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Environmental Problem ◽  
The World ◽  
Societal Problem ◽  
Compram Methodology ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Determining Factor ◽  
Human Problem

Awareness of the world is confronted daily with societal problems as a determining factor affecting global safety has steadily grown since the last 3 decades. It is becoming increasingly obvious that human activities in the economic sphere are responsible for environmental problem such as climate change that in turn are affecting global safety. Thus there are important but often neglected interrelationships between societal problems, and environmental systems. Handling Societal Complexity is an inside look at what goes on some aspects of complex societal problem and some aspects of human problem handling in general. This book is a significant contribution toward understanding these relationships, focuses on a wider spectrum of the problem handling process than most methodologies.

scholarly journals Communicating Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Efforts in American Cities

Climate ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantine Boussalis ◽  
Travis Coan ◽  
Mirya Holman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Press Releases ◽  
City Governments ◽  
Mitigation And Adaptation ◽  
Adaptation Policies ◽  
American Cities ◽  
The City

City governments have a large role to play in climate change mitigation and adaptation policies, given that urban locales are responsible for disproportionately high levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and are on the “front lines” of observed and anticipated climate change impacts. This study examines how US mayors prioritize climate policies within the context of the city agenda. Employing a computer-assisted content analysis of over 2886 mayoral press releases related to climate change from 82 major American cities for the period 2010–2016, we describe and explain the extent to which city governments discuss mitigation and adaptation policies in official communications. Specifically, we rely on a semi-supervised topic model to measure key climate policy themes in city press releases and examine their correlates using a multilevel statistical model. Our results suggest that while mitigation policies tend to dominate the city agenda on climate policy, discussion of adaptation efforts has risen dramatically in the past few years. Further, our statistical analysis indicates that partisanship influences city discussion on a range of climate policy areas—including emissions, land use policy, and climate resiliency—while projected vulnerability to climatic risks only influences discussion of climate resiliency and adaptation efforts.

scholarly journals The Effect of Climate Change Semantic Expressions on Perceptions and Attitudes Towards Decarbonisation

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Hussein Akil ◽  
Said Hussein ◽  
Leila E. Zein
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Experimental Study ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Aspects ◽  
Societal Issues ◽  
Communication Campaign ◽  
Perceptions And Attitudes ◽  
Risk Perception And Communication ◽  
Social Level

This paper is proposed to clarify the effectiveness of semantic expressions used to designate climate change in France context, i.e. “réchauffement climatique” (“global warming”); “changement climatique” (“climate change”); and “derangement climatique” (“climate imbalance”). An experimental study (sample size N = 126) based on ‘linguistic semantics’ approach is conducted in order to assess the effect of these expressions on concerns, perceptions risk and sensitivity regarding Climate Change (CC). Our results show that the expression “réchauffement climatique” (“global warming”) is the most appropriate from a statistical standpoint. It increased the importance of the problem (salience of this issue) relative to other societal issues (e.g. unemployment, social justice, crime, etc.); it also enhanced participants' sensitivity (respondents' emotions associated with CC) more than the other expressions. We can still note however a strong difference in impact among the expressions if we were to calculate their impact on the basis of risk perception and communication objective. Results showed that when focusing our communication campaigns on nature, it would be preferable to use the term “changement” ("change"), when focusing our communication on social level, it would be preferable to use the term “réchauffement” ("warming"), whereas the term “dérèglement” ("imbalance") becomes the most suitable in seeking to build a communication campaign focusing on economic aspects. Semantics therefore should be selected depending on the communication objective.

Nature-Based Solutions in Tourism: A Review of the Literature and Conceptualization

2019 ◽  
pp. 109634801989005
Author(s):  
Panchapakesan Padma ◽  
Sundari Ramakrishna ◽  
S. Mostafa Rasoolimanesh
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Poverty Alleviation ◽  
Review Of The Literature ◽  
Environment Friendly ◽  
Innovative Solutions ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
Tourism And Hospitality ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Scientific Fields

“Nature based solutions” are innovative solutions, which are inspired from nature, and applied to contemporary societal problems such as climate change, overtourism, poverty alleviation, and so on. The research on “nature-based solutions” in tourism is rudimentary and the main objective of this study is to identify and conceptualize the nature-based solutions in tourism. For this purpose, a hybrid literature review has been conducted in the scientific fields of tourism and hospitality as well as agriculture, building sector, and urban planning. An examination of the characteristics of the nature-based solutions have led to its conceptualization based on six constituent dimensions such as empowerment of stakeholders, monitoring the state of natural environment, economic development of residents, adoption of environment-friendly solutions, and changing the mind-set of stakeholders. Finally, limitations of the current study have been identified and some recommendations for further research have been provided.

scholarly journals Framing agricultural policy through the EC’s strategies on CAP reforms (1992–2017)

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Karmen Erjavec ◽  
Emil Erjavec
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Agricultural Policy ◽  
Common Agricultural Policy ◽  
Framing Analysis ◽  
Implementation Model ◽  
Societal Issues ◽  
The Past ◽  
Quality Health ◽  
The Common

AbstractThe periodic reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are announced each time by a strategic document in the form of a Communication by the European Commission (EC). The content of the last Communication differs from previous ones, which raises the questions of what frames the EC has employed with respect to its CAP reforms and how these frames have been modified over the past 26 years (from 1991 to 2017) in order to legitimise the preservation of the CAP. This paper tries to fill the gap in the research of frames in the main strategic documents on the CAP by employing comparative historical framing analysis. The results show consistent use of five frames: the policy mechanism frame, farmers’ economic frame, foreign trade frame, budgetary frame, and the societal concerns frame. While they have all remained in use, most have been changed significantly over the years. Throughout the analysed period, the farmers’ economic frame has retained its primacy and continuity, demonstrating the power of the farmers’ lobbies and conservative member states. If in the initial Communications the environment was barely present within the societal concerns frame, it has gained importance in the recent Communications, in addition to other general societal issues, such as climate change, food security and quality, health, digitalisation, innovation, and even migration. By marginalising the policy mechanism frame and replacing it with the implementation model and increasingly emphasising the societal concerns frame with social justifications of the CAP, the EC is trying to legitimise the CAP after 2021.

scholarly journals THE PLACE OF AN ETHICS OF SOLIDARITY IN MITIGATING THE PROBLEM OF UNEMPLOYMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

2020 ◽  
pp. 182-192
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Illegal Migration ◽  
The World ◽  
Theoretical Frame ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Failing States

Sub-Saharan Africa like some other parts of the world is plagued by myriads of problems such as environmental degradation, climate change, illegal migration, human trafficking, terrorism, resources conflicts, bad and inept leadership, failing states, armed banditry, drug smuggling, youth restiveness, unemployment, etc. One of these problems, unemployment, has led to the devastation of many human lives and equally made some persons to live in degrading manner that affect environmental resources. Unemployment is not simply about statistics or numbers but about actual human lives who are holders of rights and dignity. Unemployment can impede the exercise of human rights and prevent people from living meaningful lives. In spite of the region’s enormous natural resources and human capital unemployment remains drastically unabated. Why is this situation so? This situation is problematized here. Consequently, this paper critically and analytically examines this problem of unemployment in Sub-Saharan Africa in the light of an ethics of solidarity. The paper hermeneutically interprets the concepts involved in the study. The grave reasons for unemployment in the region will be examined with likely solutions. Besides these possible solutions, the paper sees the issue as also bordering on ethical realities. Many of the factors that causes employment borders on human behaviours and morality. There are ethical dimensions to the issue then. This is why the paper takes the vantage point of an ethics of solidarity to argue for an additional solution to the problem. This is equally the theoretical frame from which the problem of unemployment is examined. Living in solidarity makes individuals to easily collaborate and overcome societal problems like unemployment. The paper finds that unemployment is a pervasive problem in the sub-continent and is causing grave consequences for both human lives and the environment. The paper concludes that an ethics of solidarity can help in mitigating the problem of unemployment in the sub-continent. And that when this is done it will help to create a happier and peaceful sub-continent.

scholarly journals Euthanasia, Female Genital Mutilation, Children with Disabilities: A Review on Societal Issues and Their Scientific Implications

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Gabriel Odeh Ankeli
Keyword(s):  
Female Genital Mutilation ◽  
Children With Disabilities ◽  
Environmental Challenges ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
Societal Issues ◽  
Societal Challenges ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Female Genital

This paper reviewed some societal challenges, their causes, possible scientific solutions to them and the controversies arising from each of them. Three societal problems were identified which are; Euthanasia, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Children with Disabilities (CWDs). The different types of Euthanasia were identified as the active and passive ethanasia respectively also the FGM was discussed under three main types, namely; clitoridectomy, excision, infibulation  and others,  while  the  CWDs was also  discussed,  the causes and  challenges they go  through  such  as discrimination and institutional and environmental challenges. In each case their causes, effects and scientific solutions were proffered.

scholarly journals Governance Arrangements for Adaptation to Climate Change

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catrien Termeer ◽  
Arwin van Buuren ◽  
Art Dewulf ◽  
Dave Huitema ◽  
Heleen Mees ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Science Policy Interface ◽  
Time Specific ◽  
Societal Problems ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
Governance Arrangements

Adaptation to climate change is not only a technical issue; above all, it is a matter of governance. Governance is more than government and includes the totality of interactions in which public as well as private actors participate, aiming to solve societal problems. Adaptation governance poses some specific, demanding challenges, such as the context of institutional fragmentation, as climate change involves almost all policy domains and governance levels; the persistent uncertainties about the nature and scale of risks and proposed solutions; and the need to make short-term policies based on long-term projections. Furthermore, adaptation is an emerging policy field with, at least for the time being, only weakly defined ambitions, responsibilities, procedures, routines, and solutions. Many scholars have already shown that complex problems, such as adaptation to climate change, cannot be solved in a straightforward way with actions taken by a hierarchic or monocentric form of governance. This raises the question of how to develop governance arrangements that contribute to realizing adaptation options and increasing the adaptive capacity of society. A series of seven basic elements have to be addressed in designing climate adaptation governance arrangements: the framing of the problem, the level(s) at which to act, the alignment across sectoral boundaries, the timing of the policies, the selection of policy instruments, the organization of the science-policy interface, and the most appropriate form of leadership. For each of these elements, this chapter suggests some tentative design principles. In addition to effectiveness and legitimacy, resilience is an important criterion for evaluating these arrangements. The development of governance arrangements is always context- and time-specific, and constrained by the formal and informal rules of existing institutions.

Green Infrastructure Planning to Tackle Climate Change in Latin American Cities

2019 ◽  
pp. 329-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexis Vásquez ◽  
Emanuel Giannotti ◽  
Elizabeth Galdámez ◽  
Paola Velásquez ◽  
Carolina Devoto
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Green Infrastructure ◽  
Infrastructure Planning ◽  
Tackle Climate Change ◽  
American Cities
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