Fighting symptom or root cause? - The need for shifting the focus in climate politics from greenhouse gases to environmental protection

Rinder, Thomas; Neuber, Frederike; Hagke, Christoph von

doi:10.31223/x52w7n

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The situation is similar to the decline in global biodiversity [11] (Maxwell et al 2016). This is because the climate crisis as well as the decline in global biodiversity share the same root cause, i.e., the resource intensive lifestyle of humankind [12] (Rinder et al 2022). These changes have occurred gradually, and over long periods rather than abruptly.…”

Section: Timescales Complexity and Perceptibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This suggests that to reach the global 1.5 or 2 • C aims, technical solutions do not suffice anymore. Instead, technical solutions combined with sustained changes in lifestyle are essential [12] (Rinder et al, 2022). This poses a severe problem, as it is questionable whether the world population is ready for such profound changes to prevent an even greater environmental crises.…”

Section: Technical Solutions and Lifestylementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Learning from the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis to Overcome the Global Environmental Crisis

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The COVID-19 crisis and the environmental crisis share a range of similarities. Both crises take place on a global scale and affect all aspects of our lives. However, we humans respond differently to these challenges. Here, we compare and comment on characteristics of the COVID-19 crisis and the environmental crisis, explore how far these two crises are comparable, and what we can learn from actions that have been taken against the COVID-19 crisis. We discuss how human societies are affected by the respective crises, and analyze policy makers’ responses and offer pathways to better inform policy. We highlight the role of science, which significantly contributed to decision making throughout the COVID-19 crisis, but seems frequently underrepresented in the environmental crisis. We conclude that there are significant differences between the two crises in terms of perceptibility and thus communicability. While problems and solutions in the COVID-19 crisis are largely linearly correlated, the challenges of the environmental crisis are far more complex and decoupled, and thus appear much more complex and are often only perceived with difficulty by humans. Thus, tackling the environmental crisis is much more challenging than solving the COVID-19 crisis. To overcome the environmental crisis, purely technical approaches for combating symptoms are not sufficient. However, political interests are usually short-term, and do not correspond with the temporal and spatial scales of global change. There is an urgent need to improve institutionalized scientific advisory mechanisms and to empower global policy makers who are independent of local interest groups. Furthermore, we need the sound communication of complex interactions to the general public and the translation of scientific findings into action. One possibility to achieve this is to bring together natural scientists with expertise in biology, climate and geosciences and social scientists, psychologists, and, possibly, artists.

show abstract

Section: Timescales Complexity and Perceptibilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Technical Solutions and Lifestylementioning

confidence: 99%

Learning from the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis to Overcome the Global Environmental Crisis

et al. 2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Two of the biggest challenges of our time are tackling the climate and biodiversity crises [1]. In addressing the climate crisis, photovoltaics are considered one of the key technologies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions [2], which has led to the expansion of solar parks across Europe [3,4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bee-Friendly Native Seed Mixtures for the Greening of Solar Parks

Meyer

Dullau

Scholz

et al. 2023

Land

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Photovoltaics is one of the key technologies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving climate neutrality for Europe by 2050, which has led to the promotion of solar parks. These parks can span up to several hundred hectares, and grassland vegetation is usually created between and under the panels. Establishing species-rich grasslands using native seed mixtures can enhance a variety of ecosystem services, including pollination. We present an overall concept for designing native seed mixtures to promote pollinators, especially wild bees, in solar parks. It takes into account the specific site conditions, the small-scale modified conditions caused by the solar panels, and the requirement to avoid panel shading. We highlight the challenges and constraints resulting from the availability of species on the seed market. Furthermore, we provide an easy-to-use index for determining the value of native seed mixtures for wild bee enhancement and apply it as an example to several mixtures specifically designed for solar parks. The increased availability of regional seed would allow a more thorough consideration of pollinator-relevant traits when composing native seed mixtures, thereby enhancing ecosystem services associated with pollinators such as wild bees.

show abstract

Fighting symptom or root cause? - The need for shifting the focus in climate politics from greenhouse gases to environmental protection

Cited by 2 publications

References 27 publications

Learning from the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis to Overcome the Global Environmental Crisis

Learning from the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis to Overcome the Global Environmental Crisis

Bee-Friendly Native Seed Mixtures for the Greening of Solar Parks

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About