Controversies Section A - Lectures

soge prelims - 12 years to climate catastrophe - Desertification - Atolls

similarities

• popular discourse in controversy

  • politicisation, casting doubt/uncertainty

  • evading political responsibility

    • politicians, populists

• Western concepts

  • colonialism

  • techno-fixes

12 year narrative

climate change

1. IPCC report in 2018

   • a “climate tipping point” threshold of 1.5C

   • needs to be halved by 2030

   • power of messaging, defensible vs warning

2. school strike movements - lead to action

   • Greta Thunberg

3. Movement of focus

   • COVID-19 and Ukraine-Russia

   • temporary drop in COVID (Rojas, 2022)

   • Energy security concerns - ‘easier’ fuels

   • Political distraction -> policy trade offs - energy transitions

Anderson, 2002

reference for science all

• Demeritt, 1996

  • disembodied truth impossible as science and society are inseparably mixed

• Latour, 2004 - critique

  • ‘post-truth age’

roy, 2018

reference for colonialism

“decolonising science”

• victimisation

• the guise of ‘for the good of the people’

• privileging of Anglo-academic knowledge

• enlightenment - The ‘Scientific Revolution’ 

  • science used as justification for violence and exploitation (Kowal, 2023)

eg. implementation of local knowledge and TEK into ecological approaches for farming (Kimmerer, 2002)

Wiertz et al. 2023

reference for climate change political distractions

• Political distraction -> policy trade offs - energy transitions

  • eg Germany increases national natural gas power plant use

  • BUT also doubled down on renewable electricity goals

Ocasio-Cortez and Lomborg (2019)

reference for climate change political discourse

• power to guide public discourse and policies

• eg. Ocasio-Cortez (Left) vs Lomborg (Right) in 2019

  • Alarmist views can backfire

  • Catchy messaging

  • ‘Fake news’

• Scientists need to balance discourse availability and scientific knowledge

Allen et al. 2022

reference for climate change all

• Steffen et al. 2018

• Collins et al. 2013

Steffen et al. 2018

reference for climate change systematic change

• ANT (Latour, 1987) - root-and-branch transformation involves acknowledging and integrating non-human actors (eg. new policies)

• Top-down cannot be universal, thus bottom-up

• Societal and technological reform

• Negotiations and power balance

atoll timeline

atolls

1. Land Subsidence Theory (Darwin)

   • Coral reefs get deeper over time + how fast subsidence is occurring = coral cannot keep up with SL

2. Glacial-control Theory (Daly)

   • Glacial periods reduce SL, leaving platforms for coral growth

   • Coral accretion > sea level rise

3. Antecedent Karst Theory (Droxler)

• Subsidence, and repeated late Quaternary sea-level fluctuations considered

• Dissolution of rocks (karst processes) form, and once SL rises, corals colonise around a karst depression in the centre

• Coral accretion > sea level rise

IPCC, 1990

reference atolls for portrayal in politics

“The very existence of entire island countries could be imperilled by a rise of current sea-level rise projections”

• COP22 - PM of Tuvalu standing in lagoon

shea et al. 2020

reference atolls for portrayal in media

• overarching depictions of vulnerability

• alarmist views

• lack of solutions

Kench et al. 2023 (2018)

reference atolls for science being twisted

• caught traction (posted on nature), media reporting

  • polarising opinions

  • hijacking and weaponisation of knowledge

    • “Climate change demonstrated as a hoax”

Beetham et al. 2017

reference atolls for reality

• Absence of chronic erosion - some eroding, some accreting

  • eg. Fenualango island is growing

• Complexity of living systems - thus we were looking at islands at the wrong time scale

• small-scale, migration not than inundation

  • loss of a sense of security

Steibl et al 2023

reference atolls for human-impact - actual issue

GLOBAL ISSUE: deteriorating coral reefs from cc

LOCAL ISSUE: impairment of natural accretion processes

• Lacks:  Bioerosion, sediment accumulation, and life cycle

• Cause: overfishing, dredging, unpredictable storm cycles and deforestation

• eg. Jetties and breakwaters changes the sediment transport pathways

Cauchi et al 2019

reference atolls for western impact

• traditional cultures have lost their ability to adapt

• colonialist narrative

  • victimisation

  • western thinking - techno fixes

  • fixed infastructure

    • British occupation on Kiribati and Tuvalu 1900-1980s

    • Hospitals, roads built

  • All non-adaptable structures, loss of indigenous knowledge ILK

    • eg. Stilt housing, relocatable housing and pit agriculture

• Left with lowest GDP in the Pacific due to overcrowding and extraction

  • Volatile

  • Resource-poor

  • Culture loss

  • Environmental refugees (other CC)

Kiribati and Tuvalu

atolls nations