Educating for Emerging Crises in Ecosystem - Term Paper Example

? Global Climate Change: Educating For Emerging Crises in Ecosystem I have set off on a journey of exploration, curious about global warming. From the educator's point of interest, I have researched this phenomenon for a month, in and out of the scholarly articles, Internet. Guided by those who have set out on similar journeys, I have grown increasingly aware of its ever-changing impact across the globe and intermingled nature of such an impact with peoples' health, their lifestyles and their daily activities. Writing about global warming can be a daunting task. How do I incorporate all those impacts that have occurred, and yet avoid being partial, or obscuring the significance of socio-political factors in it? I was able to keep my focus in large part thank to scholarly articles from which I gained insights and information about its particularities in the coastal regions of North America. This paper reflects my travel so far, enlivened and enriched with the quotes from the researched articles. Since global warming is the concern of all countries and nations, particularly those with a diverse bio systems and population, their governments found they needed to come to grips with it and to set up structures and implement programs to help identify a disaster and support coexistence with flora and fauna. Various solutions have been developed across the world. The initiatives that are proposed or implemented to combat these changes are determined to a lesser or greater degree by the variation in the climate change. These range from measuring the relative precipitation and temperature, to exploring the connections of the indigenous knowledge on climate change phenomena, to improved developmental studies assessing the global scale climate impacts and to a wide array of initiatives to respond to accomplishing the needs and concerns of more than 3.024 million people in coastal regions of North America (CEC, n.d., p.3; Fairchild, 2012). The focus of this paper is on the impacts of climate change on the coastal areas and on raising awareness among the people about health hazards in relation to these changes. Background details: Global climate change impacts on human and natural systems have far-reaching effects and society can respond to these threats through mitigation and adaptation. In this respect, companies, individuals and the government do play a crucial role to frame up motivational measures for mitigation or adaptation. In 2008, a cross-sectional survey was conducted in The United States, by the method of random digit dialling. Personal relevance from health threats was explored with the Health Belief Model (HBM) as the frame and data was analyzed through “logistic regression and path analysis.” Of the 771 individuals surveyed, 81% (n=622) acknowledged that a gradual climate change was occurring, and that subjects were aware of the associated ecological and human health risks. The findings of the theory related to Health Belief Model (HBM) indicate that when climate change risks are applied to this model to gauge on the willingness of the respondents, the results showed that the respondents reported of reduced energy consumption. That means much emphasis was laid on their attitudes and public belief. Majority of the respondents from the study have reported to have taken protective steps towards autonomous adaptation to extreme weather events. The outcome of the research suggests that the motivation for voluntary mitigation is mostly dependent on the perceived ecological and fundamental threats by general awareness of the severity of climate variability impacts (Semenza & Ploubidis, 2011, pp 1-12). An article by Arthur Mynett, in the perspective of climate change initiatives and stories of solution, embrace innovative technologies as the way and means to protect from climatic ordeal. An example of the success story on the Netherlands has been cited in his article. The Netherlands, though a small country, has set itself as an example to prepare for the future threats due to climate change. The Delta Action Committee of Netherlands has approached the water issues in a holistic manner. The challenge for any country lies in how to grapple the issues before it actually culminates into a natural disaster. Socio-political considerations and financial status act as a guiding force to arrest any form of disaster. Therefore, developed countries find it easier to frame policies wherein cleaner energy finds importance and thereby capable of reducing emissions significantly within a span of lesser time than developing nations. Though it is not easy for the government of any country to accurately predict what a country will need in a span of 100 years from now, it certainly does have the foresight to know the safe and sustainable forms of implementing the strategies, in context to the present conditions (Mynett, 2011, pp 51-55). Climate change is likely to affect the safety and health of communities in particular and the global population. The Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC on Global Climate Change [Gosling et al., 2011] impact highlights six major themes, which need recommendations for reviewing the current status. Among the six themes, the first among them is the impact of sea level rise (SLR) and associated coastal impacts; ocean acidification; ecosystems and biodiversity; water resources and desertification; agriculture and food security and lastly human health (Gosling et al., 2011, p. 445). However, I have decided to focus my attention on the aspects of coastal impacts due to sea level rise in relation to impacts on the human health. Health issues are vital to this reading because primary concern of the government of nation states include providing the basic amenities to the people in general; health being one of the crucial areas of focus that can lead to a better standard of living. The fluctuation and severity of extreme weather conditions can lead to the prevalence of climate-sensitive diseases, particularly vector-borne diseases. High priority diseases identifiable in this respect are malaria, dengue, skin diseases, heat-stress, diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infections. The primary interventions that can be used to reduce the burden of climate sensitive diseases could be achieved by developing early warning signals to enhance the opportunities of disease control. The potential way of establishing the early warning systems to be called effective should typically prevail on the guiding principles. Based on models developed using weather/ climate forecasts and thereby taking a note of various environmental observations and epidemiological data effective signs of warnings can be accumulated. These tools provide warnings regarding the possibility of threats or risks to be expected at a particular time. When risks are likely to be expected, interventions need to be undertaken to reduce the possible burden of the disease (Ellis, 2009, pp. 157-169). Increase in the global average temperature, rise in the sea level and extremes in climatic patterns. For example the projected area averaged increase in the surface air temperature in the 2050s (approximate values) is said to be 2.00C for Atlantic, Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean, 2.10C for the Indian Ocean and 2.80C for the Mediterranean Sea (Ebi et al., 2006 pp 1957-1962). The availability of information is yet another crucial source for the people for autonomous adaptation. Media studies and campaigns should address the health context as a frame and should focus on increasing the general awareness and understanding of the climate change impacts on health aspects. Active participation in mitigating or adapting to strategies can then prove beneficial. Thus, climate change discourse should be properly framed from the health perspective to motivate behavioural change (Semenza & Ploubidis, 2011, pp 1-12). Aims and objectives The purpose of this paper is: 1. To investigate the impacts of global warming and climate change on coastal regions (of America) with the focus on health hazards (i.e. social groups that are most vulnerable) 2. To raise awareness about global warming and its impact on human health. It is believed that education of grassroots society may contribute to obviate the risks of greater degradation and deterioration of environment. 3. To reflect on the phenomenon from different perspectives; this can also be relevant to setting up structures and implementing programs to help identify and combat disaster Discussion Any environmental issue brings about concerns of various other inter-related issues on the ecological, socio-economic perspectives due to impacts of climate change. A considerable amount of research articles can be found on earth’s climate predictions by gauging on the proxy indicators and numerical modeling. Such reports have demonstrated that anthropogenic changes in the atmospheric composition have made significant contributions in the global climate change (Hidalgo & Alfaro, 2012 p. 379). In this section, I would like to exemplify the various other aspects related to global climate change in relation to the various researched articles. Ethical Issues It has often been seen that indigenous communities experience climate changes, which are not result of industrial activities, yet its negative impacts impinge on the potential threats of food supply. The negative effects also contribute to encompass aspects of health such as susceptibility of the diseases affected by several environmental factors (Alexander et. al., 2011, p. 477). These inequalities are at present receiving focused attention in environmental research. It has been researched and observed that mostly coastal communities in the low-lying areas are victims of such disasters. In this respect a disaster is not only natural one but also social, like epidemic diseases that break out after floods. Another ethical issue is global poverty that can also be linked to climate changes for two reasons. It has been projected that the global mean temperatures in the last decade of the twenty first century will be much higher that the current temperatures and in the same period sea levels may rise by up to 59 centimeters. All these changes will have disastrous effects on human life, heath and also agriculture thus affecting the availability of food and water. Another reason for which global poverty can be linked to climate changes is that some of the policies to fight climate change can enhance poverty. For example by limiting the emission of greenhouse gases poor people will be under constraint as they will be forced to used low-carbon energy substitutes which are of high costs. Additionally, imposing carbon tax can contribute to poverty more generally. (Caney, 2012, pp.193-194) Social Issues The chapter thirteen of the IPCC Report, 2007 (Hidalgo & Alfaro, 2012, p 381), gives a summary of the climate change impacts and its associated vulnerabilities in Latin America. In the project, there is a mention that the poorest communities are amongst the most vulnerable entities. Latin America in general and Central America in particular, are subjected to climate related impacts caused by the increased occurrence of the natural events like El Nino, La Nina. These events have contributed to the increased vulnerabilities of natural disasters to droughts and floods. Safety issues include protection against flood and ensuring an adequate quantity of freshwater supply. Any major failure to carry out the basic accomplishments for safety measures could highly affect the economy of a nation over a considerable period. In the article by Hindalgo and Alfargo, socio-economic variables have been contrasted with environmental variables. The current readings of Hindalgo & Alfaro’s paper encompass a comparative study of the relative importance of the society’s present situation in contrast to the projected vulnerabilities and climate change. This proposed form of analysis will allow readers to determine the differences between the regions of the country in particular. The variables that have been used to measure are Human Development Index (HDI), the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), population Totals (POP) and the Social Development Index (SDI). The HDI is an index which takes into consideration the three major dimensions. These are education, health and the standard of living. These dimensions are measured by certain indicators like life expectancy at birth (mortality i.e. health dimension), mean years of schooling and expected years of schooling (i.e. education dimension) and lastly the per capita income given by gross national income (i.e. the standard of living dimension). Larger the value of HDI the better is the socio-economic conditions. The health aspect of environmental exposures, include keeping ambient air pollution standard and climate-change-related health impacts, though it is not equally distributed within and between countries or regions. Political Issues Global climate change is associated with a wide range of complexities and uncertainties. From the political perspective, this issue would be crucial to the understanding of the political influence by world leaders. Late 1980s and early 1990s, the IPCC came to be regarded in the book of epistemic community where emerging issues like environmental concerns gained importance. According to Peter Hass, environmental scientists of the epistemic community with the knowledge based experts in the arena, played an important role to combat the complex problems for the common national good. This global concern in raising the climate change issue with close links to WMO and UNEP helped publicize the scientific knowledge about global warming through various means. From 1991, national governments became more concerned about the changes in environmental damages caused due to increased industrialization in the late 1980s. What is important to note in the current scenario of emerging crisis of ecosystem is that cognitive approaches and processes associated with international co-operation can offer a part of the answer to the current state. Therefore, insights from cognitive knowledge must be in cognizant with social relations that would help make up a conceptualized global social unit and work jointly in understanding the intricacies of a globally challenging situation. Analysis with focus on the particularly relevant issues is likely to generate awareness and participation of the governments in treaties is likely to influence the course of action on the emerging crisis on the functioning of ecosystem (Luterbacher & Sprinz, 2001, pp 60-61). Health Issues In the article by Hidalgo and Alfaro, the authors say that political division is constructed taking into account the population with access to the basic social rights from basically four dimensions, namely access to participation in the economic activities to enjoy an adequate job generating enough income to cover the certain basic needs; access to an active social participation in the national and local elections; access to health services and access and use of the education system. Global Climate Change is quite a qualitatively distinct spectrum of change in the perspective of human health hazards encountered. Most health impacts will be adverse and will occur through the direct exposures viz., the heat waves, extreme weather events like storm surges and cyclonic weather conditions and lesser direct influences arising from disruptions to environmental, ecological, and social sub-systems. Indeed, most of the impacts of climate change on the ecological, physical, cultural and the socio-political sub-systems will tend to affect the human health not only via changes in the yields of food, flow of freshwater quality, but also cause instability of infectious diseases, social cohesion, air quality. Moreover family income and livelihoods are also likely to be affected. The tendency for people to move will be associated particularly with the existence (i.e. though perception or expectation) of an increased frequency of serious and extreme weather disasters, food shortages with losses of livelihoods associated and shortage of water (Mc.Michael & Barnet, 2012, p 647). The Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) A critical analysis of the various research papers suggest that indigenous knowledge that is understood as a “cumulative body of knowledge, belief and practice” is to be associated with the issue, evolving with the adaptive changes that have been carried down from the past generations by cultural transmission. Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), as the name suggests is a subset of the indigenous knowledge, known to be dealing with the local attributes of culture and environment, more specifically about the different subsets of the ecosystem. The use of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) can be used to incorporate some management advisories or narratives from the observations of various kinds of natural resources for inter-generational equity. The traditional use of this methodology TEK can be found all over the world, particularly within the indigenous traditional geographical range. In the recent years, environmental resource managers and analysts have begun to gradually embrace the usefulness of applying TEK to exemplify and illustrate problems of local phenomena to contemporary issues, in various parts of the world. Collected works and narratives on the use of this particular impact and adaptation to the global warming issue require exploratory methods. Future course of work should involve a group of participants to contribute to the specific resource management decisions. Not only this, but care should also be taken to interview multiple observers and experts to synthesize all the available resources and information. However, the present form of treating the issue involves taking into account the individual narratives and careful knowledge mapping from the output of all the observations of indigenous community. One form of approaching a local issue could be locating a view of the general impacts of the climate change experienced by the local people. Later, broadening of the scope of research in the local perspective could formulate or broaden the understanding of the climate change phenomena globally beyond what is measured by instruments, for instance by the use of sensors for monitoring glacial wastage (Alexander et. al., 2011, pp. 477-479). An innovative development has been undertaken in the Netherlands. The motto of which is the “building with nature” strategy. This recent development which uses the natural processes rather than opposing to them finds a perfect balance with the environment. Examples to reflect upon the natural processes used in developing effective measures include using concrete slabs to align the riverbanks, natural forces like wind and tidal waves are channelled to drive sediments away to coastal seas from near shore dump sites towards sea beach, by supplying sediments directly on the beach. The water can also be used to generate energy. A possible method of electricity generation could be, making tidal variations or density gradients between seawater and freshwater useful (Mynett, 2011, pp. 53-55). Analysis There is an increase in the body of research on global warming and its effects caused on the coastal areas and health impacts on the local communities. My research from the available sources enlightened me on the fact that often indigenous population is more vulnerable to climatic changes, because of their close association with the environment. My chosen intention to write on this particular aspect is, because the socially marginalized people often do not get access to health services. Their reliance on the land and sea for subsistence purpose marks as the primary cause to inhabit the low-lying coastal areas (Furgal & Seguin, 2006, p. 1968). From the discussions so far, one question that may come up at this point is whether climate is a chaotic system? A chaotic system is defined by certain characteristic properties like sensitivity. However, any simple system can also show signs of chaotic behaviour under stressful conditions. Although atmosphere is chaotic, climate cannot be defined as a chaotic system. This is because climate in any particular region of the world at a given time has a limit to alteration. Climate provides a description of the global patterns and their variation with each season (Burroughs, 2007, p 154). The land-sea dynamics control the properties of the climate system to a great extent. The working group II Report 2007 of IPCC presents the sea level rise estimates between 0.28 and 0.43 meters (i.e. from the data that projects the predictions for ice melts and thermal expansion). The scientific explanation for the rise in sea level is that, as the temperature warms up, thermal expansion of the oceans and also melting of snow, glaciers and polar ice caps cause the sea level to rise. An increase in the sea surface temperature accompanied by global warming will cause thermal expansion of the ocean as well as contribute to the generation of higher wind speed in coastal belts with more fluctuations in periodic storm surges. Factors like land subsidence and accelerating pace of ice discharge can exacerbate impacts on the coasts. The adverse impacts from the rises include coastal erosion, river and estuarine disturbances thereby affecting the natural ecosystem and marine biodiversity. Damage to coastal infrastructure like piers and pathways also account in this respect (Ellis, 2009, pp. 157-167). Further, alterations of coastal processes like increase in high winds, shifting of sand dunes and increased storm-water run-offs contribute to create disturbances in the delicate balance of the critical marine ecosystems. Salination of inland freshwater damage the coastal ecosystems particularly the coastal fisheries. Besides, population displacement has also been reported to have occurred (Ebi et. al, 2006, pp 1957-1962). The article by Ellis explains the characteristics of a resilient system. In this respect reference can be made to the term used by the author. ‘Adaptive Capacity’ as termed by the author refers to the ability of the system to adjust itself so as to bring about a balance in the disturbance of the ‘affected’ state. Global climate change is but the resilience of the climate system caused by the disturbances due to several external anthropogenic factors. To respond to those changes caused by the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and to moderate the level of the potential threats due to burning of fossil fuels, the climate finds its way out to maintain the equilibrium state. Gaining insights from the findings of the survey results in the article by Ellis, helps us define our view of planning schemes that can effectively address issues dealing with natural hazards. For example, excerpts from the respondents’ speech inform us that local planning policies are quite effective in dealing with issues like cyclonic weather conditions, storm surges and threats from coastal inundation. The adaptive capacity is also connected to preparedness for a disaster. With this adaptive capacity, disaster management initiatives are implemented in order to fight the extreme natural conditions that are likely to affect human civilization. Therefore, adaptive capacity is a prime indicator of the coastal processes. It provides information, reduces vulnerabilities and affirms to integrate technical know-how on the subject to either arrest the problem or prepare oneself when the chances of threats readily increase (Ellis, 2009, pp 157-164). Method of Teaching “Reflective teaching is based on thoughtful decision making that takes into account knowledge about students, the context, psychological processes, learning and motivation, and knowledge about oneself. Although reflective teaching is not part of any constructivist perspective on learning, its premises are based on the assumptions of constructivism” (Schunk, 2008, p.272). Our goals in educating about climate change for the emerging crisis in ecosystem and sustainable living have been primarily on raising awareness among adult students about human factors as the cause of global warming, and the health issues as the direct effect of it. If the projected goals of every teaching and learning process are to achieve a two-way communication in order to accomplish exchange of thoughts and ideas, then we can say that by the way of reflective teaching, we have created a perfect ambience for learning and engaging with the students' needs. Furthermore, we believe that our teaching approach has envisaged and enlightened the learners’ interest for the particular subject in that it encouraged dialogue between students and reflection on the problems from students own experience. From the educator’s perspective, it is important to be informed about a concerned problem before introducing the subject to learners. “Teachers should be aware of why they do what they do and be keen observers of situations. They must reflect on and process a wide variety of information about situations” (Shunk, 1995, p.273). In our reflective teaching procedures, we have included cognitive methods of assessing the given problems and thereby minimizing the deficiencies by process of making thoughtful decisions. The most important feature of reflection is hunting assumptions. There are prescriptive assumptions that determine our behavioural patterns and educational processes along with the mutual obligations that we share with our students. For example if we believe that adults are self learners then we can let our students plan their own learning processes. Then there are casual assumptions which are about “how different parts of the world work and the conditions under which these can be changed”. One example is that if we commit errors then the students can develop a sense of trust that will enable them to feel free to make mistakes without the fear of embarrassments (Brookfield, 1995, pp. 2-3). The literature of reflective teaching demands that we reveal our unconscious self assessments and subjective theories by means of critical reflection. Our reflections pose a dilemma. On one hand we strive for our students to gain accurate scientific knowledge and to reach a specified goal, for example we want them to agree on steps needed to fight climate change, on the other hand we emphasize on giving our students enough liberty for self formation of opinion. Reflective teaching increases our competencies. We are able to modify our discussions in a more reflected manner than before. Our competencies in regard to observing and reflecting our own teaching has broadened. We have learnt the importance of the perspective of scientific knowledge as a topic in our classroom. Conclusion Therefore, to summarize with the journey, I would like to impress upon all the factors that contribute in the process of global warming (more specifically the climate change phenomena). My experience through the journey entails a paradigmatic approach to create awareness on the topic in the educational perspective. I have chosen to teach on the impacts of global warming in the coastal regions particularly, not only because coastlines are vulnerable to changes due to the rising sea level, but also for the fact that most civilizations have developed on the coastal plains and coastlines throughout the globe contributing highly to the production and supply of food. For example paddy which is the staple food crop all over the world is cultivated along the coasts. The global climate change issue is seen as a more traditionally framed environmental issue rather than a health issue. It is therefore necessary to consider the impacts of climate change on human health before setting up structures and programs to deal with global warming. It has been an established fact that the personal perception of risk is the strongest motivator of the change in health behaviour. Thus, health could be a powerful inspiring issue for individuals to reduce the carbon footprint. Adapting policies that reduce the carbon footprint would ultimately help in reducing the emissions in the long run. However, it is not quite clear if health frame perspective could sufficiently engage the public in adaptation and mitigation measures. Enhanced appreciation in formulating effective environmental policy, calls for environmental equity (Hidalgo & Alfaro, 2012, pp. 382-383). Therefore, eliminating the carbon emissions would also see a shift in the use of fossil fuels and embracing renewable energy technologies. It is however difficult to predict with certainty the exact course of devastation that global warming is likely to cause. Before such a situation occurs, there can be various other ways by which awareness can to some extent control the path of devastation. This is because the complex paths by which climate change is likely to affect human health and migration will require adaptive strategies across multiple sectors to accommodate central issues related to health, water, energy, transport and agriculture. This strategy to be implemented will require the coordinated efforts of the local and national governments and relevant international, national and the local institutions, non-government organizations, and agencies. Adaptive strategies in this respect include the public health initiatives that are to be incorporated with the existing national schemes and policies. Therefore, there is a need to integrate the adaptive measures into interdisciplinary emergency responses to fund for research in the area of a possible disaster encounter procedure. It is important to address the local issues that are related to climate related migration. It is important to minimize the possibilities of the health related inequalities. A possible way by which that can be accomplished is through providing access to health services, by providing health rights and minimizing the negative impact of the health related migration process (O’Neill & Kinney, 2008, pp. 570-577). An environmental problem is not separated from the individual perspective. The primary cause revealed by most people claims that lack of understanding; awareness and knowledge contribute to the wrong attitude and practices. Further added to this is the lack of responsibility among the people in general. A general assumption for sustainable outcome entails recognition of the overlapping concerns in the multiple fields like society, economics, culture, environment and education. It is also important to develop the need for quality in people to be able to contribute (Thiengkamol, 2011, p. 507). Thus, a final count on generating environmental strategies would be to make up a policy which ensures economically feasible, environmentally viable and socially acceptable measures. References: Alexander, et. al. (2011), Linking Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge of Climate Change, Bioscience, 61 (6), 477-484. Brookfield, S. (1995). The Getting of Wisdom: What Critically Reflective Teaching is and Why It’s Important. retrieved on July 30, 2012 from: http://www.bhcc.mass.edu/learning-communities/docs/Critically%20Reflective%20Teaching.pdf Burroughs, W.J. (2007). Climate Change: A Multidisciplinary Approach. 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