Book
Media and the Politics of Arctic Climate Change: When the Ice Breaks
The Arctic sea-ice reached record lows in 2007, and again in 2012. In the international news media, these moments were reflected via striking images of polar bears, crumbling icechunks and the use of more alarmist metaphors about global climate change. Through these narratives, and despite the periodic disappearance of climate change from media reports due to issue fatigue, a sharper narrative of climate change has entered public discourse: a new global reality where the future is no longer a given. Going beyond media studies as well as descriptive or highly scientific accounts of the impacts of climate change in the Arctic, this book explores how both historical and contemporary mediations, scientific narratives and satellite technology simultaneously capture and reconstruct this new reality of the Anthropocene, where human activities shape the planet. By highlighting the linkagesbetween science, media, environmental change and geopolitics, the informed contributors to the volume invite the reader to reflect on what is local and what is global in today's connected mediatized world.
In this chapter we want to see what historical narratives can tell us in order to better understand our concerns with the vanishing ice as evidence of a current mega-transition. Was the 2007 minimum unique? When and why did science start to study Arctic sea ice? Have there been periods of an ice-free Arctic Sea in the past? And, if they did occur, how does it impact on interpretations of our present- time discourse on the possible emergence of anice- free Arctic Sea? Climate change may, in retrospect, have appeared an obvious companion idea, but this relationship between ice and climate was rarely put forward as a serious alternative for the immediate future on the human timescale of decades, generations, or even centuries. But when it finally was, comparatively late in the middle of the twentieth century, sea ice was part of the story. We start by visiting the idea of an ice-free Arctic in the past, then moving on to the scientific undertakings on sea -ice in the Soviet Union. Interwar efforts outside the Soviet Union were as only matched by Nordic researchers, with whom we deal with subsequently. Finally we discuss the Cold -War effortsand their military connections. That science is interest-driven is evident throughout the entire period. Sea- ice minima may comprise straightforward facts, but the underlying knowledge is the outcome of a complex science politics of circumpolar ice.
Information in the SGEM 2017 Conference Proceedings is subject to change without notice. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without the express written permission of the International Scientific Council of SGEM.
The first volume involves the Russian Federation as a common denominator with either Norway (oldest multilateral region in the Arctic) or the United States (sharing with Russia the longest maritime boundary in the world) to interpret changes with connected biophysical and socio-economic systems that underscore decisions across a “continuum of urgencies” from security to sustainability time scales. The second and third volumes will emerge from presentations during the annual Arctic Frontiers Conferences in Tromsø, Norway, starting in January 2020. Volume 2 will consider circumstances associated with areas beyond sovereign jurisdictions from Arctic and non-Arctic perspectives, recognizing the international community has unambiguous rights and responsibilities in the Arctic High Seas under the law of the sea. Volume 3 is intended to synthesize insights on a pan-Arctic scale, analogous to the world ocean across all sea zones, involving decisions to achieve ongoing progress with sustainability, coupling governance mechanisms and built infrastructure. Throughout this book series, which we expect to expand beyond the Arctic, science diplomacy will be applied as an international, interdisciplinary, and inclusive (holistic) process, facilitating informed decisionmaking to balance national interests and common interests for the benefit of all on Earth across generations. With holistic integration, this book series will reveal skills, methods, and theory of informed decisionmaking that will continue to evolve, contributing to balance, resilience, and stability that underlie progress with sustainability across our home planet.
Global climate change entails both threats and new opportunities for social and economic development of the Altai-Sayan Ecoregion. Taking into account the scale of climate change forecasted for the ASE, the importance of Altai-Sayan as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots as well as an important role assigned to the region in strategic plans of Russia’s economic development, the need to develop regional measures of adaptation to both negative and positive impacts of climate change raises no doubts. In particular, climate change is referred to as a new determinant of development and a security challenge to Russia and its regions in such strategic documents as: the RF Environmental Doctrine (2002), the RF Long-Term Social and Economic Development Concept for the period to 2020 (2008), the RF Forest Complex Development Strategy for the period to 2020 (2008), the RF National Security Strategy for the period to 2020 (2009), the RF Climate Doctrine (2009), the Energy Strategy of Russia for the period to 2030 (2009), the RF Food Safety Doctrine (2010) and the Strategy of Social and Economic Development of Siberia for the period to 2020 (2010).
Global climate change entails both threats and new opportunities for social and economic development of the Altai-Sayan Ecoregion. Taking into account the scale of climate change forecasted for the ASE, the importance of Altai-Sayan as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots as well as an important role assigned to the region in strategic plans of Russia’s economic development, the need to develop regional measures of adaptation to both negative and positive impacts of climate change raises no doubts. In particular, climate change is referred to as a new determinant of development and a security challenge to Russia and its regions in such strategic documents as: the RF Environmental Doctrine (2002), the RF Long-Term Social and Economic Development Concept for the period to 2020 (2008), the RF Forest Complex Development Strategy for the period to 2020 (2008), the RF National Security Strategy for the period to 2020 (2009), the RF Climate Doctrine (2009), the Energy Strategy of Russia for the period to 2030 (2009), the RF Food Safety Doctrine (2010) and the Strategy of Social and Economic Development of Siberia for the period to 2020 (2010).
In his article Vladimir Kantor explores the destiny of Russia intelligentsia within the context of cultural crisis that took place at the turn of XIX and XX centuries, analyzing the Vekhovs, a group of leading intellectuals who ran a collection of essays, titled "Vekhi", studying their relationship towards that Russian cultural phenomenon. To author, the intelligentsia is considered as a critical factor in the development of Russian history. Within a context of the struggle around the "Vekhi", by referring to famous philosophical and literature books, published in 1909, the author focuses on relationships between intelligentsia and ordinary people, their attractive and repulsive interaction, which represents the key theme of the Russian destiny. Any historical movement occurs through tragedy; heroes who move the history have to sacrifice themselves to provide that movement. Confirmation to that idea would be rejection and exclusion of the Russian intelligentsia from the country's mentality throughout a number of generations which ultimately led to its tragic being.
The particularities of American political system impede the progress of US climate change regime at the federal level. The only possible way to create the comprehensive system of climate change regulation in the USA is thereby the bottom-to-up scheme proceeding from the diverse green initiatives at the level of firms, communities and states.