The conservative movement and especially its think tanks play a critical role in denying the
reality and significance of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), especially by manufacturing
uncertainty over climate science. Books denying AGW are a crucial means of attacking climate science
and scientists, and we examine the links between conservative think tanks (CTTs) and 108 climate
change denial books published through 2010. We find a strong link, albeit noticeably weaker for the
growing number of self-published denial books. We also examine the national origins of the books and
the academic backgrounds of their authors or editors, finding that with the help of American CTTs
climate change denial has spread to several other nations and that an increasing portion of denial
books are produced by individuals with no scientific training. It appears that at least 90% of
denial books do not undergo peer review, allowing authors or editors to recycle scientifically
unfounded claims that are then amplified by the conservative movement, media, and political
elites.
The international development community is off-track from meeting targets for alleviating global malnutrition. Meanwhile, there is growing consensus across scientific disciplines that fish plays a crucial role in food and nutrition security. However, this ‘fish as food’ perspective has yet to translate into policy and development funding priorities. We argue that the traditional framing of fish as a natural resource emphasizes economic development and biodiversity conservation objectives, whereas situating fish within a food systems perspective can lead to innovative policies and investments that promote nutrition-sensitive and socially equitable capture fisheries and aquaculture. This paper highlights four pillars of research needs and policy directions toward this end. Ultimately, recognizing and working to enhance the role of fish in alleviating hunger and malnutrition can provide an additional long-term development incentive, beyond revenue generation and biodiversity conservation, for governments, international development organizations, and society more broadly to invest in the sustainability of capture fisheries and aquaculture.
Environmental skepticism denies the reality and importance of mainstream global environmental problems. However, its most important challenges are in its civic claims which receive much less attention. These civic claims defend the basis of ethical authority of the dominant social paradigm. The article explains how political values determine what skeptics count as a problem. One such value described is "deep anthropocentrism," or the attempt to split human society from non-human nature and reject ecology as a legitimate field of ethical concern. This bias frames what skeptics consider legitimate knowledge. The paper then argues that the contemporary conservative countermovement has marshaled environmental skepticism to function as a rearguard for a maladaptive set of core values that resist public efforts to address global environmental sustainability. As such, the paper normatively argues that environmental skepticism is a significant threat to efforts to achieve sustainability faced by human societies in a globalizing world. Copyright (c) 2006 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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