Ground truth: Finding a “place” for climate change

Abstract

This review examines the interdisciplinary literature on the relationship between climate change and place. The concept of place is of interest to both humanistic geographers and environmental psychologists, who examine the ways in which individuals and groups interact with physical and cultural landscapes to form a sense of place and place attachments. As a multiscalar phenomenon that is global in its causes but local in its impacts, climate change presents several challenges to the concept of place. The relevant issues include 1) the extent to which climate-change impacts can be directly experienced, 2) the ways in which local place attachments can facilitate or impede adaptation to climate change, and 3) the grounding of climate-change mitigation in place. Drawing on literature from Earth science, human geography, and environmental psychology, the review explores how the global conceptualization of the environment prevalent in climate-change discourses can undermine notions of place, how deep connections to place can enhance the detection and attribution of climate change and contribute to climate resilience, and how climate activist movements reconcile the multiple spatial scales of climate change.

Recipe for a scenario: Moving from vision to actionable pathways towards sustainable futures

“…Broadly, the process entails a discussion of the narrative statement of the vision, choosing features of the vision around which participants would like to develop an actionable scenario, identifying which previously outlined values are achieved by the scenario, and a discussion of spatial and temporal horizons (for the latter, we recommend approximately 20 years in the future), actions, resources, and stakeholders required to achieve the scenario. We ask participants to identify a location to mark system boundaries, which foregrounds the importance of community-led conceptualizations of place and sets up discussion on cross-scale interactions between stakeholders, actions, and impacts that will result from implementation over time (Praskievicz 2022). Given that much of the literature of scenarios in sustainability science is focused on large-scale, global scenarios, tools such as "Recipe for a Scenario" that can be applicable to diverse scales, including the local level, can be particularly relevant (Mangnus et al 2019).…”

Supporting places left to the sea: A place-based research agenda for regional coastal transformations in the blue economy

“…Socio-cultural processes will also impact what is possible in combination with these other processes. On the one hand, people's attachment to places can strengthen their resolve to stay in poorly performing regions or those that are experiencing significant climate change issues, as “place is deeply embedded in the discourse of adaptation” (Praskievicz 2022, 149). On the other, attachments like NIMBYism can be damaging, blocking progress, particularly industrially.…”

“We Used to Have Four Seasons, but Now There Is Only One”: Perceptions Concerning the Changing Climate and Environment in a Diverse Sample of Israeli Older Persons

“…This is unfortunate, given the fact that place attachment likely has a direct association with people’s response to the changing environment including willingness to engage in adaptation and mitigation efforts ( Devine-Wright & Batel, 2017 ). Likewise, the changing climate and environment also have a potential to impact people’s attachment to their own environment ( Praskievicz, 2022 ).…”