Psychology as if the whole earth mattered: Nuclear threat, environmental crisis, and the emergence of planetary psychology.

Abstract

This article traces a genealogy for the various strands of contemporary psychology which are concerned with global environmental change, including conservation psychology, ecopsychology, and other subfields and interdisciplinary concentrations. Focusing on a network of psychiatrists, psychologists, and other researchers based at a research center founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1982, the article explores what those who first turned to the psychological causes and implications of climate change and other kinds of global environmental disruption had learned from their studies of nuclear-era psychology. The explorations of these researchers and practitioners in systems psychology, depth psychology, and political psychology, elicited by the first truly planetary crisis of the modern world, the threat of general nuclear war (which, apart from the enormous damage done at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and during weapons tests, remained largely theoretical), were applied to a new planetary crisis which was already unfolding: global environmental degradation. As they completed this pivot from the nuclear threat to the environmental crisis, at the end of the Cold War, using the language of the psychology of survival, these researchers displayed the form and function of what might be called a planetary psychology-of psychological theory and practice which broaches the planetary context of the individual psyche.

The new normal: governance, disruption and the post-truth era

“…We focus on the disruption (Hartley and Kuecker, 2021) portion of the continuum by outlining three levels of disruptionemergency, crisis and super crisiswith the last, the super crisis, giving rise to the rising contemporary discussions of the new normal. Super crises epitomize extreme risk or the apprehension of (Zinn, 2020) pandemics (Anicich, 2020), climate change (Porter et al, 2020), food insecurity (Battisti and Naylor, 2009) or imminent nuclear confrontation (Dunk, 2021). They cluster and point toward transboundary, threatening and globally consequential disruptions.…”

Research on a Framework for Sustainable Campus Eco-Architecture Selection: Taking a Taiwan High School as an Example

“…Moreover, these negative impacts are evident throughout the life cycle of a building. Sustainable building practice aims to reduce impacts on the environment by promoting environmentally responsible building practices, improving the efficiency of energy and resource use, and designing building plans to reduce carbon footprints and establish a sustainable environment [6,8].…”

“…The use and development of sustainable building assessment tools are now being adopted in developing countries. The concept of "green" is also emerging in various regions of the world, and it is urgent to standardize "sustainability" to cover a wide range of sustainable development [8,9]. Experts and scholars from various countries are also actively developing building assessment tools to meet the needs of all areas of sustainable development, such as the environment, society, the economy, safety, and education [10].…”

“…Sustainability assessments of ecologically-sound campus buildings have become indispensable for the sustainable development of schools. The main goal of sustainable design is to reduce the depletion of key resources such as energy, water, and raw materials; these efficiencies have environmental impacts throughout the building's operational life cycle and, in turn, create a safe and ecologically-sound built environment that facilitates 'environmental education [8,10]. The comprehensive evaluation method is linked to the idea of a system of sustainable buildings on an ecologically-sound campus and can be applied to the pre-design, construction, operation, and maintenance of sustainable buildings, as well as related considerations, until the end of the main building's life [11].…”

“…It is imperative to pursue the construction and maintenance of ecological campus environments and apply sustainable building technologies. Although a significant body of research results has been accumulated concerning on-campus environmental assessments and sustainable development indicators [8,15], most of the existing research focuses on one or only a few aspects, such as resources, energy, ecology, and environmental education, and does not comprehensively consider the correlation between campus environmental assessments and sustainable development indicators. Especially in Taiwan, which is located in a subtropical climate zone, there is an urgent need for substantive environmental assessments of sustainable high school campuses; however, a multi-faceted and objective assessment tool has not yet been developed.…”