climate change

“We are what we eat”, but do we know what we are eating?

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By: Nicoletta Moschini

“From beasts we scorn as soulless,
in forest, field and den,
the cry goes up to witness
the soullessness of men.”
M. Frida Hartley

We are all eyewitnesses to a dystopian historical period in which there are more overweight than undernourished people. We prefer to consume water in plastic bottles rather than tap water. Entire geographic areas of Europe, especially southern Portugal, Italy, and Spain, are at high risk of desertification, and globally, 2 billion people have difficult access to safe water sources. Yet, the global average water footprint to produce 1 kilogram of beef is 15,415 liters, meaning 2,400 liters to make a single hamburger – the equivalent of about 3 months of showers. Worldwide, 900 million people are in a state of severe food insecurity. Yet, the world’s cattle require an amount of calories equivalent to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion humans. Moreover, our Planet’s habitable land is mainly used for agriculture, with nearly 80% of farmland linked to meat and dairy production. Yet, livestock produces less than 20% of the world’s supply of calories.

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Climate change as a topic for an interactive exhibition

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By: Katarzyna Tamborska

Museums and science centers have joined in the public discussion of environmental challenges. As an important nexus of scientific communication, these institutions show that stopping negative trends in the natural environment is not a task for scientists and politicians only. Regardless of professional background and interests, individuals can engage in a social debate on climate protection, treating the Earth first and foremost as a living space. This is the main theme of a new interactive exhibition titled “Mission: Earth”, which has opened a few months ago at one of Europe’s largest science centers, the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw (Poland). It is the second of three modules that are part of the project called “The Future is Today” which is focused on humanity’s current challenges. The other parts are titled: “The Digital Brain,” and “Human 2.0” (the last one is yet to open).

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A CLAN for Human-Animal Studies? Opportunities and challenges of establishing the field – Part 3 

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By: Verónica Policarpo

**A versão portuguesa dos 3 posts pode ser consultada aqui.

This is the last post of a series of three in which I proposed myself to reflect upon the main opportunities and challenges implied in the establishment of the field of Human-Animal Studies (HAS) in Portugal, and the role of the HAS-Hub in that process. In the first part, I recollected the strengths of international networks and funding. In the second part, I dived into the powers of connecting in our own mother tongue. Finally, in this third and last post, I will shortly discuss the major threats that, from my point of view, the HAS-Hub may face in the near future, as well as the emerging opportunities.

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Mind the gaps: strengthening adaptation in the critical decade

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By: Carla Gomes

As we enter 2023 in full speed, we realise that our ‘critical decade’ for substantial climate action is shrinking fast. Emissions needed to be reduced by 45% by 2030, towards net zero by 2050, to keep the global temperature rise under 1,5º. At the last annual conference of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), the COP27, that ‘ideal target’ was abandoned in practice, but even 2º is now unlikely. As emissions keep rising, the fossil fuel industry is under increasing pressure to decarbonise or shut the door. Adaptation is now unavoidable, but there are critical adaptation gaps that we will have to address over the remaining years up to 2030. We discuss some of them in this post.

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A CLAN for Human-Animal Studies? Opportunities and challenges of establishing the field in Portugal – Part 2

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Por: Verónica Policarpo

**A versão portuguesa dos 3 posts pode ser consultada aqui.

For the last four years, the Human-Animal Studies Hub (hereafter, HAS-Hub) has brought together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds and institutions, under a common interest: the critical appraisal of the multiple and systemic ways through which humans have exploited nonhuman animals, and an ethical commitment to contribute to diminish their suffering. In this post, I resume the reflection initiated here about this process. In the first part, I leaned over the rising strengths of international networks and collaborations, as well as the angular role of funding to foster research, training and dissemination. In this second part, I wish to highlight – and honour – the power of connecting and working in our mother tongue. Building a HAS network that speaks, not only but also, in Portuguese is a major mission of the HAS-Hub. I will try to show the role of post-graduate education in this process, in particular the post-graduate course Animais e Sociedade. This reflection will not end today, though. In a future third and last part, I will highlight what are, from my point of view, the major threats that the HAS-Hub faces in the near future, as well as emerging opportunities.

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A CLAN for Human-Animal Studies? Opportunities and challenges of establishing the field in Portugal – Part 1

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By: Verónica Policarpo

**A versão portuguesa dos 3 posts pode ser consultada aqui.

Three sociologists meet at a conference in Athens

In September 2017, the congress of the European Sociological Association was held in legendary Athens. It was a very hot day, and as it happens to me often, my presentation was on the very last day of the conference, on the very last time slot, late in the day. Feeling all the tiredness that comes after a long week of one of these big conferences, I headed to the venue early in the morning, after a sleepless night. I had browsed the conference program several times, looking for presentations that had the word “animal”, or any other related, in the title or abstract. I had found only three. One of them was exactly on the very same panel, and the very same day, in which I was going to present my own work. Moreover, it was about a topic very dear to me: death and mourning for a companion animal.

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Second Edition of the Lisbon Early-Career Workshop in Urban Studies 2022

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By: Luisa Rossini

The Urban Transitions Hub (as part of the SHIFT research group) hosted, from the 23rd to the 25th of November 2022, at ICS-ULisboa, the second edition of the Lisbon Early-Career Workshop in Urban Studies, with the support of the AESOP Young Academics Network. 16 PhD students and early-career scholars from all over Europe and abroad gathered for the opportunity to present and discuss their research projects and/or findings during a 3-day event organized as a space of exchange, debate and learning. The topic for this second edition was “Social Mobilisations and Planning through Crisis.”

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BIODIVERSIDADE 2030. NOVA AGENDA PARA A CONSERVAÇÃO DA BIODIVERSIDADE EM CONTEXTO DE ALTERAÇÕES CLIMÁTICAS EM PORTUGAL

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Por: Rosário Oliveira e João Mourato

A biodiversidade é fundamental, pois dela depende a regulação de processos essenciais à vida como a composição química da atmosfera, do solo, da água, e a capacidade de produção agrícola e florestal. A sua perda afeta inevitavelmente a espécie humana, pelo que a sua conservação é crucial também para a nossa sobrevivência.

Contudo, as estratégias de conservação internacionais, europeias e nacionais não têm sido capazes de travar e inverter a perda alarmante de biodiversidade nas últimas décadas, sendo, assim, necessário ir além das tradicionais medidas de conservação (ex. gestão de áreas protegidas, proteção de espécies ameaçadas, controlo de espécies invasoras).

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PilotSTRATEGY Captura e Armazenamento de Carbono em Portugal

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Por: Jussara Rowland, Ana Delicado, Luísa Schmidt

As alterações climáticas são um problema “malvado” (wicked, na terminologia inglesa). Complexo, de difícil resolução, não há uma “bala mágica” que o consiga travar. Da mudança de comportamentos individuais à transformação dos sistemas de produção e consumo globais, muitas são as propostas para prevenir um aumento catastrófico da temperatura no planeta, como múltiplas são as respostas tecnológicas que podem contribuir para isso. Segundo o IPCC e a Comissão Europeia, a captura e armazenamento geológico de carbono é uma das respostas possíveis,  particularmente relevante para mitigar as emissões carbónicas de algumas indústrias cujos processos industriais implicam a produção de CO2. O CO2 é capturado nas grandes fontes emissoras industriais ou de produção de energia, comprimido em estado líquido e transportado por gasoduto, navio ou comboio para ser injetado no subsolo, geralmente a profundidades superiores a 1 km. O armazenamento é feito em formações geológicas como aquíferos salinos profundos, reservatórios esgotados de petróleo ou gás, ou em camadas de carvão não-exploráveis.

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O Perigo da História Única das Alterações Climáticas

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Por: Fronika de Witt

Quando rejeitamos a história única, quando percebemos que nunca há uma história única sobre qualquer lugar, recuperamos uma espécie de paraíso.

Chimamanda Adichie: O perigo de uma história única. TED Talk 2009.

A escritora e contadora de histórias nigeriana Chimamanda Adichieto tem vindo a alertar para o perigo das histórias únicas. As histórias únicas, segundo ela, são as perceções excessivamente simplistas e, por vezes, falsas que formamos sobre pessoas e lugares. Estas dependem da perspetiva do narrador e criam estereótipos e imagens incompletas. Outro problema das histórias únicas é onde começam; começar antes ou depois do processo de colonização, por exemplo, muda completamente uma história e a sua dinâmica de poder.

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