Patterns Of The Future: Understanding The Next Wave Of Global Change
Patterns Of The Future: Understanding The Next Wave Of Global Change

Author: Markku Wilenius

Publisher: World Scientific

Published: 2017-03-24

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1786342901

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Patterns of the Future explains the current world using the theory of long-term development waves (Kondratiev waves). Markku Wilenius, Professor of Futures Studies, argues that we are now entering the sixth wave: the age of intelligent, integrated technologies, helping to restore the balance between humans, technology and nature by radically improved material and energy efficiency and a wiser use of human potential.The unfolding sixth wave will challenge our current values, institutions and business models. Using a systems-based approach, Patterns of the Future analyses how corporations and the public sector can navigate in the sixth wave. Case studies look at specific examples of this, using high-profile companies to demonstrate both the best- (and worst-) case scenarios of innovation for change.This book spans concepts from multiple disciplines in the social sciences, making it relevant not only to undergraduate and graduate students in futures studies, environmental studies, economics, and business, but also national policymakers, think tanks, corporate operators and indeed for any one seriously interested in the future.

Global Climate Change, Population Displacement, and Public Health
Global Climate Change, Population Displacement, and Public Health

Author: Lawrence A. Palinkas

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-05-07

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 3030418901

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This timely text examines the causes and consequences of population displacement related to climate change in the recent past, the present, and the near future. First and foremost, this book includes an examination of patterns of population displacement that have occurred or are currently underway. Second, the book introduces a three-tier framework for both understanding and responding to the public health impacts of climate-related population displacement. It illustrates the interrelations between impacts on the larger physical and social environment that precipitates and results from population displacement and the social and health impacts of climate-related migration. Third, the book contains first-hand accounts of climate-related population displacement and its consequences, in addition to reviews of demographic data and reviews of existing literature on the subject. Topics explored among the chapters include: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans Hurricane Maria and Puerto Rico The California Wildfires Fleeing Drought: The Great Migration to Europe Fleeing Flooding: Asia and the Pacific Fleeing Coastal Erosion: Kivalina and Isle de Jean Charles Although the book is largely written from the perspective of a researcher, it reflects the perspectives of practitioners and policymakers on the need for developing policies, programs, and interventions to address the growing numbers of individuals, families, and communities that have been displaced as a result of short- and long-term environmental disasters. Global Climate Change, Population Displacement, and Public Health is a vital resource for an international audience of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers representing a variety of disciplines, including public health, public policy, social work, urban development, climate and environmental science, engineering, and medicine.

Handbook of Research on Climate Change and the Sustainable Financial Sector
Handbook of Research on Climate Change and the Sustainable Financial Sector

Author: Olarewaju, Odunayo Magret

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2021-06-25

Total Pages: 573

ISBN-13: 1799879690

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Climate change is a major problem, generating both risks and opportunities that will have a direct impact on the economy and the financial sector. In recent years, climate change has threatened both the survival of the financial system and economic development. The growing occurrence of extreme climate events combined with the imprudent nature of economic growth can cause unsustainable levels of harm to the financial sectors. On the other hand, it presents a range of new business challenges. In contrast to the most evident physical risks, companies are vulnerable to transformational risks that arise from the reaction of society to climate change, such as technological change, regulation and markets that can boost the cost of doing business, threats to the profitability of existing goods, or effects on the value of the asset. Climate change also offers new business opportunities, and it has made research in the context of a sustainable financial sector indispensable. The Handbook of Research on Climate Change and the Sustainable Financial Sector focuses on the impacts of climate change on various sectors of the world economy. This book covers how businesses can improve their sustainability, the impact of climate change on the financial sector, and specifically, the impacts on financial services, supply chains, and the socio-economic status of the world. Beyond focusing on the impacts to the financial industry itself, this book assesses how climate change in the financial sector affects the well-being of society in areas such as unemployment, economic recessions, decreases in consumer purchases, and more. This book is essential for stockbrokers, business managers, directors, fund managers, financial analysts, consultants and actuaries, institutional investors, policymakers, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in a comprehensive view of the impact of climate change on the financial sector.

Bio#Futures
Bio#Futures

Author: Emmanuel Koukios

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-05-06

Total Pages: 644

ISBN-13: 3030649695

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This volume presents a timely recognition, warning and mapping of the fast approaching wave, or “bio-tsunami”, of global socio-technical transformation, built by a much wider spectrum of converging powers, including biotechnology, new agriculture, novel foods, health, quality of life, environment, energy, sustainability, education, knowledge management, and design of smart applications. The book contains eight sections corresponding to different clusters of bioeconomic and socio-technical change, as identified by the editors’ “Scanning the Horizon” foresight research; it also offers an integrated view of the future bioeconomy landscape though the convergence of several technologies that affect everyday life. The clusters offer methodologies for forecasting the future bioeconomy, and how these predictions can affect target-setting and the orientation of policies and actions to manage cultural and societal change, and achieve sustainable development in less developed areas. The book will be of interest to researchers, producers, logistics experts, policy makers, regulators, business and financial institutions, and biotechnologists (e.g. geneticists, food experts, etc.).

Digital Innovation and the Future of Work
Digital Innovation and the Future of Work

Author: Hans Schaffers

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2022-09-01

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1000796965

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The concept of digitalization captures the widespread adoption of digital technologies in our lives, in the structure and functioning of organizations and in the transformation of our economy and society. Digital technologies for data processing and communication underly high-impact innovations including the Internet of Things, wireless multimedia, artificial intelligence, big data, enterprise platforms, social networks and blockchain. These digital innovations not only bring new opportunities for prosperity and wellbeing but also affect our behaviors, activities, and daily lives. They enable and shape new forms of production and new working practices in sectors such as manufacturing, healthcare, logistics and supply chains, energy, and public and business services. Digital innovations are not purely technological but form part of comprehensive systemic innovations of a sociotechnical and networked nature, requiring the alignment of technology, processes, organizations, and humans. Examples are platform-based work, customer driven value creating networks, and urban public service systems. Building on widespread networking, algorithmic decisions and sharing of personal data, these innovations raise intensive societal and ethical debates regarding key issues such as data sovereignty and privacy intrusion, business models based on data surveillance and negative externalization, quality of work and jobs, and market dominance versus regulation. In this context, this book focuses on the implications of digitalization for the domain of work. The book studies the changing nature of work as well as new forms of digitally enabled organizations, work practices and cooperation. The book sheds light on the technological, economic, and political forces shaping the new world of work and on the prospects for human-centric and responsible innovations.

Time for Educational Poetics
Time for Educational Poetics

Author: Xicoténcatl Martínez Ruiz

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-03-19

Total Pages: 104

ISBN-13: 9004398066

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In Time for Educational Poetics the author addresses a discussion in the context of today’s philosophy of education and educational research. Conceptually, educational poetics is not limited to a theoretical construction, but rather focuses on the creative, imaginative and poetic experience, to being recreated in the teaching-learning process. Educational poetics is rooted in the philosophical and aesthetic thought of South Asia, specifically in how contemplative and creative practices re-introduced by Rabindranath Tagore. Educational poetics is the convergence of research in creative contemplation and poetic creation, practices of conscious attention and mindfulness, and practices of peace education and philosophy of non-violence. This book leads to a perspective in thinking about the risks that jeopardize the future of young generations.

Global Environmental Governance
Global Environmental Governance

Author: Karl Bruckmeier

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-09-25

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 3319981102

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This book provides a critical review of global environmental governance as part of the broader process of sustainably transforming modern society. The author argues for substantial modifications, outlining potential improvements in knowledge bridging processes, integration and synthesis that offer valuable information for environmental policy and governance. These improvements, he argues, should be achieved through the use of theoretical and empirical knowledge gleaned from global scenario analysis and interdisciplinary environmental research, and with the aid of new practices for knowledge sharing, cooperation and collective learning. The analysis presented in the book is based on recent developments in social ecology and the author’s interdisciplinary theory of society-nature interaction (Social-Ecological Transformation: Reconnecting Society and Nature, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).

Transformation Literacy
Transformation Literacy

Author: Petra Künkel

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 3030932540

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This open access book brings science and practice together and inspires a global movement towards co-creating regenerative civilizations that work for 100% of humanity and the Earth as a whole. With its conceptual foundation of the concept of transformation literacy it enhances the knowledge and capacity of decision-makers, change agents and institutional actors to steward transformations effectively across institutions, societal sectors and nations. Humanity is at crossroads. Resource depletion and exponential emissions that not only cause climate change, but endanger the health of people and planet, call for a decisive turnaround of human civilization. A new and transformative paradigm is emerging that advocates for regenerative civilizations, in which a narrative of systemic health as much as individual and collective vitality guide the interaction of socio-economic-ecological systems. Truly transformative change must go far beyond technical solutions, and instead envision what can be termed ‘a new operating system’ that helps humankind to live well within the planetary boundaries and partner with life’s evolutionary processes. This requires transformations at three different levels: ̈ Mindsets that reconnect with a worldview in which human agency acknowledges its co-evolutionary pathways with each other and the Earth. ̈ Political, social and economic systems that are regenerative and foster the care-taking for Earth life support systems. ̈ Competencies to design and implement effective large-scale transformative change processes at multiple levels with multiple stakeholders. This book provides key ingredients for enhancing transformation literacy from various perspectives around the globe. It connects the emerging practice of stewarding transformative change across business, government institutions and civil society actors with the most promising scientific models and concepts that underpin human action to shape the future collectively in accordance with planetary needs.

Economics and Sustainability
Economics and Sustainability

Author: Karl Bruckmeier

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-11-21

Total Pages: 447

ISBN-13: 3030566277

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This textbook provides an overview of economic perspectives on sustainability. It synthesises economic, ecological and interdisciplinary sustainability research and by applying an integrated social-ecological and economic framework, demonstrates how this research can be improved and implemented in practice. Split into three parts, the book begins by introducing a range of topics forming the basis of knowledge needed to understand the varying sustainability discourses in economics, ecology and interdisciplinary sustainability research. Chapters cover the political context of sustainability; the history of sustainability in European environmental discourses dating back to the seventeenth century; as well as various problems and forms of interdisciplinary knowledge integration and synthesis in the sustainability process. Part II reviews the core economic themes relevant to sustainable development including natural resource management, environmental economics and ecological economics. Also highlighted are often neglected issues such as conflicts, disasters and interrelated crises on the way towards sustainability. The chapters in Part III discuss the future of the sustainability process. They argue for the necessity of overhauling the relationship between science and practice; explore failures and the unforeseen difficulties of sustainability transformation; and discuss how to enable a long term sustainability process that reaches into the distant future. An innovative resource for a broad range of interdisciplinary programmes on sustainability. The book will be an invaluable reference for master and PhD students, instructors, researchers and practitioners in sustainability governance.

Marine Design XIII, Volume 1
Marine Design XIII, Volume 1

Author: Pentti Kujala

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2018-06-04

Total Pages: 1017

ISBN-13: 0429803303

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This is volume 1 of a 2-volume set. Marine Design XIII collects the contributions to the 13th International Marine Design Conference (IMDC 2018, Espoo, Finland, 10-14 June 2018). The aim of this IMDC series of conferences is to promote all aspects of marine design as an engineering discipline. The focus is on key design challenges and opportunities in the area of current maritime technologies and markets, with special emphasis on: • Challenges in merging ship design and marine applications of experience-based industrial design • Digitalisation as technological enabler for stronger link between efficient design, operations and maintenance in future • Emerging technologies and their impact on future designs • Cruise ship and icebreaker designs including fleet compositions to meet new market demands To reflect on the conference focus, Marine Design XIII covers the following research topic series: •State of art ship design principles - education, design methodology, structural design, hydrodynamic design; •Cutting edge ship designs and operations - ship concept design, risk and safety, arctic design, autonomous ships; •Energy efficiency and propulsions - energy efficiency, hull form design, propulsion equipment design; •Wider marine designs and practices - navy ships, offshore and wind farms and production. Marine Design XIII contains 2 state-of-the-art reports on design methodologies and cruise ships design, and 4 keynote papers on new directions for vessel design practices and tools, digital maritime traffic, naval ship designs, and new tanker design for arctic. Marine Design XIII will be of interest to academics and professionals in maritime technologies and marine design.