INFORMATION:
This research was led by the University of East Anglia in collaboration with the University of Manchester. It was funded by the UK Research Councils (UKRI).
'A systemic approach to mapping participation with low-carbon energy transitions' is published in the journal Nature Energy on March 4, 2021.
ENDS
How governments and companies should listen to the people on climate change
2021-03-04
(Press-News.org) How governments and companies should listen to the people on climate change
People are more engaged in reducing carbon emissions than previously thought - and governments, scientists and companies should listen to them - according to new research from the University of East Anglia and the UK Energy Research Centre.
A new study published today in Nature Energyy investigates how invested people are in making the changes needed to reduce carbon emissions and stop climate change.
The study shows that people, their views and actions should be included more when it comes to how we transform the way we use energy, to keep global average temperatures well below 2°C as set out in the Paris COP21 climate agreement.
Lead researcher Prof Jason Chilvers, from UEA's School of Environmental Sciences and Co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), said: "Transitioning to more sustainable and low-carbon energy systems is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st Century.
"Keeping increases in global average temperature to well below 2°C, as set out in the Paris COP21 climate agreement, means we need to transform the way we use energy on an unprecedented global scale.
"Many countries around the world have embarked on concerted programmes to steer such change, by focusing on technological, infrastructural and economic interventions.
"This is really important. But it's also vital that everyone in society is engaged with the effort.
"The assumption used to be that members of the public didn't really understand climate change. And some said that the issue was so urgent that democracy should be put on hold.
"But in many countries, citizen engagement is central to programmes for achieving net zero. And many now say we need more not less democracy in tackling problems of energy and climate change.
"We wanted to know more about the different ways people are actually engaging."
Public engagement about climate change has previously been measured in terms of raising public awareness, exploring support for low-carbon policies and technology, and behavioural change.
But this work has been granular rather than looking more broadly at the 'big picture'.
And importantly, the emphasis has been on inviting the public to engage with an urgent transition that is already set by those in power.
Prof Chilvers said: "Our research shows how this received wisdom has got the problem wrong. Through developing a more open way of seeing the problem of participation we demonstrate a new way of doing public engagement.
"Most approaches to engaging society on climate change issues fail to address the enormity and systemic nature of the challenge.
"So we pioneered a new, more holistic, approach to mapping the many different ways that people engage with how we transition to a low carbon world.
"We then used this to explore citizen and specialist views on different low carbon energy futures in the UK.
"And we found that people have much more to say and do in reducing carbon emissions than previously thought.
"We found so many different ways that people are now engaging - from citizens' assemblies, activism and protest through to engaging online, with smart technologies in the home, in grassroots community energy schemes and makerspaces.
"These different forms of public engagement interrelate together in wider systems, generating new visions, values and actions on low carbon transitions that are being missed by mainstream approaches like behaviour change initiatives and opinion surveys.
"Our findings reveal citizen and specialist support for more distributed and socially inclusive low carbon energy futures in the UK.
"We offer an alternative to the received wisdom and a more comprehensive approach to public engagement with national energy and net-zero transitions, which can also be applied at local, regional or global scales.
"We are now taking this approach forward in the form of a national Observatory as part of UKERC to map and monitor public participation and engagement with energy and climate change on an ongoing basis. The Observatory is translating this evidence to improve decision making for just transitions in government, business and civil society.
"We hope that our work to map engagement on a grand scale will help improve public engagement processes in the future, and help with the development of climate policy ahead of COP26."
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Collagen plays protective role during pancreatic cancer development
2021-03-04
HOUSTON -- Contrary to long-held beliefs, Type I collagen produced by cancer-associated fibroblasts may not promote cancer development but instead plays a protective role in controlling pancreatic cancer progression, reports a new study from researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. This new understanding supports novel therapeutic approaches that bolster collagen rather than suppress it.
The study finds that collagen works in the tumor microenvironment to stop the production of immune signals, called chemokines, that lead to suppression of the anti-tumor immune response. When collagen is lost, chemokine levels increase, and the cancer is allowed ...
Digital app can help chronic pain sufferers manage their pain
2021-03-04
Digital solutions including remote monitoring can help chronic pain sufferers manage their pain and reduce the probability of misuse of prescription opioids.
For chronic pain sufferers an app may be just the tool they need to manage their pain. In a UHN-led study that used the app "Manage My Pain" enrolled patients saw clinically significant reductions in key areas that drive increased medical needs, potential abuse of prescription opioids and of course, pain.
Toronto (March 4, 2021) - For the first time, an app has been shown to reduce key symptoms of chronic pain. A UHN-led study evaluated the impact of Manage My Pain (MMP), a digital health solution developed ...
SARS-CoV-2 mutations can complicate immune surveillance of human T-killer cells
2021-03-04
The body's immune response plays a crucial role in the course of a SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition to antibodies, the so-called T-killer cells, are also responsible for detecting viruses in the body and eliminating them. Scientists from the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Medical University of Vienna have now shown that SARS-CoV-2 can make itself unrecognizable to the immune response by T-killer cells through mutations. The findings of the research groups of Andreas Bergthaler, Judith Aberle and Johannes Huppa provide important clues for the further development of vaccines and were published in the journal Science ...
Study reveals extent of privacy vulnerabilities with Amazon's Alexa
2021-03-04
A recent study outlines a range of privacy concerns related to the programs that users interact with when using Amazon's voice-activated assistant, Alexa. Issues range from misleading privacy policies to the ability of third-parties to change the code of their programs after receiving Amazon approval.
"When people use Alexa to play games or seek information, they often think they're interacting only with Amazon," says Anupam Das, co-author of the paper and an assistant professor of computer science at North Carolina State University. "But a lot of the applications they are interacting with were created by third parties, and we've identified several flaws in the current vetting process that could allow those third parties to gain access to users' personal or private ...
Preventive Medicine publishes special issue focused on eliminating cervical cancer
2021-03-04
Cervical cancer is a serious global health threat which kills more than 300,000 women every year. It's a disease that disproportionately affects women in low- and middle-income countries in equatorial Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, yet it is a preventable disease and decades of research have produced the tools needed to eliminate it.
Recognizing this urgent public health issue, the editorial team of Preventive Medicine, led by Editor-in-Chief Dr. Eduardo Franco, Director, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Chair, Gerald Bronfman Department ...
First wearable device can monitor jaundice-causing bilirubin and vitals in newborns
2021-03-04
Researchers in Japan have developed the first wearable devices to precisely monitor jaundice, a yellowing of the skin caused by elevated bilirubin levels in the blood that can cause severe medical conditions in newborns. Jaundice can be treated easily by irradiating the infant with blue light that breaks bilirubin down to be excreted through urine. The treatment itself, however, can disrupt bonding time, cause dehydration and increase the risks of allergic diseases. Neonatal jaundice is one of the leading causes of death and brain damage in infants in low- and middle-income countries.
To address the tricky balance ...
Volcanoes might light up the night sky of this planet
2021-03-04
On Earth, plate tectonics is not only responsible for the rise of mountains and earthquakes. It is also an essential part of the cycle that brings material from the planet's interior to the surface and the atmosphere, and then transports it back beneath the Earth's crust. Tectonics thus has a vital influence on the conditions that ultimately make Earth habitable.
Until now, researchers have found no evidence of global tectonic activity on planets outside our solar system. A team of researchers led by Tobias Meier from the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) at the University of Bern and with the participation of ETH Zurich, the University of Oxford and the National Center of Competence in Research NCCR PlanetS has now found evidence of the flow patterns inside ...
Female gannets go the extra mile to feed chicks
2021-03-04
Female gannets travel further than male gannets to find fish for their chicks in some years but not others, new research shows.
Scientists tracked breeding gannets from Grassholm Island in Wales over 11 years with tiny GPS devices and by measuring isotopic signatures in their blood.
Male gannets flew an average of 220km to forage for their chicks, while females averaged 260km. Some birds travelled 1,000km on a single trip.
The scientists also found that the two sexes selected different habitats and foraged at different times of day, but some years ...
Want to cut emissions that cause climate change? Tax carbon
2021-03-04
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Putting a price on producing carbon is the cheapest, most efficient policy change legislators can make to reduce emissions that cause climate change, new research suggests.
The case study, published recently in the journal Current Sustainable/Renewable Energy Reports, analyzed the costs and effects that a variety of policy changes would have on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation in Texas and found that adding a price, based on the cost of climate change, to carbon was the most effective.
"If the goal is reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, what we found is that putting a price on carbon and then letting suppliers and consumers make their ...
Clinical relevance of patient-reported outcomes: new threshold proven feasible in practice
2021-03-04
In order to show the clinical relevance of a difference between two treatment alternatives, in recent years, the manufacturer dossiers submitted in early benefit assessments of new drugs have increasingly contained responder analyses for patient-relevant outcomes. In such analyses, it is investigated whether the proportion of patients experiencing a noticeable change in the respective outcome differs between the two treatment groups in a study. This involves information on health-related quality of life or on individual symptoms such as pain or itching, which patients recorded with the help of scales in questionnaires.
But what difference makes a change relevant for the individual? That is, at what threshold can a response to an intervention be derived for ...