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Climate Action book by Edward Elgar Publishing

  • 1.  Climate Action book by Edward Elgar Publishing

    Posted 04-19-2021 17:29
    Edited by Patricia Kanashiro 04-19-2021 17:29

    Hello ONE Community!

    CALL FOR PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS:
    HANDBOOK OF MULTI-LEVEL CLIMATE ACTIONS:
    SPARKING AND SUSTAINING TRANSFORMATIVE APPROACHES
    Editors: Mark Starik, University of Wisconsin System and Walden University
    Gordon P. Rands, Western Illinois University
    Patricia Kanashiro, Loyola University Maryland
    Jonathan Deason, The George Washington University
    Publisher:  Edward Elgar Publishing, Ltd.
    1-2 page proposals due June 15, 2021
    Revised full manuscripts due December 1, 2021


    The editors and publisher listed above are announcing a Call for Proposal Submissions on Multi-Level Climate Actions as an opportunity for academics, practitioners, and other thought-and-action leaders to develop and share their vision, knowledge, experience, and recommendations on what has become one of the most pressing issues of our time --- the planet's climate emergency.  Governments, businesses, nonprofits, networks, professions, communities, households, and individuals around the world are increasingly recognizing the vastness and complexity of the climate crisis.  Ever-increasing and human-induced concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are now resulting in record global temperatures and a full range of first-order calamities, including rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers, heat waves, increasingly frequent natural disasters, such as floods, droughts, wildfires, and wind-related storms, and ocean acidification, desertification, widespread destruction and degradation of ecosystems, and decimation of biodiversity.  Such environmental chaos can also trigger second- and third-order disastrous effects, including armed conflicts, political chaos, increases in climate refugees, life-threatening and worsening poverty and malnourishment and other human health crises, such as pandemics and the spread of tropical diseases, and a wide range of general social and economic severe damage.  The collection of evidence from researchers worldwide appears to point in directions that, unless our species works together seriously, effectively, and immediately, future generations of both humans, especially the most disadvantaged among us, and the millions of other species with which we share this planet, are fated for disastrous and tragic consequences. 

    Though a number of well-intentioned global agreements and actions at multiple levels, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Climate Agreement, regional compacts, national, state and local government commitments, business, nonprofit, and community programs, and household and individual efforts have attempted to move our human civilization in the direction of climate sanity, their collective impact has, so far, fallen far short of achieving the results necessary to prevent our persistent climate catastrophe from worsening, let alone halting and/or reversing it.  What appears to be needed is a whole-species multi-level approach to this cataclysm that requires the involvement of as many of the entities listed above as possible both to enlist all others at each of those levels and to collaborate and connect with as many of those levels as possible.  Similarly, multiple professions and academic disciplines need to contribute to this multi-level climate action campaign to research, identify, and promote effective systems, technologies, policies, innovations, incentives, plans, structures, agreements, programs, and actions that can address head-on, and, hopefully, blunt, and eventually resolve, the climate crisis.  Our intent is that this handbook becomes a collection of informed and inspirational writings, thoughts, and strategies that highlight what has been done, is being done, and still needs to be done on the many levels or scopes of human activity, directed at renewing the climate.  In addition, we intend for these contributions to powerfully illustrate how actions at each of these levels can be harmonized with those at other levels, so that synergies are created, gaps are filled, and resources are shared and leveraged, all aimed at sustainably halting and reversing the global climate crisis (see Starik & Rands, 1995; Starik & Kanashiro, 2020).

    We envision a volume of double-blind, peer-reviewed inspirational contributions authored by a wide range of academics, practitioners, and others who focus on climate challenges and actions, particularly those efforts that can be implemented at multiple levels of human activity.  By multiple levels, the editors mean the macro, exo, meso, micro, and other scale or scope aspects of climate actions within any sector or realm, including societies, ecologies, cultures, communities, governments, businesses, and nonprofit organizations, down to the individual and household level (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Hitt et al. 2007). Prospective authors are advised to check one or more of the references at the end of this Call for more information on multi-levels.  We also encourage potential submitters to think broadly and innovatively about contributing a conceptual or empirical article, essay, plan, review, interview, debate, college or continuing education program, or other relevant format, climate exigency solution description, analysis, and/or evaluation in the range of 5K to 10K words as a final submission. Please be aware that Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. encourages editors to ask each author to review at least one other submission to the volume, and that all accepted submissions will receive at least one other peer review.  Listed below are just a few examples of the topics that your contribution could address.

    Multi-level Climate Action Science (Causes and Impacts)

    Highlighting the current status of global warming science, including the multi-level aspects of climate change sources, impacts, influences, measurement, and/or reporting;

     

    Identifying the multi-level impacts of one or more climate crisis impact scenarios;

    Addressing one or more levels of the climate impacts of a sector (such as food) across its life-cycle (from planting and harvesting, through processing [including transporting] and consuming, to waste management and recycling);

     

    Multi-level Climate Action Goals, Policies, Strategies, Systems, & Structures

    Assessing the potential of carbon taxation, fee and dividend, cap and trade, or other carbon-reduction policies at one or more levels (local, regional, global);

    Analyzing the need, benefits, and risks of geo-engineering approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and climate effects, at one or more levels;

    Assessing carbon reduction strategies of electric and natural gas utilities and suppliers at one or more levels;

    Appraising the multi-level, climate action-related aspects of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including from one or more geographic/cultural perspectives.

    Appraising the potential effectiveness of one or more of the goals set by the Paris Climate Accord and the multi-level actions needed to achieve it/them

    Assessing the effectiveness and potential impacts of multi-stakeholder partnerships in developing and implementing climate mitigation policies and strategies

     

    Multi-Level Climate Action Tools & Processes

    Identifying and analyzing the advantages and challenges of multi-level climate change mitigation and adaptation (and combination) projects, including their related GHG management assurance and information systems;

    Conducting energy audits at one or more levels (micro, meso, macro);

    Developing energy efficiency or renewable energy financial or other plans at one or more levels;

    Assessing and advancing electrification approaches at one or more levels in the transportation, building, and manufacturing sectors; and,

    Advancing climate action and collaboration in one or more sectors, such as finance, manufacturing, transportation, construction, tourism, and services, at multiple levels;

     

    Multi-level Climate Education, Research, & Advocacy

    Incorporating climate action in multiple levels of education (primary, secondary, higher, and continuing) and research courses, programs, degrees and institutes;

    Enhancing the effectiveness of various sectors (the media, religion, business, NGOs, etc.) in increasing public understanding of the climate crisis and support for climate action;

    Assessing and advancing various approaches to counter climate deniers claims and influence;

    Evaluating and enhancing the role of social marketing approaches to changing individuals climate behaviors

     

    Multi-level Climate Action Behaviors

    Participating in reforestation or sustainable agriculture efforts at one or more levels;

    Recruiting volunteers for climate organizations that lobby on one or more levels;

    Assessing the mitigation potential of various individual level climate behaviors and identifying multi-sectoral and multi-level actions that could increase participation in these behaviors and/or enhance their impacts.

    Assessing the mitigation effectiveness and potential of various group-level voluntary direct actions (such as tree-planting) in one or more sectors

     

    Multi-level Climate Action Values

    Reviewing several climate works (non-fiction or fiction; in-print or audio-video) to glean climate action suggestions at one or more levels;

    Examining and increasing multi-level contributions of spiritual movements and/or religious organizations to climate action;

    Advocating for current and future climate refugees and other populations most affected by climate change locally, regionally, and/or globally;

    Examining the impacts of anthropocentric vs. eco-centric arguments for climate action.

     

    Multi-level Climate Action, Other, & Multiple Approaches

    Exploring multi-level solutions to climate-related high rates of human consumption and population;

    Suggesting multi-level carbon reductions strategies in all organizational functions, including both "line" and "staff" functions in both internal and external supply chains;

    Envisioning multi-level cultural changes in perception, in livelihoods, and/or in human existence that would lead to any and all necessary climate actions;

    Advocating for reduced climate-related human utilization and development of the planet's biosphere to allow the planet's many other species to exist and thrive;

    Exploring how multi-level climate actions might change over time.

     

    Noteworthy Information and Dates:

    Chapter proposals (submissions) should include a title, brief description, and a rationale explaining the importance of your proposed chapter to this volume, including its multi-level focus.  Please include name, title, position, and affiliation of all contributing authors (select one corresponding author and include their e-mail).  Proposals should be no longer than 1-2 pages, single-spaced, in Word document format. Please submit your proposal to pkanashiro@loyola.edu by June 15, 2021.

    June 15, 2021:  1-2 page proposal summary/abstract due (in MS Word)

    July 1, 2021:  Proposal summaries returned to author(s) with editor feedback

    September 15, 2021:  5,000 – 10,000 word submissions due (in MS Word)

    October 29, 2021:  Submissions returned with editor and reviewer feedback

    December 1, 2021:  Revised manuscripts due (in MS Word)

    Fall, 2022:  Final Publication date TBD (Hardcopy, Paperback, and Electronic)

    We are excited to receive your submission(s), which we ask that you please send to editor Patricia Kanashiro at (pkanashiro@loyola.edu),  In addition, please feel free to contact editor Mark Starik at mark.starik@gmail.com or  +1-240-644-7842 (Central Time) to explore your multi-level climate action ideas of interest.

    References:

    Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Hitt, M., Beamish, P.W., Jackson, S.E., and Mathieu, J.E. 2007. Building theoretical and empirical bridges across levels: Multilevel research in management. Academy of Management Journal. Volume 50 (6): 1385-1399.

    Starik, M., & Rands, G.P. 1995. Weaving an integrated web: Multilevel and multisystem perspectives of ecologically sustainable organizations. Academy of Management Review, Volume 20 (4): 908-935.

    Starik, M. & Kanashiro, P. 2020. Advancing a multi-level sustainability management theory.  In Wasieleski, D. & Weber, J. (eds.) Business and Society 360 Part IV Sustainability. Emerald Press.  June 17-42. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2514-175920200000004003 

     

     

     



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    Patricia Kanashiro
    Loyola University Maryland
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