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Future Threats (future + threat)
Selected AbstractsSocietal Safety: Concept, Borders and DilemmasJOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2007Odd Einar Olsen In most industrialized countries, the end of the Cold War marked a change in focus from preparedness for war to an increasing focus on civil society's own vulnerability and safety. To meet new threats and changing risks, there is also a need for new analytical concepts. Societal safety is a concept developed in Norway during the last decade. It could be defined as: ,The society's ability to maintain critical social functions, to protect the life and health of the citizens and to meet the citizens' basic requirements in a variety of stress situations'. It aims to be a systematic approach for understanding, mitigating and responding to social problems such as extraordinary stresses and losses, interferences in complex and mutual dependent systems, or lack of trust in vital social institutions. Future threats to society are not limited to specific sectors or areas, but stem from complex interactions amongst economic, technological, social and cultural factors. Thus, the main challenges to improve societal safety will be the ability to coordinate, organize and assign clear roles to different actors at the international, national and local levels. Societal safety has interfaces with other safety-related areas such as national security, sustainable development, human security and incident management (handling of isolated accidents, common illness and ordinary criminal acts). Societal safety is, however, a sensitive political issue containing dilemmas and value choices that are hardly possible to perceive or solve as pure scientific problems. [source] Perceiving Rogue States: The Use of the "Rogue State" Concept by U.S. Foreign Policy ElitesFOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 4 2007K. P. O'Reilly In the aftermath of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy dialogue has shifted from its half century focus dominated by the superpower struggle with the Soviet Union to the challenges presented by so-called "rogue states." For many observers, however, the term "rogue state" is viewed as problematic failing to providing either a clear picture of who and what constitutes a rogues state, or, perhaps more importantly, the ramification of this term on U.S. policy action. In examining the public statements of key U.S. foreign policy decision makers over the course of 1993 to 2004, this paper offers insights as to the perceptions which manifest the "rogue" stereotype as exhibited by statements on the policies and behaviors associated with rogue states. What is revealed is a relatively fixed and stable image over time as held by key decisions-makers with similar unity expressed as to policy prescriptions. Combining perceptions of power capabilities and cultural judgments unique to this rogue stereotype, the rogue image presents a challenge to U.S. strategy demanding attention to the future threat posed by these states while also constraining policy options. [source] Group Threat, Collective Angst, and Ingroup Forgiveness for the War in IraqPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2009Michael J. A. Wohl We examine the consequences of threat to the ingroup for emotional reactions to ingroup harm doing. It was hypothesized that reminders of a past threat to the ingroup would induce collective angst, and this emotional reaction would increase forgiveness of the ingroup for its harmful actions toward another group. In Experiment 1, Americans read an article about the war in Iraq that implied Americans would soon experience another attack or one where such implied future threat to the ingroup was absent. When the ingroup's future was threatened, forgiveness for the harm Americans have committed in Iraq was increased, to the extent that collective angst was induced. In Experiment 2, Americans experienced more collective angst and were more willing to forgive their ingroup for their group's present harm doing in Iraq following reminders of either the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, or the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor compared to when the victimization reminder was irrelevant to the ingroup. We discuss why ingroup threat encourages ingroup forgiveness for current harm doing. [source] Wilderness and future conservation priorities in AustraliaDIVERSITY AND DISTRIBUTIONS, Issue 6 2009James E.M. Watson Abstract Aim, Most approaches to conservation prioritization are focused on biodiversity features that are already threatened. While this is necessary in the face of accelerating anthropogenic threats, there have been calls to conserve large intact landscapes, often termed ,wilderness', to ensure the long-term persistence of biodiversity. In this study, we examine the consequences of directing conservation expenditure using a threat-based framework for wilderness conservation. Location, The Australian continent. Methods, We measured the degree of congruence between the extent of wilderness and the Australian protected area network in 2000 and 2006, which was established using a threat-based systematic planning framework. We also assessed priority areas for future reserve acquisitions identified by the Australian government under the current framework. Results, In 2000, 14% of Australia's wilderness was under formal protection, while the protected area network covered only 8.5% of the continent, suggesting a historical bias towards wilderness protection. However, the expansion of the reserve system from 2000 to 2006 was biased towards non-wilderness areas. Moreover, 90% of the wilderness that was protected over this period comprised areas not primarily designated for biodiversity conservation. We found a significant (P < 0.05) negative relationship between bioregions considered to be a priority for future reserve prioritization and the amount of wilderness they contain. Main conclusions, While there is an urgent need to overcome past biases in reserve network design so as to better protect poorly represented species and habitats, prioritization approaches should not become so reactive as to ignore the role that large, intact landscapes play in conserving biodiversity, especially in a time of human-induced climate change. This can be achieved by using current or future threats rather than past threats to prioritize areas, and by incorporating key ecological processes and costs of acquisition and management within the planning framework. [source] Potential impacts of projected sea-level rise on sea turtle rookeriesAQUATIC CONSERVATION: MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS, Issue 2 2010MMPB Fuentes Abstract 1.Projected sea-level rise (SLR) is expected to cause shoreline erosion, saline intrusion into the water table and inundation and flooding of beaches and coastal areas. Areas most vulnerable to these physical impacts include small, tropical low-lying islands, which are often key habitat for threatened and endemic species, such as sea turtles. 2.Successful conservation of threatened species relies upon the ability of managers to understand current threats and to quantify and mitigate future threats to these species. This study investigated how sea-level rise might affect key rookeries (nesting grounds) (n=8) for the northern Great Barrier Reef (nGBR) green turtle population, the largest green turtle population in the world. 3.3-D elevation models were developed and applied to three SLR scenarios projected by the IPCC 2007 and an additional scenario that incorporates ice melting. Results indicate that up to 38% of available nesting area across all the rookeries may be inundated as a result of SLR. 4.Flooding, as a result of higher wave run-up during storms, will increase egg mortality at these rookeries affecting the overall reproductive success of the nGBR green turtle population. Information provided will aid managers to prioritize conservation efforts and to use realistic measures to mitigate potential SLR threats to the nGBR green turtle population. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Climate Change Enhances the Potential Impact of Infectious Disease and Harvest on Tropical WaterfowlBIOTROPICA, Issue 4 2009Lochran W. Traill ABSTRACT Global warming exacerbates threats to biodiversity as ecological systems shift in response to altered climatic conditions. Yet the long-term survival of populations at direct risk from climate change may also be undermined by local factors such as infectious disease or anthropogenic harvest, which leave smaller and more isolated populations increasingly vulnerable to the rapid pace of global change. We review current and future threats to an exemplar tropical waterfowl species, magpie geese Anseranas semipalmata, and focus on the potential synergies between infectious diseases, harvest, and climate change. We outline viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens likely to cause disease in geese, and give mention to parasites. Further, we elaborate on a previously developed, spatially explicit population viability model to simulate demographic responses to hunting and novel or enhanced disease outbreaks due to climate change. With no harvest, the simulated disease epizootics only threatened metapopulation viability when both mortality rate was high and outbreaks were regular (a threshold response). However, when contemporary site-specific harvest is included as an additive impact, the response to disease severity and probability was linear. We recommend field research to test these hypotheses linking drivers of waterfowl population decline to disease,climate change interactions. [source] | |||||||||||||