This time in our journal club we decide to take a slightly differ journey and read a psychology paper by Robert B. Cialdini (2003).
The author addresses a problem of how normative and injunctive environmental messages are perceived by people. The author argues that such message might promote behavior that is harmful to environment if they are placed in a wrong context. The article raised and emphasizes the importance of combining normative and injunctive messages to achieve the maximum effectiveness in building environmental awareness.   Continue reading →

In October this year, Mora et al. presented a new indicator of climate change in a Nature article. Instead of describing how much climatic variables change in different scenarios by a given year, say 2100, they measure how fast the change is. Their indicator, climate departure, points to the year when a given variable shifts completely beyond past variability. They explore projections of 39 earth system models under two emission scenarios. The results reveal that we are likely to experience completely unprecedented climatic conditions within only a few decades – before I need to renew my driving license, for example. These are sobering figures. It is useful to illustrate the rate and variability of the projected.   Continue reading →

This year I decided to challenge myself and take part in a conference on development research instead of the usual conferences on conservation biology. Working on conservation issues in developing countries I sometimes feel that I fall right in between the disciplines of natural sciences and social sciences. I am a multidisciplinary outsider criticized from both sides. But it is no secret that my basic training in ecology has influenced me a lot. So here come the reflections of a conservation biologist on the 2^nd Nordic conference for development research held in Espoo, Helsinki (link).

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