Month: April 2017

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Veli-Pekka’s guest column at Helsingin Sanomat

On 28th of April a new guest column “Energiantuotanto kaipaa lisää yhteiskuntavastuuta” (Energy production requires more social responsibility) by Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen was published in Helsingin Sanomat newspaper.

We are  linked to the world economy through binding agreements between companies and states. The primary task of the agreements is to safeguard the financial interests of the trading partners.
Climate change, over-consumption of natural resources and related conflicts, however, make it necessary to look at social development worldwide, not just from the point of view of short-term economic and military interests.

The full article is available at Helsingin Sanomat website.

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Prague workshop “Towards an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda for Arctic Air Pollution”

On 2nd of April Professor Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen was co-chairing a workshop “Towards an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda for Arctic Air Pollution” held in Prague, Czech Republic.

The Arctic is increasingly considered an Anthropocene climate frontier, as the man-made
consequences of global warming look set to first and foremost impact the circumpolar hemisphere. The region is expected to become increasingly important as climatic changes look set to spark industrial-scale resource extraction and increased transport and commodity shipping, in turn, spelling severe impacts for the regions ecological and cultural landscapes due to industrialisation and consequent increases in pollution emissions from local sources related to mining and shipping.
Simultaneously, the IPCC has called for enhanced involvement of the social sciences in formulating research responses to climate change as part of furthering collaboration between the natural and social sciences. In studying the developments that are happening right now, research exchange and collaboration is timely not only between academic disciplines, but also increasingly, with relevant local partners and society at large.

Professor Tynkkynen also gave a keynote presentation “Arctic Air Pollution – Global and Regional Policy Context”, moderated a session “Science-Informed Regulatory Frameworks”.

Additional information on the workshop can be found here and here.