Fwd: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability has a call for abstracts: Climate Decision Making

[Pamela McElwee]

Please find below a call for a special issue on climate decision-making - abstracts due this week, so tight timeline. Please forward to your networks!

Pam McElwee, Rutgers

Begin forwarded message:

From: Rachael Shwom <shwo...@sebs.rutgers.edu>

Subject: [Hum_fac] Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability has a call for abstracts: Climate Decision Making

Date: February 12, 2020 at 2:50:44 PM EST

To: "Human Ecology Faculty (hum...@email.rutgers.edu)" <hum...@email.rutgers.edu>

The journal Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability has a call for abstracts for a special issue on climate decision-making. This issue is meant to cross-scales and disciplines.

 

 

Please take a look at this call, and check with me or one of the special issue editors (Diana Reckien, Cathy Vaughan) if you have any questions.

 

A few key points:

 

These are short papers (2000-4000 words) which offer reviews or syntheses of current topics. The journal, published by Elsevier, has an impact factor of 4.26. 

 

This special issue is designed to fit in with the chapter on decision-making in the next IPCC report (AR6, WGII, Chapter 17). So there is a tight schedule, with abstracts due Friday, and papers to be submitted by 1 July 2020. That will allow for review in time to be cited in the IPCC report. 

 

Climate Decision-Making

Special Issue Editors:

 

Diana Reckien, Associate Professor Climate Change and Urban Inequalities, Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Management, University of Twente, NL

 

Rachael Shwom, Associate Professor, Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers University, US

 

Catherine Vaughan, Senior Staff Associate, International Research Institute for Climate and Society, Columbia University, US

 

As decision-makers make sense of climate change knowledge, they are confronted with a range of decisions including inaction, mitigation, and adaptation.  Dietz (2003) posits that criteria for a “good” environmental decision could be: a balance between human and non-human well-being, competence about relevant facts and values, fairness in process and outcome, a process that relies on human strengths, a chance to learn from the decision, and efficiency of the decision[1] In considering these criteria, a large number of decisions in sectors as diverse as infrastructure, energy, agriculture, transportation and human health – among many others – could be improved.

 

To improve competence about the facts and values in climate relevant decisions, decision-support systems should accurately reflect the uncertainty of climate-related social and biophysical knowledge, the complexity of decision-making contexts, and the multiple social and economic interests involved[2]. It could also involve rethinking the way we design and promote use-inspired basic and applied research so as to narrow the “usability gap.”[3]

 

This special issue seeks short review papers that explore these issues from different perspectives. This includes papers that explore: (1) the governance of decisions intended to help manage climate-related risk across systems, scales, and institutions; (2) the drivers of decision making, including the values, perceptions, power dynamics and incentives that affect how individuals, households, governments, non-governmental organizations, and private sector make decisions with respect to the key risks, impacts, and reasons of concern; and (3) the social and economic costs of different risk decision-making processes, management strategies, and measures.

 

We see several possible approaches for review papers that provide perspective on barriers and opportunities to climate-related decision making. This includes collective synthesis reviews of case studies on how individuals and organizations decide to adapt or reduce greenhouse gas emissions as a way to mitigate risk, and whether or not these decisions engage issues of finance, short-term or long-term concerns, or other drivers. Literature reviews on how hazard, exposure, and vulnerability interact to produce risk and affect adaptation and mitigations decisions and management currently and under different scenarios are also encouraged.  We welcome abstracts from a range of disciplines along with those that seek to provide transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives on climate decision-making.

 

Published by Elsevier, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability aims to help the reader keep up on sustainability issues by providing 1) the views of experts on current advances in environmental sustainability in a clear and readable form; and 2) evaluations of the most interesting papers, annotated by experts, from the great wealth of original publications.  It has an impact factor for 4.258 and a source normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) of 1.807.

 

The guest editors aim for diversity and balance in contributions and authors. They encourage researchers from developing countries, women, and underrepresented minorities to contribute to this special issue.

 

COSUST articles are intended to provide concise (2,000 to 4,000 words excluding bibliography) synthesis and review papers based on (predominantly) recent literature on cross-cutting topics in sustainability and global change. We do not publish articles presenting empirical research, although examples are welcome to illustrate review and synthesis articles. Synthesis figures and tables are encouraged, including visual abstracts. Articles should include 3 to 5 short highlight points and provide a short summary (1-2 phrases) on selected (3-5) bibliographic references. See guide for authors for specific instructions [https://www.elsevier.com/journals/current-opinion-in-environmental-sustainability/1877-3435/guide-for-authors]. All contributions are typically sent to a minimum of one independent expert reviewer to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Guest Editors are responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final.

 

Deadlines for submission to this special issue are: 01 July, 2020.  This coincides with the deadline for submissions for the IPCC AR6 WGII.

 

Abstract submission deadline: 15 February, 2020

 

Invitation to authors: 15 March 2020

 

Paper submission: 01 July 2020[4]

 

Issue official publication date: August/October 2021[5] with online-first publication upon acceptance (immediately following review/revision process)

 

Please send your abstract by 15th February 2020, and include in the subject line:

 

“COSUST Climate Decision-Making Abstract” to the attention of Rachael Shwom as follows: 

 

Email: shwo...@sebs.rutgers.edu

Subject:  COSUST Climate Decision-Making Abstract

 

 

 

[1] Dietz, Thomas. "What is a good decision? Criteria for environmental decision making." Human Ecology Review (2003): 33-39.

 

[2] Moss, R. 2016. Assessing decision support systems and levels of confidence to narrow the climate information “usability gap”. Climatic Change (2016) 135:143–155

 

[3] Lemos MC, Kirchhoff CJ et al (2012) Narrowing the climate information usability gap. Nat Clim Chang 2(11): 789–794

 

[4] AR6 cut-off date for submitted papers is 1 July, 2020

 

[5] AR6 cut-off date for accepted papers is 1 May, 2021

 

 

 

Return to Call for Abstracts

 

Associate Professor, Department of Human Ecology, Climate & Society

Associate Director, Rutgers Energy Institute
http://shwomrac.tumblr.com/

School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Rutgers University

Associate Graduate Faculty, Department of Sociology and Bloustein School of Public Policy
848-932-9235
732-932-6667 (F)

 

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