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Background Human activities have changed the environment so profoundly over the past two centuries that human-induced climate change is now posing serious health-related threats to current and future generations. Rapid action from all scientific fields, including behavioral medicine, is needed to contribute to both mitigation of, and adaption to, climate change. Purpose This article aims to identify potential bi-directional associations between climate change impacts and health-related behaviors, as well as a set of key actions for the behavioral medicine community. Methods We synthesized the existing literature about (i) the impacts of rising temperatures, extreme weather events, air pollution, and rising sea level on individual behaviors (e.g. eating behaviors, physical activity, sleep, substance use, and preventive care) as well as the structural factors related to these behaviors (e.g. the food system); and (ii) the concurrent positive and negative roles that health-related behaviors can play in mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Results Based on this literature review, we propose a first conceptual model of climate change and health-related behavior feedback loops. Key actions are proposed, with particular consideration for health equity implications of future behavioral interventions. Actions to bridge the fields of behavioral medicine and climate sciences are also discussed. Conclusions We contend that climate change is among the most urgent issues facing all scientists and should become a central priority for the behavioral medicine community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy transition, even if it meets ambitions submitted by governments subscribing to the Paris Agreement (2015), will fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Rather than solving this long-term challenge, energy-sector participants, including oil exporting countries, major oil and gas corporations, governments and consumers, continue to behave in traditional manners. Oil exporters focus on short-term revenue maximization rather than on diversifying their economies to reduce excessive dependence on hydrocarbon exports. Oil and gas companies, despite claiming to be concerned about climate change, devote relatively small investments to non-fossil energy sources and ambivalently support climate change mitigation policies. Governments, often at the behest of special interests, construct systems of subsidies, fuel-efficiency targets and regulatory exemptions that distort markets and fail to achieve stated emissions goals. Consumers resist proposed climate policies when these are perceived to place the burden of energy transition unfairly on consumers' shoulders, both individually and collectively. All energy market participants are threatened by climate change, and all can do more to advocate and support mitigation policies that are equitable, effective and efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change is empirically settled, but communicating it to nonscientific audiences remains challenging. To be explicit about the state of knowledge on climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has adopted a vocabulary that ranks climate findings through certainty-calibrated qualifiers of confidence and likelihood. In this article, we quantified the occurrence of knowns and unknowns about "The Physical Science Basis" of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report by counting the frequency of calibrated qualifiers. We found that the tone of the IPCC's probabilistic language is remarkably conservative (mean confidence is medium, and mean likelihood is 66%–100% or 0–33%), and emanates from the IPCC recommendations themselves, complexity of climate research, and exposure to politically motivated debates. Leveraging communication of uncertainty with overwhelming scientific consensus about anthropogenic climate change should be one element of a wider reform, whereby the creation of an IPCC outreach working group could enhance the transmission of climate science to the panel's audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on weather and the power of the imagination. It offers an environmental literary criticism which suggests how imaginative potency of literature can change values and behavior. It examines the context of climate change and its impact on man's physical and emotional lives. The author offers his views on how man can respond to climate change.

This article is an enquiry into Brazil's evolving responses to global climate change norms. Following an overview of the evolution of international normative frameworks of climate change governance, I examine the relationship between some of these international norms and domestic environmental politics in Brazil. Internationally, the analysis focuses on the North/South political debate about climate change and its role in shaping understandings about the impact and responses to global warming. Domestically, I explore the evolving relationship between state and private actors in the decision-making process. I argue that Brazil's official position on climate change negotiations is currently influenced by a nationalist/developmental approach based on the particular worldview of the dominant faction within the foreign ministry and backed up by private groups, powerful sectors in the military establishment, key ministries, and the presidency. Yet, this worldview has been increasingly undermined/permeated by other state and nonstate actors, who are more closely aligned with the environmental concerns of international stakeholders. The ensuing domestic conflict has important implications for the legitimacy and coherence of the Brazilian position in international climate change negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]