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It has been indicated that teachers' emotions about climate change and their views on mitigation influence their instruction and students' engagement in mitigation actions. The aim of the study is to explore Finnish secondary geography teachers' emotions about the consequences of climate change, their strategies for coping with these emotions, and their views on climate change mitigation. Inductive content analysis of data collected through individual interviews (N = 13) was performed. The teachers used emotion-focused, problem-focused, and meaning-focused strategies to cope with negative emotions. They ascribed responsibility for mitigation to politicians and individuals. Commonly, the teachers took elementary actions to reduce their impact on the climate. Only part of the teachers realized that they could contribute through teaching. With the ultimate aim of promoting students' engagement in climate change mitigation, guidelines pertaining to education that targets teachers' emotions, coping strategies, and their views on mitigation are presented.

People's knowledge about nature, their interest in nature, their nature experiences, and their values and emotions regarding nature are factors that promote people's positive views on environmental issues and sustainability. Knowing the variation and patterns in teachers' and student teachers' views is an essential step in considering the ways in which sustainability might be interpreted and enacted in schools and in teacher education. The aim of this study is to analyze student teachers' views on the importance of species and species identification in general and as a part of their professional development regarding their understanding of biodiversity and sustainability. A total of 426 student teachers in Finland, Norway, and Sweden answered a questionnaire consisting of fixed and open-ended questions. Mixed methods were used: t test and analysis of variance for quantitative data and inductive and deductive, model-based content analysis for qualitative data. According to the majority of student teachers (85%), both species identification and biodiversity are important for sustainability; species identification in general was important to 58% of them. Their statements about importance contained mostly ecological views (46%), followed by emotional (17%), educational (16%), and utilitarian (11%) views. The remainder of the student teachers' statements (10%) contained negativistic or indifferent views. The reasons for the low percentage of educational views are discussed. The implications of the results for teacher education worldwide are emphasized, especially the importance of those teaching methods that have the potential to increase student teachers' understanding of sustainability.

The aim of this study is to examine Finnish ninth graders' attitudes towards the consequences of climate change, their views on climate change mitigation and the impact of a set of selected predictors on their willingness to act in climate change mitigation. Students (N = 549) from 11 secondary schools participated in the questionnaire-based study. The results show that the students experience climate change as a risk. Although these students find climate change mitigation relevant, there is room for improvement in terms of their own willingness to act. Interest in environmental issues, the perceived relevance of mitigation and views on the design and contents of climate change education are identified as important positive predictors of students' willingness to act, which has implications for designing learning in climate change education.

This study assesses the impact of the Finnish biotechnology industry on economic growth in Finland. The study employs official data from Statistics Finland and new survey data covering 84 Finnish biotechnology companies. An econometric forecast for the economy-wide growth impact of the biotechnology industry in Finland is presented. In the estimation procedure, this study employs the survey data both in forming growth anticipations within a new emerging industry and assessing inter-industrial growth effects. Applied Monte Carlo simulations predict that the contribution of the biotechnology industry to annual GDP growth in 2002-2006 will be in the range of 0.05-0.09 percentage points per annum with a probability of 90%. These results imply that it will take decades rather than years for the biotechnology industry to become a fourth pillar of the Finnish economy beside the forest industry, the metal products and machinery industry, and the electronics industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]