Search Results (77)

Climate change poses a growing threat to the mental health of children and adolescents. This narrative review synthesizes global, interdisciplinary research on the psychological impacts of climate disruption during critical developmental stages, with attention to marginalized populations. We explore three key pathways of harm: direct exposure to environmental disasters, chronic disruption of ecological and social systems, and existential distress such as eco-anxiety. Drawing on eco-social theory and developmental psychopathology, the review highlights how these impacts are shaped by age, geography, identity, and systemic inequities. It identifies both risk and protective factors, emphasizing the importance of caregiving relationships, cultural practices, education, and youth climate engagement. While activism can foster resilience and purpose, it may also incur emotional burdens that require clinical and policy attention. We argue that child and adolescent mental health must be recognized as central to climate justice and adaptation, and we offer urgent recommendations for integrated action across sectors. Full article

Climate change remains one of the existential threats to humanity in particular and life on earth in general. It presents significant impacts on food and nutritional security, health, and the general well-being of living organisms globally. Despite global efforts to tackle the climate crisis, the record shows that limited progress has been made in curbing the problem. Consequently, this study intends to address the following research question: How does the climate crisis affect indigenous food systems, farmers’ livelihoods, and local communities in the study area? This study was conducted in the Tolon district of the northern region of Ghana from 2017 to 2022. Grounded in the theoretical prism of political ecology and indigenous knowledge perspective, we selected individuals who were smallholder farmers, students, faculty members, extension officers, and an administrator from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. The data were gathered through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and workshops and analyzed using coding, thematization, and inferences drawn from the literature and authors’ experiences. This study discovered some of the effects of a changing climate, including the extinction of indigenous food crops, poor yield resulting in poverty, and food and nutritional insecurity. This study concludes that failure to tackle climate change could pose a greater threat to the survival of smallholder households in Ghana. Full article

Employee well-being is essential for organizational growth and success in stable times and is even more critical during crises and life-threatening events. Although the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of holistic approaches to sustaining employee well-being, limited research has been conducted to identify strategies for maintaining employee well-being and preventing burnout during life-threatening events, such as wars or terrorist attacks. Addressing this gap, the current study investigates how and why a range of organizational resources (i.e., perceived organizational support, managerial accessibility, and psychological safety) and personal resources (i.e., hope and paradox mindset) contribute to reducing employee burnout in times of existential threat. Drawing on Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, we propose that employee well-being mediates the relationship between organizational and personal resources and burnout at work. Data were collected through an online two-wave survey administered by a professional survey firm with access to a diverse pool of Israeli employees across occupations and work roles in November (time 1) and December 2023 (time 2), following the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas. A time-lagged design, with key outcomes collected one month after the predictors, was employed to reduce the risk of common method bias. The data were analyzed using path analysis with bootstrapped indirect effects. The results demonstrate that hope, organizational support, psychological safety, and managerial accessibility positively contribute to employee well-being, which, in turn, is associated with lower levels of burnout. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. Full article

Climate change poses an existential threat, spurring businesses and financial markets to integrate environmental accounting and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) disclosures into decision-making. This study aims to examine how environmental accounting practices and ESG reporting contribute to climate change mitigation in organizations. It seeks to highlight the significance of these tools in enhancing transparency and accountability, thereby driving more sustainable corporate behavior. By synthesizing the recent literature, the study contributes a comprehensive overview of best practices and challenges at the intersection of accounting and climate action, addressing a noted gap in consolidated knowledge. We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) following PRISMA guidelines. A broad search (2010–2024) across Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar identified 73 records, which were rigorously screened and distilled to 47 relevant peer-reviewed studies. These studies span global contexts and include both conceptual and empirical work, providing a robust dataset for analysis. Environmental accounting was found to play a pivotal role in measuring and managing corporate carbon footprints, effectively translating climate impacts into quantifiable metrics. Firms that implement rigorous carbon accounting and internalize environmental costs tend to set more precise emission reduction targets and justify mitigation investments through a cost–benefit analysis. ESG disclosure frameworks emerged as critical external tools: a high-quality climate disclosure is linked with greater stakeholder trust and even financial benefits such as lower capital costs. Leading companies aligning reports with standards like TCFD or GRI often enjoy enhanced credibility and investor confidence. However, the review also uncovered challenges, like the lack of standardized reporting, risks of greenwashing, and disparities in adoption across regions, that impede the full effectiveness of these practices. The findings underscore that while environmental accounting and ESG reporting are powerful means to drive corporate climate action, their impact depends on improving consistency, rigor, and integration. Harmonizing global reporting standards and mandating disclosures are identified as key steps to improve data comparability. Strengthening the credibility of ESG disclosures and embedding environmental metrics into core decision-making are essential to leverage accounting as a tool for climate change mitigation. The study recommends that policymakers accelerate moves toward mandatory, standardized ESG reporting and urges organizations to proactively enhance their environmental accounting systems that will support global climate objectives and further research on actual emission outcomes. Full article

This study analyses how early childhood teachers experience their local curricula-updating process provoked by the national policy changes. This is a relevant problem related to teachers’ agency, which is critical in supporting and developing curriculum policies or opposing them. The hermeneutic phenomenological approach (van Manen) was used to uncover the pre-reflective lived experiences of teachers through phenomenological interviews with 16 teachers. The lived experiences of local curriculum updates triggered by the national preschool curriculum guideline were a dualistic phenomenon manifesting as open and hidden voices of teachers. The open voices metaphor revealed the pre-reflective experiences increasing the openness of teachers to changes, while the hidden voices represented a pre-reflective experience of threat to established concepts and practices resulting in defensive reactions. These dualistic experiences appeared in five emergent categories: resonating body: vitality vs. freezing (Corporeality); teamwork during a critical moment: safe sustainability vs. uncertainty (Relationality); competing spatial perspectives: new possibilities vs. conflicting visions (Spatiality); altered perception of time: third wave vs. lost time (Temporality); and awakened existential questions: intentional self-reflection vs. conflict of roles (Existentiality). This paper highlights tensions between the national policies and the professional authenticity of teachers and the importance of teachers’ agency in the change context. Full article

The escalating threat of climate-driven wildfires, land abandonment, wildland–urban interface expansion, and inadequate forest management poses an existential challenge to Mediterranean oak ecosystems, for which traditional fire suppression has proven insufficient. This paper presents a combination of integrated fire management (IFM) and closer-to-nature forest management (CTNFM) in a representative mixed Pyrenean oak (Quercus pyrenaica) forest at Quinta da França (QF), in Portugal. It is structured around three main objectives designed to evaluate this pioneer integrated approach: (1) to describe the integration of IFM and CTNFM within an agro-silvo-pastoral landscape; (2) to qualitatively assess its ecological, operational, and socio-economic outcomes; and (3) to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of two key nature-based solutions (NbSs), that is, prescribed burning and planned grazing, in reducing wildfire risk and enhancing forest resilience and biodiversity. By strategically combining proactive fuel reduction with biodiversity-oriented silviculture, the QF case provides a replicable model for managing analogous Mediterranean forested areas facing similar risks. This integrated approach supports forest multifunctionality, advancing both prevention and adaptation goals, and directly contributes to the ambitious targets set by the European Union’s New Forest and Biodiversity Strategies for 2030, marking a significant step towards a more sustainable and fire-resilient future for such Mediterranean landscapes. Full article

The Alevis of Anatolia and the Balkans and the Alawites of Syria and southeastern Turkey are two distinct ethnoreligious communities frequently conflated in both media and scholarly literature, despite their divergent historical origins, theological differences, and varying sociocultural formations. While their shared histories of marginalization and persecution, certain theological parallels, and cognate ethnonyms contribute to this conflation, it largely stems from a broader tendency within mainstream Islamic frameworks to homogenize so-called heterodox communities without sufficient attention to their doctrinal and cultural specificities. This paper, grounded in a synthetic analysis of current scholarship, maps the key historical, theological, and sociocultural intersections and divergences between Alawite and Alevi communities. Situated within the broader framework of intra-Islamic diversity, it seeks to move beyond essentialist and homogenizing paradigms by foregrounding the distinct genealogies of each tradition, rooted, respectively, in the early pro-Alid movements of Iraq and Syria and in Anatolian Sufism. In addition, the study examines the communities’ overlapping political trajectories in the modern era, particularly their alignments with leftist and secular–nationalist currents, as well as their evolving relationship—from mutual unawareness to a recent political rapprochement—prompted by the growing existential threats posed by the rise of Sunni-Salafi Islamist movements. Full article

The advent of quantum computing poses an existential threat to the security of cloud services that handle sensitive visual data. Simultaneously, the need for computational privacy requires the ability to process data without exposing it to the cloud provider. This paper introduces and evaluates a hybrid quantum-resistant framework that addresses both challenges by integrating NIST-standardized post-quantum cryptography with optimized fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). Our solution uses CRYSTALS-Kyber for secure channel establishment and the CKKS FHE scheme with SIMD batching to perform image processing tasks on a cloud server without ever decrypting the image. This work provides a comprehensive performance analysis of the complete, end-to-end system. Our empirical evaluation demonstrates the framework’s practicality, detailing the sub-millisecond PQC setup costs and the amortized transfer of 33.83 MB of public FHE materials. The operational performance shows remarkable scalability, with server-side computations and client-side decryption completing within low single-digit milliseconds. By providing a detailed analysis of a viable and efficient architecture, this framework establishes a practical foundation for the next generation of privacy-preserving cloud applications. Full article

As the cradle of Jiangnan culture, Suzhou is home to a dense concentration of historical architectural heritage that is currently facing existential threats from rapid urbanization. This study aims to develop a spatial heritage corridor network for conservation and sustainable utilization. Using kernel density estimation, this study identifies 15 kernel density groups, along with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), to pinpoint clusters of historical architectural heritage and assess the involved resistance factors. Current Effective Conductance (CEC) theory is further applied to model spatial flow relationships among heritage nodes, leading to the delineation of 27 heritage corridors and revealing a spatial structure characterized by one primary core, one secondary core, and multiple peripheral zones. Based on 15 source points, six cultural relics-themed routes are proposed—three land-based and three waterfront routes—connecting historical sites, towns, and ecological areas. The study further recommends a resource management strategy centered on departmental collaboration, digital integration, and community co-governance. By integrating historical architectural types, settlement forms, and ecological patterns, the research builds a multi-scale narrative and experience system that addresses fragmentation while improving coordination and sustainability. This framework delivers practical advice on heritage conservation and cultural tourism development in Suzhou and the broader Jiangnan region. Full article

Russia’s conflict with Ukraine, which escalated into full-scale military confrontation in February 2022, originated in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and the backing of pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. However, this war extends beyond bilateral hostilities, reflecting a broader geopolitical confrontation with the West that aligns with Vladimir Putin’s strategic vision, as signalled in his 2007 Munich Security Conference speech. Russian security doctrines have consistently framed the West as an existential threat, a perception reinforced by state-controlled media. This study examines the role of Russian state media in shaping public perceptions of the West between 2014 and 2022. It explores how Russian media, particularly RIA Novosti, constructed adversarial narratives about Latvia, Poland, and Serbia within the framework of Russian security policy. Through qualitative content analysis, the research investigates the alignment of media narratives with official strategic objectives, the portrayal of Western nations as threats, and the intended audience of these narratives. The findings underscore the integral role of state-controlled media in Russia’s security strategy, highlighting an increasing consolidation of media control to sustain domestic legitimacy and justify external aggression. As Russia faces growing challenges, media restrictions are expected to intensify, reinforcing state-driven narratives and information isolation. Full article

This article assesses the importance of two tax controversies in conditioning market access in fifteenth-century Bruges. It looks at diplomatic posturing on the management of this market and the conditions for partaking in its trade. The theory of ‘signalling’ is applied to highlight diplomatic stances and reveal the reasoning behind policy decisions including reprisals, taxes, and boycotts hitherto absent in the literature. Diplomatic, urban legal, and fiscal sources are consulted to reveal what the Castilians and Catalans, sizeable and organised merchant communities in Bruges, perceived as an existential threat to their trade—the ‘fiscalisation’ of market access. This article takes a comparative approach, employing the theory of signalling to determine the strategies of the various actors involved and their efficacy. The Duke of Burgundy and his administration emerge from this story as the prime agent in determining this equilibrium, with the Castilians and Catalans bringing their diplomatic and economic leverage to bear to prevent it. The city of Bruges, as lobbyist and interlocutor, was involved throughout attempting to find a balance between its many merchant communities. These cases offer historical insights into strategies of negotiation when the economic stakes are high. Full article

Writing in November 2010 in the aftermath of a series of devastating hurricanes, Norman Girvan admitted to “a growing sense that Caribbean states may be more and more facing a challenge of existential threats”. By this, he continues, “I mean systemic challenges to the viability of our states as functioning socio-economic-ecological-political systems” due to “the intersection of climatic, economic, social and political developments”. In this article, I examine the specifically literary response to these existential threats. My focus is on Nicole Dennis-Benn’s novel Here Comes the Sun (2016), which offers a searing critique of what I term the apocalypse of the everyday, that is, of the way capitalism’s logics of social death and ecocide permeate every facet of contemporary quotidian practice. I am particularly interested in Dennis-Benn’s registration of the impact of debt colonialism on Jamaica. Debt, for Girvan, is one of the contributing factors to the existential threat facing the Caribbean. However, the temporality of debt also provides a useful optic for understanding how Dennis-Benn’s novel grapples with the effects of the ongoing catastrophe of slavery and the plantation system, as well as with the erosion of futurity in apocalyptic times. Full article

The need to decide whether to securitise an issue area that poses an existential threat, and then treat it as a security matter, is often regarded as a choice without positive alternatives. This article introduces an alternative framing: the “peacification” of issue areas that pose existential threats. It also demonstrates that there is variation in the levels of security and peace framing in authoritative speech. By measuring these levels in authoritative US presidential papers and comparing them with levels of success in the US efforts to reduce organised violence, the article falsifies the assumption that securitisation is the only realistic way to frame existential threats. Correlative evidence fails to support the view that the securitisation of organised violence is useful. This finding is highly significant for challenging the naturalness of mainstream security framing, which, due to the very grammar of “security,” is premised on political othering. After all, security is a property of an agent, while security issues traditionally arise from threats posed by another agent. By disaggregating the elements of these two framings, this article offers plausible explanations as to why, in general, peacification may be a better framing for the prevention of organised violence than securitization. Full article

Existential threats, including threats to the self, society, and the planet, are present throughout the lifespan and form a core element of the human experience. To consolidate knowledge and constructs about how people can adequately respond to existential threats, we convened an interdisciplinary working group, which consisted of eight researchers from the fields of psychology, systemic theology, practical theology, religious studies, cognitive science, palliative care, and sustainability science. The group met one day per week for 9 months to engage in an interactive co-creative process of data collection and analyses, discussion, iterative presentations, and writing. The process resulted in the development of an interdisciplinary model that pulls together the key themes of how people, societies, and systems can foster existential resilience and transformation. The model consists of three axes across which we (individuals, groups, systems) have to strengthen or stretch our “inner muscles”: connectedness, agency, and time. All axes contribute to the development of our inner capacities and, ultimately, meaning and purpose, which are crucial to support resilience and transformation. Our interdisciplinary overarching model provides a common conceptualization for existential resilience and transformation that can bridge existing research to support individual, collective, and large-scale system-change work. Its relevance and potential implementation are illustrated and presented from different disciplinary angles. Full article

This paper identifies the salient features of feedforward control and the advantages that it provides vis-à-vis feedback control. These advantages are especially salient in strategic control situations and also during periods of environmental turbulence and extreme strategic discontinuity. Consciously adopting a feedforward orientation in organizational strategic management processes could enhance an organization’s competitive advantages and potentially lead to sustainable, superior performance. Additionally, broadening the conceptual definition of feedforward (from its cybernetic origins) to also include strategic foresight might also enable organizations to develop dynamic capabilities. The example of Zara, a leader in ‘fast-fashion’ retailing, is presented as an example of how feedforward attributes can be identified, inculcated, and ingrained/retained as organizational attributes that become a part of an organization’s DNA. Moreover, when severe external environmental disruptions inevitably erode an organization’s resource bases and pose an existential threat to the organization’s survival, such a feedforward orientation could be the catalyst for coping, adapting, and developing new dynamic capabilities. These new capabilities can not only help organizations to counter newly emergent threats and survive, but also help them to dynamically cultivate and develop newer sources of competitive advantages. Full article