Essay on a set topic - choose ONE of the below questions as your

On a set topic - choose ONE of the below questions as your topic. Indicate which one you have chosen - Essay Example In the recent years there have been efforts to try and address the issue of climate change. Countries are being advised to adopt anti-climate change policies. In this context, they are actually required to address the key issues in the society that have prevented the adoption of the strategies. The study would discuss on how the social and cultural processes have impacted while addressing this issue of climate change. How values affects the decisions and actions with regard to climate change, what role culture plays in the strategies for adopting to climate change, and in the process overcoming the barriers to change. The study would also highlight the irreversible losses of cultural and natural heritage as a result of climate change, and finally, what cultural practitioners contribute to the search for creative solutions to the negative impacts of climate change. Discussion Climate change is caused by a variety of factors which include oceanic processes like oceanic circulation, var iations in solar radiation that is received by Earth, volcanic eruptions, plate tectonics, and lastly, human induced alterations of the natural world; the latter effects are currently resulting in global warming, while climate change is often used to describe the human specific impacts (Rothwell, 2006:56). The factors that shape climate are referred to as climate forcings. They include processes like variations in solar radiation, continental drift, mountain building and, variations in earth orbit, and changes in the concentrations of greenhouse gases. There are arrays of climate change feedbacks that can either diminish or amplify the initial forcing (Barnett & Adger, 2003:134). The human factors that cause climate change include: an increase in the carbon (iv) oxide concentrations as a result of emissions from fossil fuel combustion, followed by the aerosols and then cement manufacture. The other factors include the following: animal agriculture, deforestation, ozone depletion, an d lastly, land use. They are also of concern in the roles that they play, both separately or in conjunction with the other factors, in affecting the climate, microclimate, and measurement of climatic variables. On the other hand, according to Jones (2009:101) asserts that culture in the context of climate change, refers to the common manner or way a community of persons make sense of the world. Culture has social, material, ideological, and artistic dimensions, all which have an impact on what people think, believe and value, and how they respond to the call of action The determination of knowledge from the social settings requires social constructivism. The term social constructivism is referred as a sociological theory of knowledge that is usually applied to the general philosophical constructivism into social settings. Whereas groups construct knowledge for one another, they collaboratively create a small culture of shared artefacts with shared meanings (Grant, 2007:167). When on e is completely immersed within this culture of this sort, one is all the time learning about how to be part of that culture on various levels (Barab, Dodge, Thomas, Jackson, & Tuzun, 2007: 268). As a consequence, strong social constructivism as a philosophical approach suggests that the natural world has very small and/or non existent role in the construction of scientific knowledge. Recently, scientists have been struggling to comprehend the past and the future climate by utilizing observations and