Who is open to change after the COVID-19 pandemic? Some insights from Germany.

The COVID-19 pandemic as a disruptive event was initially considered an opportunity for a transformation towards more sustainable lifestyles. In two telephone surveys with more than 1000 participants each, this study explored in October 2020 and May 2021 how people in Germany experienced the COVID-19 related lockdown restrictions. Specifically, the study investigated how the respondents felt their lives had been impaired during the pandemic, which changes they had experienced as particularly bothersome and which ones they perceived to be beneficial.

Air quality in Germany as a contributing factor to morbidity from COVID-19.

Background: The SARS-CoV-2 virus has been spreading in Germany since January 2020, with regional differences in incidence, morbidity, and mortality. Long-term exposure to air pollutants as nitrogen dioxide (NO), nitrogen monoxide (NO), ozone (O), and particulate matter (<10 μm PM, <2.5 μm PM) has a negative impact on respiratory functions.

Indicator-driven data calibration of expert interviews in a configurational study.

Expert interviews can provide interesting data for the use in qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to investigate complex social phenomena. To guide the challenging task of data calibration from qualitative data sets, techniques have already been suggested for the transformation of qualitative data into fuzzy sets. The current article follows existing guidelines and extends them with a system for indicator-based data calibration of expert interviews.

Asthma and COPD exacerbation in relation to outdoor air pollution in the metropolitan area of Berlin, Germany.

Background: Ambient air pollution poses a major risk for the development and aggravation of respiratory diseases. Evidence suggests that even in low-level air pollution environments there is a risk for an increase in adverse respiratory symptoms. We examined whether variations in daily air pollution levels of nitrogen dioxide, ozone, or particulate matter in Berlin, Germany were associated with hospital admissions of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma patients in a time series analysis.

Learning from the COVID-19 lockdown in berlin: Observations and modelling to support understanding policies to reduce NO.

Urban air pollution is a substantial threat to human health. Traffic emissions remain a large contributor to air pollution in urban areas. The mobility restrictions put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic provided a large-scale real-world experiment that allows for the evaluation of changes in traffic emissions and the corresponding changes in air quality.

Using Implementation Science For Health Adaptation: Opportunities For Pacific Island Countries.

The health risks of a changing climate are immediate and multifaceted. Policies, plans, and programs to reduce climate-related health impacts exist, but multiple barriers hinder the uptake of these strategies, and information remains limited on the factors affecting implementation. Implementation science-a discipline focused on systematically examining the gap between knowledge and action-can address questions related to implementation and help the health sector scale up successful adaptation measures in response to climate change.

Towards a relational paradigm in sustainability research, practice, and education.

Relational thinking has recently gained increasing prominence across academic disciplines in an attempt to understand complex phenomena in terms of constitutive processes and relations. Interdisciplinary fields of study, such as science and technology studies (STS), the environmental humanities, and the posthumanities, for example, have started to reformulate academic understanding of nature-cultures based on relational thinking. Although the sustainability crisis serves as a contemporary backdrop and in fact calls for such innovative forms of interdisciplinary scholarship, the field of sustainability research has not yet tapped into the rich possibilities offered by relational thinking.

Short period PM2.5 prediction based on multivariate linear regression model.

A multivariate linear regression model was proposed to achieve short period prediction of PM2.5 (fine particles with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 μm or less).

Potential Impacts of Offshore Oil and Gas Activities on Deep-Sea Sponges and the Habitats They Form.

Sponges form an important component of benthic ecosystems from shallow littoral to hadal depths. In the deep ocean, beyond the continental shelf, sponges can form high-density fields, constituting important habitats supporting rich benthic communities. Yet these habitats remain relatively unexplored.

Engineering imaginaries: Anticipatory foresight for solar radiation management governance.

Since solar radiation management (SRM) technologies do not yet exist and capacities to model their impacts are limited, proposals for its governance are implicitly designed not around realities, but possibilities - baskets of risk and benefit that are often components of future imaginaries. This paper reports on the project Solar Radiation Management: Foresight for Governance (SRM4G), which aimed to encourage an anticipatory mode of thinking about the future of an engineered climate. Leveraging the participation of 15 scholars and practitioners heavily engaged in early conversations on SRM governance, SRM4G applied scenario construction to generate a set of alternative futures leading to 2030, each exercising different influences on the need for - and challenges associated with - development of SRM technologies.

Economics of carbon dioxide capture and utilization-a supply and demand perspective.

Lately, the technical research on carbon dioxide capture and utilization (CCU) has achieved important breakthroughs. While single CO-based innovations are entering the markets, the possible economic effects of a large-scale CO utilization still remain unclear to policy makers and the public. Hence, this paper reviews the literature on CCU and provides insights on the motivations and potential of making use of recovered CO emissions as a commodity in the industrial production of materials and fuels.

Always look on the "light" side of life: sustainable carbon aerogels.

The production of carbon aerogels based on the conversion of inexpensive and abundant precursors using environmentally friendly processes is a highly attractive subject in materials chemistry today. This article reviews the latest developments regarding the rapidly developing field of carbonaceous aerogels prepared from biomass and biomass-derived precursors, highlighting exciting and innovative approaches to green, sustainable nanomaterial synthesis. A review of the state-of-the-art technologies will be provided with a specific focus on two complimentary synthetic approaches developed upon the principles of green chemistry.