Scientists' warning on affluence.

For over half a century, worldwide growth in affluence has continuously increased resource use and pollutant emissions far more rapidly than these have been reduced through better technology. The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions. We summarise the evidence and present possible solution approaches.

Consumer acceptance of novel food technologies.

Novel food technologies are important for food security, safety and sustainability. Consumers, however, are often hesitant to accept them. In this narrative Review, we organize the research describing how heuristics and individual differences among consumers influence the acceptance of agri-food technologies.

Knowledge, attitude and practices of Swiss dairy farmers towards intramammary antimicrobial use and antimicrobial resistance: A latent class analysis.

Understanding farmers' mindsets is important to improve antimicrobial stewardship in the dairy industry. This cross-sectional study aimed to determine farmers' knowledge, attitude, and practices with respect to lactational intramammary antimicrobial use (AMU) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Swiss dairy herds. Based on their approach towards subclinical mastitis (SCM) and non-severe cases of clinical mastitis (CM), subgroups of farmers were identified and compared regarding their knowledge, attitude and practices towards AMU and AMR.

Food disgust sensitivity influences the perception of food hazards: Results from longitudinal and cross-cultural studies.

Two survey studies, one conducted in Switzerland and the other in nine countries, suggest that food disgust sensitivity is a personality variable that influences the perception of food hazards. For a large Swiss sample (N = 2813), we found that participants having higher food disgust sensitivity perceived more risks compared with participants having lower disgust sensitivity. A longitudinal analysis further suggests that changes in the participants' disgust sensitivity result in changes in the perception of food hazards.

Addressing Chemophobia: Informational versus affect-based approaches.

This study investigated the effect of two communication strategies (informational and affect-based) in reducing chemophobia, the irrational fear of chemicals. In an online experiment, participants (N = 448) were randomly assigned to one of three groups ("control", "knowledge", or "affect" group). The following dependent variables were assessed: chemophobia, knowledge of basic toxicological principles, affect towards chemicals, benefit perception of the use of chemicals, and preference for natural substitutes in consumer products.

Exploring the role of positive direct experience in the adoption of energy efficient technologies: evidence from a Swiss field study on the promotion of low-flow showerheads.

Despite the considerable potential of low-flow showerheads to reduce household energy demand, their widespread implementation is still far from being realised. In this study, we compare the joint effect of a contextually embedded intervention in a public swimming pool to promote low-flow showerheads coupled with a mass campaign by a Swiss city's utility to the stand-alone effect of the mass campaign. We also explore the factors that influence the outcome of the contextually embedded intervention.

Recycled and desalinated water: Consumers' associations, and the influence of affect and disgust on willingness to use.

Traditional water sources are increasingly coming under pressure from urbanization, population and industrial growth as well as climate variability and alternatives such as desalinated and recycled water will need to be considered in the future. However, available data indicate that consumers are apprehensive about these alternative water sources, with many reactions centered on disgust. It is not clear though, whether trait or state disgust is responsible for these disgust reactions.

How the public imagines the energy future: Exploring and clustering non-experts' techno-economic expectations towards the future energy system.

Various countries have pledged to carry out system-wide energy transitions to address climate change. This requires taking strategic decisions with long-term consequences under conditions of considerable uncertainty. For this reason, many actors in the energy sector develop model-based scenarios to guide debates and decision-making about plausible future energy systems.

Energy self-sufficient households with photovoltaics and electric vehicles are feasible in temperate climate.

The idea that households produce and consume their own energy, that is, energy self-sufficiency at a very local level, captures the popular imagination and commands political support across parts of Europe. This paper investigates the technical and economic feasibility of household energy self-sufficiency in Switzerland, which can be seen as representative for other regions with a temperate climate, by 2050. We compare sixteen cases that vary across four dimensions: household type, building type, electricity demand reduction, and passenger vehicle use patterns.

Support for the Deployment of Climate Engineering: A Comparison of Ten Different Technologies.

Due to the renewed increase in CO emissions seen in recent years, the deployment of climate engineering technologies might become necessary if the global temperature increase is to be kept within 1.5 °C. If climate engineering is to be deployed, however, public support is required.

The benefit of virtue signaling: Corporate sleight-of-hand positively influences consumers' judgments about "social license to operate".

When confronted with concerns or backlash as a result of their environmental or sustainability performance, companies may elect to address them head-on by directly correcting their real or perceived misdeeds. However, it is often the case that businesses are unwilling or unable to address their transgressions directly; in these cases, they may elect to draw attention to indirect substantiality benefits unfolding in areas unrelated to where the concerns or backlash initially arose. In this study, we sought to test the effect of these indirect and direct responses to sustainability challenges on two dependent variables: public perception of company reputation, and their willingness to grant a company "social license" for future business activities.

The Lancet Infectious Diseases Commission on antimicrobial resistance: 6 years later.

In 2013, a Lancet Infectious Diseases Commission described the state of antimicrobial resistance worldwide. Since then, greater awareness of the public health ramifications of antimicrobial resistance has led to national actions and global initiatives, including a resolution at the high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly in 2016. Progress in addressing this issue has ranged from a ban on irrational drug combinations in India to commitments to ban colistin as a growth promoter in animals, improve hospital infection control, and implement better antimicrobial stewardship.

Psychological factors that determine people's willingness-to-share genetic data for research.

Of all the information that we share, health and genetic data might be among the most valuable for researchers. As data are handled as particularly sensitive information, a number of pressing issues regarding people's preferences and privacy concerns are raised. The goal of the present study was to contribute to an understanding of people's reported willingness-to-share genetic data for science (WTS).

Excessive use of medically important antimicrobials in food animals in Pakistan: a five-year surveillance survey.

Demand for poultry meat is rising in low- and middle-countries, driving the expansion of large commercial farms where antimicrobials are used as surrogates for hygiene, good nutrition. This routine use of antimicrobials in animal production facilitates the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant pathogens. Despite potentially serious consequences for the animal industry, few studies have documented trends in antimicrobial use (AMU) at the farm-level in low- and middle-income countries.

Customising global climate science for national adaptation: A case study of climate projections in UNFCCC's National Communications.

Countries differ markedly in their production of climate science. While richer nations are often home to a variety of climate models, data infrastructures and climate experts, poorer sovereigns often lack these attributes. However, less is known about countries' capacity to use global climate science and customise it into products informing national adaptation.

Barriers to the safe use of chemical household products: A comparison across European countries.

Chemical household products, such as cleaning and washing products or pest control and garden chemicals, are frequently involved in poisonings in private households. Consumer research has identified a number of barriers that impede the safe use of these products, ranging from unfamiliarity, to misconceptions and a lack of risk perception, to behavioural or situational barriers. This study aimed at investigating these barriers for consumers in eight European countries.

"Chemophobia" Today: Consumers' Knowledge and Perceptions of Chemicals.

This mixed-methods study investigated consumers' knowledge of chemicals in terms of basic principles of toxicology and then related this knowledge, in addition to other factors, to their fear of chemical substances (i.e., chemophobia).

Lay-people's knowledge about toxicology and its principles in eight European countries.

The procedures of risk assessment related to substances consumed or used by consumers (e.g., food additives, cleaning products) are highly complex and there exists some controversy between experts in regards to the uncertainty linked to it.

Soil Moisture Effects on Afternoon Precipitation Occurrence in Current Climate Models.

Soil moisture-precipitation feedbacks in a large ensemble of global climate model simulations are evaluated. A set of three metrics are used to assess the sensitivity of afternoon rainfall occurrence to morning soil moisture in terms of their spatial, temporal, and heterogeneity characteristics. Positive (negative) spatial feedback indicates that the afternoon rainfall occurs more frequently over wetter (drier) land surface than its surroundings.

Assessing the Dynamic Versus Thermodynamic Origin of Climate Model Biases.

Global climate models present systematic biases, among others, a tendency to overestimate hot and dry summers in midlatitude regions. Here we investigate the origin of such biases in the Community Earth System Model. To disentangle the contribution of dynamics and thermodynamics, we perform simulations that include nudging of horizontal wind and compare them to simulations with a free atmosphere.

When Evolution Works Against the Future: Disgust's Contributions to the Acceptance of New Food Technologies.

New food technologies have a high potential to transform the current resource-consuming food system to a more efficient and sustainable one, but public acceptance of new food technologies is rather low. Such an avoidance might be maintained by a deeply preserved risk avoidance system called disgust. In an online survey, participants (N = 313) received information about a variety of new food technology applications (i.

Blue skies over China: The effect of pollution-control on solar power generation and revenues.

Air pollution is the single most important environmental health risk, causing about 7 million premature deaths annually worldwide. China is the world's largest emitter of anthropogenic air pollutants, which causes major negative health consequences. The Chinese government has implemented several policies to reduce air pollution, with success in some but far from all sectors.

Impacts of Inter-annual Wind and Solar Variations on the European Power System.

Weather-dependent renewable energy resources are playing a key role in decarbonizing electricity. There is a growing body of analysis on the impacts of wind and solar variability on power system operation. Existing studies tend to use a single or typical year of generation data, which overlooks the substantial year-to-year fluctuation in weather, or to only consider variation in the meteorological inputs, which overlooks the complex response of an interconnected power system.