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Abstract The introduction of climate change studies in universities has a fundamental role in helping the general public, especially the next generations, to recognize the global challenges of climate change and to find ways of adapting to the changing climate. This study examined the level of climate change education and perception of Nigerian university graduates. A mixed method approach was used to obtain data relating to perceptions, understanding, and level at which climate change has...

The buildings sector, being a leading energy consumer, would need to lead in conservation efforts as well. There is a growing consensus that variability in indoor conditions can be acceptable to occupants, improve comfort perception, and lower building energy consumption. This work endeavours to scrutinise and summarise studies that examined human thermal and comfort perception to such variations in the indoor environment: spatial transients, non-uniformities, and temperature drifts. We also...

BACKGROUND For centuries, thinkers have considered whether and how climatic conditions influence the nature of societies and the performance of economies. A multidisciplinary renaissance of quantitative empirical research has begun to illuminate key linkages in the coupling of these complex natural and human systems, uncovering notable effects of climate on health, agriculture, economics, conflict, migration, and demographics. ADVANCES ...

Climate change has become one of the major Environmental problems facing the world today and the media has been central in making public the distressing evidence of a wide range of its implications on Agriculture, Ecosystems and health. Climate change knowledge and awareness creation are essential for successful adaptation and mitigation. The present study was conducted in the Birim Central Municipal, Ghana, and 400 Senior High Students were randomly selected from five schools. Both closed...

While there is considerable interest in understanding the climate–migration relationship, particularly in the context of concerns about global climatic change, little is known about its underlying mechanisms. In the paper, we combine a rich panel data on annual bilateral international migration flows with an extensive data on climate variability across the countries to investigate in-depth the climate–migration link. We find a positive and statistically significant relationship between...

Climate change, especially the warming trend experienced in recent years by several countries, could affect agricultural productivity. As a consequence the income of rural populations will change, and with it the incentives for people to remain in rural areas. Using data from 115 countries between 1960 and 2000, we analyze the effect of differential warming trends across countries on the probability of either migrating out of the country or from rural to urban areas. We find that higher...

Recent increase in green-roof installation has increased irrigation water consumption which could be wasteful using conventional watering management protocol. The knowledge gap in irrigation optimization to achieve water conservation could be filled. The complicated conventional approach uses weather and soil sensors to calculate watering needs, which is impractical and not cost-effective. This study employs artificial intelligence algorithms composed of artificial neural network and fuzzy...

Given the acceleration of economic changes in Sub-Saharan Africa economies (SSA), a better understanding of the relationship between economic growth and pollution is essential for policy makers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of economic, financial and institutional developments on CO2 emissions for 25 SSA countries over the period 1996–2010. We use the reduced form modeling to control unobserved heterogeneity specific to countries and the GMM dynamic panel method to...

Understanding the potential impacts of climate change on economic outcomes requires knowing how agents might adapt to a changing climate. We exploit large variation in recent temperature and precipitation trends to identify adaptation to climate change in US agriculture, and use this information to generate new estimates of the potential impact of future climate change on agricultural outcomes. Longer run adaptations appear to have mitigated less than half—and more likely none—of the large...

Objective To study indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in elementary school buildings and its association with students’ learning outcomes. Methods Measurements of ventilation rates and temperatures were recorded during school days in 108 classrooms in 60 schools in the spring and summer of 2007; background information on 3514 school buildings was retrieved from the Finnish population register. Data on school environment and students’ health were collected by questionnaires from 4248 students...

This qualitative study examines what four pre-service and six practicing geography educators in Singapore schools believe to be the purpose of climate change education, and how this intersects with their beliefs about student readiness to handle controversy within climate change education. A key finding of this study indicates that the teachers’ understandings about the purpose of climate change education played the most important role in shaping their perspectives about introducing...

Summary The exponential growth of scientific literature – which we call the ‘big literature’ phenomenon – has created great challenges in literature comprehension and synthesis. The traditional manual literature synthesis processes are often unable to take advantage of big literature due to human limitations in time and cognition, creating the need for new literature synthesis methods to address this challenge. In this paper, we discuss a highly useful literature synthesis approach,...

Purpose Previous studies indicate that teachers have higher asthma prevalence than other non-industrial worker groups. Schools frequently have trouble maintaining indoor relative humidity (RH) within the optimum range (30-50%) for reducing allergens and irritants. However, the potential relationship between classroom humidity and teachers’ health has not been explored. Thus, we examined the relationship between classroom humidity levels and respiratory symptoms among North Carolina...

The study was designed to evaluate and identify the training needs of extension workers on climate change related issues in Zamfara Agriculture Development Project, Zamfara State of Nigeria. A total of 120 sample size was selected and divided into two zones and ADP headquarters namely: Gummi Zone-I (70), Kaura Namoda Zone-II (40) and headquarters (10). Face to face interview was conducted to get the accurate results. Data were analysed using frequencies, mean, percentages and descriptive...

The prediction of the air temperature (IT) and relative humidity (IH) in a building can help to reduce energy consumption for air conditioning. The purpose of this work was to apply the artificial neural network (ANNs) for an hourly prediction, 24–672h in advance of (IT) and (IH) in buildings found in hot-humid region. The inputs used in the model are 12 last values of indoor and outdoor air temperature and relative humidity. The experimental building is built with cement hallow block in...

Climate change and variability are key challenges facing the planet and humanity, particularly in South Africa. The complexity of climate as an interconnected system, including earth and socio-ecological systems and ‘deeper’ thinking, requires critical enquiry as well as reflexive and transformative education approaches. This paper provides a synoptic overview of three emerging South African cases of teacher education materials development, high school material design, and the design and...