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Global warming is a huge challenge faced by the mankind in the twenty‐first century and beyond. The paradox of ecology lies in the pervasive attitude of lay people who overtly condemn pollution but do not alter their individual practices. Unfortunately, the scientific community has still not reached unanimous conclusions about the causes or impacts of global warming. To close this gap, the present paper aims to stimulate discussion in two main senses: the relationship between industry and global warming; and the role of tourism in the coming decades.

Based on reading and criticism of many works, this paper provides a conceptual framework for readers to understand social adjustment and adapting to climate change.

Many sources blame the tourism industry as being one of the major contributors to global warming and want the industry to take proactive moves to help address this. The present analysis exerts considerable criticism over the existent literature that presents tourism as a vehicle towards mitigation of the greenhouse effect. Based on the theory of commons, the paradox of Giddens and the consuming life, the main thesis of this paper is that modernity has created a symbolic bubble that confers a certain security to viewers but transforms them in consumed objects.

The originality of this research lies in the assumption that global warming or climate change generates a paradox. As a form of cultural entertainment, ecology and global warming form (jointly to apocalypse theories of bottom days) a new way of enhancing the consumption, where tourism unfortunately does not seem to be an exception. The theatricalization of danger contributes to the creation of an underlying state of emergency that is seen but not recognized. As Hurricane Katrina and other disasters show, people only take a stance when the economic order is endangered. Global warming as a phenomenon was considered seriously only when international leaders envisaged the potential economic losses of its effects, and not before. Following this, the tragedy of commons, as Graham puts it, explains the reasons why well‐being can, under certain conditions, be a double‐edge sword.

Sustainable atmospheric management today involves a complex set of issues arising from the deliberate or inadvertent use of the atmosphere as a repository for waste products arising from human activities. Urban pollution affects human health, building materials and vegetation. Acidic emissions and excess nutrients produce both acid rain and dry deposition that affect terrestrial, freshwater and ocean chemistry and ecosystems. The production and effects of atmospheric pollution can transcend national boundaries and thus mitigation will require cooperation on regional and global levels, as well as local action. Global pollution includes greenhouse gases and atmospheric particles which are changing the global climate and affecting human health. While technological solutions will play an important part, the large reductions in emissions necessary to achieve sustainability will involve adopting lifestyles that conserve energy and minimise pollution. These concerns were foreshadowed in the writings of Fritz Schumacher.

Scientists are constructing knowledge about global warming by adapting evidence-based disciplines to reflect the Precautionary Principle. It is equally important to communicate the complexities and uncertainties underpinning global warming because inappropriate vehicles for giving accounts could result in defensive decisions that perpetuate the business-as-usual mindset: the method of communication affects how the risk associated with global warming is socialised. Appropriately constructed accounts should facilitate reflective communicative action. Here Beck's theorisation of risk society, Luhmann's sociological theory of risk and Gandhi's vehicle of communicative action (or satyagraha) are used to construct a risk-based accountability mechanism, whilst providing insight into Schumacher's concept of total accountability. These accountability constructs will be illustrated through the lived experiences of South Australian citrus horticulturists in the context of a richly layered narrative of competing discourses about global warming. The reiterative process of theory informing practice is used to construct a couple of dialogical vehicles of accountability.

To make the issue stark, let us begin with a few assumptions. I believe that these assumptions are probably roughly accurate, but none is certain, and I will not try to justify them here. Instead, I will simply take them for granted for the sake of argument.¹

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, to give a concise account of the current global climate situation, its previous history according to the palaeoclimate record, and climate scientists’ predictions of the consequences of various scenarios of global climate change. Then to explain why so many people continue to be oblivious to the enormous risks of continuing with business as usual.

The approach is through a comprehensive study of the relevant evidence and the scientific and scholarly literature, interwoven with philosophical reflections on their significance.

The findings are as follows: the evidence for the anthropogenic nature of global warming is overwhelming, and the prognoses for continued burning of fossil fuels (sea level rise, extreme weather, etc.) are dire. The denial stems in large part from the undue influence of climate scepticism movements, lavishly funded by the fossil fuel industries, combined with a variety of psycho-social and economic factors.

The implications are several. Given the complex nature of global warming, scientists need to do a better job of communicating their findings to the general public, and scholars and academics need to find ways to expose the machinations of the fossil fuel industries. And given the global impact of climate change, citizens of the developed nations need to see that a radical change in their behaviour is demanded not only by considerations of social justice but also even by their own self-interest.

The value of this philosophical approach is that it affords a more comprehensive view of the situation around global warming than we get from the more specialised disciplines.

This study aims to make sense of global warming. Using the concept of design science (as distinct from explanatory science) and by drawing on recent debates in management and organization studies, the study considers whether the principal mission of human resource development (HRD) research should be to design and develop actionable knowledge that practitioners in organizations can use to solve their pressing field problems. By way of illustration, it poses the question of whether HRD research, in terms of design science principles, can offer solutions to one of the most pressing problems confronting humanity, i.e. global warming.

The study does this from the perspective of dual process theories of human cognition in discussing the arguments presented by various researchers that experiential/intuitive modes of sensemaking are more likely to mobilize effective pro-environmental behaviours than are the traditional rational/analytical modes of sensemaking employed in many HRD and educational interventions and programmes.

An inference that may be drawn is that HRD research may be better positioned not as an academic discipline nor as subordinate or superordinate to human resource management, but rather as an emergent solution-oriented “design science”.

The study uses design science perspective for HRD.

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, to show how the financial power of the fossil fuel industries and the prevalence of religious ideology in Congress are the two major obstacles preventing the U.S. government from taking action to slow down global warming. Then to evaluate various approaches to ‘satisfying our energy needs’, by showing a crucial dynamic behind our insatiable drive to consume energy, and to propose some ways of circumventing the current obstacles.

The approach is through a comprehensive study of the relevant evidence and academic literature, interwoven with philosophical reflections on their significance.

The findings are as follows: a major root of the current problem is the dysfunctional political system in the United States, which is corrupted by vast infusions of money from the fossil fuel industries and the dogmatic religious beliefs of Republicans in key positions on Congressional committees.

The implications are several. The proposed technological solutions to the ‘energy problem’ – nuclear power, carbon sequestration, fracking for natural gas and geo-engineering – only address the symptoms and ignore the dynamic that underlies them, exemplified in the story of Prometheus. If we continue to be driven by the Promethean spirit, we risk being subject to excruciating punishment as a result. The solution to our problems is a transition to clean and renewable sources of energy, accompanied by the kind of reduction in material desires that evidently makes for lives that are more fulfilled.

The value of the philosophical perspective on this topic is that it highlights questions of value that otherwise remain inexplicit.

Visualising change needs could be complex. One way of sense-making is to use process-based system models. Global warming requires major changes in many fields and especially for cement manufacturing, which represents a growing portion of man-made carbon emissions. The industry has proposed measures for change, but it is difficult to assess how good these are and more sense-making is needed to clarify the situation. The purpose of this paper is to visualise opportunities and threats for global cement manufacturing in the context of global warming, using a process-based system model.

Available data for cement manufacturing and for carbon emissions are combined both historically and as predictions based on chosen key performance indicators. These indicators are related to a chosen process-based system model.

The results indicate that the global cement industry does not have a viable plan to reduce carbon emissions sufficiently to comply with the objectives of maintaining global warming below 2°C. The application of the process-based system model indicates that it has the ability to visualise important opportunities and threats at the level of global processes.

The challenges of the world cement industry with reducing carbon emissions are highlighted. This information could be useful as a driver for change.

The paper provides insights into process-based improvement work related to cement industry carbon emissions.