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The purpose of this paper is to compare face‐to‐face versus online course delivery systems in the area of food consumption and to analyse the students' expectations and experiences. It aims to analyse the following dimensions: general expectations, learning organization and interactions in students' discourses. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology adopted is of interpretative nature using semi‐structured qualitative interviews. An interview guide was designed taking into account the learning modalities (styles and strategies), materials and learning tools, teacher‐student interaction and peer interaction dimensions. The students of both courses were interviewed in the second semester of the curricular year of the respective MSc degrees. Findings – This study has shown that face‐to‐face and online students are equally satisfied with their courses revealing the same confirmed general expectations. Comments for both course delivery systems are the need for more laboratory and practical classes. Results from this study also indicated that face‐to‐face and online educations are effective training food consumer sciences students suggesting, however, that both systems should evolve to blended‐learning. Practical implications – Both course delivery systems (face‐to‐face and online) contributed to the competencies acquisition in Food Consumer Sciences. B‐learning appears as the natural convergence of students needs. Originality/value – The online course results of the discourse analysis suggest the success developing a learning community pointing out the role of the online instructor and the course coordinator. The paper provided useful data and knowledge on which further research can be carried out.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the assessment and inclusion of stakeholders' perception, and citizen participation instances to implementing management options to deal with climate threats within the existing institutional framework in Uruguay.

The approach being followed has different directional approaches and integrates them within a single assessment. First, a prescriptive climate change top-down path. Second, stakeholders' perception is assessed within a bottom-up risk-management model. Third, institutional agreements, arrangements, and consensus are reached. Considering the need for agreed and effective options, the approach is customized and turned flexible enough to accept inputs from scientists, managers, and stakeholders.

The co-production of knowledge and the achievement of agreed and feasible options is achieved by means of a consultation process which results in adaptive co-management agreements and collective decisions. This process is seen as both an empowerment of local actors and a multi-stakeholder learning-by-doing experiment. This allows for both an increase in coping capacity to climate threats and facilitates long standing conflict resolution.

Much literature discusses the importance of the role of social power in inclusive processes towards adaptation, and how difficult is ceding a genuine voice to stakeholders. The co-production of knowledge is a way to achieve the rapprochement of scientists with institutional and community actors. Thus, the participatory process gives stakeholders responsibility for identifying their specific needs and priorities and helps to establish community ownership.

The article surveys dairy farmers' lay knowledge of climate change and the adaptation strategies they have implemented to respond to climatic and economic drivers. Dairy farming is highly dependent on local weather and climate. The case study is in Western Victoria, Australia, part of a major dairy farming region that contributes 26 per cent of national milk production and 86 per cent of the country's dairy exports. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study utilised a survey and semi-structured interviews in Corangamite Shire, to document dairy farmers' perceptions of climate variability and the adaptation strategies they have implemented, compared to meteorological data collected on climate variability in the recent past.

Farmers in this region perceive a change in rainfall and temperature broadly in line with meteorological records. Those that have experienced a greater degree of climate variability in drier regions were found to perceive it more accurately. Almost all respondents had already made changes to their dairy businesses, but in doing so only a small percentage were responding directly to seasonal variability or to longer term changes (9 and 15 per cent, respectively); the majority said they were responding to changing economic conditions in the industry.

A primary survey of dairy farming adds to knowledge of how climate variability is perceived, and how it is adapted to in a region heavily reliant on rainfall for its prime economic activity.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of lived experiences, as complementary knowledge to that provided by the sciences, for policy and intervention on climate change.

This conceptual paper draws on several strands within the context of climate change: knowledge and power; human engagement; the meaning of “lived experience” (and its association with “local/indigenous knowledge”); its capture through interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary inquiry; post-normal science; rationalist and public action approaches to policy and intervention. The paper combines these strands from their different literatures, previous work by the authors and interdisciplinary deliberation in a European climate change education project.

The case is made for taking account of lived experiences in climate change policy and intervention, and the dangers of not doing so. The paper, however, also identifies the challenge of establishing the validity of lived experience alongside forms of scientifically derived knowledge, and the practical challenge of capturing it in a form that is accessible to practitioners. It concludes by arguing that a public action approach to policy provides a better lens than the conventional rationalist approach to analyse the contested nature of climate science and the potential of lived experience to inform debates through active engagement.

There has been no empirical study on climate change that addresses the research concerns. This would be necessary to forward the paper's agenda.

The paper makes a case for formalising evidence that is based on lived experience in policy making and intervention, and the approach that is needed.

The work develops the concept of lived experience in the context of climate change. Its public action theory of knowledge provides a novel means of analysing and meeting the challenge of diverse knowledge on climate change.

Religious organizations are among the non-government groups in the USA that are addressing climate change phenomena from their various faith perspectives and, despite the differences in their traditions and practices, are collaborating with one another to achieve their mutual goal – the establishment of policies that will mitigate the real and anticipated perils scientists are forecasting. If sufficiently motivated by their faith, informed by climate science, and politically astute, these groups may be reliable allies for climate change decision-makers to tap as they strive to achieve their mutual goal. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Focusing on the Coalition on Environment and Jewish Life, the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, and Interfaith Power and Light, the author explores the diverse religious faith-based motivations underpinning their efforts, the extent to which they remain cognizant of the latest climate science, the structures through which they share their particular faith perspectives and collaborate with one another, and their efforts to reach decision makers at various levels of governance.

Motivated by their religious faiths, these three organizations demonstrate that they are scientifically informed, politically astute, and collaborative with others in striving to achieve their mutual goal of mitigating the adverse effects of climate change locally to globally.

The three groups on which the author focuses are based in the USA and collaborate with one another. In an earlier presentation prepared for an international conference, the author included two other groups outside the USA, but manuscript length precluded their inclusion in this submission. Perhaps the author's limited study will stimulate scholars to explore other groups in various parts of the world.

To assure and strengthen the momentum already underway, scholars of religions need to probe their foundations for responding to climate change, leaders of religious communities must heighten their efforts to educate their followers accordingly, adherents of religions must be open to embracing their motivating traditions, and religiously based groups must seek to collaborate with one another at various bioregional and political levels to demand actions that will advance a life-sustaining climate.

The author is unaware of studies exploring these three groups using the methodology the author employs for the purposes of describing and assessing the effectiveness of religious groups in addressing human-forced climate change.

This paper aims to explore the local knowledge on climate change, its impacts and the responses they are making at the household or community level to deal with the changes on the basis of their experiences and perceptions.

The study was based on household survey conducted with one male and one female respondent in 202 households. Alongside, series of focused group discussions were conducted with local people to capture the perception on about climate change, its impacts and adaptation strategies applied to enhance their resilience capacity to changing climate. Rainfall and temperature data were collected from Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) for seven and four different stations, respectively, within Kathmandu Valley and analyzed to understand the climatic trend.

The perception of most of the local people on changes in temperature was almost in line with the recorded long-term climatic trend both showing an increasing trend, whereas the perception of decreasing both monsoon and non-monsoon rainfall did not match with the recorded data as the rainfall data analysis did not reflect any clear long-term pattern. People have been facing several impacts such as decrease in water sources, decrease in agricultural crop production, increase in new crop pest and weeds in agricultural crops. Local people are responding to these impacts as per their own skills and traditional knowledge.

This is totally original research article and the impacts and adaptations measures documented in this article may represent the case of peri-urban areas of least developed countries like Nepal.

The purpose of the study was to assess the representation of different world views with respect to climate change in public opinion on the internet.

The authors conducted this world views analysis by means of a content analysis of publicly expressed opinions in the form of online lay reader comments to articles on climate change, published on Dutch newspaper web sites between August 2002 and December 2009. The comments were assigned to the world views of two typologies commonly used in ex ante assessment of climate policies. The classification of an online reader comment was based on world view specific keywords and positions on climate change.

From a set of 2,148 comments to 168 articles found on the web sites of 19 newspapers, 314 comments could be assigned to a particular world view. For both typologies, the distribution of comments over the different world views was highly uneven, with world views characterized as “climate sceptic” scoring more than 90 per cent of the assigned comments. The strong dominance of these “climate sceptic” world views was independent of year, newspaper, and scope of the article.

These findings are in stark contrast with the outcomes of public opinion surveys indicating that only a minority of the population has a preference for a “climate sceptic” world view. The most plausible explanation for this difference is that the contributors of online reader comments are not representative for the Dutch population at large. However, as internet-based opinions have a proven potential to strongly influence the opinion of the general public and politicians on climate change, the authors advise analysts to pay due attention to “climate sceptic” world views in ex ante assessment of the societal support for climate policies.

For a world views analysis, the study is unique both in its focus on internet public opinion and the data source used.