Whereas vegetarianism has long garnered attention from nutritional science and philosophy, psychological research exploring this eating behavior has emerged only in the past few decades. Six years ...ago, Ruby (2012) reviewed the extant literature on the psychology of vegetarianism, showcasing its promise as “a blossoming field of study.” In the time since, this line of research truly has blossomed, as subsequent work has addressed prior knowledge gaps and initiated new lines of inquiry. While evidence on previously studied topics of dietary motivation, moral values, gender, differences between vegetarians and vegans, barriers to dietary change, and disordered eating has continued to expand, new lines of research on identity, social experiences, flexitarianism, culture, and prospective vegetarianism have emerged. Recent psychometric advancements, moreover, have constructed useful measures to assess relevant constructs. The current review synthesizes this amalgam of research, identifying emergent themes and highlighting promising directions for future inquiry.
Abstract Over the past decade, the number of studies that investigate aerosol–cloud interactions has increased considerably. Although tremendous progress has been made to improve the understanding of ...basic physical mechanisms of aerosol–cloud interactions and reduce their uncertainties in climate forcing, there is still poor understanding of 1) some of the mechanisms that interact with each other over multiple spatial and temporal scales, 2) the feedbacks between microphysical and dynamical processes and between local-scale processes and large-scale circulations, and 3) the significance of cloud–aerosol interactions on weather systems as well as regional and global climate. This review focuses on recent theoretical studies and important mechanisms on aerosol–cloud interactions and discusses the significances of aerosol impacts on radiative forcing and precipitation extremes associated with different cloud systems. The authors summarize the main obstacles preventing the science from making a leap—for example, the lack of concurrent profile measurements of cloud dynamics, microphysics, and aerosols over a wide region on the observation side and the large variability of cloud microphysics parameterizations resulting in a large spread of modeling results on the modeling side. Therefore, large efforts are needed to escalate understanding. Future directions should focus on obtaining concurrent measurements of aerosol properties and cloud microphysical and dynamic properties over a range of temporal and spatial scales collected over typical climate regimes and closure studies, as well as improving understanding and parameterizations of cloud microphysics such as ice nucleation, mixed-phase properties, and hydrometeor size and fall speed.
Understanding gender differences in meat consumption can help strengthen efforts to improve the sustainability of eating patterns. Compared to women, men eat more meat and are less open to becoming ...vegetarian. Simply considering between-gender differences, however, may overlook meaningful within-gender heterogeneity in how masculine and feminine identities associate with eating behavior. Distinguishing between specific types of meat is also important, given that some meats (e.g., beef) pose greater challenges to sustainability than do other meats. Through a highly powered, preregistered study (N = 1706), we investigated the predictive value of traditional gender role conformity and gender identity centrality for meat consumption frequency and openness to becoming vegetarian. Greater conformity to traditional gender roles predicted more frequent consumption of beef and chicken and lower openness to vegetarianism among men but offered no predictive value among women. No effects were observed for pork or fish consumption. Among women, greater traditional gender role conformity and gender identity centrality were associated with openness to becoming vegetarian for health reasons. Among men, lower traditional gender role conformity was associated with openness to becoming vegetarian for environmental reasons. These findings suggest that understanding meat consumption calls for greater distinctions between specific types of meat as well as deeper consideration of within-gender heterogeneity.
Climate Effects of Aerosol-Cloud Interactions Rosenfeld, Daniel; Sherwood, Steven; Wood, Robert ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
01/2014, Volume:
343, Issue:
6169
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Advances in satellite observations and model development are needed to disentangle the complex interactions of aerosols and clouds and their effects on climate.
Aerosols counteract part of the ...warming effects of greenhouse gases, mostly by increasing the amount of sunlight reflected back to space. However, the ways in which aerosols affect climate through their interaction with clouds are complex and incompletely captured by climate models. As a result, the radiative forcing (that is, the perturbation to Earth's energy budget) caused by human activities is highly uncertain, making it difficult to predict the extent of global warming (
1
,
2
). Recent advances have led to a more detailed understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions and their effects on climate, but further progress is hampered by limited observational capabilities and coarse-resolution climate models.
Over the last decade, vegan advocates have become a growing minority. By arguing against animal-product consumption and imposing the virtue-loaded call to “go vegan,” advocates have posed a direct ...challenge to the mainstream dietary ideology (termed “carnism”) in hopes of positive social change. As a consequence, while vegan advocates may be admired for their morality and commitment, they may also be derogated with moralistic traits such as arrogance and overcommitment. We call this mixed-valence perception the ”vegan paradox” and propose a theoretical framework for understanding it. Next, we develop a future research agenda to test and apply our framework, and inquire vegan advocacy for ethical, health, and environmental aims. Using the perspective of the idealistic vegan advocate as a reference point, we discuss the roles of the advocate's motives for change (i.e., the effectiveness of moral persuasion), the advocate's call for change (i.e., radical versus incremental change), the target's moral and carnist identification, and source attributes of the advocate. Lastly, we qualify our framework by highlighting further conceptual and methodological considerations.
Much recent research has explored vegetarians' dietary motivations, recurrently highlighting the significant influence they exert on how people view themselves and others. For vegetarians and other ...plant-based dieters, dietary motivations have been theorized to be a central aspect of identity. Yet not all plant-based dieters are motivated to follow their diets; rather, some face aversions and constraints. In this paper, we propose that motivations, aversions, and constraints constitute three distinct reasons for consuming a plant-based diet. After conceptually distinguishing motivations from aversions and constraints, we critically evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of two conceptual frameworks that exist for studying these motivations systematically: the ethical-health framework and the Unified Model of Vegetarian Identity (UMVI) motivational orientations framework. Importantly, these frameworks serve different purposes, and their suitability often depends on the research question at hand. Particularly given an increasing prevalence of plant-based dieting, cultivating a more holistic understanding of these two frameworks is necessary for advancing this discipline. Directions for future research are discussed.
By departing from social norms regarding food behaviors, vegetarians acquire membership in a distinct social group and can develop a salient vegetarian identity. However, vegetarian identities are ...diverse, multidimensional, and unique to each individual. Much research has identified fundamental psychological aspects of vegetarianism, and an identity framework that unifies these findings into common constructs and conceptually defines variables is needed. Integrating psychological theories of identity with research on food choices and vegetarianism, this paper proposes a conceptual model for studying vegetarianism: The Unified Model of Vegetarian Identity (UMVI). The UMVI encompasses ten dimensions—organized into three levels (contextual, internalized, and externalized)—that capture the role of vegetarianism in an individual's self-concept. Contextual dimensions situate vegetarianism within contexts; internalized dimensions outline self-evaluations; and externalized dimensions describe enactments of identity through behavior. Together, these dimensions form a coherent vegetarian identity, characterizing one's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors regarding being vegetarian. By unifying dimensions that capture psychological constructs universally, the UMVI can prevent discrepancies in operationalization, capture the inherent diversity of vegetarian identities, and enable future research to generate greater insight into how people understand themselves and their food choices.
Since the European Union's target a domestic greenhouse gas emission reduction of 80% till 2050, as compared to the value of 1990 (European Commission, 2011), there has been an increasing interest in ...greening large industrial processes. Thus, gas greening and alternative emission reduction processes are gaining importance. In this study, a gas greening system for an integrated steel plant, producing synthetic natural gas serving as a substitute for the fossil fuel-based gas, was investigated. The analysed system consisted of a Power-to-Gas unit combined with a biomass gasification plant, where carbon rich steel gases were used as a CO2 source for methanation. To analyse the system, three extreme value scenarios and three constrained scenarios were defined and evaluated. The biomass gasification plant, set to a maximum nominal power of 105 MWth, was the main limiting factor for the constrained scenarios. The assessment included a basic mass and energy balance, techno-economic analysis, sensitivity analysis, and CO2 potential impact analysis. It was found that the main cost influencing factor throughout all six scenarios was the energy supply cost (electricity and biomass).
•A high amount of COX for a potential gas greening system was identified.•Main cost driving factor is the electricity and biomass price.•For a full steel gas usage more than 1000 MW of electrolyser and biomass gasification power each would be necessary.•The carbon reduction potential is 560 Mt CO2,eq with an additional greening potential of up to 600 Mt CO2,eq per year.
The first months of 2020 rapidly threw people into a period of societal turmoil and pathogen threat with the COVID‐19 pandemic. By promoting epistemic and existential motivational processes and ...activating people's behavioral immune systems, this pandemic may have changed social and political attitudes. The current research specifically asked the following question: As COVID‐19 became pronounced in the United States during the pandemic's emergence, did people living there become more socially conservative? We present a repeated‐measures study (N = 695) that assessed political ideology, gender role conformity, and gender stereotypes among U.S. adults before (January 25–26, 2020) versus during (March 19–April 2, 2020) the pandemic. During the pandemic, participants reported conforming more strongly to traditional gender roles and believing more strongly in traditional gender stereotypes than they did before the pandemic. Political ideology remained constant over time. These findings suggest that a pandemic may promote the preference for traditional gender roles.
Measurements done by the Department of Energy/Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program, at the Southern Great Plains, the central Amazon, and on board an oceangoing ship between Honolulu and Los ...Angeles, show that updraft speeds measured by Doppler lidar and 95 GHz cloud radar are tightly linearly correlated with cloud base height (Hb). Based on these relationships, a method of satellite retrieval of maximum (Wmax) and cloud base (Wb) updraft speeds in cloud topped planetary boundary layer is proposed. Hb, as an input for updraft estimation, is obtained from satellite‐retrieved cloud base temperature in combination with 2 m air temperature derived from European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts reanalysis. Validation by the lidar and radar measurements shows good agreements for the satellite retrieval of Wmax with RMSE (root‐mean‐square error) = 0.38 m/s and MAPE (mean absolute percentage error) = 19% and Wb with RMSE = 0.34 m/s and MAPE = 21%.
Key Points
A tightly linear relationship was found between cloud base height and updraft
This relationship works over both ocean and land
A method of retrieving cloud base updrafts from satellite was proposed
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