They have lost all hope and behind hope they found new spaces is an essay and a collection of short related texts, written in connection with a similarly named dance piece. It is about dancing joyfully in the age of the climate crisis and trusting that by moving one's own body something else can be moved too.

Mitt projekt är en animerad kortfilm där vi får följa ekollonet Acca och hennes dagliga rutiner. Vi ser henne gå från ung till gammal och hur förutsättningarna runt henne förändras. Examensarbetet är också ett utforskande för mig i en nyfunnen teknik och även ett undersökandeav hur en visuell kreatör kan hålla sin process mer hållbar och klimatsmart. / An animated short film in which we follow the acorn Acca through her daily routines. We watch her go from young to old and observe how the conditions around her change. The degree project is also an exploration for me in a newfound technique, as well as an examination of how a visual creator can keep their process more sustainable and climate-smart.

Climate change and security have been increasingly interlinked since 2007. Initiatives to address climate change within a security agenda are forming by different international institutions, such as the UN Security Council, the NATO and the European Union. This thesis seeks to explore the relationship between climate change and security and to discuss how it is portrayed in the Greek context. By employing a media content analysis and utilizing the Copenhagen School's theory of securitization as a theoretical lens, the language and rhetoric of Greek online media have been scrutinized in order to investigate if there is a case of securitization of climate change in Greece. The findings have been cross-referenced with texts from the articles. The thesis concludes that the securitization of climate change is present in the Greek online media.

This master’s thesis examines aspects of climate change discourse in the news coverage of the climate summit COP28 in the UK’s The Guardian, Germany’s Die Zeit and Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter. Approaching the connection between COP28 and discourse contributes to field of media and climate change as well as climate journalism. By deploying content analysis and critical discourse analysis, my study follows the structure of an explanatory sequential mixed methods design. Analysing 138 articles from The Guardian, Die Zeit and Dagens Nyheter about COP28, this thesis offers an overview and an in-depth exploration of summit themes, voices and discourses. Findings suggest a centring on the theme of fossil fuels in connection to a discourse on human related exploitation of resources and emissions as well as environmental damages. A turn to political and scientific authority voices is noticeable and the Global North’s responsibility remains detached from climate action and climate policy.

For a long time, the tourism industry has had a high growth rate. This depends, amongst other things, on globalization, increased prosperity and increased leisure time. Nowadays, more and more people across the world has the possibility to travel and explore new places, which has resulted in continuous growth for the industry. Besides the positive aspects that tourism is contributing to, the growing mobility implies a huge impact on the climate. The industry’s carbon emissions are especially a contributing factor to climate change, and the continuous growth is leading to higher unsustainability. When the corona pandemic hit, it paralyzed the global tourism industry, and in Sweden the industry has been amongst the most affected. The whole industry is expected to lose huge amounts of money, and tens of millions of jobs are threatened.  However, the corona pandemic could also be perceived as an opportunity to reset and reconstruct the tourism industry in a more sustainable way. Many of the lessons learned from the pandemic, could also be implemented to handle the climate crisis. Instead of going back to the old strategies that existed before the corona crisis, this could be a moment to reconsider how the industry could convert itself into carbon neutrality. Innovation capability is important for the industry’s recovery from the crisis, and that is why we wanted to investigate whether the tourism industry can benefit from the corona crisis, by creating innovation and converting itself to enable a more sustainable tourism. In order to answer the aim of the study, we conducted a mixed methods research, where we interviewed eight different travel companies in Sweden, whilst also conducting a survey to find out how Swedes travel patterns had changed as a response to both the climate crisis and the pandemic. In the study, approximately half of the respondents stated that they had changed their way of travelling because of the climate crisis, whilst a big majority indicated that they had changed their travel pattern because of the pandemic. On the other hand, half of the respondents stated that they will return to the same travel habits as before the pandemic. Our results also indicate that companies in the tourism industry has a high capability to innovate. Many of the companies in the study described that innovation is a way to survive the corona pandemic, while others instead are biding their time and waits until the crisis is over.  According to the results of the study, companies must create innovation in order to enable increased sustainability, but the work that is being done under the pandemic is mainly being concentrated towards the survival of the company, instead of towards increased sustainability. The sustainable development is driven by both the companies themselves and by market demand, but clear guidelines from authorities does also play an important part in the adaption. The results from the study also indicate that even if there has been a lively climate debate, consumers are still more focused on low prices rather than on more sustainable options, which implies that there is a need for government intervention, since the free market cannot adapt towards sustainability by itself. However, there is still hope that the pandemic will lead to that tourism is changing in a more sustainable way, while others think that the tourism will continue as usual, or even rise more than before. / Turistindustrin har länge haft en hög tillväxttakt, vilket bland annat beror på globalisering, ökat välstånd och ökad fritid. Numera har alltfler människor världen över möjlighet till att resa och uppleva nya platser, vilket lett till att branschen har fortsatt växa. Förutom alla de positiva aspekter som turismen för med sig, så innebär den växande rörligheten en enorm klimatpåverkan. Särskilt betonas industrins koldioxidutsläpp som en bidragande faktor till klimatförändringar, och den fortsatta tillväxten leder till att branschen blir allt mer ohållbar. När coronapandemin slog till, lamslog den hela den globala turistindustrin, och i Sverige är denna bransch en av dem som drabbats hårdast under krisen. Hela industrin förväntas förlora enorma summor pengar, samtidigt som tiotals miljoner jobb är hotade. Coronapandemin skulle dock också kunna uppfattas vara en möjlighet för turistindustrin att starta om och rekonstrueras på ett mer hållbart sätt. Många av de erfarenheter som pandemin fört med sig, skulle också kunna implementeras för att kunna hantera klimatkrisen. Istället för att gå tillbaka till strategierna som förelåg innan coronakrisen, kan detta istället vara ett tillfälle för att fundera över hur industrin ska kunna omvandlas till att bli koldioxidneutral. Innovationsförmågan är viktig för att industrin ska kunna återhämta sig efter krisen, och därför ville vi undersöka huruvida turistindustrin kan dra fördel av coronakrisen, genom att omvandlas och skapa innovation för att möjliggöra en mer hållbar turism. För att besvara syftet med studien utförde vi en flermetodsforskning, där vi intervjuade åtta olika reseföretag i Sverige, samt genomförde en enkätundersökning för att ta reda på hur svenskars resande påverkats av både klimatkrisen och pandemin.  Ungefär hälften av respondenterna i studien uppgav att de förändrat sitt resande på grund av klimatkrisen, medan en stor majoritet angav att de förändrat sitt resmönster på grund av pandemin. Å andra sidan kommer över hälften av respondenterna återgå till samma resvanor som innan pandemin. Våra resultat visar också att företag inom turistbranschen har en hög innovationsförmåga. Många av företagen i studien hävdar att innovation är ett sätt att klara sig genom coronapandemin, medan vissa istället avvaktar och väntar ut krisen.  Enligt resultaten från studien måste företag skapa innovation för att möjliggöra en ökad hållbarhet, men det arbete som utförs under pandemin koncentreras huvudsakligen mot företagens överlevnad, snarare än mot ökad hållbarhet. Hållbarhetsutvecklingen drivs både av företagen själva och av marknadsefterfrågan, men tydliga riktlinjer från myndigheter spelar också en viktig roll i omställningen. Studiens resultat visar även att trots att det förekommit en livlig klimatdebatt, så är konsumenter fortfarande mer fokuserade på låga priser snarare än på hållbarare alternativ, vilket implicerar att det krävs att myndigheter ingriper på grund av att den fria marknaden inte klarar av att ställa om mot ökad hållbarhet på egen hand. Det finns däremot hopp om att pandemin kommer resultera i att turismen förändras på ett mer hållbart sätt, medan andra tror att turismen kommer fortsätta som vanligt eller till och med öka mer än tidigare.

Recent academic work proposes that mainstream video games, which are not specifically designed for reflection or persuasion, can have a potential to implicitly encourage reflection on environmental issues and ecology. Some game developers have also echoed this view. Much of this work either does not include a player perspective in the reflection triggering, or mentions its possible inclusion in future studies. The aim of this thesis is to investigate this proposed potential of mainstream video games through the eyes of those who are to receive the environmental message of such videogames - the players. The present thesis builds on previous research in this area as well as on studies of the process of reflection in video games. In-depth interviews with 11 participants about 5 different mainstream videogames were conducted and their content and structure analysed for common themes. The selected videogames were: Red Dead Redemption II, Death Stranding, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Frostpunk and Cities: Skylines. The results point towards a high variability in the player's responses and attitudes towards the proposed climate reflection triggers in these video games. In addition, the analysis highlighted those factors which contribute to or interfere with the process of reflection, which is often accompanied by the...

We live fully embedded in Petroculture - in a society shaped by oil and its outcomes, meanwhile the substance itself stays practically invisible to us. This invisibility impedes our ability to rapidly address environmental issues, while narrating us into large networks of unequal power structures. In this study, I emphasize the necessity of making oil part of our visual vocabulary and attempting to pierce its veiling cloak of invisibility through radical subjectivity, I investigate how might we contextualise the human-fossil fuel industry relationship in a way which will challenge oppressive binary structures and instigate action, in relation to climate crisis.  By asking What do I need to see? I advocate for empowering body-centric practice of self-enquiry through visual thinking, using filmmaking as an intervention tool to point fingers back at oil and facilitate reflection upon the structures that sustain its persistence.  The result of this inquiry is “The 5th Element”, a film installation made with a process of visual questioning and  mapping the experience of living in Petroculture.

One of several ways mankind can collectively do in order to fight the climate crisis and contribute to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions is by switching to a more plant-based diet. Serious games and various gamification tools have been used to raise awareness of current problems and motivate individuals to shift to a more “pro environmental” behaviour. This study focuses on the perceived potential of a gamified application to make dietary changes, as well as on the perceived usefulness of gamification as a tool to achieving a certain goal. In order to seek answers to the aforementioned questions a prototype was developed and an online survey was conducted. The results show that there is a potential of this specific product to help people transitioning towards a more plant-based diet. However, more studies ought to be conducted in order to see the true benefits of it.

This essay tries to find a possible way for us to deal with the questions concerning climate change by looking into an alternative conception of being. One can speak of the ongoing climate change as a crisis that concerns all of human kind and all beings on earth, but how can we fight it together? The situation demands us to re-think how we humans exist together and among other beings. Despite that the situation calls for instant and radical action, we seem unwilling to do enough. We get stuck on questions about who should take action: is it the politicians or each one alone, or is there something in between? By looking more deeply into the concept of Mitsein as Martin Heidegger depicts it in Being and Time, Jean-Luc Nancy brings to light a possible way past the problematic thought of Heidegger. Nancy shows us in Being Singular Plural that Heideggers exposition on Mitsein is a mere sketch when considering the full potential of the concept. By determining Mitsein as being fundamentally-ontologically originary and anterior to the individuation of Dasein, Nancy opens up a whole new field of thought. According to Nancy, the existential analytic has to begin with something like a ”co-existential analytic”, which will draw the lines for how we exist being-with. With a concept like being singular plural and his way of conceptualizing meaning, Nancy might give us some possible tools to cope with our situation today. Nancys actuality is confirmed by the ecological philosopher Mick Smith, who emphasizes the demand for a new approach towards nature and what it means to be. Smith adds to the essay a glimpse of an emerging philosophical discourse about the thought of an ecological community, where the concept of being singular plural could possibly play a central part.

While persons with disabilities are not a homogenous group, most are likely to be disproportionately impacted by climate change and the “natural” disasters that result from these changes. As a social worker living with chronic health conditions and a particular interest in disability and public policy, I was curious about how Canada’s Federal Government climate change policies and initiatives address persons with disabilities and their diverse needs. My research explored how matters of health and disability have been taken up in recent Canadian Federal Government climate change policies and strategies through an analysis of six significant climate change documents. Framed by a feminist, poststructural-inspired critical disability lens, the documents were examined through an inductive approach to reflexive thematic analysis, with the aim of contributing to critical conversations around the intersections of disability justice, climate justice, and related social justice matters. Through reflexive thematic analysis, I identified three key themes: persons with disabilities are widely absent from Canadian Federal Government climate change documents, both as collaborators as well as groups considered in climate change planning; adaptation to climate change and climate resilience are central in government climate mitigation strategies; and healthy and normative body-minds are presumed by the documents, which broadly assume all people have the same capacities to adapt. Subthemes included both a prioritization of the economy, and a foregrounding of a productive, compulsory, able-bodied and able-minded citizen around which climate change strategies are designed. I conclude with some suggestions for how Canada’s climate change policies may become more inclusive for persons with disabilities. / Graduate