abstract: Climate adaptation has not kept pace with climate impacts which has formed an adaptation gap. Increasingly insurance is viewed as a solution to close this gap. However, the efficacy and implications of using insurance in the climate adaptation space are not clear. Furthermore, past research has focused on specific actors or processes, not on the interactions and interconnections between the actors and the processes. I take a complex adaptive systems approach to map out how these dynamics are shaping adaptation and to interrogate what the insurance climate adaptation literature claims are the successes and pitfalls of insurance driving, enabling or being adaptation. From this interrogation it becomes apparent that insurance has enormous influence on its policy holders, builds telecoupling into local adaptation, and creates structures which support contradictory land use policies at the local level. Based on the influence insurance has on policy holders, I argue that insurance should be viewed as a form of governance. I synthesize insurance, governance and adaptation literature to examine exactly what governance tools insurance uses to exercise this influence and what the consequences may be. This research reveals that insurance may not be the exemplary adaptation approach the international community is hoping for. Using insurance, risk can be reduced without reducing vulnerability, and risk transfer can result in risk displacement which can reduce adaptation incentives, fuel maladaptation, or impose public burdens. Moreover, insurance requires certain information and legal relationships which can and often do structure that which is insured to the needs of insurance and shift authority away from governments to insurance companies or public-private partnerships. Each of these undermine the legitimacy of insurance-led local adaptation and contradict the stated social justice goals of international calls for insurance. Finally, I interrogate the potential justice concerns that emerged through an analysis of insurance as a form of adaptation governance. Using a multi-valent approach to justice I examine a suite of programs intended to support agricultural adaptation through insurance. This analysis demonstrates that although some programs clearly attempted to consider issues of justice, overall these existing programs raise distributional, procedural and recognition justice concerns. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2020

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The University Area (UA), a low-income, unincorporated neighborhood in Hillsborough County, Florida, is a site of sustainable redevelopment by the local government and nonprofit organizations. Throughout the past decade, the transitions in local and state political climates have significantly impacted the residents’ ability to advocate for infrastructural and environmental improvement to the site. This thesis discusses the findings of a research project dedicated to exploring resident perspectives of stormwater management, infrastructure, and the redevelopment currently occurring the University Area. Drawing from theoretical concepts in political ecology, environmental justice, and the interplay of agency and structure, this research investigates the impacts of flooding on the UA’s residents and infrastructure; specifically, the ways it affects the population’s interaction with their environment. Data were collected using a mixed methods approach including participant observation; semi structured interviews with residents, developers, and community organization employees; ground truthing the area to verify the location of the stormwater drains present in a selection of the UA; a historical review of the area’s land use; and analysis of critical environmental justice databases. Findings indicate that flooding in the University Area is related to historical oppressive housing strategies against minority and low-income populations. Results found that flooding in UA is caused by a combination of faulty infrastructure (impervious surfaces and a subpar, unmaintained stormwater system), increasing rain events (climate change), and the lack of municipality support (power dynamics). The oppressive power dynamic present in the relationship between the residents and their respective property owners and the county municipality services exacerbates problems with flooding. Redevelopment plans in the University Area must address the effects of historical marginalization and disenfranchisement of the current residents with respect to housing segregation and lack of municipality support. Without these considerations, the cycle of disenfranchisement faced by the current residents of the UA will likely continue and worsen over time.

Årligen genomförs tusentals miljökonsekvensbeskrivningar (MKB) i Sverige i samband med fysisk planering. Social hållbarhet utgör en grundpelare för hållbar samhällsutveckling. I mån om att uppnå det inom fysisk planering krävs metoder för att mäta, utvärdera och förutspå sociala aspekter av utformandet. Miljökonsekvensbeskrivningar besitter en särställning genom att vara den enda metoden som utifrån detta är reglerad enligt lag för att beskriva sociala konsekvenser. Tidigare forskning har riktat kritik mot miljökonsekvensbeskrivningar i form av att de snävt inkluderar sociala aspekter. Studiens syfte var att undersöka i vilken utsträckning sociala aspekter tas hänsyn till i strategiska MKB: er för detaljplaner. För att uppfylla studiens syfte har en kvalitativ innehållsanalys med deduktiv ansatts tillämpats. Ett granskningsschema användes för att analysera fem utvalda MKB-dokument i relation till tidigare forskning och teoretiskt ramverk. Det teoretiska ramverket grundas i politisk ekologi, miljörättvisa, demokrati och deltagande. Resultat bekräftar kritiken som tidigare forskning riktar mot MKB: er. Människor visades återkommande presenteras som en homogen grupp och identifierades inte utifrån olika sociala förutsättningar. Hänsynstagande till sårbara grupper varierade även inom respektive MKB. Studien visar också på att granskade MKB: er inte utvecklar i vilken utsträckning de tagit vara på det demokratiska verktyget samråd. Avslutningsvis visades det vara möjligt att dra slutsatsen om att MKB: er besitter en stor potential till att främja ett socialt hållbart samhälle. En möjlighet som medverkare i dess utformning bättre bör utnyttja. / Thousands of environmental impact assessment (EIA) are implemented in Sweden every year. Social sustainability is one of three stakeholders of a sustainable society. Considering physical planning in the society required methods such as measure, evaluate and predict social aspects has been proved to be important to achieve social sustainability. EIA are today the only method that are regulated by Swedish laws with the aim to include social aspects. Previous research has criticized EIA for its narrow definition and implementation of social aspects. The aim of this study is to examine how social aspects are included in EIA:         detailed development plans, to achieve this a qualitative study has been used. Five EIA documents have been analyzed against an own designed examination. The social aspects which has been found in the documents has also been analyzed through the study’s theoretical framework which includes theories as political ecology, environmental justice, participation and democracy. Main findings of this study proved to be consistent with previous research criticisms to EIA. People are observed to be presented as a homogeneous group in EIA documents and differences in social conditions and capacity are not being considered. The main findings also include that consideration about vulnerable groups could differ between the EIA documents. Another notable finding from this study is that EIA don’t show how they achieve to implement public consultation. Finally, it is possible to conclude that the EIA have a great potential to contribute to a socially sustainable society - An opportunity that EIA developers should take better use of.

Ecofeminism has long demonstrated how patriarchal structures and masculine norms constitute major obstacles for a transition to an ecologically and socially just society. In recent years, this has been illustrated by the hegemonic masculine performances of world leaders such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. There is a vital need to engage men in changing these structures and norms in favour of environmental and social care. Therefore, pro-feminist and pro-environmental reflective groups for men have been initiated in Sweden. This study explores how men who have participated in these groups narrate the global ecological crisis and their role in it. The political power of these personal narratives must be understood as part of a discursive struggle in the international arena. The narratives construct these men in a way that positions social and environmental justice as normative. This, in turn, challenges the prevailing norms and enables different international environmental politics.

This thesis investigates the portrayal of non-violent direct action (NVDA) in This Is Not a Drill: An Extinction Rebellion Handbook by considering the two chapters “Courting Arrest” by Jay Griffiths, and “The Civil Resistance Model” by Roger Hallam. Using critical discourse analysis in the style of Norman Fairclough, I examine the textual features, discourse practices, and social practices of the chapters by applying theories of environmental justice, intersectionality, and embodiment. I argue that Griffiths and Hallam reproduce oppressive power structures by excluding certain identities and experiences from their discourse. First, the lack of a discussion of the situatedness of violence within the NVDA strategy employed by Extinction Rebellion – focusing on having as many protestors arrested as possible – represents the acts of arrest as inherently non-violent. This representation erases other possible experiences of arrest from the discourse. Second, the authors portray their own experiences as universal, and thereby create a universal subject that is white, middle-class, able-bodied, and a legal resident of the UK. Discourse is seen as both constitutive of, and constituted by, the social world; this portrayal of subjectivities is shown to have very real effects on to what degree certain identities feel at home within the Extinction Rebellion movement. I conclude the study with a discussion of possible paths for Extinction Rebellion and other similar movements to become more inclusive by adopting a more intersectional perspective that acknowledges the embodied realities of different identities. By applying this perspective, these movements can start working against hegemonic structures of oppression that exclude certain (non-white) identities from decision-making processes.

Uppsatsen analyserar samråds- och dialogprocesserna vid planeringen av Väsjöområdet i Sollentuna kommun ur ett miljörättviseperspektiv, för att utreda hur dessa processer kan förbättras i att inkludera underrepresenterade grupper. Uppsatsen utreder även vilken syn på natur och miljö som förmedlas vid dessa processer och vad det får för påverkan på vem som ska involveras. Studien har utförts i form av en fallstudie där informanter från Sollentuna kommun intervjuats och dokument rörande exploateringen av Väsjöområdet studerats. Uppsatsens teoretiska ramverk består av miljörättvisa och medborgardeltagande. Den geografiska avgränsningen för uppsatsen utgår från de upprättade detaljplaneområdena gällande Väsjöområdet och tiden mellan juni 2006 och våren 2014. Resultatet visar att Sollentuna kommun vid en del av de samråd och dialoger som hållits arbetat aktivt för att öka den deltagande delen av befolkningen. Det visar även att bilden av natur och miljö fokuserar på lokal påverkan på den lokala miljön. Det gör det viktigt att involvera den lokala befolkningen. Dock saknas det en diskussion om Väsjöområdets framtida befolknings miljöpåverkan genom sin konsumtion.

Denna uppsats syftar till att klarlägga de diskurser som förekommer i Sveriges klimatpolitiska handlingsplan 2019/2020, i relation till perspektiven ekologisk modernisering, säkerhetisering och miljörättvisa. Genom en kritisk diskursanalys påvisas att handlingsplanen, som antas vara en produkt av de diskurser som förekommer i det svenska politiska samtalet generellt, i hög grad reproducerar en diskurs om ekologisk modernisering. Texten relaterar i mindre utsträckning till perspektiven säkerhetisering och miljörättvisa, och den förhärskande diskursen om ekologisk modernisering väcker frågor om hur exempelvis målkonflikter och rättighetsproblematik vid resursutvinning kommer att hanteras av politiken i framtiden. / The purpose of this thesis is to expose what discourses are present in the climate policy action plan presented by the Swedish government in 2019. The material is analysed through acritical discourse analysis, with the three theories of securitization, ecological modernizationand environmental justice as a theoretical frame. The results of the study show that in this particular document, the discourse of ecological modernization is highly present, whereas the discourse of securitization is only present in small parts. The discourse of environmental justice is hardly present at all, and this raises questions about how potential goal conflicts regarding resource extraction, in the name of green transitioning, will be handled by the political sphere in the future.

In 2016, An estimated 15,000 people representing 400 Indigenous Nations and non-indigenous allies gathered at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in solidarity against the Dakota Access Pipeline to protect Mni Sose, the Missouri River. They became known as the Water Protectors. This dissertation analyzes the response in environmental philosophy journals to the #noDAPL protest at Standing Rock. Even though the Stand at Standing Rock became one of the most important and monumental environmental protests of the last decade, neither Standing Rock nor the Water Protectors appear in environmental philosophy journals at all--not once. Why? I suggest a possible answer by exploring the Stand of the Water Protectors as a moment in a much longer continuous history of resistance to settler colonialism. Settler colonialism attempts to facilitate the erasure of Indigenous populations by colonial ones, in order to gain access to territory—to land. The omission of Standing Rock from environmental philosophy journals represents the ease with which environmental philosophy can become complicit in the project of settler colonial erasure and replacement through absence. Drawing on Indigenous land-based philosophies of kinship, Latin American decolonial philosophy, settler colonial theory, and frameworks of Indigenous environmental justice, I show how the geo-politics of colonialism have come to produce environmental injustice and planetary ruin. I work to break the silence on Standing Rock in environmental philosophy and allow the Water Protectors example to guide the project toward an environmental philosophy which centers colonialism and Indigenous resurgence as core concerns.

In this thesis, I explore and analyse narratives around toxic and scarred landscapes. The aim of the thesis is to understand human views and experiences of anthropogenic environments through narratives of contamination and toxicity. Some concepts used throughout the thesis are landscape, heritage, ghost, and trauma. The research is situated in the transdisciplinary field of environmental history and utilises multidisciplinary academic research, art works, and several different media outlets as sources of data. Many brief examples of toxic sites are given along the way to demonstrate discussed themes in practice, but two specific landscapes are explored in detail. These are Bikini Atoll in Marshall Islands, an island remaining radioactive to date due to Cold War era weapon testing, and the town of Teckomatorp in Sweden, a remediated site of a chemical industry scandal. Furthermore, an academic environmental justice project Toxic Bios (KTH, Stockholm) is analysed as a medium of narrative creation and several visual artists’ works are brought up alongside news articles and cinematography. This thesis is an exploratory journey and it aspires to contribute to bridging academic disciplines as well as encouraging expression of individual stories and subjective viewpoints in narrations of scarred landscapes. Findings of the thesis link to previous research on landscapes as experienced and temporal – toxic landscapes are narrated constantly through many perceptions, storylines, and branches of research. Some reoccurring themes are sickness, environmental justice, tensions between local and global levels of narration, fascinating but controversial depictions of toxicity’s aesthetics and individual experiences of dramatic pasts in non-dramatic present. Individual stories, counter-hegemonic narratives, and transdisciplinary practices are needed in order to create deeper understanding of living in the Anthropocene.