The role of committed minorities in climate change action : qualitative insights from a social-climate model
department or school: Science, Irving K. Barber Faculty of (Okanagan)
department or school: Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Statistics, Department of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCO
creator: Wyse, Sarah Kathleen
issued: 2024-06-17T08:06:21Z
issued: 2024
related degree: Master of Science - MSc
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: It is known that human activity is driving extreme weather patterns and extreme events impact climate change mitigation behaviour (Demski et al., 2016; IPCC, 2021). However, few models allow for human behaviours and the climate to dynamically interact. The models presented in this thesis are an initial step to filling this gap. These models contain three components: a social model, a climate model, and a means to connect the two into a social-climate model. First, I study a social model to determine the conditions under which a committed minority can influence the greater population and overturn a pre-established social convention. I formulate a new tool, opinion response functions, that analytically computes the steady states of my social model and allows for a study of the bifurcation structure as the committed minority size changes. I find that a committed minority and memory bank length play a vital role in causing a population to tip and shifting public opinion. Second, I modify an existing climate model to include climatic variability. With this very simple climate model, I obtain results that are comparable with more complex models. Lastly, I connect my social and climate models in a feedback loop. My results demonstrate that the social-climate feedback loop may be important in accurately predicting future temperatures, in contrast to the standard approach where human behaviour is considered fixed. Additionally, I find that a sufficient number of extreme events, occurring over a sufficiently short time span, is needed to shift the population into action (i.e., cause the social convention to be overturned through a tipping event) and the time at which the tipping event occurs has a large impact on future temperatures.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/88472
note: The Role of Committed Minorities inClimate Change ActionQualitative Insights from a Social-Climate ModelbySarah Kathleen WyseB.Sc. Hons., The University of British Columbia, 2021A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OFTHE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFMASTER OF SCIENCEinTHE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES(Mathematics)THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA(Okanagan)June 2024© Sarah Kathleen Wyse, 2024The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommendto the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis/dissertation en-titled:The Role of Committed Minorities in Climate Change Actionsubmitted by Sarah Kathleen Wyse in partial fulfilment of the require-ments of the degree of Master of ScienceDr. Eric Foxall, Irving K. Barber Faculty of ScienceSupervisorDr. Rebecca Tyson, Irving K. Barber Faculty of ScienceCo-SupervisorDr. Bert Baumgaertner, University of IdahoSupervisory Committee MemberDr. John R.J. Thompson, Irving K. Barber Faculty of ScienceSupervisory Committee MemberDr. John Janmaat, Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social SciencesUniversity ExamineriiAbstractIt is known that human activity is driving extreme weather patterns andextreme events impact climate change mitigation behaviour (Demski et al.,2016; IPCC, 2021). However, few models allow for human behaviours andthe climate to dynamically interact. The models presented in this thesis arean initial step to filling this gap. These models contain three components: asocial model, a climate model, and a means to connect the two into a social-climate model. First, I study a social model to determine the conditionsunder which a committed minority can influence the greater populationand overturn a pre-established social convention. I formulate a new tool,opinion response functions, that analytically computes the steady statesof my social model and allows for a study of the bifurcation structure asthe committed minority size changes. I find that a committed minorityand memory bank length play …
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2024-09
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0443976
language: eng
degree discipline: Mathematics
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Foxall, Eric
contributor: Tyson, Rebecca
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88472