Richard Langlais

• Founder, CEO at AREL Scientific AB, Lund Sweden

Research on gender dimensions of climate change response is needed if we are to succeed in providing decision-makers with a relevant scientific basis for climate change policy. Although action at the municipal level has become a high priority for Swedish climate change response, knowledge of how gender perspectives affect that response is scarce. T...

This article elaborates on and discusses gendered dimensions of climate change response in Swedish municipalities. There are indications that attitudes and behaviour to the environment and climate change are gendered. This evidence together with our own work further indicates that gender awareness is most probably an important influence on how muni...

Linking knowledge with action for effective societal responses to persistent problems of unsustainability requires transformed, more open knowledge systems. Drawing on a broad range of academic and practitioner experience, we outline a vision for the coordination and organization of knowledge systems that are better suited to the complex challenges...

Mitigation measures, especially municipal energy infrastructure transformation, have been the focus of Sweden’s climate change responses. Recently, adaptation measures have grown in priority and planners are challenged to integrate mitigation and adaptation. In our study, we observe how synergies and conflicts in adaptation, mitigation, and other s...

Despite debate about how scientific knowledge production is in transition from Mode 1 to Mode 2, there has been little discussion of the implications for research education and its organisation in university departments. We have found that preparing new researchers for such transitional conditions requires a re-focusing of their training, with an e...

To learn more about the formation, transformation and interaction of knowledge networking, we studied two processes of commercialisation of scientific knowledge. Both involved a Lactobacillus strain - Lp299v, in Sweden, and LGG, in Finland - and two different companies. The first, a small science company, was established expressly to commercialise...

A theory of the embodiment of action is proposed. Reflections on relations between human intentions, the human body and the notion of agency lead us to argue that phenomenological analysis is not sufficient for such a theory. Our consideration, that the most fundamental level of embodied agency is that of life itself, brings us to the philosophy of...

Part of the rapid change in thinking about security and security policy is occurring in northern Europe. Notions of “hard” and “soft” security are being implemented, most notably in the Visby Process of the Baltic Sea states. These variations of national security also interact with those of the United States and NATO. The direction of US security p...

Title: Dependency, Autonomy, Sustainability in the Arctic Editors: Hanne Petersen and Birger Poppel. Published by: Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999 ISBN: 1–84014–701–6 Brief description: Title: Security in the European North: From ≪Hard≫ to ≪Soft≫ Editors: Lassi Heininen and Gunnar Lassinanti. Published by: Rovaniemi, Finland: Arctic Centre, University...

I asked the driver if he would let us off before we came in sight of the Potala. After two-and-a-half months, most of it walking, on the route from Chengdu to Lhasa, it felt appropriate to enter the city on foot. The mountains now ahead of us looked familiar; I was certain they were the same ones I had seen in old photographs of the city. The bus r...

“Tibetans are not against progress, nor living comfortably. Nor are we necessarily against the Chinese. But when we look at the last thirty years in Tibet, then we have to ask ourselves how much things have improved. Not much, we can say. In some ways, yes, but you just have to look at the Chinese part of town to see that the Chinese are looking af...

As the hot sun of my last morning in Chengdu edged over the horizon, I waded through the dusty crowds to the bus station. People were clustered all around the small stands where they could buy long sticks of bread cooked in hot oil, slurp bowls of rice porridge and sip tea. I was in a hurry to get to the buses, however, so didn’t stop for anything.

Wedged in at the convergence of several deep valleys lay Dêgê, site of centuries of book printing, theological study and intrigue, far from Lhasa yet exerting considerable theocratic dominance in the Buddhist world. The road from the east wound through lines of poplars; meandering in pleasant shade beside the river, it passed in front of dozens of...

The most well-kept things in Riwoqê were the trees and the earth-receiving station. The poplars were planted inside fences made of wooden pickets painted blue, with their sharp tips carefully daubed in red. Around the trunks a trough had been dug so that when the trees were watered, the water would stay in place. The trees received the rays from th...

The Chinese pagoda was a disco. The grand opening gala was scheduled to take place two weeks from then. Finishing touches to the woodwork and painting were not quite completed. It was a garish, hexagonal structure about four stories high, painted mostly in yellow with the roof covered in red, green and yellow tiles. Over the door the Chinese charac...

Garze is a small town very close to the current border of Tibet. Across the river valley from the town is an imposing mountain wall. It reminds one of China; its mass enormous, it is a face without details. Looming and overpowering, it looks down on the little settlement, letting it lie free, for now, from sudden avalanche, rockfall, or other catas...

The inn wasn’t too bad by the standards that we had become accustomed to. It wasn’t full of garbage and, because our dusty room was on the second floor, we were one storey removed from more dust. There was more light, as well; the fly-specked windows made it appear to filter in pleasantly after its transit through the leafy crowns of the trees bord...

Baqên, the district’s headquarters, was even more garrison-like than other towns, surrounded not only around its perimeter, but around every unit, by high walls. Walking between these high walls down narrow streets, compared to having spent the better part of several months in wide valleys and open grasslands, was disconcerting. The closed-in feeli...

We were nervous walking through the teeming streets. We had left the world of buses behind, preferring to rely on the method of chance. At any moment we might be seen by the police, who might pick us up and send us back the other way. The worst part of it was that we weren’t sure whether we should be worried about it. Perhaps the police were conten...

In Chengdu, in the springtime, the best conversation can be found in the outdoor terraces of the teahouses. When you first arrive, you feel dismayed at the chances of finding a seat. The sight of several hundred people all sitting close together in small circles, laughing and talking loudly, shouting for the attention of the waiters so they’ll pour...

Much restored by the dip and the company of so many energetic young women, it would be possible to remain cheerful for a couple of more days until the nearly desperate food situation engendered a touch of glumness. The women had a few treats, such as chocolate and some dried fruit, in their bags to contribute to our meagre hoard of rations, but our...

Bibliogr. s. 217-221

Theoretical speculations in human ecology can be motivated by the conclusion that practical measures are required in order to ameliorate human society’s environmental problems. One such practical measure is to change attitudes towards the environment. The attitude of holism is one of the prescriptions which human ecologists, in their study of human...

basis of several premises.45 In my understanding, this commentary is intended for a number of readers, those who: carried out the project; were the subjects of the project; financed the project; or are other actors, of which there are many categories, working with various aspects of regional development. It is possible that some readers will fit mo...