Although global warming has been ongoing for decades, monitoring and detecting climate change remain important task, as evidenced by the abrupt warming of 2023/2024 that caught even scientists by surprise. When will we reach 1.5 °C of global warming above pre- -industrial levels? How unusual is the current temperature from a long-term perspective, and how unusual are current climate extremes? This paper summarizes the challenge of climate change detection over the past 50 years as well as the past 300 years. The paper addresses recent global trends in thermodynamic quantities, as well as longer-term regional trends in temperature and in atmospheric circulation, highlighting the difference between dynamic and thermodynamic quantities with respect to trends. The paper briefly presents historical climate reconstructions that could help in climate change detection and summarizes the global impacts of climate change.

Soils provide the substrate for 95% of human food and essential ecosystem services, such as water regulation and biodiversity, while also serving as the most efficient CO₂ sink on the Earth’s surface. However, soil degradation poses a major threat, with significant changes in most of the Earth’s soil attributed to human activities. Common soil hazards in the Anthropocene include: (i) soil compaction, (ii) salinization, (iii) soil contamination, (iv) landslides, (v) decline in soil organic matter, and (vi) soil erosion. Anthropogenic activities greatly impact soil organic carbon (SOC) through land use and land cover changes, agricultural practices, and land management. Indirect effects, such as wildfires, also influence SOC dynamics. Most studies indicate that land use and land cover changes, along with land management, have a greater impact on SOC than the direct effects of climate change. Soil erosion, though a natural process, is significantly exacerbated by anthropogenic factors, leading to a drastic increase in global erosion rates in the Anthropocene. Numerous challenges, opportunities and knowledge gaps have been identified. However, a deeper understanding of both natural and human-induced soil hazards and challenges is necessary. This short review, highlights that a significant amount of work is still needed to fully comprehend the impacts of human activities on soil. Continued research, exploring new questions, is crucial.

This review article delves into the ways in which geographical thought can enhance tourism studies, particularly at a time when tourism is expanding its impact and transforming into diverse spatial and social configurations. The article contends that there is a reciprocal relationship between geography and tourism, and highlights the heuristics offered by the notions of geographical imaginaries and place performances once they become intertwined. The article presents tourism as a key player in place-making, shaping spatial dynamics through tourist imaginations and practices. Inspired by accounts on art as a form to ‘knowing otherwise’ and the curatorial turn in tourism, the article proceeds as a curated virtual exhibition including four artworks to illustrate the paradoxes of places as ‘tourist stages’, the ecological footprint of tourism, the gendered dimension in tourism, and the return of such a simple act as walking as a topic for tourism. The artworks ‘exhibited’ to advance the review offer direct insights on the experience, enactment, and perception of tourism. The article ultimately suggests that geographical knowledge, when interdisciplinarily engaged across its diverse branches can deepen the understanding of tourism’s complex impact on space and place, and future research should continue to extend beyond academic and disciplinary boundaries to address emerging global challenges.

Participation in societal processes and contributing to decisions are trademarks of an open and democratic society. Successful participation requires informed opinions, which in a majority of issues need orientation in and assessment of spatial context. Ongoing digitization of (not only) geospatial information has greatly increased the accessibility of spatial views, and at the same time facilitates the generation of personal location-centric views and communications. Access to geospatial technologies is the key driver for connecting individuals with the rich and diverse collection of spatial data services. These provide an indispensable context for opinions on issues centred on locations. Apart from this obvious and straightforward case for explicit geospatial enablement and support of participative processes, this paper presents a wider context and issues to be considered by designers of public participation. Drivers of geospatial participation are discussed from the technologies, competences, and policies perspectives, also considering the challenges of prevalent ‘nimby’ mindsets motivating intellectual shortcuts for some citizens participating in decision processes. In addition, the dominance of social media in public discourse simultaneously facilitates informed contributions as well as posing the risk of less informed mirroring of popular views with a predominantly negative attitude. The final section showcases recent sample elements from the author’s teaching experience dedicated to introducing citizen science for collaborative generation of knowledge and in turn using this as a backdrop for participation initiatives. With scientific evidence frequently ignored or confronted with pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, the foundations of today’s democracies based on representation and participation are clearly endangered.

The authors aim to capture the relationships between the employment of temporary and foreign workers and the recent development of export-oriented manufacturing in Poland. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative research, including regression models and 85 in-depth interviews conducted with company managers and trade union representatives, which show that a ‘high road’ of development and limited use of temporary labour are correlated. The propensity to use temporary workers depends on production and/or market conditions, company and managerial strategies, as well as the local labour market situation. It is greater in major urban agglomerations. Interestingly, reliance on foreign workers does not necessarily lead to a race to the bottom in employment conditions.