Emotions play an underestimated role for how humans make meaning about their place in the world and respond to problems. What is most puzzling about climate inaction is that it occurs in spite of the overwhelming knowledge about the problem at stake. By looking at how emotions connect knowledge and action in how humans respond to environmental problems, we can better understand how climate inaction can persist and how transformative change might be enabled.

This paper assesses peoples' knowledge and perceptions of the invasive palm (Trachycarpus fortunei) in Ticino, Switzerland. Such information is important for guiding decision-making and management planning. In general, although the palm induces positive perceptions in most respondents, the majority of people realise the threat that invasions pose to the region. Therefore, most respondents supported the regulations and management for this popular ornamental plant.

In (Anthropo-)Geography, especially in the Anthropocene, the question of what constitutes the human is of utmost interest. In the process, this human is often strangely assumed to be self-evident, almost (self-)explanatory. In the sense of a German Theory, we want to encourage to pose these question on the human anew with Helmuth Plessner and to point out new possible answers. Otherwise these questions are in danger of withering away into a Minimal Anthropology.

This paper examines the intellectual relationship between the influential American geographer Ellen Churchill Semple and her professor, the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel. Semple clearly developed her own theory of anthropogeography from a reading of Ratzel. But she did so in a political context, i.e. post-slavery North America. Her theory clearly expresses that context and her dissatisfaction with particular elements in Ratzel's corpus.

While a broad debate on carceral geographies has been part of human geography and related disciplines in English-speaking academia, there are only scarce publications among German-speaking geographers. This special issue aims at bringing different researchers and their rich and diverse research insights in the carceral field into a dialogue.

With this contribution (which is designed as a positioning), the author pleads for a more consistent consideration of structural influences in the discussion of mortality in (textbook) population geography, and for a critical discussion of these influences. He refers to various conceptions that already have fixed places in human geography – but not in population geography – and that offer starting points for corresponding discussions.

Political ecology emerged half a century ago and was introduced in German speaking countries twenty years later. The article evaluates perspectives (views, arguments, positions) of the first generation of research and compares them with second generation research. It is argued that old and new approaches are to be blamed for their ambivalence towards policy. With a focus on emancipatory perspectives, a repositioning is suggested on radical geography roots.

We modelled potential regional energy landscapes that can be derived from the two-degree target and visualised them based on Geographical Information Systems by using five scenarios involving changes to the planning guidelines. The analyses reveal that the development of a carbon-neutral energy system is possible. Yet the potential spatial patterns of renewable energies differ considerably.

The paper explores the reception and re-elaboration of Friedrich Ratzel's political geography in Italy from the beginning of the 20th century to the Second World War, by focusing on the concept of spazio vitale (living space) and its use by fascist intellectuals and propagandists, who promoted expansionism and the trilateral collaboration with Germany and Japan.