Society and Climate

The following sections are included:

• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Overview

Climate constitutes one of the most important general conditions for human existence. It is no surprise that over the centuries, climate has been a recurrent theme of social, cultural and scientific reflection. Numerous accounts identified climate as an explanatory factor of the nature of human civilisation and its particular forms, successes and failures. In the first volume of his famous treatise Cosmos, A Physical Description of the Universe, the German polymath Alexander von Humboldt’s broad definition of climate (above) refers to its profound effects on the human condition. The horizon of social expectation and imagination was understood to be set, at least in part, by the climate. Thus, as Eva Horn notices, climate has long been understood as the “imprint of nature upon man” (Horn, 2016: 237)…

The weather, its vicissitudes and its extremes are a constant source of concern and fascination. For the weather impacts directly upon everyone; it influences our behaviour, our mood, our health and our plans. Climate, however, is importantly distinguished from the weather: “Unlike the wind which we feel on our face or a raindrop that wets our hair” Mike Hulme writes “climate is a constructed idea that takes these sensory encounters and constructs them into something more abstract” (2009: 3). As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) website puts it: “Climate is what you expect… and weather is what you get”…

The dangers posed by a volatile climatic system, replete with tipping points, has perhaps at no time been as widely acknowledged as it is today, when the possibilities of anthropogenic climate change are the topic of numerous academic research projects, political campaigns and everyday discussions. And yet, the analysis of a long series of observations shows that significant climatic variations have always occurred. The presence of climate variability going back hundreds of years is neatly illustrated, for example, by the choice of the name “Greenland” by the Vikings in the Medieval Warm Period. From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, Greenland was still green due to the mild climate. Today it seems unlikely that anyone would choose such a name for this chilly land, covered to a large extent, currently at least, by permanent ice sheets. Data shows that temperatures dropped by more than a degree from the onset of the Little Ice Age in the thirteenth century (Klintisch, 2016). Scholars have suggested that one of the reasons (along with other unrelated economic issues and conflicts) for the disappearance of the Norse settlements in this region was due to the changes in the climate that disrupted the settlers’ agricultural and hunting practices and trade (Dugmore et al., 2007)…

In his treatise Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784–1791), the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) offers a conception of the interaction between humans and nature in which environmental and cultural processes are portrayed as distinct yet connected. His words resonate today, at a time when scientists are attending to the embeddedness of society in nature. It is becoming undeniable, as we saw in the last chapter, that human technologies, lifestyles and institutions contribute to “the change of the universe” that Herder refers to (Steffen et al., 2018). At the same time, humans themselves are inevitably affected by the social and environmental conditions they contribute to. Architecture and agriculture, clothing and cuisine, all commonly reflect climatic conditions. But claiming that society is partly affected by the climate is not the same thing as assuming society is wholly determined by it. A common theme of the past has been a less balanced perspective than Herder’s, which stressed the dependence of individuals and society on natural conditions, not least on climate. This perspective, known as climate determinism, asserts that human activities are fundamentally and ultimately controlled by climate (Livingstone, 2011)…

More than a century ago, Eduard Brückner wrote about anthropogenic climate change and its impact upon society (Stehr et al., 1995). One notable feature of his analysis was his arguably still pertinent observation that a common understanding of climate is based on a strong belief in its stability. Brückner points to the dominance of an apparently deep-rooted conviction that climate is a set of conditions consistently following the diurnal and annual cycles that provide the seasonal differences in every part of the world…

As the previous chapters have hopefully demonstrated, climate is no longer simply just a background condition of everyday life, whether it be a constant or capricious one. Today, climate is something that demands active assessment and response. The changing climate, along with its concomitant consequences and risks, is now incorporated into our political institutions and mechanisms as an important issue for which policy should be determined and implemented. Climate is not something that is simply external to human society — it is something that is internal to its politics, perhaps even occasionally occupying centre stage. Climate is something that policy is made for and about…

One of the messages of this book is that understanding the climate demands a multi-disciplinary perspective. We began, in Chapter One, by surveying the different understandings of climate. We show how climate has shifted from a scientific object that was seen as somehow external to society, to a complex and interconnected system that is partially affected by social structures, technological practices and energy cultures. Research into the climate system thus cannot only take place within the domain of natural sciences but must also involve the input of the social sciences and humanities. This message is of particular pertinence, we believe, at a time when climate science is under pressure, from both the general public and policymakers who need to decide if, and how, to respond to environmental risk and hazard, and from those who query the prominent role scientists are expected to play in policymaking…

The following sections are included:

• Author Index
• Subject Index