Climate Change and Long-term Sustainability of Human Societies

Why the long view matters for Sustainability, Resilience, Policy

Margaret C. Nelson, Arizona State University

Dynamics of climate, environment, society

Presumptions about our past:

climate challenge collapse

Humans and all aspects of the global systems are integrally linked

Tapping Our Understanding of the Past

Tradeoffs

No absolute resilience to climate challenges

Uncertainty and Tradeoffs

NORTH ATLANTICRare climate events have the greatest impact: directly and indirectly

Successful short-term adaptation is no guarantee of long-term success

SOUTHWEST US

Tradeoffs - Human

Securities

SOUTHWEST US

Human securities inform understanding of life under different conditions

No perfect achievement of human securities: they are dynamically traded off depending on decisions

Coupled Natural-Human Systems

Climate impacts on social and political relations

Climate change is inevitably a part of complex social adaptations and the evolution of social systems

KURIL ISLANDS

Which climate changes matter?

15001450140013501300125012001150110010501000950900850800750700

Reorganization to dispersed hamlets Re-aggregation Regional depopulation

Dry period Very dry period

Precipitation reconstruction (Central Rio Grande) developed by Grissino-Mayer, Baisan, and Swetnam (1997). Droughts identified by Ingram (2008).

MIMBRES

Climate hazards and social longevity

CARIBBEAN

The past does not provide predictions for future courses, but it provides examples, experiments of sorts, by which we can critically examine our ideas about resilience and sustainability.

Case studiesNORTH ATLANTIC ISLANDS

Andrew Dugmore (University of Edinburgh) and

Scott Ingram (Arizona State University)

SOUTHWEST US

Michelle Hegmon (Arizona State University)

KURIL ISLANDS

Ben Fitzhugh (University of Washington)

CARIBBEAN ISLANDS

Jago Cooper (University College London)

Discussion: Thomas McGovern (City University New York)