"Tasks for Future Ecologists"
A new perception of time is needed to help predict the long term effects of climate change on the environment as well as on human social systems.
climate change
The Future of Environmental History: Needs and Opportunities
About this issue
The sixteen contributions in this volume of RCC Perspectives offer diverse insights and concerns about the future of the field from those working in environmental history and related disciplines.
Content
“How Unusual Was Autumn 2006 in Europe?”
Autumn 2006 was by far the warmest autumn on record in the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland.
“Recent Climate Change in Japan: Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Trends of Temperature”
In this article, the authors argue that climate change in Japan is clearly shown for temperature over 100 years (1901–2000).
“Climate-Human-Environment Interactions: Resolving Our Past”
A review of how we can learn from the past about climate-human-environment interactions at the present time and in the future.
“Agricultural Sustainability in the Semi-Arid Near East”
An overview of agricultural sustainability in the eastern Mediterranean Levantine Corridor (the western part of the Fertile Crescent).
“Western Europe is Warming Much Faster Than Expected”
Climate predictions for western Europe probably underestimate the effects of anthropogenic climate change.
“Putting the Rise of the Inca Empire within a Climatic and Land Management Context”
In this article, the authors argue that the rise of the Inca would not have been possible without increased crop productivity, which was linked to more favorable climatic conditions.
“Questions of Importance to the Conservation of Biological Diversity: Answers from the Past”
This paper illustrates, through a series of case-studies, how long-term ecological records (>50 years) can provide a test of predictions and assumptions of ecological processes that are directly relevant to management strategies necessary to retain biological diversity in a changing climate.
“Social Vulnerability to Climate in the ‘Little Ice Age’: An Example from Central Europe in the Early 1770s”
A study of social vulnerability to climate in Switzerland and in the Czech Lands during the early 1770s.