Search

I. INTRODUCTION 230 II. ARE THINGS GETTING BETTER OR WORSE? 233 A. Things Are Getting Better! 233 B. Things Are Getting Worse (on the Path to Hothouse Earth?) 235 C. [...], Climate change and extreme inequality combine to cause disproportionate harms to poor communities throughout the world. Further, unequal resource allocation is shot through with the structures of racism and other forms of discrimination. This Essay explores these phenomena in two different places in the United States, and traces law's role in constructing environmental and economic vulnerability. The Essay then proposes that solutions, if there are any to be had, lie in expanding our notions of what kinds of laws are relevant to achieving environmental justice, and in seeing law as a possible tactic for instigating broader social change but not as a sole means of achieving it. To achieve environmental justice, it will take first more than environmental law, and then more than law.

Anthropologists are well-placed to study the impact of global climate change on culture, as well as formulating responses to it. An action-oriented approach to anthropological climate change that develops cultural models of its effects can go on to fill gaps in scientific knowledge and disseminate that information.

Around A.D. 1300 the entire Pacific Basin (continental Pacific Rim and oceanic Pacific Islands) was affected by comparatively rapid cooling and sea-level fall, and possibly increased storminess, that caused massive and enduring changes to Pacific environments and societies. For most Pacific societies, adapted to the warmer, drier, and more stable climates of the preceding Medieval Climate Anomaly (A.D. 750-1250), the effects of this A.D. 1300 Event were profoundly disruptive, largely because of the reduction in food resources available in coastal zones attributable to the 70-80-centimeter sea-level fall. This disruption was manifested by the outbreak of persistent conflict, shifts in settlements from coasts to refugia inland or on unoccupied offshore islands, changes in subsistence strategies, and an abrupt end to long-distance cross-ocean interaction during the ensuing Little Ice Age (A.D. 1350-1800). The A.D. 1300 Event provides a good example of the disruptive potential for human societies of abrupt, short-lived climate changes. Keywords: A.D. 1300 Event, climate change, cultural change, Pacific Basin, sea-level change, storm frequency., It has been clear for a long time to scientists studying recent climate changes that two periods of climate distinct from that of the last 200 years or so occurred [...]

Storm surge and wind associated with Hurricane Katrina caused many deaths and the destruction of property and public infrastructure along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The devastation was predicted, and absent massive and immediate action, the next major storm will inevitably produce additional disastrous outcomes. Somewhat less predictable are the many social changes associated with the hurricane and public sector response to the event. We characterize some of the more salient human consequences across multiple sectors of the economy--including energy, finance, construction, housing, gaming, and commercial fisheries. We examine how preexisting social trends were amplified, otherwise-latent social and cultural distinctions were exacerbated, and national resources and funds intended for broad-scale 'recovery' were converted into instruments of capital formation and further concentration of wealth. We conclude with a discussion exploring public policy and other implications of the disaster in a context of ever-increasing global, environmental, and social challenges. [Keywords: Hurricane Katrina, socioeconomic impacts, Gulf Coast recovery, environmental disaster, evacuation]

Design and understanding of the design process can make people better leaders. That is a belief held by Sheila Danko, the J. Thomas Clark Professor of Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise [...]

Waters and Ravesloot (2001) test the assumption that natural river channel change caused periods of Hohokam cultural reorganization. However, they conclude that channel changes did not correlate with all periods and areas of significant cultural changes and that landscape alone cannot explain Hohokam transformations. An anthropological perspective on political ecology and disasters can explain why environmental processes and events differentially impact societies, differentially impact societies diachronically and differentially impact social groups within societies. We suggest that this perspective may explain the variability described by Waters and Ravesloot., In a recent paper, Waters and Ravesloot (2001) examine the relationship between landscape changes and evolutionary shifts in Hohokam culture. Landscape change, in this instance, refers to river channel downcutting, [...]

In the last few decades, advances in understanding and modeling climate have paralleled the growth of an impressive log of radiocarbon dates and quantitative analyses of climatic indicators including pollen, tree rings, and lake levels. At the same time, archeological research has given us an impressive assemblage of cultural information. We also have the tools for sorting out the diverse sources of variance in our datasets. The time has come to begin to integrate these lines of scientific endeavor to produce a mutually coherent picture of at least one of the mechanisms that have affected the history of humankind, and one that undoubtedly will affect the future as well.

Underlying the premise of human population growth is the complicated process of cultural evolution. While biology and genetic evolution provide certain predispositions to survivability, memes, or cultural influences, play a more significant role in population issues such as the decision to use contraceptives or the assumption that having children is desirable.

The archaeological and historical record is replete with evidence for prehistoric, ancient, and premodern societal collapse. These collapses occurred quite suddenly and frequently involved regional abandonment, replacement of one subsistence [...]