SocSci Acadec Section Summaries
Section I Summary
The field of Earth System Science (ESS) provides key concepts for understanding the nature of the Earth’s climate and climate change.
The Earth’s four subsystems— earth, water, air, and living organisms—interact on local and global levels to shape climatic conditions.
Forcings— events such as volcanic eruptions, variations in solar energy reaching the Earth, and rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — can tip the balance between subsystems and cause climate change.
Sometimes, climate change causes reactions in nature that drive the change even more (positive feedbacks), while other times reactions in nature act against the initial drivers of climate (negative feedbacks).
Scholars and scientists learn about climate history by investigating evidence in the natural world (archives of nature) and in records left by humans (archives of society).
Historical elimatologists and paleoclimatologists study the archives of nature. Scholars in the field of the history of climate and society (HCS) focus on the relationship between climate history and human history.
The Anthropocene is a term that scholars and the public have begun using to describe the idea that current climate change might mark the beginning of a new climatic and geological epoch in the Earth’s history. The term Anthropocene also reflects the reality that current climate change is significantly caused by human actions.
It is a challenge to combine climate history and human history into a single story, but by attempting to do so, historians help us better understand our changing climate.
Section II Summary
The Holocene began around 11,700 years ago at the end of the last ice age.
Humans had already spread around the world by the start of the Holocene.
The Holocene is divided into three stages: the Early Holocene (11,700 to 8,236 years ago), the Middle Holocene (8,236 to 4,250 years ago), and the Late Holocene (4,250 years ago to the present).
Humans began forming large agrarian societies around the end of the Middle Holocene.
It is not clear if climate played a major role in the rise or fall of the Greek and Roman empires or in most large-scale societal events.
Integrating climate history into human history can be an opportunity for fresh historical perspectives, but sometimes climate is merely added to existing historical narratives.
The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of cooler global temperatures, on average, from around 1300 to 1850 CE.
A popular historical narrative describes how humans overcame the LIA by building modern states, but that narrative is complicated by the current conditions of the Anthropocene.
Section III Summary
The “Anthropocene” is a term that describes a new era in climate history that recognizes the central role of humankind in geology and ecology today.
The Anthropocene has been linked to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution around 1800.
Most scholars today agree that the Anthropocene began around 1950 with the “Great Acceleration” and the start of a rapid growth in the human population and the rapid rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
The burning of fossil fuels is the leading cause of the Anthropocene and the global warming that characterizes it.
Through European colonialism and industrialization, Western countries in Europe and North American accumulated great wealth. Their success also made the robust use of fossil fuels a marker of the modern nation.
Due to their historical backgrounds and current resources, countries in different parts of the world today face unique challenges in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate change is already impacting the antural world and the human population.
Climate-related migration is already underway and will likely continue to be amajor factor in the human response to climate change moving forward.
Section IV Summary
From the late 1950s through the late 1980s, scientists developed a robust understanding that greenhouse gas emissions were causing global warming and established the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) to study the phenomenon.
In the 1980s, climate scientists realized that government officials needed to know about warming caused by greenhouse gases and take action on the mater. To better facilitate cooperation between scientists and governments, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988.
The oil industry has felt threatened by government action to slow climate change, and it has funded misinformation about scientific views on the climate while continuing to make enormous profits.
Big business, politicians, and news media have occasionally combined to advance messaging that casts doubt on scientific views about the climate.
Today in the United States, many people’s views about climate change and climate science align with their identification as a Democrat or Republican.
Governments around the globe have set targets for actions that would limit global warming to 1.5 C by the end of the twenty-first century, but but they are not on pace to reach those goals.
Investment in revolutionizing current industries and creating new ones could lead to novel methods of reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere or counteracting their impact on the climate.
Climate activists have raised awareness that not all actions that combat climate change are just and that how we fight climate change matters.
Indigenous communities around the world are advocating for environmental practices that value local populations over the profits of large companies; and those practices also may help address global climate problems.
Over the past decade, young people have raised their voices and spoken with clarity about the failure of adults in positions of power to address the climate crisis.