American Anthropological Association releases Anthropology and Climate change report

On March 4, 2015, the American Anthropological Association (American Anthropological Association, AAA) released a report entitled "changing atmosphere: anthropology and Climate change" (Changing the Atmosphere: Anthropology and Climate Change), which provides a guide to anthropological climate change research. It focuses on the promotion of human activities to climate change, the experience of human adaptation to climate change, the evaluation of "global-regional-local-community" spatial scales to study the adaptability and vulnerability of climate change, and the importance of community research. the necessity of interdisciplinary research and so on. From the point of view of anthropology, eight viewpoints are put forward to understand the impact of climate change:

(1) Climate change is taking place. Climate change is already a fact that changes the human environment and affects the global human culture, and will continue to affect the global human culture.

(2) Climate change exacerbates potential social problems. Climate change exacerbates widespread social problems such as poverty, the gap between rich and poor, food and water security and armed conflict. Anthropologists predict that climate change will further accelerate human migration that is not conducive to communities and countries and exacerbate the spread of infectious diseases.

(3) Climate change forces human beings to migrate and impact cultural heritage. The pressure of survival brought about by climate change forces local people to leave their hometown and migrate, which in turn impacts local culture and beliefs. For those areas that are directly dependent on natural resources, such as high latitudes and high elevations, low-lying island countries and coastal areas, the impact of climate change is greater.

(4) the impact of climate change is uneven and has a great impact on vulnerable groups. Climate change affects all the inhabitants of the planet, especially children, the elderly, and vulnerable groups who lack living security or sanitation. Climate impacts will also lead to the reconstruction and upgrading of public emergency assistance.

(5) Human beings have played a great role in climate change in the past hundred years. Human beings use coal, oil and gas fuel as the main energy, as well as the prevalence of consumerism, vigorously reclaim land and destroy the resilience of the ecosystem, which are the great driving forces of climate change. In the past 100 years, human behavior and culture are the most important causes of drastic environmental changes, so this period is also called the Anthropocene (Anthropocene).

(6) Human beings have an adaptive system to the change of environment. Archaeological records have found that human beings have been adapting to the ever-changing climate for thousands of years, and the diversity and flexibility of human society have increased their flexibility to deal with climate change, forming a complex adaptive system and reflecting the principle of sustainable development.

(7) Climate change is a multi-scale comprehensive research problem. Climate change is not only a global problem, but also a regional and local problem. Solutions need to be studied on multiple spatial scales of "global-regional-local-community". Therefore, there is a need not only for global and national-scale governance and planning, but also for the participation of the human community in the formulation and discussion of adaptation measures.

(8) dealing with climate change requires not only natural sciences, but also social sciences. It will be difficult to deal with climate change by focusing solely on reducing carbon emissions. The root cause of climate change lies in social systems and cultural habits. The real solution should be obtained from knowledge and research in the social sciences and humanities, rather than relying solely on the natural sciences. Climate change is not only a natural problem, but also a comprehensive problem of human beings.