Author: ichmeteo
This fall, the University of Oregon is hosting the 3rd Annual Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples Conference, scheduled for December 2-3, 2014 in Eugene, Oregon. The University will welcome two distinguished keynote speakers to the conference: Dr. Myrna Cunningham Kain and Patricia Cochran. Dr. Cunningham Kain is Miskitu from Nicaragua, and is an internationally renowned advocate for Indigenous peoples’ rights and women’s rights who has served Indigenous peoples in countless fashions, most recently as chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2011-2013). Patricia Cochran is currently Executive Director of the Alaska Native Science Commission (ANSC), an organization that works to create links and collaborations among scientists, researchers and Alaska Native communities. The 2nd day of the conference will feature a series of student panels exploring climate change and indigenous peoples. We have funding to bring three students from U.S. tribal colleges (or indigenous undergraduate students at other universities in the U.S.) who are researching issues related to climate change and indigenous peoples. The students invited to join us at this event will present during one of the panel sessions and participate in the conference. Please submit nominations for undergraduate students, or students can apply themselves, if conducting research on climate change and indigenous peoples. Nominations or applications should include a brief bio of the student, as well as an abstract of their research on climate change and indigenous peoples that they would plan to present during the conference. Nominations should be sent to Mark Carey at carey ‘at’ uoregon.edu by September 1st. If a student is accepted to attend the conference, the UO will provide funding for travel and lodging. More information about the conference is included below, and you can also visit: http://ccip.uoregon.
The International Research Institute on Humanity and Nature (??????????), a leading science and environmental policy research institute, is engaged in a series of explorations of long-term human-nature interactions associated with climatalogical and environmental change in Japan, the “Societal Adaptation to Climate Change: Integrating Palaeoclimatological Data with Historical and Archaeological Evidences” program (project web sites noted below).
Part of the institute’s research funding is thus available to support a broad array of disciplinary studies related to this theme. This includes consideration of comparative perspectives, theory and method.
Competition for awards for the next Japanese fiscal year (April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016) is now open. Information on research funding, application procedures and deadlines can be found at:
English: http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/rihn_
Japanese: http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/
Project descriptions can be found at:
Japanese: http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/rihn/
English: http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/rihn_
We are currently inviting 20-25 minute contributions from scholars, activists, policy-makers and members of the public to explore two related questions. Firstly, to think about how climate concern is forcing us to rethink our understandings of history, often in quite radical ways. Second, how history and historians should inform our understandings of climate change and actively contribute to changing society to ensure an ecologically wholesome future. We are particularly keen to explore how our historical understanding and rhetoric around climate change have changed in the last five years and how they might need to change in the future.
Questions we hope that papers will address include:
- How might history become ‘activist history’ in an era of ecological emergency?
- Whether historical rhetorics of ‘crisis’ and ‘apocalypse’ are productive or counter-productive?
- History and scale: the roles of local and global narratives in an era ecological emergency
- What might be learnt about social transformation from radical social movements such as Occupy?
- Can activist historians learn from the Transition Town movement?
- Is there an unexamined gender aspect to climate change? Why do climate debates so often seem to be dominated by men?
- Are religious understandings a necessary and neglected aspect of environmental discourse?
- How can local history and local historians contribute to local sustainability? (e.g. how can oral histories contribute to local energy descent models?)
The organisers are committed to the Active History tradition of scholarship that listens and is responsive; that will make a tangible difference in people’s lives; that makes an intervention and is transformative to both practitioners and communities. We seek a practice of scholarship that emphasizes collegiality, builds community among active scholars and other members of communities, and recognizes the public responsibilities of scholarship.
Famines during the ‘Little Ice Age’ (1300-1800) Socio-natural entanglements in premodern societies Workshop of the Heidelberg Center for the Environment, 19th/20th February 2015, ZiF, Bielefeld
Global climate change has put famines back on the agenda. The predicted rise of extreme weather raises the question, how similar events were met in historical societies. However, such studies are challenged by disciplinary constraints. Famines occur at the interface of nature and culture. They involve both the bio-physical as well as the social sphere. Their entanglement highlights the co-evolvement of natural environment and social actions. This broad socio-ecological character extends beyond the reach of individual disciplines. As a result, popular references to the dramatic impact of famines during the premodern era are often based on conjectures.
“The Coldest Decade of the Millennium? The Spörer Minimum, the Climate during the 1430s, and its Economic, Social and Cultural Impact”
4 and 5 December 2014, University of Bern, Switzerland.
For further information, please download the flyer.
Please contact the organiser, Dr. Chantal Camenisch at chantal.camenisch@hist.unibe.
“Towards policy-driven research in historical climatology”
London, 5-10 July 2015
Convened by George Adamson (King’s College London)
The interrelationship climate and society during the past 500-1000 years is a fast-growing area of research within historical climatology. Substantial work has been undertaken to uncover climatic agency in the Little Ice Age, on the role of climate in the collapse of major societies such as the Classic Maya, and on adaptation strategies within pre-industrial communities. Yet historical approaches have thus-far largely failed to engage with the policy agenda. This is partly due to an epistemological divide that exists between practitioners of historical climatology and the development research community that largely dictate adaptation paradigms.
With thanks to the compiler Alex Hall, please see a list of all weather/meteorology/climate related panels and papers for the upcoming World Congress of Environmental History in Portugal. Those unable to attend can follow many of these sessions on Twitter by searching for the hashtag #WCEH2014.
November 20-21, 2014, Bergen, Norway
The International Commission on History of Meteorology (ICHM) announces four competitive travel bursaries available to graduate students and recent Ph.D.s to support their participation in a workshop hosted by the history of meteorology project at the University of Bergen. The university will provide accommodation at the workshop for the successful applicants. The bursaries are intended to support the costs of airfare, prorated by distance and cost.
Applicants should send their name, contact information, affiliation, year or expected year of Ph.D., dissertation topic or title, and a 200-word abstract of a proposed paper to Georgina Endfield, President of ICHM, Georgina.Endfield@nottingham.