#climateheritage — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #climateheritage, aggregated by home.social.
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Micro-Climate Blog #9! which speaks to the ongoing challenge of finding, let alone centering, people in the educational structures being developed for climate change.
https://sha.org/ongoing-challenges-of-relevance-in-climate-education/2024/10/
#ClimateHeritage
#SocialScienceIsAlsoScienceMicro-Climate is a new twice-weekly blog series from the Society for Historical Archaeology and written by me that shares short considerations from an archaeologist about a current piece of climate news.
All of the blog posts are available here: https://sha.org/climate-heritage-initiative/
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Sharing this because watching Jon Stewart listening intently to historian Heather Cox Richardson is a joy.
And I would love for his recommendation at the end to become regular practice (with maybe archaeologists and anthropologists added in to the mix):
“I gotta tell you guys something. I think there should be a historian in every conversation- can we use historians as like - mods? As moderators just in every conversation that occurs because there’s so much history that echoes the current state of affairs and it gives you so much context and so much knowledge… It so brings into focus how we got to this current moment and how we get out of it.”
Jon Stewart, 51:38—52:20
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I'm cheering for this Conversation piece that distinguishes "climate social scientists" from "climate scientists."
It notes the recent spate of articles about despair amongst climate scientists. While this despair is not unwarranted, it makes the key point that:
"...the concerns and practices of climate social scientists have not featured prominently in these discussions. This is a significant oversight."
BECAUSE
"Climate natural scientists are not trained to understand why people aren’t listening to their entreaties or the obstacles to and opportunities for action. Climate social scientists, on the other hand, understand the climate crisis and are experts in humanity’s efforts to address climate change."
AND
"The climate social science community starts their teaching and research where the bulk of the “climate scientists are despairing” type articles end their discussions. By making concrete the vague notion of political will, and striving to specify necessary action in the face of climate crisis, social scientists help to provide key nuance."
Note: this post brought to you by a climate social scientist.
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Sharing my new article on cultural heritage, climate change, and policy!
It dives into the history of US legislation for cultural heritage, how US and Global North working definitions for heritage and climate have taken shape, and then how US federal agencies are and, in some cases are not, addressing connections of heritage and climate.
It's not yet open access, so if you would like a copy and do not have access, please let me know and I'll do my best to send you a copy.
#ClimateHeritage
#ClimateChange
#Policy
#SocialScienceIsAlsoSciencehttps://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2317158121
Title: Capacity of the U.S. federal system for cultural heritage to meet challenges of climate change
Abstract: The U.S. federal government is unbalanced in its capacity to recognize, manage, and engage cultural heritage as part of its response to climate change. Legislation from the 1906 Antiquities Act to Executive Order (EO) 13990 signed in 2021 has set an overarching approach in which heritage is understood to be primarily tangible places and things that should be conserved, foremost through monument and park boundaries and significance designations. Such conservation, however, does not protect heritage from impacts of climate change and how to manage these components of heritage is nearly invisible in recent climate-focused publications of the two agencies assigned by legislation to serve as leads for cultural heritage in the U.S. government. Yet further, the long-standing tangible approach to heritage does not incorporate emerging understandings of its intangible components and the diverse connections of all forms of heritage to place, meaning, identity, and global change goals of sustainability and equity. In contrast, analysis of 27 federal agency climate adaptation plans prepared in response to 2021 EO 14008 shows that multiple agencies not assigned lead roles for heritage recognize a range of responsibilities that include heritage as part of climate adaptation, mitigation, equity, and coordination with Indigenous communities. This paper explores U.S. heritage legislative history, the definition it helped create for heritage, more recent understandings of heritage, and relationships of these to climate change and how these are represented in climate work and plans across U.S. federal agencies. On these bases, recommendations are provided for research and policy steps.
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As a woman working in social science areas of climate change, and who has been told so often in so many ways that my work "isn't real climate change work," that there is no need for what I do, and that I should do all that I do for free, this article and statement resonate strongly:
“We’ve got this narrow focus on what is valued,” said Kate Metcalf, codirector of the Women’s Environmental Network in the U.K. “There’s a patriarchal, colonial mindset that shapes how we view the climate crisis and the solutions.” People in power are looking to solve the crisis within the same economic system that created it; a system built on colonial resource extraction and sustained by the invisible labor of women the world over. Swapping industry today for green industry tomorrow won’t fix that. “It requires fundamentally different thinking and systemic change,” Metcalf said."
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Cognitive dissonance is strong today.
On the one hand, there is this beautiful photo of an ancient place and the words of photographer David R Abrams about the connections people tell him it brings them:
"People often cry during my talks and tell me the images have changed their life. But all I’ve done is facilitate a connection between something in them and the landscape, the past and the people that inhabited this land before us. I’m not talking about anyone’s genetic ancestors, I’m talking about people who lived in the very distant past on the same land that we inhabit."
But at the same time, anthropology and archaeology colleagues in UK universities are getting layoff notices and the departments are being shuttered. Literally cutting off people and capacity to link and engage those connections to the past with growing environmental and climate challenges. (@pvonhellermannn)
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Cognitive dissonance is strong today.
On the one hand, there is this beautiful photo of an ancient place and the words of photographer David R Abrams about the connections people tell him it brings them:
"People often cry during my talks and tell me the images have changed their life. But all I’ve done is facilitate a connection between something in them and the landscape, the past and the people that inhabited this land before us. I’m not talking about anyone’s genetic ancestors, I’m talking about people who lived in the very distant past on the same land that we inhabit."
But at the same time, anthropology and archaeology colleagues in UK universities are getting layoff notices and the departments are being shuttered. Literally cutting off people and capacity to link and engage those connections to the past with growing environmental and climate challenges. (@pvonhellermannn)
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Warning: rant in defense of social sciences and humanities ahead:
NASA has put out a call for volunteers for a one-year Biosphere-style project as part of planning for a mission to Mars.
Project will "simulate[s] the challenges of a mission on Mars, including resource limitations, equipment failures, communication delays, and other environmental stressors. Crew tasks include simulated spacewalks, robotic operations, habitat maintenance, exercise, and crop growth."
Requirements for volunteers include
"A master’s degree in a STEM field such as engineering, mathematics, or biological, physical or computer science from an accredited institution with at least two years of professional STEM experience or a minimum of one thousand hours piloting an aircraft is required. Candidates who have completed two years of work toward a doctoral program in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, completed a medical degree, or a test pilot program will also be considered. With four years of professional experience, applicants who have completed military officer training or a bachelor of science degree in a STEM field may be considered."
Because clearly - working in an enclosed space for a year with resource limitations, unexpected situations, and a range of stressors will involve no dynamics of human interaction or experience worth noting or studying. Humans just run the technology, that is all that is needed. That is all that is worth planning for. What could possibly go wrong?
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The 5th US National Climate Assessment is out today! And one of its categories for analysis of risk and impact is "Livelihoods and Heritage."
This recognition of heritage is such a shift from previous assessments, in which it was nearly invisible. And heritage remains nearly invisible in US federal agency programs and capacity and funding (for example: https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/3689312-conserving-cultural-heritage-is-vital-for-climate-adaptation/).
But highlighting it across the figures and tables of NCA5 - this is an important step toward building awareness of the need for such programs, capacity, and funding.
#ClimateHeritage
#ClimateChange
#NCA5Table 1 of NCA5 (showing livelihoods and heritage front and center): https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/chapter/1#fig-1-1
Full NCA5 link: https://nca2023.globalchange.gov