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This Must Be the Place: Underrepresentation of Identity and Meaning in Climate Change Decision-Making

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  • W. Neil Adger

    (W. Neil Adger is Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. He leads the research program on adaptation in the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and is a member of the Resilience Alliance. His latest book is Adapting to Climate Change: Thresholds, Values, Governance (2009).)

  • Jon Barnett

    (Jon Barnett is Reader and Associate Professor in the Department of Resource Management and Geography at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is an Australian Research Council Fellow and recently published Climate Change and Small Island States: Power, Knowledge and the South Pacific (2010).)

  • F. S. Chapin

    (F. S. "“Terry"” Chapin III is Professor in the Department of Biology and Wildlife and Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska, US. He has researched and written widely on Arctic ecosystem and social-ecological resilience. He is a Member of the Resilience Alliance and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.)

  • Heidi Ellemor

    (Heidi Ellemor teaches and researches natural hazards and cultural geography in the Department of Resource Management and Geography at the University of Melbourne, Australia.)

Abstract

The dangers that future climate change poses to physical, biological, and economic systems are accounted for in analyses of risk and increasingly figure in decision-making about responses to climate change. Yet the potential cultural and social impacts of climate change have scarcely been considered. In this article we bring the risks climate change poses to cultures and social systems into consideration through a focus on places-—those local material and symbolic contexts that give meaning and value to peoples' lives. By way of examples, the article reviews evidence on the observed and projected impacts of climate change on the Arctic and Pacific island atoll nations. It shows that impacts may result in the loss of many unique natural and cultural components of these places. We then argue that the risk of irreversible loss of places needs to be factored into decision-making on climate change. The article then suggests ways forward in decision-making that recognizes these non-market and non-instrumental metrics of risk, based on principles of justice and recognition of individual and community identity. (c)© 2011 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • W. Neil Adger & Jon Barnett & F. S. Chapin & Heidi Ellemor, 2011. "This Must Be the Place: Underrepresentation of Identity and Meaning in Climate Change Decision-Making," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 11(2), pages 1-25, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:11:y:2011:i:2:p:1-25
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