climate change
It’s No Longer Raining on the Lepchas [journal article review]
Global climate changes are having an impact on the Lepchas, who are quite aware of the local disruptions of weather patterns and are trying to cope with them. A journal article by Shukla et al. that was published last year reported the results of a careful study of the Lepcha in the Dzongu Reserve of […]
Ifaluk Atoll Has an Uncertain Future
A prominent educator from Massachusetts spent some time on Ifaluk Island 40 years ago so now he has decided to return there to live out the rest of his life. John Chittick was born and raised in the small city of Fitchburg, completed an Ed.D. from Harvard, and went on to have a career as […]
New Radios for the Ju/’hoansi
The press in Namibia reported last week that the Nyae Nyae Conservancy had just held its annual meeting, with representatives from all 37 Ju/’hoansi villages attending. The major order of business was distributing a new solar-powered Lifeline radio to each village. The website for the Lifeline radio indicates that it is designed for remote locations […]
Inuit Culture and Climate Change [journal article review]
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) held by indigenous peoples is slowly gaining recognition by scientists as an alternative way of looking at environmental processes over time. In a recent study, researchers used TEK as a means of increasing our understanding of climate change in the Arctic. In order to carry out the study, lead investigator, Alain […]
Rural Thai Village Copes with Climate Change
A coastal fishing village in Rural Thailand is being submerged by the rising seas, according to a haunting feature in Al Jazeera last week published as an exclamation point to the climate change negotiations in Paris.
Black Carbon and Black Anger: Changing Conditions in Ladakh [book review]
The old Ladakhi men are sitting in a line on one side of the community hall arranged by descending age, with the eldest in the corner. The women bring around five gallon buckets of chang, the local beverage, bantering amiably as they fill the mugs of the men. The villagers living in Kumik, in the […]
Climate Change Affects the Inuit
Global climate change is harming the Inuit way of life, especially in the village of Umiujaq, in northern Canada. Catherine Hours, an AFP reporter, visited the village and wrote last week in a story carried by Yahoo News that conditions in the village are changing due to warming temperatures—more so than in many other places. […]
Ju/’hoansi Confront Climate Change
The Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia is helping the Ju/’hoansi, formerly a hunting and gathering society, to cope effectively with the realities of global climate change. A news story a year ago described how the NNDFN emerged from its troubled beginnings to take up the climate change issue and how it has become an […]
The Ju/’hoansi Address Global Climate Change
The Ju/’hoansi don’t worry about arguments from climate change deniers: they absorb the news, live with fickle rainfalls, and try to preserve their way of life. In fact, their society has adapted to uncertain water sources for millennia. They do not need to be convinced that adjusting to changing climate conditions is essential if they […]
Amish Farmers and Climate Change (Environmental Concerns of Peaceful Societies, Part 1)
Amish farmers in Ohio are effectively modifying their farming practices to cope with changing global climate conditions. The Amish “are very well read,” said Dale Arnold, who is the director of energy policy for the Ohio Farm Bureau. “They’re adapting and doing things with hybrids and tiling and sub-surface drainage,” he added. It’s their way […]
