Climate Crises in Human History

Citation

Maximiliano Emanuel Korstanje (2015), "Climate Crises in Human History", International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 485-487. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJDRBE-08-2014-0065

Some years ago, Anthony Giddens drew attention to what he calls “the paradox of Giddens”. This dilemma posed an ineludible question to Western civilization: what can we do with the issue of climate change? Currently, we feel our world is secure or immune from natural disasters; we continue with our standards and daily habits, assuming nothing will happen. The effects of climate change are fictionalized because we are not conceiving radical changes in our near environment. This creates a paradox in two directions. On the one hand, we acknowledge the importance of changing our system of energy to deter the aftermath of global warming, but on the other hand, we are doing nothing to change this (Giddens, 2009; Korstanje, 2012, Korstanje and George, 2012). The problem highlighted by Giddens is that sooner or later our system of production will collapse.

In the backdrop, Climate Crises in Human History, a book edited by the American Philosophical Society in 2010, discusses that the problem of climate change is not new. Our planet has been subject to countless radical shifts that have not only threatened but also effaced different ancient civilizations. The evolution of mankind and its history were determined by the climate crises in an ever-changing world. This project edited by senior archeologists, Bruce Mainwaring, Robert Giegengack and Claudio Vita-Finzi, provides archeological and historical evidence that many sites with human presence were suddenly abandoned because of climate crises. For a long time, historians hypothesized that possibly the fall of these civilizations depended on ethnic conflict or warfare. The example of Maya’s culture, among others, raises more questions than answers.

The book is divided in three sections. The first one entitled, Climate Crises in Human History, comprises five excellent papers that try to validate the idea that “warming trends” is not a new phenomena. Although scientists have agreed that the current Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) is the main cause of modern climate change, what would be more interesting to discuss is the strategies of adaptancy to these new circumstances as well as the technology used for weather predictions. To some extent, as Manning puts it (in Chapter 2), the sun has historically exerted a great influence on our earth and on the oceanic waves. Section 2 examines the different ways human groups have responded to these extreme changes. In this vein, the degree of technology of these civilizations played a vital role to mitigate the negative effects of natural disasters. From floods to drought, the water supply was vital to achieve survival of the group. The efficiency and success to maximize the rainfalls or the distribution channels of water cemented the possibilities for some civilizations to become Empires, while others simply extinguished. Finally, the third section, in my view, is the richest as it explores Balinese and Maya’s case to understand if the maturity of productive forces may reverse the disasters. Researchers invited to this last section agree that there “is no cultural pathway” that grants immunity before a disaster. Though the studies presented in this book suggests that civilizations never suspected their end, hard evidence shows that societies are gradually reacting to climate change and environmental pressure for further adaptation.

Readers who open the pages of this work will find some studies are techniques, while others are most illustrative. What authors preserved was the clarity in explaining their points and arguments, despite the jargons of archeology. As a mirror, earth is keeping the secrets of our ancestors so that we do not repeat the story.

Additionally, we would be glad to add the philosophical problem of fictionalization to the book’s discussion. Although climate change is a real danger, it is being commoditized as a fiction in diverse films (Kalaidjian, 2007; Korstanje, 2010). As the epistemologists agree, we do not react in the same way to fiction than to reality. Worth (2005) says that talking to others about our experiences re-creates a story to be reminded in the rest of our lives. It is clear that in the modern world, people look frenetically for consuming authentic experiences, but if they would face the real “reality”, panic would surface. The boundaries of controlled reality and fiction are very slim, Worth adds. To avoid our natural fears, we look for shelter in the fiction that someday will lead us to the disaster. Let us explain this better through the lens of Worth. Before any fiction (for example cinema), three types of reactions are possible:

1. The self understands that events are real and for that, it is responding emotively.

2. The self realizes the events are fictional.

3. Also, following 2, it responds emotionally to that fiction:

It is clear that we do not have to believe what is going on in the film in order to be affected by it. In fact, we cannot believe what is happening if we are to have an emotionally appropriate (aesthetic) response. This is especially true when it comes to tragedy or horror. Generally, we are not amused by other tragic lives nor do we derive pleasure out of watching people chased, stalked, or murdered. But in the context of fiction, we often enjoy these things (Worth, 2005, p. 183).

As our ontological security is not threatened by fiction, we think what is happening there is not true. In the disaster-led cinema, we enjoy other’s suffering or death, because we are aware that the episodes are unreal. Otherwise, lay people experience panic when the possibilities of an imminent disaster, though improbable, sounds real. The credibility of reality is given by our perception, which may be politically manipulated. Therefore, we enjoy from what we consider is fiction, though it is real; at the same time, hard evidence of imminent disasters is trivialized as unreal. Our entering in fictional fields helps us develop skills and abilities we desire. In fiction, we are set free to feel things without facing the consequences of our decisions. Two ideas are of paramount importance to discuss. On the one hand, the real is based on events that are previously given, in which case we have to collect information to understand them. Rather, in fiction, our imagination flourishes. The structure of what is happening is fixed for us to fill the details we want. The paradox of reality lies in the fact that the resulted story legitimates our sense of what is real. This seems to be one of the threats of fictionalizing climate change for audience. We are involuntarily led by the mass media and cultural entertainment industry to dig our own grave.

The commoditization of climate change engenders a serious risk for mankind. Although one can remember that tragedy-like events took place in the past, it is also true that other such events will happen in the future. The problem is to know when and how. While formulating the problem in this direction, we are fictionalizing what is a real risk. If we turn to Giddens’ paradox where climate change is one of the main threats of the West, the citizenry is unable to change its tendency to mass consumption, which accelerates pollution. Likely, this is the philosophical nature of disasters, whatever the cause may be. However, a much broader investigation on this topic is needed.