Bringing Social Science into US National Climate Policy

The third in a series of congressionally mandated National Climate Assessments (NCAs) will be published in 2014 (NCA 2013). Scientists from multiple federal agencies and universities participated in drafting... 

Translating Environmental Change

When Local Experiences and Outside Perspectives Collide What happens when the layers of vulnerability and environmental change experienced by local communities are lumped under the label of climate change?... 

Water and Climate Change

Climate change is one key index of the environmental changes driven by cumulative, interactive patterns of human processes and structures. Until now, most discussion of the inter-relationship between climate... 

Managing Uncertainty in Rural Amazonia

Climate Change, Crop Diversity and Social Networks When I began research in the floodplain community of Puruzinho in October 2009, I was trailing on the heels of one of the largest floods recorded in the... 

Association Is Not Causation

On Human Behavior, Climate Change and Violence Climate Change Leads to Violence? Recently Science highlighted an article by Hsiang and colleagues (2013) that suggests a link between the rise in temperature... 

Planetary Perspectives

A Note on the Optical Sub-Consciousness in Ethnographic Fieldwork Since the heyday of ethnographic fieldwork in the opening decade of the 20th century, anthropologists have brought cameras to their respective... 

Climate: An All-Consuming Problem

The Mother of Them All Research in many of the world’s most consumptive societies suggests that large majorities are now aware of the ubiquitous “simple steps” individuals can take to “save the... 

Living Climate Change in the Bolivian Highlands Through Mud and Lightning

Life with Mud I arrived in my field site in the highlands, or Altiplano, of western Bolivia concerned about the local and planetary impact of climate change. And yet since I began here I have found myself...