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1IWHE International Workshop on the History of Environment and Global Climate Change : Water, Ecology, De-forestation, Agriculture, Politics and the Management of Nature
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7th and 8th of May 2010, Braga, Portugal
This two-day international workshop aims to bring together the leading scholars sharing a common interest in the environmental and climate histories to deliberate on the subject. The present workshop will make an attempt to address the broad areas of environmental concern in human societies across the globe and the complex patterns of the human- nature relationships by focusing on the history of climate change.
At the beginning of the twentieth century a major chunk of scientists believed that climate of the world had been essentially constant over at least five thousand years. In the next 100 years this assumption fell through. The possible effects of past climatic shifts on human activities are yet to be explored. Historians have paid little attention to this aspect until in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Thanks to the efforts of of the scholars of the Annale school like Braudel and Ladurie. It is urgent for the historians to understand that climate history is central to the recently unfolding sub-discipline of environmental history. It is also intimately connected with history of waters in more ways than one. Earth’s hydrological cycle - the sun-powered movement of water between the sea, air, and land - is an irreplaceable asset that human actions are now disrupting in dangerous ways. Although vast amount of water reside in oceans, glaciers, lakes, and deep aquifers, only a very small share of Earth’s water - less than one -hundredth of 1 percent - is fresh, renewed by the hydrological cycle, and delivered to land. That precious supply of precipitation - some 110,000 cubic kilometers per year - is what sustains most terrestrial life. Like any valuable asset, the global water cycle delivers a steady stream of benefits to society. Rivers, lakes, and other freshwater ecosystems work in concert with forests, grasslands, and other landscapes to provide goods and services of great importance to human society. The nature and value of these services can remain grossly underappreciated, however, until they are all destroyed or gone.Climate history calls for an in-depth understanding of the inter connections between water resource on the one hand and deforestation, rainfall, river flows, soil erosion, climatic change, global warming, draught, famine, and various natural calamities on the other.
Climatic change through a long duree period and its impact on the rise or decline of civilizations are now worth looking into. Rising or falling temperatures, monsoon behaviour, melting of snow on the mountains, rising sea levels, more powerful storms and cyclones may have a message to convey regarding the interactions of the humans with the natural world. In Asia, Africa and the Asia Pacific in particular, climate had been central to the growth or prosperity of human civilizations. It was most crucial to rice production or settled agriculture.
There is little disagreement among the scholars engaged in Environmental History that history of climate is important to the discipline. The proposed International Workshop on the History of Climate is the first of its kind and it will address some of the fundamental questions most relevant to the very discipline of Environmental History.
We extend to you a warm invitation to attend this prestigious workshop. However, no travel grants will be offered to the participants.
Angela Mendonça and Ranjan Chakrabarti
Contact: cie.1iwhe@gmail.com
ESEH Conference in Finland, 28 June – 2 July 2011
