Humans influence the environment and climate, with the consequences now felt across the globe. National or regional efforts to restrict or at least contain the damage are invariably insufficient: in principle, environmental and climate protection requires a global approach.
Paradoxically, the way we perceive environmental and climate change and respond to the harm that they cause is closely linked to local or regional patterns of perception. It is these particularistic perceptions that often lead to different, and in many instances conflicting, reactions to preventive and curative environmental and climate protection measures.
These local views are grounded not only in the different paths that socio-economic development has taken in specific regions of the world, but also in varying cultural patterns. Think, for example, of the vastly different ways in which current problems are perceived, or of how policy styles and politico-social environments differ. Also, the disturbance of the environment and climate causes relatively rapid social changes, in which the interpretation of symbols for the relationship between man and nature plays an important part. The history of climate and culture, patterns of perception of environmental and climate change, and an informed assessment of the future direction of environmental and climate policy in different parts of the world have to be taken into account in order to get to grips with the problem.
From a variety of angles, such as the history of ideas, historiography, the study of civilisation, and the political sciences, the monographs and edited volumes in Climate and Culture will all deal with the following questions:
- –How do local and regional cultures perceive historical and contemporary changes in the environment and climate?
- –How did and do they adjust to these changes?
- –How do their various representatives and spokespeople introduce their respective views into the global debate and into emerging systems of international negotiation?
The following titles are included in the series:
- Volume 1:Nature, the Environment and Climate Change in East Asia, edited by Carmen Meinert, 2013.
- Volume 2:Climate Change in South and Southeast Asia, edited by Barbara Schuler, 2014.
- Volume 3:Cultural Dynamics of Climate Change and the Environment in Northern America, edited by Bernd Sommer, 2015.
- Volume 4:Climate Change and Cultural Transition in Europe, edited by Claus Leggewie and Franz Mauelshagen, 2017.
- Volume 5:Environmental Change and African Societies, edited by Ingo Haltermann and Julia Tischler, 2019.
Carmen Meinert
Claus Leggewie