Climate Change and Societal Response:
Livelihoods, Communities, and the Environment
Weather variability, extreme events, and climate uncertainty are having many consequences for rural people and communities. A steady stream of global climate models, satellite data, and ground measurements document the geophysical changes that are rapidly advancing. Rapid fluctuations in commodity markets and new pressures from energy crops and fuel uses of food crops are also related to climate change. All these shifts present new challenges for rural people and communities. Policy makers need coherent perspectives that describe and anticipate the consequences to be expected and the mechanisms by which they arrive.
Recent North American experiences with drought, flooding, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events have been attributed to climate change. Human induced climate change takes place in the context of solar cycles, a fluctuating earth orbit, and other rotational variations. Nonetheless, rapid increases in human carbon emission and greenhouse gases are leading policy makers to the situation definition requiring significant changes in energy use and material production.
Recent developed country interest in local food, organic and low-input production, and other sustainable approaches also may reflect some underlying anxieties about the vulnerabilities of long-distance food systems. Some of this may be linked to climate change. Rising food costs lead the working poor to struggle with purchasing enough food. In contrast, the wealthier classes exhibit a studied concern for food security, but in rather different terms of food safety, quality, and freedom from contamination.
On an international level, advancing deserts, altered rainfall regimes, and glacial melting are altering the hydrologic regime underlying crop and pastoral farming systems. The resulting migrations of displaced people create conflicts and stresses on weak states. Ethnic conflicts, corruption, and insurrections undermine the livelihoods and farming systems that sustain food production and food security. Breakdowns in food production due to climate-induced societal instability are a central source of famine, food insecurity, and infant mortality.
The challenge to our research and teaching lies in understanding and articulating the mechanisms of change and impact in rural populations, many of which are fundamentally different from those principles governing urban systems. Rural communities may be at once more fragile yet perhaps more resilient than their urban counterparts. The 2008 Annual Meeting provided an opportunity to identify and exchange new understandings about the ways climate change and societal responses are affecting rural people and communities, as well as the coping strategies and adaptations they employ in a fundamentally new world system.
Joseph Molnar
RSS President
Email: molnarjj@auburn.edu
Jeff Sharp
2009 Program Chair
Email: RSS2009@osu.edu
Rural Realities
The RSS-Sponsored Quarterly Information Series
Farming in the
Urban Shadow:
Supporting Agriculture at
the Rural-Urban Interface
This brief provides an overview of agriculture in urbanizing parts of the United States. Our research suggests that innovative local, state, and national policies can have an important influence on the future of rural-urban interface agriculture.
Policy Options...
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