Earth System Science, the IPCC and the problem of downward causation in human geographies of Global Climate Change

TY - JOUR

T1 - Earth System Science, the IPCC and the problem of downward causation in human geographies of Global Climate Change

AU - Nielsen, Jonas Østergaard

AU - Sejersen, Frank

PY - 2012

Y1 - 2012

N2 - Environmental determinist explanations of human behaviour have been few and far between in human geography since the Second World War. Environmental determinism is, however, resurfacing in human geography particularly when climate change is the topic of investigation. In this paper, we trace this revival and link it to the dominance of Earth System Science (ESS) and the institutional process of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the climate change research community. In particular, we want to show how findings coming out of ESS and communicated through the IPCC create a discourse of hierarchical scale and downward causation that prescribes agency to climate. We suggest that viewing scale as a social construction opens up for the analysis of climate change and its societal effects and interpretations outside the official script of the inevitability of adaptation.

AB - Environmental determinist explanations of human behaviour have been few and far between in human geography since the Second World War. Environmental determinism is, however, resurfacing in human geography particularly when climate change is the topic of investigation. In this paper, we trace this revival and link it to the dominance of Earth System Science (ESS) and the institutional process of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the climate change research community. In particular, we want to show how findings coming out of ESS and communicated through the IPCC create a discourse of hierarchical scale and downward causation that prescribes agency to climate. We suggest that viewing scale as a social construction opens up for the analysis of climate change and its societal effects and interpretations outside the official script of the inevitability of adaptation.

U2 - 10.1080/00167223.2012.741885

DO - 10.1080/00167223.2012.741885

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0016-7223

VL - 112

SP - 194

EP - 202

JO - Geografisk Tidsskrift

JF - Geografisk Tidsskrift

IS - 2

ER -