Migration and Climate Change

Introduction: A Global History of Interactions between Climates and Cultures

Contemporary climate change has various distinctive characteristics: it is of human origin, occuring through the increase in greenhouse gases, and the human population is quantitatively very large, leaving its mark on all environments. It is occurring during an interglacial period, which were previously thought to have a lesser degree of climate volatility*¹. Humans have experienced a succession of climate changes whose formation was independent of human activity. Humanity and climate have a particularly long history when it comes to our anatomically modern human* predecessors. What we are experiencing is new, but it must be seen in a global history of interactions between climate and human cultures of all kinds (laypeople, academics or spiritual cultures).

The need for a global history methodology was formulated by Immanuel Kant to address the need for the definition and evaluation of public action. It is advisable to establish a very long time frame for this climate issue that is being introduced into the field of public action, one which is conceived in a time dimension that must combine the present moment and a broad perspective. Kant’s argument was initially developed for the prevention of armed conflict: the evaluation of public action cannot be measured only by military success or failure in a battle, but rather by considering a perspective of establishing sustainable peace [KAN 09].

The approach ...