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Rapid climate change and society: assessing responses and thresholds
Simon Niemeyer1, Judith Petts, Kersty Hobson
1Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia. simon@coombs.anu.edu.au
Summary
Human responses to climate change can become maladaptive, especially with increasing warming. This shift diminishes trust and adaptive capacity, highlighting social thresholds for climate risks.
Area of Science:
- Social science
- Climate change adaptation
- Human-environment interaction
Background:
- Assessing social risks of climate change necessitates understanding human responses and societal adaptation.
- Rapid or extreme climate change may trigger maladaptive human responses, crossing critical thresholds.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore potential thresholds in human responses to climate change.
- To investigate the shift from adaptive to maladaptive social responses under varying climate scenarios.
Main Methods:
- Utilized Q methodology and interviews to record subjective responses of U.K. participants.
- Presented participants with a series of severe climate change scenarios (warming and cooling).
Main Results:
- Observed an initial adaptive response to warming, shifting to maladaptation as change intensified.
- Increased warming beyond a threshold decreased trust in collective action and institutions, reducing adaptive capacity.
- Climate cooling elicited a different response, potentially influenced by public discourse focus on warming.
Conclusions:
- Subjectivity analysis reveals potential for maladaptive human responses to climate change.
- Identified a social threshold where human responses become detrimental to adaptation, constituting a climate risk.
- Findings underscore the importance of social dynamics in climate change adaptation and risk assessment.
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