Social Dynamics set the stage for Climate Change Impacts

An article by Kate Yoder in The Grist features an interview with SoDy Founder, Dan Hoyer. They discuss new work published by members of the Seshat project looking at how environmental pressures have impacted societies for millennia. The article, Navigating Polycrisis: long-run socio-cultural factors shape response to changing climate, can be found here.

The work finds that changing and unpredictable climate as well as major disasters like floods, droughts, epidemics have led to much turmoil and devastation in the past. But, they don't always have the same impact everywhere – the social dynamics in each affected society in the years preceding the disaster play a major role in shaping the outcomes. Either societies are primed for resilience, with high levels of cohesion and cooperation that can allow their populations to survive and sometimes even thrive in the aftermath of an environmental threat; or social pressures, inequalities, and sectarian conflicts create fissures that make positive adaptation to challenging circumstances almost impossible.