3-12: Societal Responses to Regional Climate Change

Pre-Class Preparation

Objectives

• To review past examples of how societies responded to irreversible environmental change.
• To use past examples of environmantal change as a means of forecasting how future societies will respond to changes in global, regional, and local environmental change.

Procedure

1. Read the learning unit.

   Class images

2. Take the learning unit quiz. Quizzes are available from your portfolio. You may access your portfolio via the list of students participating in this year's course, as represented by the icon below.
   
   
3. Additional Required Reading. Although you are not ultimately responsible for content listed in this section, we encourage you to fully explore the links in order to provide a better scope on the upcoming class discussion.

   	Climate change scenarios: More conflict between nations? (From the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP)
   	Forecasting by analogy: societal responses to regional climatic change. Includes quotes and summaries from Societal Responses to Regional Climate Change: Forecasting by Analogy, Michael H. Glantz, editor, Westview Press, Boulder, Co, 428 pp. and two case studies, The Ogallala Aquifer Depletion and Changes in the Mississippi River System. (Glantz, Michael, ed., 1989: Forecasting by analogy: societal responses to regional climatic change. Summary Report, Environmental and Societal Impacts Group NCAR, 77 pp).
   	A survey of possible social impacts. (From the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP)

Class Discussion

• Problem to ponder...
  

• Class Discussion Summary:

Post-Class Activities

• Participate in the electronic dialog. Use this forum for:
  • continuing class discussion;
  • posing new questions to students or the instructor;
  • responding to issues/questions raised by students in class/electronic dialog.

  Visitor Access (Visitors are welcome to participate in the dialog. Just click on the icon below)	Student Access (Students must post all dialog from their portfolio. Click on the icon below to access the student list.)

• Recommended Reading Materials

  	Environmental and Societal Impact Group
  	Forecasting by Analogy: Notes from the 1995 CU-SeeMe interaction with Mickey Glantz
  	Societies under stress. (From the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP)
  	Wurbs, R. A. 1995: Water rights in Texas. Journal of Water Resouces Planning and Management, 121, 447-454.

• References

  	Center for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE)
  	Environment97, world's first environmental conference entirely on the Internet.
  	Environmental and Societal Impacts of Weather bibliography from the NCAR
  	Environmental Refugees and Ecological Restoration
  	Glantz, Michael H. ed., 1988: Societal Responses to Regional Climatic Change: Forecasting by Analogy. Westview Press, 428 pages.
  	Glantz, M. H., 1996: Currents of Change: El Nino's Impact on Climate and Society. Cambridge University Press.