| Sustainability or collapse: what can we learn from integrating the history of humans and the rest of nature? | |
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MedLine Citation:
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PMID: 18074887 Owner: NLM Status: MEDLINE |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
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Understanding the history of how humans have interacted with the rest of nature can help clarify the options for managing our increasingly interconnected global system. Simple, deterministic relationships between environmental stress and social change are inadequate. Extreme drought, for instance, triggered both social collapse and ingenious management of water through irrigation. Human responses to change, in turn, feed into climate and ecological systems, producing a complex web of multidirectional connections in time and space. Integrated records of the co-evolving human-environment system over millennia are needed to provide a basis for a deeper understanding of the present and for forecasting the future. This requires the major task of assembling and integrating regional and global historical, archaeological, and paleoenvironmental records. Humans cannot predict the future. But, if we can adequately understand the past, we can use that understanding to influence our decisions and to create a better, more sustainable and desirable future. |
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Authors:
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Robert Costanza; Lisa Graumlich; Will Steffen; Carole Crumley; John Dearing; Kathy Hibbard; Rik Leemans; Charles Redman; David Schimel |
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Publication Detail:
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Type: Journal Article |
Journal Detail:
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Title: Ambio Volume: 36 ISSN: 0044-7447 ISO Abbreviation: Ambio Publication Date: 2007 Nov |
Date Detail:
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Created Date: 2007-12-13 Completed Date: 2008-02-26 Revised Date: - |
Medline Journal Info:
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Nlm Unique ID: 0364220 Medline TA: Ambio Country: Sweden |
Other Details:
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Languages: eng Pagination: 522-7 Citation Subset: IM |
Affiliation:
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Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, The University of Vermont, Burlington 05405, USA. Robert.Costanza@uvm.edu |
Export Citation:
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| MeSH Terms | |
Descriptor/Qualifier:
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Climate Ecosystem* Humans Nature* Social Planning |
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