The spiritual significance of glaciers in an age of climate change
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12929012 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elizabeth Allison (0000-0003-2064-5191, California Institute of Integral Studies, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 493-508 |
| Publication date | 2015-08-10 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1757-7780 • E-ISSN: 1757-7799 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/wcc.354 |
| OpenAlex | W1515041253 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 48 |
| References cited | 103 |
Climate change has largely been understood as a biophysical, economic, and political phenomenon. This approach has obscured the ways in which climate change also poses a challenge to human subjective understandings of self and society in relation to place, and in relation to perceptions of the sacred. Glaciers, as dominant features of high mountain landscapes, are sites of easily observable consequences of climate change, grounding the consequences of distant carbon emissions in material surroundings. They are also sites of powerful sacred and symbolic meanings for local communities. This review examines three instances of glacial decline in sacred mountain landscapes, in the Peruvian Andes, the Nepalese Himalaya, and the Meili Snow Mountains of Yunnan, China. These examples show that glacial decline is not simply a material process, but also has important implications for the ways that local people understand themselves and make meaning in relation to their surroundings. Locally grounded values arising from particular experiences of the landscape, especially from those most at risk from effects of climate change, may offer new avenues of ethical reflection around climate change that can and should influence larger climate discourses. WIREs Clim Change 2015, 6:493–508. doi: 10.1002/wcc.354 This article is categorized under: Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Sociology/Anthropology of Climate Knowledge Trans‐Disciplinary Perspectives > Humanities and the Creative Arts
Climate change · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Geography · Glacial period · Glacier · Meaning (existential · Physical geography · Political science · Politics · Relation (database · Sociology · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Cryospheric studies and observations · Environmental and Cultural Studies in Latin America and Beyond · Ecology · Geology
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Nothing to see here
Civilized shamans
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| Unique citing works | 48 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,8 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2026 (11) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 47 |