In praise of Geography as a field of study for the climate emergency

Bibliographic Data

ID5287063
AuthorsPaul J Taylor (0000-0003-4346-6364, Department of Geography Loughborough University Loughborough UK, corresponding author), Phil O’keefe (Department of Geography Northumbria University Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne UK)
Year2021
Volume187
Issue4
Pages394-401
Publication date2021-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7398 • E-ISSN: 1475-4959
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/geoj.12404
OpenAlexW3195064191
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited26

We argue that Geography should be centre stage for understanding today's climate emergency. It warrants this position because as a field of study it uniquely straddles physical/environmental and human/social scholarships. In the wider academic world, bringing together scholars across this "cultural" divide has traditionally been difficult, and continues to be so in current responses to human-induced climate change. Specifically, physical scholarship and science dominate at the expense of social scholarship and science. But it is now widely recognised we are living in a time of climate emergency and this simply will not do. Geography as a field of study that bridges these two forms of knowledge has the potential to become strategically relevant in this situation. The concept of risk that links environment and people from the Natural Hazards paradigm is identified as a way in which a holistic Geography can take an important lead in worldwide scholarly inputs into anthropogenic climate change understanding and consequent policy development

Climate change · Environmental ethics · Field (mathematics · Geography · Human geography · Natural (archaeology · Political science · Praise · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · Climate variability and models · Disaster Management and Resilience · Ecology · Psychology

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