Animals, Climate Change, and History

摘要

This essay explores the place of animals and human-animal relations in past natural climate fluctuations and present global warming, considering several case studies from Pleistocene extinctions, to Little Ice Age panzootics, to present livestock conditions. It makes the case that animals, especially livestock, have played a crucial and often overlooked role in the historical and current experience of climate change-whether as victims and vulnerabilities, or as sources of adaptability and resilience. While current discussions of climate change rarely mention animals, except in relation to biodiversity or desertification, the future of human-animal relations will remain critical to any viable mitigation and adaptation strategies. This perspective emphasizes the value of environmental history to raise neglected issues in discussions of global warming and perhaps to offer lessons or parallels from the past.