Editorial: Living with Environmental Change: Adaptation as Social Learning

摘要

Described as one of the greatest challenges to the human race by the united nations general Secretary (Ki-moon, 2009), climate change is firmly on the international agenda. With climate change debates occurring in many different media and disciplines, the purpose of this special issue is to explore adaptation from a fresh perspective: as part of a learning agenda for living with environmental change. As the articles in this special edition attest, the advent of climate change has again positioned 'adaptation' as a key term and concept, along with 'mitigation' (Stern, 2007; United Nations, 2007), and an increasingly urgent policy priority (Parry et al., 2005; Pielke et al., 2007; Kok and de Coninck, 2007).rnOur starting point is the increasing recognition of the particular framings of climate change debates (see for example Pielke, 2005) and increased awareness of the constructed nature of climate change scenarios (Hulme and Dessai, 2008). Similarly, Adger et al. (2009) argue for greater awareness of the social aspects of adaptation, while Giddens (2009, p. 162) argues that adaptation is in a way 'a misleading term, because it implies reacting to the consequences of climate change once it has occurred'. These debates are opening up spaces for exploration of the way assumptions and mental models are built into our understandings of climate change and possible adaptive responses.