Smriti Mallapaty in SciDev.net: Climate researchers pay too
little attention to social sciences, delegates at the International Conference
of Mountain Countries on Climate Change have heard.
The meeting in Nepal (5–6 April) was attended by around 30
country representatives, and concluded with a 'Kathmandu Call for Action', with
a view to highlighting the specific needs of mountain countries at
international negotiations, including the forthcoming Rio+20 Summit in June.
"More interaction between the natural and social
sciences is necessary," said Dirk Hoffmann, executive director of the
Bolivian Mountain Institute, adding that the lack of effective dialogue between
science and social policy is hampering the implementation of adaptation
measures.
Hoffmann gave an example of agricultural engineers studying
the effects of heat stress and reduced water supply on plant growth, who failed
to incorporate the views of farmers' perceptions of climate change and their
collective or individual attempts to adapt.
He also noted that "climate is almost absent [from
discussions] in the social sciences", and urged sociologists,
psychologists, political scientists, and historians to participate in climate
change science discussions, and provide information on how past and present
societies have reacted to climate variations, and how political decision-making
processes can motivate people to act...
Waiting in line in Hong Kong, shot by Kul30amoil, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
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