What Can Human Geography Offer Climate Change Modelling?

Abstract

The discipline of Geography may be one of the most prominent and oldest disciplines in the conceptualization of human–environment interactions that integrates elements from both natural and social sciences. Yet, much research on society–environment interactions on climate change reduces human behaviour to economic rationality when construed in sophisticated climate models and sometimes in non-geographical representations. The need to comprehensively take into consideration methodological approaches concerning the interface of society-environment interactions seems highly relevant to contemporary conceptual modelling of climate change adaption and mitigation. In other words, geographical representations do matter. In the following we will first reflect upon what I shall call spatio-temporal tides and waves of the human environment theme to examine the methodological grounds on which climate change models is based. From a history-geographical perspective the article shows that notions of objective models are increasingly challenged in an era of the anthropocene. It points toward a discussion of interdisciplinary challenges and the ways in which different traditions interpret and explain regularities, rationalities, and pre-analytic assumptions. Lastly we discuss challenges of constructing nature(s) and how we better understand the (geo) politics of climate change modeling.