Rapid natural changes: A perspective from environmental philosophy

As papers presented at recent meetings on rapid natural change held in Whitehorse, Canada, and Como, Italy have amply demonstrated, physical science is coming to an increasingly clear understanding of natural environmental changes, their causes, and their effects on the landscape. Progress similarly is being made in the social sciences on the determination of human responses to those natural events, both in historical and prehistorical times. It remains to be seen what practical lessons people in contemporary Western societies may draw from those research results. My proposal is that appropriate responses to drastic natural events may depend on prevalent cultural patterns in a society or human group. In the following I briefly discuss the notion of vulnerability to rapid natural changes, and some approaches proposed to deal with it. Next, I discuss a case of particular cultural responses to rapid natural change drawn from the historical ecology of the Yukon and Alaska. I close by noting some consequences of my analysis.