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- Alterações climáticas, perceções e racionalidadesPublication . Viegas, Vanda; Azeiteiro, Ulisses; Dias, João Alveirinho; Alves, FátimaConsiderando que as Alterações Climáticas (AC) – uma das cinco áreas-guia da Estratégia 2020 da Comissão Europeia – são um problema global que requer respostas locais articuladas aos níveis macro, meso e micro; e que a sua compreensão implica a identificação das relações reciprocamente influentes entre a Natureza, a Sociedade e a Cultura; qualquer intervenção – seja no sentido da mitigação das AC, seja no sentido da adaptação às AC – envolve necessariamente essa mesma sociedade, em toda a complexidade das suas dimensões socioculturais e ambientais. Neste artigo, enquadrado pelas teorias compreensivas, refletimos brevemente sobre algumas das inter-relações entre os sistemas climáticos, ambientais e socioculturais e defendemos que as racionalidades leigas, por se enraizarem em tipos e fontes de saber plurais, são um dos pilares para melhor se compreender e lidar com o fenómeno das AC. Whereas Climate Change (CC) – one of the five prioritary areas of the Strategy 2020 of the European Commission – is a global challenge needing local responses, articulated at the macro, meso and micro levels; and while its understanding entails identifying mutually influential relationships between Nature, Society and Culture, any intervention – either to mitigate or adapt to CC – necessarily involves society itself, in the full complexity of its sociocultural and environmental dimensions. In a world in the midst of a major demographic transition, with a population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, issues like sustainability, resource use, scarcity and sharing, have been interwoven in the international, regional and local arenas. This paper develops in the light of comprehensive theories. The methodological procedures are based upon desk research and all the work relies on the reflexive notion and today´s ubiquitous complexity. The spirit of this pivotal approach is the interest in knowledge, curiosity for different dimensions of knowledge and how it is (re)produced, articulated and reflected in the relationships of the individual human being, with itself, with other human beings, with other living creatures and with the environment. This papers argues that the lay rationalities, because they take root in various types and sources of knowledge, are one of the pillars to better understand and deal with the phenomenon of CC. Part one of this paper makes a brief reference to ethical implications, preceded by a succinct analysis of the key dynamics and processes, which are considered responsible for the variability and climate change in a diachronic perspective. Part two discusses some of the sustainability issues, with a brief introduction to the pathways and strategies for mitigating and adapting to CC, which have been outlined and lie ahead, linking the global dimension to the local dimension, governments to markets and to civil society. Finally, focusing on lay rationalities, a brief approach is sought regarding the issues of reflexivity, social capital and the ‘knowledge-power’ concept, keeping in mind that the study of the social reality, which is complex in nature, is always a (de)constructed exercise of dialectics between generalization and specialization.
- Climate changes in the Middle Ages of Western Europe: an attempt at synthesisPublication . Bastos, Rosário; Pereira, Olegário Nelson Azevedo; Dias, João AlveirinhoAddressing climate changes during the Middle Ages involves a twofold artificialization of reality, because: (a) climate change is not static and therefore does not fall into time barriers; (b) the division of history by epochs is an artificialism. In fact, these historical and climatic periods vary depending on the region of the globe considered and usually focus on a paradigm largely confined by the Western view. Nevertheless, we used conventional periodization, only for ease of exposure of the points addressed. Let's assume the conventional periodization of the Middle Ages: 5th-15th centuries. Let us move on to the basic question: what are the main weather periods of this chronology? Beginning with the distinction between climate and atmospheric weather we must consider this is the weather at a giver time and place while climate is measured from a series of indicators (temperature, pressure, humidity, rainfall, radiation, etc.) whose sequential records allow to trace the "climatological standards". Naturally, in the Middle Ages, it is not possible to determine climate standards, so we are limited to the interpretation of proxies, preferably using multiproxies. For the Medieval times, we have to highlight the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). The chronological demarcation of this period is highly controversial. One thing seems certain: from the peak of Roman global warming, we enter a phase of softening and then cooling that will have extended until the beginning of the High Middle Ages. Around the 7th and 8th centuries there was a slight reversal of the global cooling trend. However, the MWP really started around the 900/1000s. In the Late Middle Ages there is a climatic inversio anomaly". They felt the first manifestations of the Little Ice Age. The scarce studies on medieval climate oscillations are even rarer that refer to the impact they had on the lives of the populations who lived then. This approach is what we propose! Not wanting to be deterministic about the role of climate in human history, since many were (and are) the factors that condition it, it is impossible to fail to underline its importance as a major element in the evolution of human communities over time. Is there a correlation (if so, indirectly) between the MWP and Viking expeditions to Iceland (9th century), Greenland (in the late 10th century) and North America (mid-11th century)? Or demographic growth and concomitant intensification of agriculture with the conquest of new fields of cultivation? Or the crusades to the Holy Land (11th-13th centuries)? Or, yet the construction of the great Gothic monuments that marked an epoch that G. Duby called "the time of cathedrals"? And, oppositely, to what extent was the time of contraction (or trend B) of the Early Middle Ages influenced by the worsening climate of the 14th and 15th centuries that impelled Europe beyond itself, with the Iberian kingdoms starting an overseas expansion, for instance? It all requires better and more in-depth studies, for now, we propose only a possible synthesis!