Leverage learnings from the past for a more sustainable future

Environmental anthropology was a big part of my research when I was writing my dissertation for my master's in Digital Anthropology at University College London (UCL) three years ago.

As part of my studies, I examined the ways in which people who survive disasters create a new social habitus for themselves and continue their lives. I analysed materiality and temporality in various situations, focusing on three different kinds of disaster which have occurred, or are still in the process of occurring, in different parts of the world. The three types of disaster I had chosen to examine were: tsunamis, nuclear disasters and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic crisis. It was really interesting to compare all three, understand the similarities and the differences in people's behaviour as well as the inequalities and other social consequences that also may emerge.

It had been mind blowing for me to dive deep into understanding people after a disaster has been occurred. How do people experience a disaster and what helps people "survive" after an unprecedented natural disaster like a tsunami? In this blog, I am using some of this knowledge to make three points that, in my opinion, should be taken into consideration while introducing new procedures, settings and norms to mitigate and adapt in nowadays climate emergency.

Be aware of social threats

Both social and economic conditions are connected to the presence and the absence of materials. For instance, a person living in a spacious luxury flat experiences the obligatory measure of quarantine differently compared with another person in the same area who is sharing a studio apartment with others. The same happens with climate change.

Climate change affects all regions around the world. Some countries and people, though, may suffer more than others based on where they live, the status and their surroundings. For instance, people living in low-income urban areas with poor infrastructure, and, generally speaking, population groups with lower incomes and assets, are more exposed to climate impacts but have less capacity to face them. We need to have a plan about how we can get prepared for those situations and stress out the importance for the right adaptation measures and collaboration, as I will analyse. Let's not think that we are ok, if the disaster has not been so obvious to us yet. We should be aware of the potential social threats in our planet and appreciate the situation.

Stress out the importance for Adaptation

Pressure should be put that all governments, companies and individuals will need to understand the evidence for the climate emergency, think proactively and collaborate while we all act together on climate change. These days, more and more people are talking about preventing or reducing the emission of greenhouse gases (GHH) into the atmosphere. This is great. I can see that awareness on this matter already influences new legislation by governments, new travel and other policies by companies and behaviour shifts for many people, to make the impacts of climate change less severe. We are still at the beginning, but something seems to be moving here. Sustainability professionals and advocates refer to this process as mitigation and it is very important. However, there is another important term in the glossary which should move people more. This is the term of Adaptation.

In all sustainability courses that I have taken, adaptation is marked as equally important with mitigation, because people also need to realise local risks and develop plans to manage them. In other words, disasters happen already, but we need to find ways to minimise their consequences, overcome them and support the survivors in the new contexts through big efforts on adaptation. In my view, the severity of climate change requires public and private actors to be creative and work together in reducing vulnerability and adapting to the impacts.

Example 1: If orange crops are suffering from high temperatures in Greece or Spain, farmers in Greece and Spain should consider working together to maintain sales and balance supply and demand. They should also consider diversifying crops now or later. New crops should tolerate warmer weather conditions to help farmers survive the economic effects of climate change. Otherwise, if agriculture drops dramatically, it will result to reduced supply and export sales and therefore affect the respective economies and people.

Example 2: If London is becoming hotter and hotter, there is an opportunity for air conditioning providers to sell more in the UK.

Infrastructure should be enhanced, in general, to withstand the changes or even extreme weather conditions, wherever people live in this planet.

Example 3: If governments are aware of signs for potential tsunami in an area, they should be building defences to protect against sea-level rise or take more drastic proactive measures as necessary. According to last year's report from World Bank , Bangladesh has taken some very good adaptation measures.

Bangladesh's impressive economic growth was backed by its decades of systematic investments in climate resilience and disasters preparedness. It has?reduced cyclone-related deaths by 100-fold since 1970 and it is recognised as a global leader in climate change adaptation and disaster preparedness.

Accept the climate emergency and outline what needs to be done

In my dissertation, I had concluded that perceptions, memories and expectations are all influenced by the materials found during or after a disaster and run in a dynamic circle helping the survivors to understand the norms throughout, and thus be enabled to adapt and continue their life in a new context. In one of the tsunami disasters in India, for instance, contexts changed both suddenly and rapidly for the survivors. The absence of items as well as the presence of damaged ones, that are left behind after such a disaster, influence the way in which some survivors relate to the disaster and how long the impact of such a disaster lasts. As long as some materials exist to remind the survivors of the tsunami and its consequences, memories do not fade and the tsunami remains an ongoing disaster, with the survivors still striving to escape it and recover.

In other words, the available objects and the landscapes play a social role after a disaster has occurred. They work as materials that help the survivors digest what has happened and to understand where they are now, so that they can orientate themselves towards the future and gradually create new social habits or re-create old ones. Moai in the South Pacific Ocean's Easter Island could have played the same role if the residents of the island were still alive and could migrate somewhere else to continue their civilisation after its disaster. Their history would have driven their new presence and future if they had survived. However, Moai can help us, instead.

What if do Moai statues exist just to tell us their story?

Moai are called the large statues which have been the only leftover from the disaster of a flourishing civilisation that had been developed some time in the past in the isolated Easter Island in the Pacific ocean. They had originally been built to honour their ancestors. The statues can't speak but their presence in the island is silently triggering assumptions that the island became overpopulated and resources diminished at some point in its history, resulting to famine, cannibalism and wars, as described by Ronal Wright.

"A short history of progress" is one of my favourite books that I recommend to people who are interested to understand more about sustainability and climate change. It has been written by the archaeologist and writer Ronal Wright and it is about understanding the progress of different civilisations in different times and places through our history to ultimately understand human behaviour and what conditions led to the downfall of those societies. "The lesson I read in the past, he states, is this: that the health of land and water – and of woods, which are the keepers of water – can be the only lasting basis for any civilization's survival and success." (A Short History of Progress, p 105) Although there is some criticism whether is true what Ronal Wright and others state below as the story of the island, I do think that Wright is right to call for a shift towards leveraging learnings from the past and not repeating the same mistakes, as he proposes.

"The lesson I read in the past is that the health of land and water and of woods, which are the keepers of water – can be the only lasting basis for any civilization's survival and success."

Moai are the leftover from a disaster but it is also a piece of a bigger story, the ongoing disaster of the global climate crisis for which humans have also been the cause. I will try to explain the story of Easter Island with today's sustainability terms - trying to listen to what Moai say silently to ourselves today, as we are surviving a similar but global disaster and we need their help.

• "Each clan in the island began to honour its ancestry with impressive stone images." - Moai probably try to say that there was a need for adaptation. The residents should have shifted to new behaviours to balance the limited natural resources and survive in the island, but they didn't.
• "Each generation of Moai statues grew bigger than the last, demanding more timber, rope and manpower. Trees were cut faster than they could grow." Moai say that the need for adaptation was made clear by nature.
• "As trees became scarce, measures should have been taken to halt the cutting, to protect the sapling, to replant. But this is not what happened." Moai probably say that there was a need for mitigation as well. Tree planting would have helped bringing new resources in the island, but they didn't.
• "The people who felled the last tree in the island could see it was the last. But they still cut it." Moai probably say that the need for mitigation and adaptation was made clear by nature.

Earth Overshoot Day 2023 falls on August 2.?Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year.

Isn't this a similar evidence like the diminished resources and the last tree in the Easter Island of Ronald Wright's book?

To conclude, history seems to be repeating itself again and again, as I read through the chapters of history in Wright's book. A common mistake of our ancestors seemed to be the lack of respect to the limited environmental resources although there was clear evidence that something was going wrong. In the past, when the resources were not enough anymore in one place, there was always the choice for our ancestors to expand or move somewhere else and survive. However, the residents of Easter Island were too isolated to migrate. Therefore, the civilisation developed in Easter Island failed to survive through the years. Moai, though, are the leftovers of that civilisation. They did not help the residents in the island but they maybe survived for our favour; to tell us the story. So, here it is. Moai statues urge us to do three things, if we wish to help the human civilisation survive and prevent this planet from staying alone with just statues in the future: Accept the situation as it is now, think long-term and collaborate - along with carefully set up adaptation measures.

Listen to the moai please. They seem to know. :)