Cultural and Consensus Models of Climate Change Adaptation for Chesapeake Bay

Michael Paolisso博士（马里兰州大学）、Shirley Fiske博士（马里兰州大学）和Susan Crate博士（乔治梅森大学）将对气候变化的地方文化模式进行为期两年的研究。这项研究将在切萨皮克湾东海岸的三个社区进行。 虽然气候变化有着广泛的科学理论，如《联合国气候变化框架公约》，但气候变化也是一个地方性的概念，从个人的角度解释，可能会因人们的文化，社会经济，地理空间和时间位置而有所不同。 关于公众对气候变化的理解的大多数信息来自民意调查，而不是深入的社区研究。 该项目将有助于系统的人种学研究，以了解不同群体的人如何思考，理解和解释气候变化现象，以及为适应气候变化而提出的政策。将选择三个社区，以改变其与切萨皮克湾资源的经济关系这些国家的居民（如水手、农民或居住在岸边的退休人员）面临着气候变化的风险，特别是海平面上升。在每个社区，研究人员将采访居民，收集有关气候变化及其影响的认知领域信息，并为切萨皮克湾地区提出适应措施。从这些数据开发社区层面的认知模型后，文化共识分析技术将被用来测试共享的知识和模型重叠的程度内和社区之间，社区的理解和那些基础补救方案和政策。多变量分析将用于评估文化模式知识、当地环境条件和社会经济背景对社区理解和支持气候变化适应政策的影响，该项目解决了了解面临气候变化不利影响严重威胁的不同社区如何理解气候变化以及他们的信仰在多大程度上和在什么水平上共享的需要。该项目将为当地社区，县规划者和国家办公室提供信息，因为他们面临着不断变化的环境;它将加深我们对环境问题的公众观念和适应它们所需的公共行动的理解;它将为人类学家提供理论和方法论见解，将文化模型方法应用于环境问题。

Dr. Michael Paolisso (University of Maryland), Dr. Shirley Fiske (University of Maryland), and Dr. Susan Crate (George Mason University) will undertake a two-year study of local, cultural models of climate change. The research will be conducted in three communities on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Although there are widely held scientific theories of climate change, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, climate change is also a local construct, interpreted from individuated perspectives that may vary depending on people's cultural, socioeconomic, geospatial, and temporal location. Most information on public understandings of climate change comes from public opinion polls, and not from in-depth community studies. This project will contribute systematic, ethnographic research to understand how diverse groups of people think about, understand, and interpret the phenomenon of climate change, and the policies proposed to adapt to it.The three communities will be chosen to vary in their economic relation to Chesapeake Bay resources (as watermen, farmers, or shore-dwelling retirees), and to be at-risk from climate change effects, particularly sea-level rises. In each community, the researchers will interview residents and collect cognitive domain information about climate change, its impacts, and proposed adaptations for the Chesapeake Bay region. After developing community-level cognitive models from these data, cultural consensus analytical techniques will be used to test the extent of shared knowledge and model overlap within and between communities, and between community understandings and those that underlie remediation programs and policies. Multivariate analyses will be used to assess the impacts of cultural model knowledge, local environmental conditions, and socioeconomic contexts on community understanding and support of climate change adaptation policies.The project addresses the need to understand how diverse communities under severe threat of adverse effects from climate change understand climate change and to what extent and at what levels their beliefs are shared. The project will provide information for local communities, county planners, and state offices as they confront a changing environment; it will deepen our understanding of the public perceptions of environmental issues and public actions necessary to adapt to them; and it will provide theoretical and methodological insights for anthropologists applying cultural model approaches to environmental issues.