Antarctica (Figure 3.1) is at the forefront of the climate change crisis. We know that it is an important player in global circulations of the atmosphere and the ocean, and that the gain/loss of ice on the continent exerts a major control on sea level. We are also aware that Antarctica has been pivotal in modulating past climate change and sea levels. This appreciation has only been achieved through scientific research over the past fifty years – a remarkable evolution in understanding, considering it was a remote and unknown continent in the early 1900s. Indeed, the first expeditions in which targeted scientific discovery was the sole focus date only to the late 1950s. Considering the rapid evolution in our understanding of Antarctica’s ice sheet, and the continent on which it flows, it is worth taking time to review briefly how we arrived at this point.

Greenland has been peopled from the west by several different groups and only once – in the late tenth century ad – from the east, this time by Norse farmers from northern Europe. Unlike the mobile Arctic hunters, the Norse settlers were sedentary, and the society they established in southwest Greenland was based on the natural vegetation, hunting, and trade with their homelands. For almost 500 years the Norse population in Greenland thrived, and then it vanished for reasons not yet fully understood. Several explanations have been put forward: that the small Norse society failed because of inflexible social and economic strategies,1 or fell victim to a combination of unfortunate circumstances,2 or (as recently argued) suffered from organized and systematic violence by invading Inuit.

This chapter provides a review of archaeologies of landscape and outlines where environmental studies reside within these discussions, particularly in the recent rise of climatic and environmental histories of the ancient Mediterranean. Through a review of the challenges of environmental determinism and the interpretive problems of studies of the historical forcing of climatic events in human history, Kearns argues for integrated methodologies that look critically at varied scales of evidence and interpretation. In advocating the study of weathered materials and their instrumentality within ancient landscape studies, the chapter engages with recent archaeological scholarship on materialism that analyzes how things act and effect historical change. Kearns contends that differentiated entanglements of communities and their physical, changing surroundings contributed to transformations in social and political evaluations of land, place, and status.

Earth's geological history is punctuated by episodes of unusually protracted and large-scale volcanic activity, during which huge volumes of igneous rock are added to Earth's surface and crust. Humans have not witnessed this type of large-scale volcanic activity, known as large igneous province volcanism, but it is often temporally associated with profound environmental and climatic changes, such as mass extinction events. In order to understand what triggers these global changes, we need to consider the fluxes of particles and gas emitted by large igneous province-scale volcanic activity and match our projections with the signals left in the geological record. This is a challenging endeavour and this chapter discusses how evidence from today's active volcanoes can teach us not just about the present-day impact of volcanism, but also about these much larger volcanic eruptions that happened tens to hundreds of millions of years ago. The author argues that by peering into volcanoes, we can shed new light on enigmas surrounding the evolution of Earth's environment and biology over its deep geological history.

The production of hazardous pollutants is part of everyday life for most every human; the problem is that the degree of production per person today is greater than it has ever been – and only getting worse. We all participate in this process, but not equally. We are currently in a moment of geologic history where something living is now the single largest driver of planetary change: humans. In the process of creating this change we are also creating substantial and unnecessary human health hazards, what I call environmental violence. Environmental violence (EV) encompasses many activities and processes – but certainly not everything – that humans do, particularly processes of consumption and production that exceed well past meeting basic needs. In this chapter I work through the theoretical threads that underpin the concept of EV and work to situate EV in human evolutionary and geologic history. I also chart out the rest of the book, providing a roadmap of where we are going and the materials, evidence, case studies, and methods that I will employ along the journey.

We have entered the era of the Anthropocene. Our rapid transformation of the planet poses a particular threat to socio-ecological systems and the Indigenous peoples who create and sustain them. A strengthened partnership between Indigenous knowledge holders and scientists is required based on decolonized knowledge co-production (DKC). Quite the opposite of scientific extractivism, which selectively exploits local and Indigenous knowledge to its own advantage, and more ambitious than the mere recognition and appraisal of Indigenous knowledge, DKC requires dedicated partners from knowledge systems who have learned through years of collaborative work. This introductory chapter proposes a methodology and ethic for DKC based on a problem-oriented and engaged approach built around mutual trust and benefits, and a profound equity between knowledge systems. It examines the intellectual contributions that laid bare the legacies of colonialism and the hegemony of science, opening the way for DKC: Elinor Ostrom who first coined the term co-production, Bruno Latour and Sheila Jasanoff from science and technology studies, with decisive insights from, among others, Edward Said, Vincent Deloria and Tuhuwai Smith.

Many of Earth’s large lowland rivers are heavily impacted by land change and hydraulic engineering to support a range of societal demands. Dams and river engineering for flood control have disconnected rivers from floodplains, reduced coastal sediment flux, and driven land subsidence of deltaic wetlands because of reduced sediment loads. Structural modification of lowland rivers alters hydrologic and sedimentary processes, resulting in unintended geomorphic and environmental adjustments that require decades to unfold. Such problems not only degrade associated riparian ecosystems but also increase human vulnerability to flooding. Integrated approaches to lowland river management are needed to reduce flood risk, conserve and restore riparian environments, while ensuring that lowland rivers continue to meet societal demands.

Having systematically reviewed a comprehensive range of management measures across a wide range of rivers this chapter provides an overview of lessons learned to inform future management strategies. Key lessons are elucidated that relates to (i) urban flood management, (ii) the role of floodplain sedimentology in the design of effective hydraulic infrastructure (iii), the unintended geomorphic consequences of hydraulic engineering (iv), the palimpsest of floodplain management (v), dam removal and reservoir management and (vi), linkages between geodiversity and biodiversity. These lessons pertain to three main fluvial environments, including fluvial adjustment of channels, embanked floodplains, and flood basins and deltas. The study concludes by discussing reasons for concern and reasons for optimism as regards future management of lowland river environments.

Given global social and environmental change, understanding how resulting place change affects people–place bonds is of pressing importance. However, given traditional views of these bonds as static, understanding the fluidity of people’s relationship with place remains nascent. We examine how people’s sense of place relating to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef changed over a four-year period during which the reef suffered climate-change-induced mass coral bleaching. Operationalising sense of place with seven indicators representing place attachment, identity and meanings, we found increases in attachment, identity and two meanings (pride, biodiversity) and decreases in three meanings (lifestyle, aesthetics, scientific value). We suggest that place change heightened the emotional and intangible elements of sense of place, while having a negative effect on the more instrumental meanings. Our results challenge a notion of people–place bonds premised on fixity, stability, and low dimensionality, instead suggesting the need to consider them as dynamic and multidimensional.

Historically, El Niño events have been associated with droughts and famines. Climate change will make extreme El Niño events more frequent and intense. In 2015–2016, one of the warmest El Niños on record helped trigger massive droughts across Ethiopia, Southern Africa, India, the Maritime Continent, Thailand, Latin America, and Brazil. Exceptionally warm ocean waters decimated fisheries and bleached coral reefs. In Ethiopia and southern Africa, 36 million people were pushed into near-famine conditions. Building on the author’s own research, this chapter examines how climate change has contributed to the ~+0.8°C increase in strong El Niños. In a world without climate change, such a +0.8°C increase would be possible but very unlikely. In a world with climate change, such a change would be very likely. Climate change made the 2015–2016 El Niño more extreme, contributing to Ethiopia’s and southern Africa’s extreme hunger and economic loss. Climate change is hurting people now. Climate change models predict that more extreme El Niños are likely over the next twenty years. The chapter contains a firsthand account from Prosper Chirara, a poor young man from Zimbabwe devastated by drought in 2015 and 2016.