Climate Change and Religious Conflicts

The Climate Change and Religious Conflicts seminar, led by Jérémie Foa (Senior Lecturer, TELEMMe) and Brian Sandberg (Senior Fellow, Iméra), looks at climate change and religious conflict during the Little Ice Age.

Extrait du tableau "Le Massacre des Innocents" de Pieter Bruegel l'Ancien (1565), utilisé pour illustrer le séminaire Changements climatiques et conflits religieux de l'Iméra.

Extract from the painting “Massacre of the Innocents” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1565).

The Climate Change and Religious Conflicts seminar aims to develop a new research project in collaboration with colleagues from Aix Marseille Universit (amU) on climate change and religious conflict during the Little Ice Age.

Rethinking environmental studies in the context of climate history

The seminar focuses on the history of climate and disasters in European and Mediterranean societies during the 16th and 17th centuries. Global warming, environmental disasters, refugee migration and mass tourism pose new challenges for the contemporary Mediterranean. We need to rethink environmental studies in the context of climate history and societies’ responses to climate change.

Fernand Braudel based his conception of the Mediterranean area and environmental history largely on an agricultural definition of olive, wine and wheat production. Multidisciplinary researchers in environmental studies such as Olivier Rackham, A.T. Grove, Karl Appuhn, and Sam White have produced new analyses of the environment and climate. Researchers are investigating climate change, deforestation, industrial pollution, land degradation, overfishing and climatic disasters.

This recurring seminar invites Iméra residents and amU researchers to rethink the ecologies of Mediterranean worlds in a variety of ways.