[Balstad, Russell, Gil & Marx 2009] Adapting to Uncertain Climate on the Great Plains

7/28/2019 [Balstad, Russell, Gil & Marx 2009] Adapting to Uncertain Climate on the Great Plains

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Adapting to Climate Change: Thresholds, Values, Governance, eds. W. Neil Adger, Irene Lorenzoni and Karen L.

OBrien. Published by Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press 2009.

283

Theoretical context

We begin this chapter with two questions: frst, how do people adapt to climateuncertainty? Second, can the historical past serve as a laboratory or testing and

understanding human responses to climate uncertainty? We examine these ques-

tions in the context o a study o adaptation to climate variability in a county in the

northern Great Plains o the United States during and ater its initial agricultural

settlement in the late nineteenth century. The purpose o the study is to understand

how a newly arrived population o European immigrants and European-origin set-

tlers rom the Eastern United States adapted to the harsh and uncertain climate

conditions on the Great Plains. But rather than constructing a historical narrative

on how climate inuenced the settlement experience, we will instead examine cur-

rent theory on decision-making related to adaptation to climate uncertainty and

study how the settlement experience in the Great Plains can illuminate and con-

tribute to this body o theory.

There is a large body o research on decision-making that can be related to

human adaptation to uncertainty. It deals with such topics as the need or predict-

ability and control, overconfdence in judgements, the role o available or recent

and thus easily predictable models in anticipating uture events, risk communica-

tion and management, and others (Weber, 2006; Marx et al., 2007). Here, however,

we will ocus specifcally on three aspects o the corpus o research on decision-

making under uncertainty: (a) patterns o inormation processing; (b) the fnite

pool o worry; and (c) the bias toward a single action in response to uncertainty.

These ideas have been the ocus o research by social scientists in the Center or

Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) at Columbia University, unded by

the US National Science Foundation.

18

Adapting to an uncertain climate

on the Great Plains: testing hypotheses

on historical populations

Roberta Balstad, Roly Russell, Vladimir Gil

and Sabine Marx


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Adapting to an uncertain climate on the Great Plains284

Research on inormation processing suggests that individuals tend to process

inormation (and respond to risky situations, including climate uncertainty and

change ) via two dierent parts o the brain. These are the aective processing

system, which is the source o emotions and experiences associated with emo-

tions, and the analytic processing system, which is capable o dealing with what istraditionally deemed scientifc inormation abstract, statistical and probabilistic

(Marx et al., 2007). Aective or experience-based reasoning is based on ones own

experience or that o others. It can involve a strong emotional response to what is

oten vivid presentation or description. Analytic reasoning involves the evaluation

o inormation obtained rom scientists or others who are in positions o authority

or hold authoritative credentials, and requently can be statistically represented.

It oten has less impact on individual decision-making than experiential or anec-

dotal inormation. These two types o inormation processing oten interact in deci-

sions about climate and adaptation to climate. Marx et al. point out that experientialinormation processing is generally dominant in decision-making under uncertainty

because it produces output aster. When the output o the two systems is in conict,

the aective system is more likely to determine the behaviour. However, analytical

inormation processing can oten moderate the aective and experiential responses

to risk, especially when a problem calling or a decision is discussed in a group.

Social scientists have also ound that decisions related to risk management

are largely driven by worry, and that individuals perceptions o specifc prob-

lems change as worry about one type o risk increases or decreases (Linville and

Fischer, 1991). Linville and Fischer showed that i two negative events occur dur-

ing the same time period, they must share the loss-buering resources available

during that time period. Although this line o research has been widely applied in

organizational psychology, consumer psychology, behavioral decision-making and

to some extent in the health sciences, the application o the concept to climate-

related decisions is airly recent. In their study o Argentine armers acing climate,

political and economic risks, Hanson et al. (2004) ound that when individuals are

conronted with new worries (or multiple worries simultaneously), there is a ten-

dency to ocus on a single area o concern and pay less attention to other worries,

even though there has been no change in the risks previously perceived as high and

worrisome. The phenomenon is described as the fnite pool o worry because they

ound that a single, signifcant worry has a tendency to dominate and crowd out

other worries in the pool. Because increases in worrying about one problem can

lead to diminished concern about other problems, there is a limit to the number o

problems related to adaptation to climate variability and uncertainty that individu-

als will choose to deal with at any point in time (Weber, 2006). It also suggests

that by ocusing on a single worry, individuals tend to reduce the complexity o the

spectrum o problems that they ace.


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R. Balstad et al. 285

Another suboptimal response to risk that is related to the role o aect and

which has a similar tendency to ocus and simpliy individual decision-making and

adaptation to climate variability is the single action bias. Weber (1997) ound that

individuals responding to an external threat tend to respond in terms o a single

action, even when it is in their best interest to adopt a more diverse or multiacetedapproach. This study o armers in the Midwest ound that they tended to adapt to

climate variability in a single way, such as changing production practices, altering

pricing practices or seeking government intervention, but never engaged in more

than one o these practices. Similarly, Argentine armers who were able to store

grain on their arms did so and as a consequence were less likely to adopt multiple

or additional saety measures, such as irrigation or crop insurance, than those who

had little or no capacity to store their grain (Hanson et al., 2004). This too suggests

that individuals may be satisfed with adapting to climate risks in a narrower and

more ocused way than the situation warrants. The same phenomenon has beenobserved in medical diagnostics where radiologists searching x-rays or lesions

stopped their search ater discovering one lesion, leaving additional abnormali-

ties unnoticed (Berbaum et al., 1991). These examples illustrate the tendency in

disparate settings or humans to engage in only one response to threat and then

to take no urther action because their eeling o worry or vulnerability has been

reduced.

The rationale for historical research

The rationale or conducting historical research on climate impacts and responses

to these impacts goes beyond understanding the past or its own sake (Endfeld,

2008). Much o the existing social science theory on climate adaptation and decision-

making under uncertainty , including research on patterns o inormation process-

ing, the fnite pool o worry, and the single action bias, is the product o either

laboratory studies or behavioural observation, and sometimes both. What these

approaches lack, however, is the perspective that can be obtained through examin-

ing adaptive behaviour and linking perceptions, experiences and behaviour over

long time periods and in the context o complex and oten interacting economic,

technological, policy and climate systems. Climate adaptation decisions are

always made in a temporal context, as well as in meteorological, political, eco-

nomic and cultural contexts. The temporal context may inuence adaptation deci-

sions in regard to the sequence and timing o inuences on decision-making or to

variations in lag times between the perception o external problems and individual

responses. Although the single action bias and the fnite pool o worry are most

evident in the immediate context o a specifc decision, they are shaped, in part, by

the decision-makers previous experiences and assessments o the decision setting.


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Studies o behaviour in contemporary laboratory settings cannot provide the

temporal perspective needed to understand the cumulative role o time and experi-

ence on decision-making. However, historical studies, because they can ocus on

behaviour over long time periods, can provide valuable insight into these inuences

on decision-making .A related but dierent issue is whether historical data and other records o past

behaviour can be analysed in terms o theory developed in the contemporary labo-

ratory. I the goal o research is to identiy regular patterns o individual and social

behaviour so as to understand, evaluate or even anticipate uture behaviour, it is

reasonable to test the underlying theory against behaviour at multiple time periods

and in multiple places where conditions may be similar or may vary in theoretically

useul ways. This type o research ollow-up is usually costly, however, and con-

sequently is rarely done. I historical research on real (historical) populations can

be combined with, or even substituted or, interviews or experiments using con-temporary populations, it could advance decision theory related to climate adapta-

tion and, in Poppers words, help determine whether theory can stand up to the

demands o practice. In both cases, the overall cost o research may be reduced

and the epistemological benefts increased (Popper, 1934).

Historical background

The rapid settlement o the trans-Mississippi West ater the US Civil War in the

1860s was encouraged by the ederal government, which systematically negotiated

reductions in the amount o land it had earlier ceded to the Native Americans. It

then initiated sweeping new land and transportation policies aecting the use o

these lands. As a result, the transormation o this region rom a largely uninhab-

ited rangeland to a settled checkerboard o towns, arms and eventually cities was

especially rapid and became one o the defning elements o the countrys history

(Turner, 1893). Because o its limited rainall, the Great Plains were characterized

by rolling expanses o treeless grasses which had the advantage o not requiring

deorestation beore the land could be planted in commercial crops. There was

rom the start some controversy as to whether the Plains were suitable or agricul-

ture. Among the early voices was that o John Wesley Powell, who explored the

area or the US Geological Survey and declared that irrigation was necessary i

agriculture on the Plains were ever to be productive (Powell, 1878; Morris, 1926).

Arrayed against his cautionary advice were the railroad companies, which had

been granted land by the government in exchange or extending the railroads and

which advertised widely about the benefts o settling in the American West. They

sold both town plots and arm land to would-be settlers. Those who wished to

obtain their land at lower cost registered claims with the ederal land ofce under


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the Homestead Act, passed in 1862, which provided up to 160 acres o surveyed,

unclaimed land to individuals in exchange or occupying the land or fve years,

paying minimal registration ees, and making certain improvements on the land

(Gates, 1968). Consequently, the cost o entry or arming on the Great Plains was

low, and would-be armers were attracted to the territory rom nearby states, romthe eastern USA and Canada, and rom northern Europe and the British Isles.

What they did not know was that although the cost o entry was low, the cost o

staying could be high.

This study ocuses on Kingsbury County in the eastern part o the Dakota Territory

an area opened to settlement near the end o the 1870s. This was originally the

northernmost part o the Louisiana Purchase rom France in 1803. It was ormalized

as a territory in 1861 in anticipation o white settlement, and it was subdivided into

two states, North and South Dakota, in 1889. Workers on the railroads were the frst

to arrive in the area that became Kingsbury County, and armers and merchants ol-lowed soon ater the railroad tracks were laid. Although the popular image o the

rontier settler is that o a armer engaged in subsistence agriculture, the settlers o

eastern South Dakota were oten both townspeople and commercial armers rom the

start . The railroads were a commercial lieline, bringing settlers, ood and supplies

into the towns o the Territory and leaving with the ruits o armers labour.

The settlement o Kingsbury County, like most o the Dakota Territory, was

eected by the combined eorts o the territorial government, the railroad com-

panies, and thousands o land-hungry, would-be settlers who were attracted to the

newly opened agricultural lands in the west. These settlers obtained much o their

inormation about the area rom word o mouth or through publications prepared

by the territorial government and the railroads that were designed to attract settlers.

The Dakota Territorial government had an active publication program under the

supervision o the Commissioner o Immigration that sent documents describing

the ertility o Dakota soils and the Territorys benign climate to readers in many

countries in the language o that country. These documents obviously were meant

to counter what were recognized as negative impressions o the region. In 1887,

or example, the Commissioner o Immigration published a statement on the cli-

mate o Dakota. It began with the statement: Scarcely anything connected with

Dakota is the subject o greater misconception than its climate (Commissioner

o Immigration, 1887). The climate o the Territory was described to potential

immigrants as the pure, exhilarating, healthul climate o Dakota; readers were

told that the visitor who has once drunk deep draughts o this prairie oxygen, is

under the charmers spell, and can never again content himsel to live without the

Territory (Commissioner o Immigration, 1887).

By 1880, there were over 1000 new residents in Kingsbury Country, about 30%

o whom had been born outside the United States. Many o those who were born


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in the USA, however, were themselves the children o immigrants. A sample o

households in Kingsbury County in 1880 shows that roughly 60% o the settlers

were born abroad or were raised in a household by parents who were born abroad.

This suggests that the cultural background o settler households was more oten

that o European immigrants than o amilies who came to the Dakota rontierrom other parts o the United States. The previous agricultural experience o these

settlers was largely in areas quite dierent rom the Great Plains .

Whether or not settlers experienced the exhilaration o the prairie oxygen pre-

dicted by ofcial publications selling the Territory, the frst white settlers, who

generally came rom the humid eastern United States or the rainy countries o

northern Europe, aced agricultural conditions in the Dakota Territory or which

their previous experiences had not prepared them. They had little or no experience

arming in areas with rainall as low or as variable as it was in the eastern part o

the Dakota Territory. On average, the annual precipitation was sufcient to supportagriculture, particularly in the eastern part o the state. However the precipitation

was irregular, both annually and in terms o the distribution o rainall during the

growing season, when it was most needed or agriculture. Not only was the Dakota

climate drier than the areas let by the settlers who ocked to the newly opened

lands, but it had highly variable precipitation patterns and strong, hot winds that

caused what soil moisture there was to evaporate, leaving it even drier than sug-

gested by the annual rainall levels. In the nineteenth century, the variability in

rainall raised the question o whether the Great Plains could support agriculture,

a question that remains controversial today (Riebsame, 1991; Cuner, 2005; Parton

et al., 2007). An example o the extreme variability in precipitation in the region

is the rainall in the James River Valley o what is now South Dakota . In 1881,

when the area was frst being settled by agriculturalists, there was 40 inches o

rain. In 1894, there was only 14 inches (Schell, 2004) . Between these two points,

there were years with adequate rainall and years o drought (and years when the

rainall arrived during critical points in the growing cycle and years in which the

seasonal distribution o rainall hurt crops), but in general, rainall was high in the

early 1880s and low in the late 1880s and early 1890s (Kepfeld, 1998). In almost

all cases, immigrants to the area had learned to arm in more humid European and

eastern North American climates.

The winter climate on the plains was also unlike anything most o the settlers

had previously experienced. Publications intended or prospective settlers empha-

sized that Dakota was located on the same latitude as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,

and Cleveland, Ohio, and in Europe it was on the same latitude as France and

Austria. The clear implication o this comparison was that the Dakota weather

was similar to that o these other places. Government publications also empha-

sized that there was considerably less snow in Dakota than in the eastern states


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and implied that summer generally began shortly ater the winter broke in March

(Commissioner o Immigration, 1887). Not surprisingly, there was no discussion in

these publications o the disastrous impact o Dakota blizzards on cattle, humans

and even railroads, stopping the settlers access to ood and arm implements. In

1880, there was a blizzard that stopped the trains or over six months, leaving thenewly arrived settlers in Kingsbury County with shortages o ood, frewood and

cattle eed . They ground seed, intended or planting in the spring, in coee grind-

ers to get our or bread. Another disastrous blizzard took place in 1888. In both

years, many settlers were lost in the swirling snow and died o exposure or hunger

(Wilder, 1940; Laskin, 2004).

In addition to the annual and seasonal variations in the levels o rainall and the

continuing possibility o devastating winter blizzards , the Dakota settlers aced

a variety o other unexpected climate-related events in their new homes. There

were fres, sparked by dry conditions and spread by high winds, that swept acrossthe plains, destroying crops in their way; tornados or cyclones that were strong

enough to destroy buildings, including a brick church in DeSmet, the largest town

in Kingsbury County; oods that ollowed winters with heavy snows; plagues

o grasshoppers in the 1870s and as late as 1880 that totally destroyed crops and

other vegetation in their path; lightning strikes; and destructive hail (Crothers,

no date; Robinson, 1904) . As a settler in a story by Willa Cather, who grew up

on the plains, describes the climate, He had seen it smitten by all the plagues o

Egypt. He had seen it parched by drought, and sogged by rain, beaten by hail, and

swept by fre, and in the grasshopper years he had seen it eaten as bare and clean

as bones that the vultures have let . Ater the great fres he had seen it stretch

or miles and miles, black and smoking as the oor o hell (Cather, 1896). The

severity o these weather events, combined with the difculty in predicting them,

provides a research setting or looking at behavioural responses to unexpected

climate changes.

Climate adaptation and decision-making

We look at the impact o these weather events on the Great Plains by examining

two types o behaviour in the initial settler population: frst, residential persistence

over time in Kingsbury County, and second, economic investment in the County

through land ownership. We have taken a systematic sample o the population o

heads o household in the County in 1880, using the manuscript schedules o the

Federal Census or that year in order to trace evidence o these individuals in other

sources over time to determine who stayed and to iner why. Inormation on indi-

vidual land ownership in the nineteenth century is available through the Bureau

o Land Management. One o the advantages o ocusing on Kingsbury County is


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that the events o the early settlement period, including climate events and their

impacts on the settler population, have been chronicled in great detail by observant

residents o the county rom 1879 to 1894, including Laura Ingalls Wilder, author

o ten books on the Great Plains, the best known o which are the Little House on

the Prairie books.The basic conditions o settlement were similar or most people, whether they

came rom a ew hundred or many thousand miles away. The commercial ounda-

tions or a thriving agricultural area were in place. As mentioned earlier, land or

commercial agriculture was available to all essentially or ree through homestead-

ing or or purchase at competitive prices, and land in the railroad towns that sprang

up as the armers arrived, was also available or purchase. The climate was a sur-

prise, and variable and extreme weather events were to pose adaptation problems

or the settlers. But during the initial years o what was called the Great Dakota

Boom (late 1870s), the increase in annual rainall gave newcomers the impressionthat this was a ertile land (Schell, 2004). This increase in precipitation in the late

1870s was popularly attributed to the act that the settlers were beginning to plow

the prairies, and the saying Rainall ollows the plow, was heard requently to

explain the rainall. The availability o sufcient water and land or the taking,

and, because o improved economic conditions in the United States, the construc-

tion o railroads that provided access to eastern markets made the area attractive to

many. The population o eastern Dakota increased rapidly in the decade ollowing

1878 and millions o acres were registered as new homesteads each year, with the

number o acres reaching its height in 1883 (Schell, 2004). In short, the result o

ederal land and transportation policies was to encourage commercial wheat arm-

ing in the Dakota Territories. Unortunately, many o the newly arrived armers

took advantage o these policies to pursue a amiliar type o agriculture that was

less well suited to the territory than the cattle-grazing culture that preceded them

on the land .

The decline in precipitation ater 1888 created economic hardships or local

armers who saw their yields decline with the rainall. The impact o lower rainall

was combined with irregular weather events, like hailstorms, that destroyed crops

even more rapidly than drought (Kingsbury County News, 1888). By this time,

many o the armers had already taken out loans or mortgages or arm machin-

ery. This debt intensifed the economic impact o the weather events, and armers

were orced to delay payments when they lost their crops. By the late 1880s, local

newspapers began to print lists o delinquent tax sales o land (Kingsbury County

News, 1888). By the 1890s, the newspapers were printing lists o oreclosures and

mortgage sales as well (Kingsbury County Independent, 1893).

Almanzo and Laura Wilder provide an illustration o adaptation to climate

impacts in Kingsbury County over a long period o time. They had both moved


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to the County as soon as the lands were opened to homesteading in 1879, and

they married in 1885. But ater a severe hailstorm destroyed their thriving crops

in the summer o 1886, they were orced to rethink their economic plan or

the year. Rather than selling their wheat and oats as planned, they took out a

mortgage on their homestead, rented their tree claim to another armer, andharvested and sold wild hay on the Chicago market (Wilder, 1971). The Wilders

responded to the destruction caused by the hailstorm with energy, inventiveness

and good humour and cited the irony that it reversed the Irish proverb, The rich

man gets his ice in summer and the poor man gets his in the winter. The hail,

whatever it had done to the crops, provided the poor Plains armers with ice in

summer.

The Wilders survived that year to ace increasing drought, high winds and

cyclones, fres and other difculties in subsequent years. They diversifed their

arming, adding sheep, which did better in the dry years than the crops, loweredtheir living standards and tried various economic remedies. But conditions were

difcult. Almanzo Wilders brother and sister each had homesteaded property or

nearly a decade, and in 1888 their lands were sold or delinquent taxes (Kingsbury

County News, 1888; Anderson, 1985). Laura Wilders parents, who had a home-

stead and also owned commercial property in the town o DeSmet, kept their

land, perhaps because their commercial property provided an income somewhat

independent o agriculture and less immediately tied to predictable climate. In

1894, the Wilders decided to leave Kingsbury County . In her diary o the trip

to Missouri, where they fnally settled permanently, Laura Wilder began: For

seven years there had been too little rain. The prairies were dustCrop ater crop

ailedThe agony o hope ended when there was no harvest and no more credit,

no money to pay interest and taxes; the banker took the land. Then the bank

ailed (Wilder, 1962). The Wilders and their neighbours aced a double problem:

an inhospitable climate where they lived and a nationwide economic panic that

tied their hands economically. On the back o the wagon belonging to the amily

that accompanied them to Missouri was a hand-lettered notice, Rear Guard o

Coxeys Army, linking their pilgrimage to a new home in the milder climate o

Missouri to the protest march on Washington o 500 unemployed workers rom

Ohio (Anonymous, 1999).

Despite the difculties that armers like the Wilders and their amilies aced,

a large proportion o those who moved to the County when it was frst opened to

settlement stayed, unlike settlers in western parts o the Dakota Territory where

most o the settlers moved away within a ew years. The next stage o this project

will be to analyse the landowning and agricultural persistence patterns o the

sample o settlers in 1880 to determine what might have inuenced the decision to

stay or to move elsewhere.


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Ties between theory and history

We ound that the settlers who came to the Great Plains had little or no direct

experience with the climate or amiliarity with scientifc assessments o the land

beore they moved there. Their inormation came rom the publications o the

Territorial government or the railroads, both o which had an economic motive

in attracting settlers to the Territory. An even stronger message than the descrip-

tions o the benign climate was the promise o ree land, which appealed directly

to potential immigrants. Once they were living in the Territory, however, they

experienced a climate that belied the milk and honey messages that they had

received rom ormal governmental and corporate sources. It was at this point that

the settlers began to have their initial, frst-hand experiences with the climate o

the Plains. For most people, the climate made lie difcult, but they adjusted to

its extremes until the climate threatened their ability to make a living. Then the

settlers elt they had to decide whether to stay or to leave. The limit to adaptation,

then, came when climate uncertainties and disincentives reached a threshold that

interered with critical economic aspects o their lives.

In terms o processing inormation, there were three rather than two patterns that

can be observed among the Dakota settlers. Basic analytic inormation came rom

publications, laws and advertising about the easibility o moving to the Territory.

Second, experiential inormation about the value o land ownership and commer-

cial markets or grain provided a critical push to the Plains. In settlers decisions,

the emotional desire or land ar outweighed both the analytical inormation thatthey received on the climate and their own early experience o the harsh and vari-

able climate o the Plains. But we ound a third type o inormation processing that

helped the settlers cope with the conditions in which they ound themselves . This

involved domesticating problems by ftting them into existing rames o reerence

with sayings or aphorisms. A typical example can be seen in Caroline Ingalls

response to her daughters statement that the prairie was beautiul, but it seemed

they had to fght it all the time. Ingalls responded, This earthly lie is a battle I

it isnt one thing to contend with, its another. It always has been so, and it always

will be. The sooner you make up your mind to that, the better o you are (Wilder,1941).

The concept o the fnite pool o worry was based on observations o armers

in the North American Midwest and in Argentina. At frst glance, it does not seem

to apply to armers in the Dakota Territory. In part, this is because the pool o

climate-inuenced worries, such as drought, were oten inseparable rom other

worries (mostly socio-economic). But during blizzards, oods or fres, climate

events could be directly related to physical survival. The response o the Wilders,

their amilies and riends, to these conditions took place on several levels. We ound

that their expectations (and worries) were uid over time and involved both gradual


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adaptation to extreme conditions and rejection o living under these conditions

at dierent times. The change rom acceptance to rejection could be related to the

successive impacts o climate events or to the timing and linkage o climate problems

with economic problems.

A third element we examine is the existence o a single action bias in adapta-tion to the climate variability on the Great Plains. Looking at the experiences o

specifc individuals in Kingsbury County in the ace o periodic, unexpected and

previously unexperienced climate-related crises, we fnd that the impact o cli-

mate events had the power to aect multiple aspects o the settlers lives, including

their fnancial security, their homes, their saety and their immediate economic

livelihood. Observing the experiences o specifc settlers on the Plains suggests

that they responded to climate-induced problems with multiple strategies. This

included strategies related to improving yields through mechanization and plow-

ing more acres and improving proftability by shiting to new crops and markets.They also rented land to others and started new businesses in the railroad towns

to supplement their income. In large part, this exibility may be the result o their

responses , not to climate events alone, but to climate events in the context o a

complex and expanding economic system.

Conclusions

We began with two questions: how people adapt to climate uncertainty, and whether

the historical past can serve as a laboratory or testing and understanding human

responses to climate uncertainty. We have ound that adaptation strategies tend

to be closely related to economic conditions and opportunities and to the context

ramed by government policies. For the settlers o eastern Dakota Territory, the

physical climate they experienced was a surprise, one with which they had little or

no previous experience. Their adaptation to that climate was moulded by the avail-

ability o ungible resources and opportunities in other areas human resilience,

policy support, access to technology and the state o the larger economy.

Because climate is rarely isolated rom socio-economic phenomena, adaptationto climate extremes is generally mediated and interpreted through the lens o eco-

nomic, policy and technological resources and perceived opportunities. In essence,

adaptation to climate impacts is inuenced as much by social, economic and tech-

nological policies and possibilities as by the climate events themselves. Cultural

backgrounds may also inuence adaptation, but because o the levelling eects o

social and economic opportunities and technology, culture does not appear to be

the most important inuence on adaptation in this system.

The second issue in this paper is whether historical analysis can provide a useul

approach to understanding adaptive behaviour. The answer, we believe, is yes, but


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it is most useul as one o several analytical approaches to understanding climate

adaptation. We conclude that historical data can be used to analyse adaptive strat-

egies under specifed conditions. They can also be used to compare behaviour

observed in laboratory studies with that in real situations, and the fndings can be

used to eed ideas back into laboratory experiments. However, the lack o interac-tive data, and the impossibility o interacting directly with historic populations,

makes it impossible to testspecifc experiments at the microscale in a way that

parallels laboratory experiments. In the end, it is necessary to understand both

individual behaviour and broad community response patterns i we are to under-

stand adaptation to climate change . Historical approaches to climate adaptation

can help us to do so.

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[Balstad, Russell, Gil & Marx 2009] Adapting to Uncertain Climate on the Great Plains

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