New Research: Climate Resilience in Central America
A recently published white paper by ESS professor Christopher M. Bacon, and Miller Center Education Director Keith Douglass Warner argues that connecting participatory research, social entrepreneurship, and local institutions in Central America can help build climate resilience. This research responds to the challenge articulated in the Fourth National Climate Assessment released in November 2018, which reminds us that no one’s health is immune from climate change. However, the negative impacts of climate disruption are more pronounced in highly-vulnerable populations such as children, the elderly, the poor, and communities of color, and specific geographic regions.
One particularly susceptible region is the globally significant Central American dry corridor. Although climate variability and change are not the key drivers of recent Central American migration patterns, together with poverty, violence, exclusionary politics, and unfair agricultural markets, climate change often exacerbates the precarious conditions that constrain the future possibilities as creative local residents work to secure their basic needs. The severity of draughts and frequent experiences of excessive rain between 2014 to 2017 left 3.5 million people food insecure in the dry corridor, and the Famine Early Warning System predicted that the hunger season will start earlier and last longer in 2019.