Abstract

Oldfield, J.D., ‘Climate change as an issue of global environmental concern: Emerging debates amongst Soviet geographers, c.1945-1980s,’ Association for Slavonic, East European and Eurasian Studies, New Orleans, November 2012

Soviet geographers embraced a range of positions with respect to their understanding of climate and climate change post-1945. These included:

  1. Climate as a complex natural phenomena characterised by both long- and short-term variation;
  2. Climate as a modifiable entity at the regional level;
  3. Global climate change as a process linked to both natural and human factors.

Reflecting on these competing understandings, this paper pays particular attention to emerging conceptualisations of climate change as a phenomenon of global environmental concern with specific reference to the work of Soviet geographers during the period c. 1945-1980s.