ABSTRACT
Scientists feel they need to remain actively publishing, but they also wonder to what extent climate researchers and research funders should bend their research agendas, programs and projects towards short-term policy-oriented questions. The Paris Agreement has therefore caused some turmoil among climate scientists, some applauding the political recognition of the risks of climate change, other expressing skepticism or even anger about talks unsupported by a consequent action plan. Climate scientists’ attempts to predict how the Earth system will evolve over the next century under this or that scenario will be of limited value unless historians, archaeologists and anthropologists put as much wisdom towards understanding how millennial societies can adapt, migrate, morph into each other in the face of rapid changes. Perhaps the bigger question is whether global politics and economy can ever be molded into a sustainable relationship with the Earth system.
