Embodying Climate Change (EmCliC) - transdiciplinary research on urban overheating
EmCliC is a three-year research project that brings together social anthropology, sociology, climate science, epidemiology, atmospheric physics and novel technology, to understand and demonstrate how people experience climate change on a daily basis.
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Project details
The project focuses on the case of raising temperatures and heat in Warsaw and Madrid, studying the bio-social nature of adaptive capacity in individuals and communities. The project is interested in how people experience climate change through the embodiment of heat and heatwaves.
Heat stress is exacerbated in cities by the Urban Heat Island effect. The increased frequency and intensity of heat waves due to anthropogenic climate change makes city dwellers exposed to higher temperatures. Heat stress can severely affect people’s health and well-being, and due to physiological as well as socio-economic factors, some groups are more vulnerable than others. Evidence suggests that adults over the age of 65 are particularly susceptible to rising temperatures. The project studies the experiences of urban heat among older adults in Warsaw and Madrid.
EmCliC aims to understand people’s everyday experiences of climate change and explore climate change as both an environmental and social phenomenon.
In order to do that, the project takes a transdisciplinary approach, converging different analytical perspectives and research methods and including disciplines such as physics, sociology, epidemiology, economy, environmental and climate science, and social anthropology.
