Until about 13,000 years ago all humans obtained their food through hunting and gathering, but thereafter people in some parts of the world began a transition to agriculture. Recent data strongly implicate climate change as the driving force behind the agricultural transition in southwest Asia....

The issue of climate change has at long last made its way into mainstream policy discussions in the United States. However, the focus both in the United States and internationally has been on reducing energy production and transportation emissions. This has led the media, policy makers and the...

As growing attention is paid to climate change adaptation as an actual policy issue, the significant meaning of climate variability in adaptation decisions is beginning to be recognized. By using a real option framework, we shed light on how climate change and climate variability affect...

The precautionary principle has sometimes been used to justify banning new technologies, such as genetically modified crops, that haven't been proved to be "safe" from an environmental or public health perspective. Such a ban would reduce some environmental and public health risks, while...

Biochar is a carbon-rich solid obtained from the heating of biomass in the (near) absence of oxygen in a process called pyrolysis. Its soil incorporation is increasingly discussed as a means to sequester carbon in soils and, thus, to help mitigate climate change. When deployed in agricultural...

The negative effects of climate change are felt in the form of rising temperatures, weather variability, shifting boundaries of agro-ecosystems, the spread of invasive species and pests, and more frequent extreme weather events. Climate change reduces crop yields, the nutritional quality of most...

Empirical studies of the economic effects of climate change (CC) largely rely on climate anomalies for causal identification purposes. Slow and permanent changes in climate-driven geographical conditions, i.e. CC as defined by the IPCC (2013), have been studied relatively less, especially in...

A major challenge for countries dealing with conflict and instability is encouraging the use of farming technologies and natural resource management practices that are climate-smart. These practices boost productivity, build resilience to climate challenges and thus contribute to other...