The annual Avenir Commun Durable chair is supported by the Fondation du Collège de France and its major sponsors, the Covéa Foundation and TotalEnergies.

History, society and climate : between fragility and resilience

The urgent challenge of confronting and understanding contemporary climate change has motivated the science of paleoclimatology -  thestudy of the history of the Earth system. For historians of human society, this discipline has generated remarkable new insights into the role of the environment in the past. Human history is being rewritten with an understanding that human societies have always been positioned between resilience and fragility in the face of environmental change. Even the most complex societies, such as ancient Rome, are case studies for the deep and pervasive interactions between physical climate and social response. This new history can help us understand the risk of modern societies in the face of climate change, and the discipline of history can fulfill its humanistic purpose by telling the human story in a way that affirms our inseparable and integral relationship with the earth system.