Climate: The Great Maestro of Life on Earth. History, Didactics and Case Studies

Vox populi says “weather isn’t what it used to be”! Climate change has been preferentially approached regarding the future. Most discussions focus on warming in recent decades and sea mean level rise, leaving aside the fact that climate has been varying over time with different impacts on Earth’s life. It is now possible through several proxies to reconstruct climatic variations in a long-term perspective. History allows to realize how humans faced climatic variations: adapting, migrating or succumbing to them. We are beginning to understand climate influence in the Crusades/Christian Peninsular Conquest and Iberian Discoveries, for example. The better we know the past the better we can have a realistic idea of present and future challenges. Having this in mind, the authors created the first Climate Change curricular unit, in a Portuguese History first degree course. The aim of this chapter is to talk about the experience of using historical examples as a tool to communicate climate change. Being optional in scholar curricula, the course had a good adhesion, attracting students from various areas. Students are eager for these diachronic studies on climate. It is up to professors and scientists to find the better way of giving them the knowledge they seek.