Climate Variability, Drought, and the Belief that High Gods Are Associated with Weather in Nonindustrial Societies

Weather, Climate, and Society • Vol/Iss. 13(2) • American Meteorological Society • Boston • Published In • Pages: 259-272 •
By Ember, Carol R., Skoggard, Ian, Felzer, Benjamin, Pitek, Emily, Jiang, Mingkai

Hypothesis

There will be a correlation between dry climates and resource stress.

Note

Both dry and wet predictability factors were mostly uncorrelated with resource stress measures or were only marginally significant, with r values for dry ranging from -0.20-0.28 and r values for wet (reverse coded) ranging from -0.20 to -0.02. Wet climates were significantly associated with less resource stress. The variable most consistently significant was "Low Plant and Animal Richness." Low richness is predicted by dry climate, whereas wet climates predict high richness.

Test

Test NameSupportSignificanceCoefficientTail
Pearson's rPartially supportedp<0.05r=0.34Two-tailed

Variables

Variable NameVariable Type OCM Term(s)
FamineDependentDiet, Disasters, Gratification And Control Of Hunger, Nutrition
Resource StressDependentDiet, Disasters, Gratification And Control Of Hunger, Nutrition
Dry FactorIndependentClimate
Chronic ScarcityDependentDiet, Disasters, Gratification And Control Of Hunger, Nutrition
Natural HazardsDependentDiet, Disasters, Gratification And Control Of Hunger, Nutrition
Low Plant and Animal RichnessDependentFauna, Flora