TR takes us through history to help us understand our likely climate future. T.R investigates how humans change their world, sometimes subtly and sometimes dramatically.

Tristram R. (T.R.) Kidder is an archaeologist, geologist, and environmental scientist in the department of anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis; his research explores how climate change has affected humans through time. Increasingly, though, his work investigates how humans have changed climates and environments and how, in turn, this shapes human history. Focusing on the last ten thousand years, T.R.'s work studies how, and when, humans began to be a force capable of changing nature. By looking at different societies and types of social groups, such as hunter-gatherers in coastal Louisiana, pastoral nomads in Uzbekistan, or dynastic civilizations in the Yellow River region of China,

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx