The findings offer a glimmer of hope from widespread concerns that the world’s poor will suffer the most from shocks created by global climate change.

“In the face of climate shocks, the fate of the poorest is not sealed,” said Kendra McSweeney, co-author of the study and associate professor of geography at Ohio State University.

“Our study suggests that alternate outcomes are at least possible, and there may be ways for the poor to improve their situations if they are given the opportunity to come up with their own solutions.”

The key for the people in this study was that, without outside interference, they were able to come up with a new method for how residents could own land – a necessity for survival in this rural, agriculture-based community, McSweeney said.

McSweeney wrote the study with Oliver Coomes of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Their study appears in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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