Climate change has fundamentally led to social crises across Eurasia, regarded as Malthusian catastrophes, the core of which lies in resource scarcity under climate-induced stress. Societies have generally dealt with reduced resources under climatic impacts through both behavioral and mental manners. However, there is still a lack of sufficient studies to empirically examine behavioral and mental resilience to maintain or increase resources under climate change on a macro scale. This study thus selected Europe and China during the last millennium as focal regions based on several representative indicators of behavioral and mental resilience, including land input, migration, scientific and technological innovation, and philosophical thinkers. Land input and migration belong to behavior resilience, while innovation, philosophical thinkers, and their thoughts are mental resilience. Here we show that, land input and migration have expanded agricultural production, despite their non-sustained effects and potential negative costs. Innovation and cultural advancement as mental resilience would promote fundamental resilience, particularly in a long term. Besides, the study justifies that behavioral resilience strategies are reflections and fundamentally influenced by mental resilience. Overall, addressing behavioral resilience alone is insufficient when confronting climate-induced stress. A more efficient climate resilience framework must integrate both behavioral and mental approaches to relieve threats of climate change.
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