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A PARTNER WITH

Trust me,

I’m a sustainability scientist

The perils of inattention to academic divides

Dr Sarah CornellCopenhagen, October 2014

Just for the record…

The Brundtland report did not define sustainability in terms of ‘three pillars’.

It says ‘sustainable development aims to promote harmony among human beings

and between humanity and nature’.

And it specifies a much more multifaceted integration: • a political system that secures effective citizen participation in decision making.• an economic system that is able to generate surpluses and technical knowledge on a self-reliant and

sustained basis• a social system that provides for solutions for the tensions arising from disharmonious development.• a production system that respects the obligation to preserve the ecological base for development,• a technological system that can search continuously for new solutions,• an international system that fosters sustainable patterns of trade and finance, and• an administrative system that is flexible and has the capacity for self-correction.

World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our Common Future, A/42/427. Chapter 2 The concept of Sustainable Development. www.un-documents.net/ocf-02.htm.

slippage + simplification = sloppiness suboptimal science

So a side-track…

Economics mission creep:

• Economic growth now a top-level goal in global sustainability policy and discourse (an end, not the means)

• “Academia must price externalities” – why not “Academia must stop internalizing a dogma of hardcore corporate capitalism”?

Von Mises, 1949 – the error of taking economic valuation ‘for a category of all human action’ rather than applying in a special condition (the exchange market)

Dugger, 1980 – how ‘social mechanisms’ inadvertently enable corporate hegemony to emerge

Polanyi, 1967 – ‘the warrant of scientific judgment’:

“this constitution of science can work only so long as scientists have similar conceptions of the nature of things”

Meaningful engagement and dialogue

lie at the heart of sustainability

• Aarhus Convention

• Rio Principles

• Local Agenda 21

• Convention on Biological Diversity

Tengö et al. 2014, Connecting diverse knowledge systems. Ambio 43: 579

Has academia noticed this obligation for dialogue?

“Physical science has done its work. We need social scientists to communicate the science and make society change.”

“Hasn’t the IPCC heard of Latour?”

Head, L. 2007, Cultural ecology: the problematic human and the terms of engagement, Progress in Human Geography, 31, 837.

Liverman DM, Roman Cuesta RM (2008) Human interactions with the Earth system: people and pixels revisited. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 33:1458–1471

The task in hand:Moving towards a theory and practice that a) embed and b) support

an understanding of the Human/Earth relationship

Earth system science Social-ecological resilience Approach to understanding

the world

Reduction, determinism Complexity, contingency

Focus for integration Physics, (geo)chemistry, biology Ecosystem processes, social system behaviour

Tools Analytical/mathematical modelling Simulation modelling,

participatory engagement

Valuable for

Prediction Adaptive learning

Human role Semi-external driver of change Part of the system

The planetary boundaries challenge:

Yearworth, M & Cornell, SE 2014, Contested modelling: a critical examination of expert modelling in sustainability. Systems Research and Behavioral Science.

Postneotransdisciplinarity…

We are doing this already

Why not join… jellywatch.org, www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatchbbc

Tea Bag Index (soil carbon), www.decolab.org/tbimappiness.org.uk

www.juegos.com/juego/climate-chaos

Nissani, M. 1997, Ten Cheers for Interdisciplinarity. Social Science Journal 34 (2) 201-216

Cornell et al. 2014, Opening up knowledge systems for better responses to global environmental change. Environmental Science & Policy, 28: 60-70

Postneotransdisciplinarity…

We are doing this already

…but we have to keep relearning from experience

“Objective science” ≠ objective scientists

Murray Gibson, 2003, Arrogance – a dangerous weapon of the physics trade. Physics Today 56 (2) 54-55.

Demeritt D (2001) The construction of global warming and the politics of science. Ann. Assoc. American Geogr. 91:307–337

• Knowledge does not translate simply to action:

implementation gaps are widespread*

• Where is the realism? Drifting targets,

untethered metrics – humanity is getting very

good at tracking its own decline

* UNEP Global Environment Outlook 5, UN CBD Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change AR5, UNEP Global Chemicals Outlook 2012…

Timeframe

Language

Dis/Comfort

Shotgun wedding approach

Pragmatic pick ´n mix

Building a shared understanding

Interdisciplinarities differ:

Thank you

sarah.cornell@su.se

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