General discussion

Hi everyone. This is the Cambridge group who will be presenting during this week. We have a draft document of our questions and themes, and would very much appreciate any discussion or suggestions to help us prepare for our presentation. Thanks!
 
Note: This outline does not include any additional papers our
moderator Jim will be adding.
 
Question One
 
What are emergent properties of complex socio-ecological systems?
 
With this question, Jim and our group hope to take a step back and
make sure everyone understands what emergent properties are (that they
are not merely vulnerability and resilience; that they often times
can’t be described with a single word). The main purpose is to ground
ourselves in accessible examples. We will look at emergent properties
from ecological interactions, emergent properties from social
interactions, and emergent properties from combined socio-ecological
interactions. The tentative examples we will be using are: the
cyclical predator/prey behavior that emerges from the lynx/hare
interaction, the segregated neighborhoods that emerge from individual
preferences to live near at least one person of a similar race, the
properties that emerge from complex fisheries, and the properties that
emerge from socio-ecological interactions in the Sahel. Are there any
other canonical examples we should put forward? Our suggested readings
are:
 
The Segregation Model beginning on page 137 of "Micromotives and
Macrobehavior" by Thomas Schelling (video that nicely summarizes the
idea).
 
Giannini et al. 2003. Oceanic Forcing of Sahel Rainfall on Interannual
to Interdecadal Time Scales. Science 302: 1027-1030.
 
Olson et al. 2004. Maturation trends indicative of rapid evolution
preceded the collapse of northern cod. Nature. 428: 932-935.
 
Question Two
 
What are resilience and vulnerability? What is the relationship
between them? How are they treated differently in the social and
ecological sciences?
 
With this question, Jim and our group hope to unpack Professor
Turner’s treatment of vulnerability and resilience. Jim will handle
the resilience side and the Cambridge group will tackle the
vulnerability side. More specifically, Jim will look at translating
ideas of resilience into operational characteristics of systems
(resilience of what? to what?). The Cambridge group will question the
actual difference between resilience and vulnerability and push deeper
into the differences between social and ecological resilience/
vulnerability/adaptation.
 
Adger. 2000. Social and ecological resilience: are they related?
Progress in Human Geography 24 (3): 347-364.
 
Adger et al. 2009. Are there social limits to adaptation to climate
change? Climatic Change 93: 335-354.
 
Question Three
 
What are the management implications of tipping points for
sustainability?
 
With this question, Jim and our group hope to apply any insights we
have gained about emergent properties to management. Jim will focus on
predicting tipping points. Our group will build upon this topic and
address how tipping points exist not only for state variables but for
flows such as ecosystem services. We will also look at how warning
signs can be incorporated into the inclusive wealth and capital models
we are looking at in class.
 
Brock, W.A., Carpenter, S.R. 2006. Variance as a Leading Indicator of
Regime Shift in Ecosystem Services. Ecology and Society 11(2): 9.
 
Scheffer et al. 2009. Early-warning signals of critical transitions.
Nature.
 
(Optional): Contamin, R., Ellison, A. 2009. Indicators of regime
shifts in ecological systems: What do we need to know and when do we
need to know it? Ecological Applications 19 (3): 799-816.

Though I agree with a lot on what you have to say regarding bio-fuels substituting for non-replenishable sources of fuel, I am unable to understand as to why you want to relate it so strongly to the notion of "resilience" so as to take almost a binary positions in that either one has the perfect resilient system or one does not have. If resilience means the ability to cope with shocks or disturbances and given that in CHES the environmental reactions are almost always in a flux as also the human interactions, I guess the idea is to increase the resiolience of both the systems to react quickly and effciently to the shock. If one can have a new policy design that increases resilience compared to an earlier time, then one could go for it. Of course, an assessment of resilience is a very diffcult taks given that in the present case when agricultural land has been taken away for bio-fuels thereby increasing threats of food security in future, people may eventually turn to more divergent models of growth and substitute one natural resource for another in order to sustain themselves. What I would say is that a resilient system may not necessarily be the most economically efficient solution even though economic efficiency, by definition, seeks to maximize the social surplus. Even if we take the concept of shadow prices as developed in the earlier classes, a resilient system may not be necessarily the point of maximum well-being; it could be a low level equilibrium - though the concept of well-being developed here does not seem to recognize the possible presence of multiple equilibrium dependng on information asymmetry and relative well-being concepts based on social and cultural values of societies and communities.

Previously Alicia Harley wrote:

I wanted to highlight that "resilience" or a resilient system is not always something that we want. Esspecially in social systems, a resilient system could also be a system that is sub-optimal or actually detrimental to well-being, but once the system is in place it is so resilient that it is very hard to change. For example, I will argue that biofuels are increasingly becoming such a system. 

I know the literature (somewhat) on the arguments for whether/if different types of biofuels are "carbon neutral" and I understand the argument in one sense that any fuel that is less destructive than petroleum and fossil fuel is a good thing today, but for me the more compelling argument is that by putting government weight so strongly behind developing the biofuels industry, we are setting ourselves on a development path-dependancy that will be very hard to get out of due to the resilience of the system, but that is suboptimal at best, and at worst could have major environmental and social externalities/consequences. 

Climate change offers an opportunity to restructure the economy away from portable fuel (petroleum, biofuels) and towards less portable but sustainable fuels like solar and wind. However, strong (greedy?) interest groups that benefit from the status quo in the type of economy we have certainly see the value in pushing bio-fuels so that they don't have to change the way they operate and fuel can continue to be a "commodity" that is packable and shipped easily rather than tied to a single location and in many ways probably distributed in a more "democratic way" due to the local or grid-scale nature of electricity. 

I am sure that someone is going to remind me that wind and solar energy (and esspecially hydro) are not free from negative environmental consequences and externalities. This is true. However, I have a strong feeling that head to head the negative social and environmental externalities caused by using more and more of the world's arable land for a mono-cropping biofuels is greater than for wind or solar. (I don't know this for a fact and have only limited research to back me up so I welcome proof that I am wrong). But agriculture already creates massive environmental problems and increased deforestation for the creation of arable land. Moreover researchers are also concerned about our planets ability to feed 9-12 billion people. Why when these issues are all major topics in environment/development are we so complacent about land being converted to biofuel? 

Others will probably say that biofuels are different because they allow us to continue to have a portable fuel-source. I tell those people to watch the movie "who stole the electric car" and remind them that crisis gives us an opportunity for change the way we structure the economy--precisely the point I started out with. If we develop biofuels to the point where they are more or less carbon neutral and fit seamlessly into the industrial-economy, it will be hard for environmentalists to make an argument to move away from them even once we have other better technologies fully developed. It will be to hard to convince people to suffer the change without an impending game changing crisis on the horizon. Powerful interests--I assume--got the biofuels quotas passed, but I wonder continually that academic researchers looking for sustainable solutions do not come out more strongly against biofuels. 

 

One idea I have been struggling with is the idea of conflicting tendencies being resolved by nature or by human intervention.  In particular, I have been thinking about the idea of spatial homogeneity vs. heterogeneity that Bill brought up in seminar.  He referenced a Shelling (1971) paper on the dynamics of human segregation, where slight individual motives for some homogeneity can lead to aggregate patterns that look very different (attached in case you haven't seen it).  The idea is that individuals, with a slight preference for being around similar people, will end up in completely segregated environments after a "tipping point" is reached in the population.  Stated another way, while individuals may desire some degree of heterogeneity, their desire for some homogeneity may dominate and we collectively end up with complete homogeneity (and the "tipping points" do not occur in predictable places)*. 

Is the same true in nature?  I can't seem to figure out the "extent" to which various species prefer to be surrounded by themselves vs. by other types of species, but I suspect that any tendency for this is constrained by the need to rely on other species for food, etc.  As a result, we end up with diverse natural environments (I think, although we certainly know of patches of homogeneity).  If other species had foresight and were able to plan in the way that humans are, would they also end up in these "tipping point" situations? 

It seems to me that in both cases, "segregation" is limited by our need for resources from others, and that without human intervention, we end up in states of greater heterogeneity.  Racial segregation seems viable because it does not restrict our ability to obtain resources.  In contrast, when we think about professions, we can't have all the doctors in one town, all the plumbers in another town, all the farmers in a third town, etc. unless we have a way to transfer what we need from one place to another.  I'm very interested to begin the institutions readings, because in some ways it seems that institutions organize humanity in a way that allows us to segregate and still obtain resources we need (will need to think about this). 

Finally, I've been thinking about these ideas in the context of "emergent properties".  What is the difference among preferences, tendencies, and properties of systems, and how does this relate to the idea of sustainability?  We may have a preference for some mix of individuals, a tendency to devolve into complete homogeneity, but have a long-term requirement that the environment maintain heterogeneity in order to sustain the population's needs.  Such "heterogeneity" could refer to the level of human diversity, biodiversity, or the mix of humans to nature..  In any case, I wonder if diversity is a necessary property of systems, or just a requirement?  Can we know what patterns would arise naturally when huamnity is imposing rules, managing the system, etc.?


*The paper is very accessible and does a much better job explaining this, so check it out..

 

Note: I also think this may relate to the convergent/divergent models conversation, but I haven't thought through it yet..to what extent is convergence a necessary property of sustainable CHES?

Following on Liz's comments above about our discussion in seminar on spatial patterning and spatial modeling, the reference I made to "the first law of geography" is by Waldo Tobler: "the first law of geography: everything is related to everything else but near things are more related than distant things." There has been some interesting, and some not so interesting further discussion about various aspects of this "law" since it was first proposed in 1970. They are summarized in Tobler's reply: Tobler, W. 2004. On the First Law of Geography: A Reply. Annals of the Association of American Geographers Vol. 94 Issue 2, p304-310. It's more for reflection than for action.

On theoretical frameworks for sustainability science:

In his presentation on Monday, Billie Turner suggested that much of the literature on vulnerability coming out of the social sciences is "not normal science" and therefore not relevant to our discussions of sustainability science and theory. He followed this up by saying that this research and scholarship are not following positivist or postpositivist approaches, and are therefore "not normal science."

This position warrants some further discussion. First of all, given the magnitude of the current task (to create robust theory for sustainability science that is accessible, understandable, and maybe even can support action), and the scope at which it is being attempted (all scales at all levels), I wonder why we would not look at all possible places for all possible approaches. A lot of the challenges that we are discussing in the seminar center around qualifying and quantifying the human needs, human well-being, and the complexity of social systems. Not surprisingly, this has led us to social sciences that use a post-positivist framework (neo-classical economics, psychology, and physical geography) because they are more complimentary with the natural and physical sciences that are engaging in sustainability discourse. But, in many real and serious ways, they are not equipped to deal with the real complexity of social systems: issues of community, power, and class, to name a few.

Rather than re-invent the social sciences in the image of the natural and physical sciences, I think there needs to be more effort made to engage with what is going on in some of the more qualitative social science research on these same topics - on vulnerability, coupled systems, etc. The main challenge, as I see it, is that the language used to discuss the topics and to frame the core arguments is not the same. For example, a recent article by J.K. Gibson-Graham and Roelvink (2009) in Antipode engages with how to move forward in given the challenges of the Anthropocene and discusses relationships between humans and the environment quite extensively, but using a totally different vocabulary and framework than what we have been reading.

Engaging with these alternative explanatory frameworks (dare I say it: poststructuralist and posthuman approaches to nature) will allow sustainability theory to access rich research in the fields of Anthropology and Geography (to name two). Of course, researchers from those fields should want to engage as well. The work of Paul Robbins and Arun Agrawal come to mind as scholars that are writing and publishing expansively across these divides. Ultimately I am suggesting that given the scope of the current project, perhaps it is time to consider working across more epistemic boundaries by engaging with a broader range of epistemic communities.