Earth System Analysis: Integrating Science for Sustainability

ISBN-13: 9783642523564 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 530 str.

Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber; Volker Wenzel

Opis

Since this new science is of an unprecedented interdisciplinary nature, the book does not merely take stock of its numerous ingredients, but also delivers their multifaceted integration. The resulting master paradigm - the co-evolution of nature and anthroposphere within a geo-cybernetic continuum of processes - is based on a structured manifold of partial paradigms with their specific ranges. Most importantly, this serves the scientific foundation of a meaningful, safe and efficient environment and development management for solving the most burning questions concerning humankind and its natural environment. The more concrete elucidation of the natural and human dimensions, as well as various attempts and instruments of integration are represented in the different parts of the book, while the didactic quality is heightened by many allegoric illustrations.

Spis treści

1. Earth System Analysis — The Concept.- Discourse: Earth System Analysis — The Scope of the Challenge.- 1 Prologue.- 2 Global Change: Quantity Turns into Quality.- 3 Global Environmental Management: The Physics and the Metaphysics.- 4 Sustainable Development: One + Four Paradigms.- 4.1 Standardization.- 4.2 Optimization.- 4.3 Pessimization.- 4.4 Equitization.- 4.5 Stabilization.- 4.5.1 Generalized Equilibria.- 4.5.2 Passage to Equilibrium.- 4.5.3 Quality of Passage.- 4.6 Complex Paradigms.- 5 Integrated Modelling: Exploring Virtual Planetary Futures.- 5.1 Integration and Integrity.- 5.2 Playing the Game.- 5.3 Orientators and Indicators: From Virtual to Real Reality.- 6 Fuzzy Control: Soft Decision Making under Uncertainty or A Tale of Two Demons.- 6.1 The Teleological Dream: Laplace’s Demon and Contemporary Company.- 6.2 Newton’s Root-Finding Method — a Paradigm for Fuzzy Control.- 6.3 Coping with Uncertainty: Grand Entrance of Maxwell’s Demon.- 6.4 Fuzzy Control and Geo-Cybernetics.- 7 Epilogue.- Commentary: Earth System Analysis — Explorations in a Research Frontier.- 1 Orientation.- 2 Substance.- 2.1 The human factor.- 2.2 The social dilemma.- 2.3 Contingency strategies.- 3 Concluding remarks.- Commentary: Surprises in the Climate Change Course.- 1 Introduction.- 2 The Caspian Sea case.- 3 Modelling activities.- 4 Conclusions.- Commentary: Sustainable Development — Teleology and Ambiguity.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 Semantic consideration.- 3 The role of values.- 4 Incompleteness.- 5 Standardization paradigm.- 6 Concluding remarks.- 2. Natural Dimensions.- 1: Ecology and the Earth System.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Why global models?.- 3 Can ecology meet the challenge?.- 4 The tools of global ecological modelling.- 5 Patterns in the biosphere.- 6 Primary production and optimality.- 7 Equilibrium and transient responses.- 8 The validation problem.- 9 The uses of palaeodata.- 10 Conclusions.- 11 Acknowledgments.- Commentary on “Ecology and the Earth System”.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Boundary conditions for modelling the biosphere and the global carbon cycle.- 3 Feedbacks and time delays in dynamic systems.- 4 Vegetation models and climate.- 5 Dynamic vegetation models.- 6 Outlook.- Commentary: Eco-System Modelling and the Social Sciences.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 Global Change: an age old process.- 3 Origins of agriculture and links between climate change and human activities.- 4 Interdependencies between forms of social organization and the environment.- 5 Common vs. private property rights.- 6 The resulting research agenda.- 2: Climate Change and Land Use: Global and Regional Analyses.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Effects on regional competitiveness and global prices.- 2.1 Modelling effects on crop yields.- 2.2 Modelling effects on food supply and prices, worldwide.- 2.3 Assumptions about the future.- 2.4 Altered potential cereal production and food prices.- 2.5 Effects on regional — level land use.- 2.6 The Land Use Classification System (Lcs).- 2.7 The Climate Land Use Allocation Model.- 2.8 Effects of climate change on agricultural potential in England and Wales.- 2.9 Land use in England and Wales in a future without climate change.- 2.10 Effects of climate changes on land use in England and Wales.- 3 Conclusion.- Commentary: On the Inconsistency at the Interface of Climate Impact Studies and Global Climate Simulations.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 The problem of spatial scales.- 3 The problem of climate variability.- 4 Summary.- 3: Sustainable Development in Agricultural Landscapes.- 1 Introduction.- 2 The principle of sustainability in a cultural landscape.- 3 The role of agricultural landscapes within cultural landscapes.- 4 The application of mathematical models in research of agroecosystems.- Commentary on “Sustainable Development in Agricultural Landscapes”.- 1 Introductory remarks on sustainable development.- 2 Profit oriented versus ecological oriented behaviour.- 3 Main environmental problems in agriculture and their causes.- 4 Main elements for a market oriented environmental policy in agriculture.- 5 Some more general remarks on research and policy.- 6 Linking natural science with economic models.- Commentary: Towards a Socially Accepted, Sustainable Management of Agricultural Landscapes.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 Are models of the physical system sufficient to ensure sustainable land use?.- 3 What documents are necessary to assess risk perception patterns of practitioners and lays?.- 4 Conclusions.- 3. Human Dimensions.- 1: Modelling Global Environmental Change: Improving Human Dimensions Components.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Modelling in current global environmental change research.- 3 Modelling in the social sciences.- 4 The necessity of following a modular approach.- 5 Can institutional effects be included?.- 6 Conclusion.- 2: Internationally Tradeable Emission Certificates — Efficiency and Equity in Linking Environmental Protection with Economic Development.- 1 Introduction: the idea and its political context.- 2 Theoretical context.- 2.1 International emission charges.- 2.2 Joint implementation.- 2.3 Internationally tradeable emission certificates.- 3 From theory to practice.- 3.1 Market organization.- 3.2 Rules of procedure.- 3.3 Allocation of certificates.- 4 Conclusions.- 4.1 Acknowledgements.- Commentary: Criteria for an Equitable Distribution of Internationally Tradeable Emission Certificates.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 Structuring the equity issues of climate change.- 3 An axiomatic approach to equity.- 4 Outlook.- 3: New Models of Wealth.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Interdependence between prosperity and ecology.- 3 New model of wealth.- 4 Costs and quantities.- 5 “Factor Four”.- Commentary on “New Models of Wealth”.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 Two questions.- 3 Categories of threats.- 4 Global vs. regional “logics”.- 5 Synergetic approach for research and management.- 6 The possible role of a global model.- 7 Concluding remarks.- Commentary on “New Models of Wealth”.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 Ecological taxes.- 3 Energy efficiency in Hungary.- 4 Accelerated technology transfer.- 5 Range of commodity flow.- 6 Limitations.- 7 Concluding remarks.- 4: Urban Metabolism and Disaster Vulnerability in an Era.- 1 Introduction: Global Change hazards and disasters.- 2 Cities and natural disasters in a changing world.- 3 Cities and the expanding human role in environmental transformation.- 4 An approaching urban millennium.- 5 Disaster-forcing attributes of urbanization.- 6 Changes in the process of urbanization.- 7 The emergence of complex urban hazards.- 8 Synergistic problems of disaster in modern megacities.- 9 Complex urban issues in disaster’s wake.- 10 Conclusions.- 11 Notes.- 4. Integration for Sustainability.- 1: Multi-actor Optimization of Greenhouse Gas Emission Paths Using Coupled Integral Climate Response and Economic Models.- 1 Introduction.- 2 The Siam single-actor model.- 2.1 The general impulse-response climate model.- 2.2 Reduction to global mean temperature.- 2.3 Numerical values.- 2.4 The cost function.- 2.5 Results of the one-actor Siam model.- 3 Non-trading multi-actor models.- 3.1 Identical actors.- 3.2 The single mitigator problem.- 4 Multi-actor models with trade.- 4.1 The Cournot-Nash equilibrium.- 4.2 The self-consistent interactive Nash equilibrium.- 4.3 The conjectured response Nash equilibrium.- 4.4 Numerical determination of interactive Nash equilibrium solutions.- 5 Two-actor interactions between fossil-fuel suppliers and consumers.- 6 Conclusions.- 6.1 Acknowledgements.- Commentary: Short Remarks on the Problem of Integrated Modelling.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 Large vs. simplified climate models.- 3 The human ecological niche.- 4 The example of the Caspian Sea.- Commentary: Global Environment and Society (GES) Models, a Problem of Multiple Control Theory.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Calibration and validation of models.- 3 Scaling problems in ecological modelling.- 4 Modelling of social systems.- 5 Conclusion.- 2: Global Change and Sustainable Development: Towards an Integrated Conceptual Model.- 1 Introduction.- 2 Global Change.- 3 Sustainable Development.- 4 An integrated systems approach.- 5 The Targets model: an integrated framework for appraising global change and sustainable Development.- 5.1 Basic philosophy.- 5.2 Global models.- 5.3 Top-down approach.- 5.4 Horizontal integrative description of Targets.- 5.5 Vertical integrative description of Targets.- 5.6 The global water model Aqua.- 6 Calibration and validation.- 7 A hierarchical framework of indicators.- 8 Strategies for Sustainable Development.- 9 Uncertainties.- 10 Various perspectives.- 10.1 Introduction.- 10.2 Scientific perspectives.- 10.3 Cultural perspectives.- 11 Conclusions and expected results.- Commentary on “Global Change and Sustainable Development”.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 What is global change?.- 3 Natural versus anthropogenic changes.- 4 The role of humankind in global change.- 5 What is sustainable development?.- 6 Which future is acceptable?.- 7 Ecosystems and socio-economic systems.- Commentary on “Global Change and Sustainable Development”.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 Are global approaches necessary?.- 3 How to enhance the acceptability of global approaches.- 4 Are there additional conditions for success?.- 5 Communication and co-operation.- 3: From a Fictional Globe to Poetic Ecosystems: Modelling Human Interactions with the Environment.- 1 Introduction.- 2 The concept of a global system.- 3 The lack of comparable global processes in the social domain.- 4 Demographic projections of global population growth.- 5 Global projections are fallible in regional context.- 6 Carrying capacity and human will.- 7 On building a less-fallible population growth model for Africa.- 8 Linking meso-scale models into a global system of models.- 9 Units of data collection, sampling designs, modelling, and the scope of generalizations.- 10 The nation-state as the presumptive modelling unit.- 11 Modelling of land-use/land-cover changes.- 12 The Poetic ecosystem.- 13 Conclusions and a postscript.- Commentary on “Modelling Human Interactions with the Environment”.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 Social aspects: an indispensable facet of bottom-up approaches.- Commentary on “Modelling Human Interactions with the Environment”.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 Dimensions of data requirement for a “set of models”.- 4: Is Global Modelling Feasible?.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 The basic structure of reality.- 3 The effective structure of macroscopic systems.- 4 Is global modelling possible?.- 5 Can there be working models such as to assist planetary engineering?.- 6 Closing remarks.- Commentary on “Is Global Modelling Feasible?”.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 What about climate prediction?.- 3 Climate prediction of the first kind.- 4 Climate prediction of the second kind.- Commentary on “Is Global Modelling Feasible?”.- 1 Introductory remarks.- 2 Four interrelated global issues.- 3 The evolution of global modelling.- 4 What can we learn from past experience?.- 4.1 Formal aspects.- 4.2 The adequate level(s) of analysis.- 4.3 Time horizon.- 4.4 Human behavior.- 5 Looking ahead.- 6 A short summary.- Register of Persons.

O autorze

Prof. Dr. Hans J. Schellnhuber: Born in 1950 in Ortenburg (Germany). Training in physics and mathematics with a at the University of Regensburg. Doctorate in Theoretical Physics in 1980. Various periods of research abroad, in particular at several institutions of the University of California system (USA). Habilitation (German qualification for professorial status) in 1985, then Heisenberg Fellowship. 1991 Founding Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). 2001-2005 additional engagement as Research Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and Professor at the Environmental Sciences School of the University of East Anglia in Norwich (UK).2002 Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award; 2004 CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) awarded by Queen Elizabeth II. Elected Member of the Max Planck Society, the US National Academy of Sciences, the Leibniz-Sozietät, the Geological Society of London, and the International Research Society Sigma Xi. Ambassador for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). Active service on some dozen national and international panels for scientific strategies and policy advice on environment & development matters. Chief Government Advisor on climate and related issues for the German G8-EU twin presidency in 2007.

Blurb

As humanity approaches the 3rd millennium, the sustainability of our present way of life becomes more and more questionable. New paradigms for the long-term coevolution of nature and civilization are urgently needed in order to avoid intolerable and irreversible modifications of our planetary environment. Earth System Analysis is a new scientific enterprise that tries to perceive the earth as a whole, a unique system which is to be analyzed with methods ranging from nonlinear dynamics to macroeconomic modelling. This book, resulting from an international symposium organized by the Potsdam Institute, has 2 aims: first, to integrate contributions from leading researchers and scholars from around the world to provide a multifaceted perspective of what Earth System Analysis is all about, and second, to outline the scope of the scientific challenge and elaborate the general formalism for a well-defined transdisciplinary discourse on this most fascinating issue.