World’s challenges demand science changes – and fast

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2015/worlds-challenges-demand-science-changes-and-fast/

Published: Feb. 25, 2015
[font face=Serif][font size=5]World’s challenges demand science changes – and fast[/font]

[font size=3]The world has little use – and precious little time – for detached experts.

A group of scientists makes a compelling case in this week’s Science Magazine that the growing global challenges has rendered sharply segregated expertise obsolete.

…

Many studies on sustainability have focused on one place, but the world is increasingly “telecoupled” – a term which embraces socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances, sometimes several thousand miles away.

Effective policies and management for global sustainability need the human and the natural systems to be more integrated across multiple spatial and temporal and the authors think it is essential to quantify human-nature feedbacks and spillover systems. Science has largely ignored these, but they can have profound impacts on sustainability and human well-being.

…[/font][/font]

[mopinko]

1. yes. so many of us end up fighting battles we thought were won.

my farm is a perfect example of this.
damn.

[dumbcat]

2. All scientists must become activists

and be involved in everything.

Is that what I am reading?

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. That may be what you’re reading

But that may not be what it says

http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2015/worlds-challenges-demand-science-changes-and-fast/

:…

“The real world is integrated,” said Liu, director of MSU’s Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability. “Artificially breaking down the real world into separate pieces has caused many global problems. Solving these problems requires systems integration – holistic approaches to integrate various pieces of the real world at different organizational levels, across space and over time.”

…

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. It's the title and sub-title that give the impression scientists have to change

"World’s challenges demand science changes – and fast"
"The world has little use – and precious little time – for detached experts."

As much of the actual Science article I can read from a cached copy (up to " For instance, organizational integration in environmental footprint analysis demonstrates how different human activities contribute to human impacts at local to global level&quot , does seem to be about systems integration, and about public policy. But those titles say "present scientists are useless". The message from Sue Nichols and Layne Cameron, who wrote the MSU article, is 'blame scientists'.

[Nihil]

4. It's not "science" that needs to change (fast) in order to address the world's challenges ...

... it is the fantasy pushers in "politics" and "economics" - both of which need to rejoin
the real world rather than constantly shoring up their sandcastles with ever more derivative
(thus fragile & unreal) projections & "policies".

[caraher]

5. Some bits from the Science article

Opening paragraphs:

The goal of achieving global sustainability is to meet society’s current needs by using Earth’s natural resources without compromising the needs of future generations. Yet, many disparate research and management efforts are uncoordinated and unintentionally counterproductive toward global sustainability because a reductionist focus on individual components of an integrated global system can overlook critical interactions across system components. Although our planet is a single system comprising complex interactions between humans and nature, research and management typically isolate system components (such as air, biodiversity, energy, food, land, water, and people). As a result, the compounding environmental impacts of human activities have too often been missed because they go beyond the organizational level, space, and time of focus. For example, large amounts of affordable and reliable energy are available in fossil fuels, but concomitant emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) will alter global climate and affect other human and natural systems—a trade-off that current policies have not adequately addressed. Likewise, attention to growing more food on land may inadvertently result in excess use of fertilizers and in turn eutrophication of downstream coastal waters that compromises food production from the ocean. Progressing toward global sustainability requires a systems approach to integrate various socioeconomic and environmental components that interact across organi- zational levels, space, and time.

Systems integration generates many benefits compared with isolated studies, including understanding of interconnectivity and complexity. Here, we review recent advances in developing and quantifying frameworks for systems integration of coupled human and natural systems; illustrate successful applications, focusing on unexpected impacts of biofuels and hidden roles of virtual water and discuss future directions for using systems integration toward global sustainability.

This isn't just a call for activism, but for deeper analysis.