PowerPoint Presentation
Koichi Wakata NASA February 2014Living in the Anthropocene:
Science, Sustainability and Society
Colorado Global Hub Director
Research Professor, Sustainability Innovation Lab of Colorado at
CUSenior Scholar, School of Global Environmental Sustainability at
CSU
Josh Tewksbury @tewksjj
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Levers for Transformation
CHANGE VISION / MINDSET
CHANGE MECHANISMS
CHANGE GOALS
Adapted after Meadows 1999CHANGE INFORMATION FLOWS
Josh Tewksbury @tewksjj
Change Information FlowsData: ITU Measuring the Information
Society (2014)Pic credit: Paul Butler, visualizing friendship
3 billion internet users (44% of world households)7 billion
mobile phone subscriptionsFacebook +1 billion users26 billion
connected devices in 2020
Here is the potential for CHANGE INFORMATION
Pic credit: Paul Butler, visualizing friendship and the
Economist.The digital divide is very apparent. But that is changing
fast
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Change Goals: a big year
Human-induced climate change is a scientific reality, and its
effective control is a moral imperative for humanity.
SDGs
What should science look like in the Anthropocene?Change
Mechanisms?
I love this image would like to replace text with a few KEY
milestones represnting the change GOALS
finance conference, sdgs and cop21 in 2015, unprecedented
- SDGs- Encyclical- COP 21 - OR, do those on separate slides, as
below
Research focused onSystems and Organisms
I know these next slides well
But there has never been a better time to doing this work. More
and more sectors of society are now paying attention.
Whether our research is focused on energy, Disease, or food and
water security, As individuals and institutions, we are being asked
to build scenarios and predictions linking our actions to their
ecological and economic consequences. But it is even more than
this, really. More generally, in this time of accelerating global
change, society is fundamentally asking for a brand of
action-oriented, use inspired research that is more effective, more
predictive, more responsive to the needs of society than it ever
has been before.
The challenge is to move from organisms and landscapes like
these
CLICK
---------
But along with this new found relevance comes questions: How do
we do our work? Is our field cohesive, inclusive, representative,
nimble enough? Do we play well with other disciplines, can we
integrate across scales? Is our work accessible to the public? In
addition, how good are our incentive structures? What parts of
society should we be interacting with? How well do we communicate
our findings? Where is our data?
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Lu et al. 2009Diuk-Wasser 2012Ciais et al. 2005 NPPsummer
NPPIPPC 2007Research making predictions
To models like these, Whether we are moving from the study of
Lymes disease to models of prevalence, or the study of interactions
on crops to predicting changes in yield, our capacity to model the
complexities of ecological systems is now greater than ever before.
But our models are only as good as the evidence we build into those
models. We are increasingly being asked to predict how the world
will actually look. To do this, our models have to embrace the
complexity of ecology, and complex predictive models are hungry for
data, for details. In ecology, these details are natural history.
And this requires us to work together more than ever. This is not
an easy task, but it is still only half the task we face. The other
half, is how we move from models like these to changes in policies,
practices and behaviors.
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European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development
Solution-focused research conducted with Societal Partners
We need to get these results and implications to decision-makers
in private and public sectors in a form they can digest, at the
time when they need it.
and you are saying Seriously? I am still trying to figure our
Tick behavior Fair point.
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Sources: OECD Stat
And we are not going to get this done on our own
So here is the world 7.3 billion peopleCLICK: and here is us.
Ecologists. perhaps 30,000 globally. Less than 1% of academics or
scientists.CLICK: We are mostly academic (about 70% of ESA are
academics) and with about we are about 0.5% of the academics in the
world which number roughly 1.5 million in the US, perhaps 6 or 7
million in the world. CLICK And we are, more or less, all
Scientists. So we are a small part of a relatively big academic
ecosystem. 9
BrazilChinaEgyptIndiaSouth KoreaUSA*0 20 40 60 80 100
AcademiaBusinessCivil ServiceDiplomacy
EconomicsEngineeringLawMedicineMilitaryTeachingOthersPoliticians
by tribeThese are not scientists
Sources: Economist, International Whos Who, Congressional
Research Service
But put in perspective, and thinkign about this social contract
to influence society, the route is not a clear one. Because our
job. CLICK is to influence theese guys, and the people like them.
And while our president does seem generally happy to be holding
Tonys Koala here, CLICK these guys are not ecologists. And in fact,
very few academics or scientists get anywhere near the national
decision-making space. CLICK Here is a sampleYellow is the
academics holding political office in a sample of countries It
varis a lot, but look at the US Let me make this more clearCLICKIn
the senate, - no scientists. No academics. in the house, there are
3 two physicists, and a microbiologist, and 6 engineers. In the US
congress as a whole all in the house. more people stopped education
at high-school than have a PHD. 10
Research FundingSocietal Benefits
ProblemResearchKnowledgeTransfer
AcademiaConsultants and TranslatorsPolicy and Business
sectorsKnowledge Transfer The pipeline modelAdaptationDiffusion
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How does the science get used?Where does the evidence for action
come from?
9 report series316 reports44,038 citations
If we remove the IUCN Env. Law series, which sits in a slightly
different culture, our average goes up to 25%.Collected Governance
data on hundreds of MPAs and Ecological data from over 14,000
surveys across 250 MPAs in 45 CountiesWhen you do the overlap,
there are fewer than 100 MPAs where both data are found. But this
is the BIGGEST dataset ever collected on the effectiveness of a
primary conservation program12
Source: Guizar, Brooks and Tewksbury - unpublished
Avg. % of citations from peer reviewed sources19-2560
40
20
0Percent of citations from peer reviewed literatureTNC
Ecoregional AssessmentsIUCN Ecosystem ManageIUCNEnviron.Law
IUCN / WCPAProtect. Area BestPracticesWWF Living Planet
ReportIUCN Species Survival CommissionUNEP Year BookStateof the
Worlds BirdsAdvances in Applied Biodiversity
Sciencen=336111442376106
An alternative evidence ecosystem?Majority of evidence is not
from the peer reviewed literature
If we remove the IUCN Env. Law series, which sits in a slightly
different culture, our average goes up to 25%.So what are we doing
here? Why is virtually all of our training, our effort, spent in an
endevor that has a minority impact on decision-making?13
Source: Guizar, Brooks and Tewksbury - unpublished
Number of Journals75
50
25
00 500 1000 1500
Number of Citations324 most cited journals in 316 reports; 8327
citations
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Ecology
Animal Science and Zoology
Nature and Landscape ConservationManagement, Monitoring, Policy
and LawAquatic ScienceAgricultural and Biological science
General Science
Citations from ecology subject areas vs. citations from all
social science subject areas combined10 to 1
Which fields inform conservation?Ecology, and more Ecology.
When you apportion the citations to each journal according to
the journal subject areas based on CROSSREF and sum these numbers,
Ecology, and fields related to Ecology, are absolutely dominant,
with 10 times the citations of Ecology journals than there are
citations to all the social sciences combined.14
Societal BenefitsScienceSociety / StakeholdersPolicy
EngagementThe engagement model
Might shift to Gilberto's diagram15
Photo: Fruit Bat in Melbourne Monica Johansen
Earth SciencesNatural SciencesSocial SciencesEconomics
Decision Makers Government Business Individuals
Science CapacityPolicy / Practice CapacityEvidenceDirection and
FocusBoundary Organizations Dual AccountabilityBegins with User
NeedsKnowledge Co-Production2-way Information FlowPhoto: Fruit Bat
in Melbourne Monica Johansen
And we are not going to get this done on our own
So here is the world 7.3 billion peopleCLICK: and here is us.
Ecologists. perhaps 30,000 globally. Less than 1% of academics or
scientists.CLICK: We are mostly academic (about 70% of ESA are
academics) and with about we are about 0.5% of the academics in the
world which number roughly 1.5 million in the US, perhaps 6 or 7
million in the world. CLICK And we are, more or less, all
Scientists. So we are a small part of a relatively big academic
ecosystem. 16
The history of international global change research programs
Future Earth is the evolution of the 30 year global change
programgenerate high-quality global sustainability science that is
relevant to societies, connect research communities across
disciplines and geographies, and drive a step change in how
international science engages with societal partners and
stakeholders
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18
WMO
Science and Technology Alliance for Global Sustainability
(observer)
Brief outline of who is behind FE18
What Future Earth Looks like today. I will go through these
points in detail19
Secretariat FunctionsResearch EnablingCapacity
BuildingCommunication and EngagementSynthesis and
ForesightCoordination
8 min to here TALK ABOUT STRUCTURE SEC, REGIONAL, AND NATIONAL.
USGCRP funds are leveraged by funds around the world to build an
international staff focused on facilitating this step
changeCRITICAL THAT WE ESTABLISH ROBUST, REPRESENTATIVE NATIONAL
STRUCTURES
Talk about Staff structure.
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BioGenesisBioDiscoveryiHOPEAir chemistryLand-air(iLEAPS)Coasts
EcoHealthMarine (IMBER)Mountain biodiversity Climate change and
food securityGlobal Land ProjectMonsoon Asia (MAIRS)Earth system
govern-ance Global Carbon ProjectEcoServicesCities (UGEC)Global
Water SystemsSurface ocean
(SOLAS)WCRPIGBPDiversitasIHDPCGIARICSUESSP
Earth System Modeling (AIMES)Past change(PAGES)
Eco-system Change & Society
Risk (IRG)
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Research program
Knowledge-Action NetworksAn open inclusive network for
sustainability science connecting communities across geographies,
disciplines, and sectors of society and catalyzing co-designed
science and engagement.
Core projects+: over 20 established international
communities
Structured networks catalyzing new research and deep engagement
with society around sustainability challenges
Community
And though it is necessarily a complex beast, with global,
regional and national aspects, on the research side we can now feel
that we have clarity on the key and quite simple elements of Future
Earths programme.
- The Open Network, including critically the 22+ communities
that have now transitioned, from CPs, as well as the partner
programmes CCAFS and PECS- The developing KANs, that well speak
much more of- And what we mean to be the nimble innovation element
of FTIs.
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Sources: Photo: Fishing in the Mekong Tan Someth Bunwath /
WWF-Cambodia
Knowledge Action Networks
Cities
Health
Consumption & production
Water, energy, food nexus
Climate change: decarbonization and adaptation
Natural assets
Emergent risksFinance & Economics
TransformationsOceans
SDGs
27.5 at end
1. Deliver water, energy, and food for all, and manage the
synergies and trade-offsamong them, by understanding how these
interactions are shaped byenvironmental, economic, social and
political changes.2. Decarbonise socio-economic systems to
stabilise the climate by promotingthetechnological, economic,
social, political and behavioural changes enablingtransformations,
while building knowledge about the impacts of climate change
andadaptation responses for people and ecosystems.3. Safeguard the
terrestrial, freshwater and marine natural assets underpinninghuman
well-being by understanding relationships between
biodiversity,ecosystem functioning and services, and developing
effective valuation and governanceapproaches.4. Build healthy,
resilient and productive cities by identifying and
shapinginnovations that combine better urban environments and lives
with decliningresource footprints, and provide efficient services
and infrastructures that arerobust to disasters.5. Promote
sustainable rural futures to feed rising and more affluent
populationsamidst changes in biodiversity, resources and climate by
analysing alternativeland uses, food systems and ecosystem options,
and identifying institutional andgovernance needs.6. Improve human
health by elucidating, and finding responses to, the
complexinteractions amongst environmental change,
pollution,pathogens, diseasevectors, ecosystem services, and
peoples livelihoods,nutrition and well-being.7. Encourage
sustainable consumption and production patterns that are
equitableby understanding the social and environmental impacts of
consumption ofall resources, opportunities for decoupling resource
use from growth in well-being,and options for sustainable
development pathways and related changes in humanbehaviour.8.
Increase social resilience to future threats by building adaptive
governancesystems, developing early warning of global and connected
thresholds and risks,and testing effective, accountable and23
Co-design from a global boundary organization
Co-designing transdisciplinary research calls
Catalyzing new research and synthesis
Supporting global capacity for co-designed science
Developing narratives and media to strengthen communication
Building tools and resources for sustainability science and
action
Convening experts to support science / policy processes
CommunicationPhoto: Fruit Bat in Melbourne Monica Johansen
Communications25
Communication
International Media and Policy SupportPhoto: Fruit Bat in
Melbourne Monica Johansen
Push Anthropocene Mag here US policy issues and from US26
CommunicationInternational Media and Policy SupportPhoto: Fruit
Bat in Melbourne Monica Johansen
Push Anthropocene Mag here US policy issues and from US27
Communication
Photo: Fruit Bat in Melbourne Monica JohansenInnovation at the
interface between science and society
ANTHROPOCENE MAGAZINERESILIENCE DEEPLYSCIENCE BRIEFQUANTIFIED
PLANETHABITAT IIIANTHROPOCENE.INFO
Media Lab28
a digital, print, and live magazine in which the worlds most
creative writers, designers, scientists, and entrepreneurs explore
how we can create a sustainable human age we actually want to live
in.Photo: Fruit Bat in Melbourne Monica Johansen
Anthropocene Mag
Photo: Fruit Bat in Melbourne Monica Johansen
ChallengesFood, Water, Energy, Cities, Consumption &
Production, Climate, Sustainable Use and Protection of Aquatic and
Terrestrial EcosystemsServiceScience, Collaboration, Communication,
Innovation, Education, EngagementSolutionsHealthy landscapes,
freshwater systems and oceans; clean air; just, equitable
societies; livable cities; healthy people
Science as Service
Trans-disciplinaryUser-focusedCo-createdSolution
orientedScalable and transportable
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Major support for the Colorado Global Hub of Future EarthSupport
for Anthropocene Magazine
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