Posted on 2010-07-11

Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship

Around the time I wrote this blog about the National Assessment of UK Forestry and Climate Change Steering Group report I was thinking about writing a proposal to the Leverhulme Trust for an Early Career Fellowship. I found out recently that my proposal was successful and so from January 2011 I will be back at King’s College, London!

The Leverhulme Trust makes awards in support of research and education with special emphasis on original and significant research that aims to remove barriers between traditional disciplines. Their Early Career Fellowships are awarded across all disciplines and in 2010 approximately 70 were expected to be awarded to individuals to hold at universities in the UK. Given the emphasis on original, significant and cross-disciplinary research made by the Trust I looked for something that matched my research skills in coupled human and natural systems modelling but that pushed work in that area in a new direction. I thought back to the ideas about model narratives I have previously explored with David O’Sullivan and George Perry (but have not worked on since then) and Bill Cronon’s plenary address at the Royal Geographical Society in 2006 on the need for ‘sustainable narratives’. With that in mind, and given the UK Forestry and Climate change report I had been reading, I decided to make a pitch for a project that would explore how narratives from the use of models could help individuals identify how local actions transcend scales to mitigate global climate change in the context of the anticipated woodland planting that will be ongoing in the UK in future years. It proved to be a successful pitch!

I’m sure I will blog plenty more about the project in the future, so for now I will just leave you with the proposal rationale (below). I’m looking forward to getting to work on this when I get back to London, but before that there’s plenty more things to get done on the Michigan forest landscape ecological-economic modelling.

Model narratives for climate change mitigation
The abstract, vast, and systemic narratives that dominate the issue of global climate change do little to illustrate to individuals and groups how their actions might contribute to mitigate the effects of what is often framed as a global problem (Cronon 2006). Ways to improve the ability of individuals and groups to identify how their local actions transcend scales to mitigate global climate change are needed. In this research I will explore how narratives produced from computer simulation models that represent individuals’ actions can provide people with insights into how their behaviour affects system properties at a larger scale. Although the narrative properties of simulation models have been highlighted (O’Sullivan 2004), the use of models to develop localised narratives of climate change which emphasise individual agency has yet to be explored. Confronting individuals with these narratives will also help researchers reveal important underlying, and possibly implicitly held, assumptions that influence choices and behaviour.

This research will address the following general questions:

How can computer simulation models be better used to reveal to individuals how their local actions can contribute to global environmental issues such as Climate Change Mitigation (CCM)?

What are the narrative properties of simulation models and how can they be exploited to help individuals find meaning about their actions as they relate to global climate change?

By using simulation tools to spur reflection what can we learn about the factors influencing individuals’ choices and behaviour with regards CCM options?

Answering these questions will require a uniquely interdisciplinary research approach that spans the physical sciences, social sciences and humanities. Such ground-breaking, boundary-crossing work is necessary if we are to re-connect the physical sciences with the publics they intend to benefit and find solutions to large-scale and pressing environmental problems. For example, one of the key findings from a recent report by the National Assessment of UK Forestry and Climate Change Steering Group (Read et al. 2009) was that “[t]he extent to which the potential for additional [greenhouse gas] emissions abatement through tree planting is realized … will be determined in large part by economic forces and society’s attitudes rather than by scientific and technical issues alone” (p.xvii). The report also argued the need “to better understand and consider the role of different influences affecting choices and behaviour. Without the appropriate emotional, cultural or psychological disposition, information will make no difference.” (p.210). Narratives based on scientific understanding which portray how individuals can make a difference to large-scale, diffuse environmental issues will be important for fostering such a disposition. Simulation models – quantitative representations of reality which provide a means to logically examine how high-level and large-scale patterns are generated by lower-level and smaller-scale processes and events – have the potential to contribute to the construction of these narratives.

Posted on 2009-07-21

Food Choices

I started thinking more closely about food – where it comes from, how it’s produced, how I might choose more sustainable foods – after hearing a keynote speech by Prof. Jon Foley at US-IALE 2009. Making the ‘right’ choice can be tricky, however. For example, there’s a difference between ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ and you need to consider a myriad of things if you want to know how much oil there is in your oatmeal. Working out which of the products on the shelves of your supermarket are most sustainable will hopefully be easier in the future if Wal-Mart successfully follows through on its plans to develop a ‘sustainability index’. In the meantime, the new movie Food Inc. may provide some motivation to think more carefully about the food we eat. I haven’t seen it yet but the trailer looks provoking.

Posted on 2009-07-10

New Models for Ecosystems Dynamics and Restoration

Recently I’ve been working on a review of the latest contribution to The Science and Practice of Ecological Restoration book series, entitled New Models for Ecosystems Dynamics and Restoration (edited by Hobbs and Suding). Here’s an outline of what I’ve been reading and thinking about – the formal review will appear in print in Landscape Ecology sometime in the future.

The Society for Ecological Restoration defines ecological restoration as an “intentional activity that initiates or accelerates the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity and sustainability”. Restoration ecology is a relatively young academic field of study that addresses problems faced by land managers and other restoration practitioners. Young et al. suggest that models of succession, community assembly and state transitions are an important component of ecological restoration, and that seed and recruitment limitation, soil processes and diversity-function relationships are also important.

The ‘new’ models referenced in the title of the book are ‘threshold’ or ‘regime shift’ ecosystem models. These models are ‘new’, the editors argue, in the sense that they contrast gradual continual models and stochastic models. Gradual continuous models are described as those that assume post-disturbance ecosystem recovery follows a continuous, gradual trajectory and are associated with classical, Clementsian theory that assumes steady, uni-directional change towards some single equilibrium state. Stochastic models assume exogenous drivers dominate the behavior of ecosystems to the extent that non-equilibrium and unstable systems states are the norm. Threshold models assume there are multiple (in contrast to the Clementsian view) stable (in contrast to the stochastic view) ecosystem states and represent changes from one relatively distinct system state to another as the result of small changes in environmental (driving) conditions. Thresholds and regime shifts are important to consider in restoration ecology as there may be thresholds in system states beyond which recovery to the previous (healthy) state is not possible.

Two types of threshold model are considered in New Models;

i) state-and-transition (S-T) models that represent multiple (often qualitative) stable states and the potential transitional relationships between those states (including the rates of transition), and

ii) alternative stable state (ASS) models which are a subset of S-T models and generally represent systems with fewer states and faster transitions (flips) between the alternative states.

For example, S-T models are often used to represent vegetation and land cover dynamics (as I did in the LFSM I developed to examine Mediterranean landscape dynamics), whereas ASS models are more frequently used for aquatic systems (e.g. lake ecosystems) and chemical/nutrient dynamics.

New Models focuses on use of these models in ecological restoration and provides an excellent introduction to key concepts and approaches in this field. Two of the six background chapters in this introduction address models and inference, two introduce transition theory and dynamics in lake and terrestrial ecosystems (respectively), and two discuss issues in social-ecological and rangeland systems. These background chapters are clear and concise, providing accessible and cogent introductions to the systems concepts that arise in the later case studies. The case studies present research and practical examples of threshold models in a range of ecosystems types – from arid, grassland, woodland and savanna ecosystems, though forest and wetland ecosystems, to ‘production landscapes’ (e.g. restoration following mining activities). Although the case study chapters are interesting examples of the current state of the use and practice of threshold modeling for ecological restoration, from my perspective there are certain issues that are insufficiently addressed. Notably, there is limited explicit consideration of spatial interactions or feedbacks between social and ecological systems.

For example, in their background chapter King and Whisenant highlight that many previous studies of thresholds in social-ecological systems have investigated an ecological system driven by a social system, ignoring feedbacks to the social components. Explicitly representing the links between social and ecological components in models does remain a daunting task, and many of the case studies continue in the same vein as the ‘uni-directional’ models King and Whisenant hint at (and I’ve discussed previously). The editors themselves highlight that detailed consideration of social systems is beyond the scope of the book and that such issues are addressed elsewhere (including in other volumes of the Ecological Restoration book series – Aronson et al.). However, representing human-environment feedbacks is becoming increasingly vital to ensure appropriate understanding of many environmental systems and their omission here may prove unsatisfactory to some.

A second shortcoming of the book, from the perspective of a landscape ecologist, is the general lack of consideration for spatial pattern and scaling and their influences on the processes considered in the case studies. In their background chapter on resilience theory and rangelands, Bestelmeyer et al. do highlight the importance of a landscape perspective and considering land as being a ‘state mosaic’, but only a single case study really picks up on these concepts in earnest (Cale and Willoughby). Other case studies do indirectly consider spatial feedbacks and landscape context, but explicit representation of relationships between spatial patterns and ecosystems processes is lacking.

However, these criticisms do need to be considered in light of the objectives of New Models. At the outset, the editors state that the book aims to collectively evaluate threshold modeling approaches as applied to ecological restoration – to examine when and where these models have been used, what evidence is used to derive and apply them, and how effective they are for guiding management. In their synthesis chapter the editors highlight that the models presented in the book have been used heuristically with little testing of their assumptions and ask; “Does this indicate an obvious gap between ecological theory and restoration practice?” For example, in their chapter on conceptual models for Australian wetlands, Sim et al. argue that the primary value of threshold models is to provide a conceptual framework of how ecosystems function relative to a variety of controlling variables. The editors’ suggestion is that restoration practitioners are applying models that work rather than “striving to prove particular elements” (of system function or ecological theory), and that maybe this isn’t such a bad approach given pressing environmental problems.

Potentially, this is a lesson that if landscape ecologists are to provide ecosystem managers and stewards with timely advice they may need to need to scale-back (i.e., reduce the complexity of) their modeling aims and objectives. Alternatively, we could view this situation as an opportunity for landscape ecologists to usefully contribute to advance the field of ecological restoration. Most likely it is indicative that where practical knowledge is needed quickly, simple models using established ecological theory and modelling tools are most useful. But in time, as our theoretical understanding and representation of spatial and human-environment interactions advances, these aspects will be integrated more readily into practical applications of modelling for ecological restoration.

Buy at Amazon

Posted on 2009-05-25

Developing Sustainable Lifestyles

It can be hard not to abandon hope for a sustainable future when you read about our rapidly growing global population and the hopes of those in the developing world (growing the fastest) to lead more ‘western’ lifestyles. For ‘western’, read ‘consumptive’. Last year Jared Diamond came up with new numbers to make us feel even more hopeless; economically more developed countries are consuming resources and producing waste 32 times faster than less developed countries. That means, Diamond estimates, if everyone on earth were to eat as much meat, drive their cars as far and use electricity as prodigiously as Europeans, Americans and Japanese currently do it would be as if the human population had suddenly ballooned to 72 billion.

In an editorial in the latest issue of Conservation Biology, R. Edward Grumbine and Jianchu Xu use Diamond’s example when discussing the rise of China as a global economic power and consumer and the potential implications for conservation, the environment and the climate debate:

“China’s rapid economic rise has not helped conservation much. The country faces severe environmental challenges as the largest human population in history builds highways, factories, and housing to fully join the modern industrial world. The PRC [People’s Republic of China], however, remains relatively poor. Per capita income in 2007 was a mere one-fifth of the U.S. average; a typical American teenager has more discretionary income than the total annual salary of the average Chinese citizen.

Despite the importance of biodiversity issues, we want to draw attention to less-discussed environmental concerns that involve China at regional and global scales and which will likely transform life for all of us over the rest of the 21st century.”

Focusing on their discussion about issues related to climate change, Grumbine and Xu point out;

“Even if the European Union and the United States magically reduced their greenhouse gas emissions to zero while you are reading this sentence, China’s current pace by itself may keep global emissions rising through 2020.

China should not be blamed for the world’s runaway greenhouse gas emissions; the United States never even ratified the Kyoto Protocol. And we emphasize that China’s development dream is not a vision exclusive to the PRC. Beyond the Middle Kingdom, there are at least 1.2 billion people desiring cars, a decent house attached to a sewer system, potable water, and a fair measure of education and health care.”

The consequences of Chinese, and other poorer nations, realising their hopes of economic development?

“China and the rest of the less-developed world are driving wealthy countries toward a global reckoning with the fossil-fuel-powered, high-consumption, industrial way of life.

… The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the United Kingdom has estimated that some 23% of China’s total emissions result from net exports to the developed world. The Earth’s atmosphere bears a message: we are all in this together. China and climate change have collapsed us and them into we.”

Grumbine and Xu reckon China is poised to assume a leadership role in solving our international environmental problems despite, or maybe as a consequence of, its rapidly growing population and ecological footprint. The US government also seems to now recognise that we’re all in this together. In February, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton set out to discuss these issues during her visit to China, and it appears her path may have been previously beaten (behind closed doors) during the preceding administration. In vowing to “restore science to its rightful place” President Obama named Nobel Prize laureate Steven Chu as his Energy Secretary. However, it seems that despite wanting to put science first, domestic political opposition to emissions cuts and to changes in the US energy mix are hindering these moves. Chu said recently to the BBC;

“As someone very concerned about climate I want to be as aggressive as possible but I also want to get started. And if we say we want something much more aggressive on the early timescales that would draw considerable opposition and that would delay the process for several years. … But if I am going to say we need to do much, much better I am afraid the US won’t get started.”

However, Chu went on to discuss his aims for a “massive programme of efficiency for commercial buildings”, vastly improved cost-effectiveness of solar energy, and an interconnected wind power grid. The Obama climate change bill is making progress, but the slow movement on energy policy because of domestic resistance to change has potential global consequences. If the economically more developed countries of the world cannot show that their populations are willing and able to change their lifestyles to be less consumptive, negotiations with developing countries will be hindered.

Pressure from lower levels of government will help push things along. Last week 178 Michigan scientists (including myself) signed a letter to the Michigan Congressional delegation calling for actions to achieve strong and effective federal climate change solutions policies. And scientists can (and need) to do more than just write letters and do their basic (physical) research in their laboratories and at their computers. Reiterating his commitment to science in an address to the National Academy of Science, President Obama asked scientists and academics to engage in society to inspire and enable people “to be makers of things, not just consumers of things”.

A paper by David Pimentel and colleagues, entitled Energy efficiency and conservation for individual Americans, provides some solid numbers and ideas about how we as individual citizens in the economically more developed world can modify our residential energy use, reduce the impact of personal transport, and make informed decisions about what we eat. I’ve listed some of their more interesting suggestions for a sustainable lifestyle below. These are rational and effective ways we can change our lifestyles to live more sustainably and show that we are willing to share the responsibility of mitigating the human impact on the global environment. If we don’t want to be left with mere hope for a sustainable future, we need to show how others in the world can realise their hopes of development whilst conserving energy, water and our other natural resources.

Residential Energy Conservation

Improve and upgrade windows – 25% of residential heating and cooling energy is lost directly through single pane windows

Plant trees – deciduous on south to shade the house in the summer and allow full-sun in the winter, evergreen trees to the north can act as a wind-break

Use the microwave – it’s the most efficient way to steam, boil, and bake vegetables

Power-down your computer when it’s not in use – “computers should be turned off if the unit will be left for 2 hours or more and if left for 30 min the machine should be set in standby mode”

Pimentel and colleagues suggest that implementing these, and other, measures around the home would save around 5,600 kWh/year, resulting in savings of about $390/year on home energy costs.

Personal Transport

Drive slower – “A reduction in speed from 104 kmph (65 mph) to 86 kmph (55 mph) will reduce fuel consumption 19% (UrbanPlanet). For a 104 km trip, only an additional 11 min would be required if one traveled at 86 kmph. This extra 11 min would repay the person nearly $1.86 in fuel saving, or repay the person $10/h.”

Inflate your car tires properly – this will decrease the fuel consumption by up to 3%

Get rid of that junk in your trunk – “each 45 kg (100 pounds) of additional load in the car will reduce fuel mileage about 1%”

Ride your bike – bicycling uses 25 kcal/km (34 kcal/mile)compared with 938 kcal/km (1,510 kcal/mile) for a mid-sized car

In summary: “[c]urrently, the average American uses about 1,900 l (500 gallons) of fuel/year in personal transport in contrast to the average person in the United Kingdom who consumes 1,700 l (450 gallons) (Renner 2003). If Americans implement the suggestions listed above [and others I haven’t listed] over a 10-year period, it would be possible to reduce fuel oil consumption between 10% and 20% from the current 20 quads of vehicle fuel [approximately 600 billion l or about 16 billion gallons of fuel] consumed in the U.S.”

Food system
The authors highlight several ways in which farmers and policy-makers can aggressively pursue sustainable agricultural practices. They are less precise about what individuals’ can do but offer some general ideas:

Eat local products – reduces transport energy costs [and find out where you should buy your wine from here]

Eat less (especially less meat) – read more about meat and the environment here

“Select aluminum and steel packaging over glass or plastic, for energy conservation. For the same reasons, however, plastic and especially recyclable plastic should be selected instead of glass and/or paper.”

Pimentel et al. summarise: “[w]ell-directed, serious conservation strategies influenced by individuals with supportive state and federal leadership and policies will have an enormous positive impact on transitioning to a sustainable energy future for the United States.”

Posted on 2009-05-10

US-IALE 2009: CHANS Workshop

Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS) research is all about relationships – that seemed to be one of the main conclusions of the Challenges and Opportunities in Research on Complexity of Coupled Human and Natural Systems workshop at the US-IALE meeting in Snowbird, UT. The processes of identifying relationships between system elements and fostering them between researchers are key to realizing successful CHANS research. The workshop followed-up on a symposium in which principle investigators from several NSF-funded CNH projects presented their work, and was an opportunity to ask questions that went unasked during that symposium. The workshop was also the kick-off event for the CHANS-Net website.

In my notes below I have not identified individual workshop participants, both because I may have mis-interpreted their actual opinions or thoughts, but also because in some cases I can’t identify from my notes who said what. The workshop started with a panel discussion (the panel composed of the symposium speakers) followed by break-out groups to continue the discussion.

The first question from the audience asked how the panel approaches the dichotomy between abstract and contextualised research. Just as many dichotomies are false, it seems this one is also not always appropriate. For example, one response was that just because we can explain some characteristic about a specific place does not mean we didn’t use any theory whilst arriving at that explanation. Talking to local people can generate interesting, if contextualised, questions and one panel member highlighted the usefulness of ‘stakeholder steering groups’ (composed of local decision-makers and actors) to identify diverse opinions and direct research in ways that may not have happened otherwise. Another suggestion was that communication tools (such as role-playing, hypothetical scenarios, model output, etc.) are useful as a starting point for discussion, even if the theory underlying those tools is not discussed. To summarise the responses to this question I’ll paraphrase one of the panel members; ‘it was Louis Pasteur that said the question is not about whether the science is abstract or applied, but whether it is good science or bad science’.

A subsequent question along similar lines touched on the interplay of theory and practice; “what happens when your research proposal does not match ‘messy reality’? How do you explain why you ended up doing what you did do [to the people that accepted your proposal]?”. No original research goes entirely to plan – as some famous scientist once said; ‘if we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research’. In reality, there is always ‘wriggle-room’ in resolving this issue – if you start with a broad question it is easier to stay with a research theme even if the details get modified. Similarly, it is useful to make sure your research question is more important than the place where you will address that question. One panel member described how a research project they worked on needed to change the country in which is was situated. By focusing on the general research question they were able to negotiate this seemingly insurmountable problem. Other respondents from the panel got into more ‘messy’ details about the execution of such research. For example, in a project that involved both social and physical scientists there was initially confusion about how the two different types of scientists perceived and undertook measurements. A useful suggestion was to read your colleagues synthesis/review papers from other disciplines or backgrounds. Through commitment and patience in working together, an objective should be to identify a common language between researchers that can then push the research goals forward. Again, the importance of relationships was stressed.

An issue that came up both in response to this theory versus practice question, and frequently throughout the workshop, was the importance of good project management. One panel member suggested that an individual needs to be designated with the task of keeping the project on timeline, and that this person may need to take tough decisions (e.g. to drop researchers from the project) if deadlines or standards are not met. Finally, changing research can be a healthy thing – there will be frequent opportunities to extend research in new directions because new questions will arise as understanding develops. We shouldn’t be afraid to pursue those new directions.

One participant wanted to talk about fields that remain under-represented in CHANS current projects. They asked; “what about landscape architects and other ‘professional’ individuals?” A variety of missing experts and knowledge were suggested: the built environment, technology, environmental psychology, historians, political scientists, and communications experts (cartographers, public relations consultants, etc.) amongst others. The need for greater engagement and strengthening of relationships with political scientists seemed to be particularly important to several participants: under what conditions does a policy succeed or fail? How do we achieve good governance of the systems being studied? The US EPA (for example) are making decisions all the time – how are CHANS researchers engaging and influencing them?

Another workshop participant suggested that the presentations in the symposium had highlighted several different ways to conceive the relationship of humans with their environment, from ‘invaders’ to ‘managers’ to ‘components’. “How do we cross the boundaries between these different conceptualizations?” The first respondent suggested that researchers tend to pick a perspective (on the relationship between humans and their environment) and stick with it throughout their research – a better approach might be to consider different perspectives within the same project. However, the discussion quickly moved on to address the entire concept of ‘coupled’ human-natural systems. Several panel respondents voiced concerns about the coupling metaphor – one suggested that (human-natural) systems are not coupled, rather there is just one system. Another highlighted how the US perspective [remember this was the US-IALE meeting] on the human-nature relationship is rather unique – Europeans arrived with ideas of wilderness, protection and exploitation which differ from those in other places. Many of our ideas about how humans are related to their environment, one panel member suggested, likely stem from the Judeo-Christian philosophy which states that man was given dominion over nature. During the development of that philosophy humans got separated [in their minds?] from ecosystems and a difference soon emerged between a perspective in which humans rightly dominate nature versus one in which humans are viewed as being part of nature [which might be more consistent with Eastern religions such as Taoism or Buddhism].

To conclude the panel discussion someone asked; “what direction does CHANS research need to go in?” I thought the most interesting response was that CHANS research should be about easing transitions between different environmental conditions, and not trying to stop those transitions. The speaker suggested that CHANS research needs to focus on the sustainability of communities in the face of environmental transitions, adopting a perspective closely aligned with the view that humans are a part of nature rather than a controller of nature. A second respondent (possibly a geographer) identified the problem of scale. Whilst pretty much every presentation in the symposium contained a ‘spider diagram’ depicting a system as arrows linking boxes of elements, scale didn’t figure much. Yet, the respondent argued, all the systems presented were to some degree scale-dependent (but note there are cases where scale-invariant behaviour is manifest [.pdf]).

The workshop then broke up into groups to discuss some the issues outlined above in more detail. Correspondingly, there was plenty of feedback when the groups re-convened. Put in the most simple terms, our group decided that there are four things that characterize CHANS research:

It is hard (e.g. issues of coupling systems, scaling, policy work, management, interdisciplinarity, and many more)
It’s all about relationships (both in the systems of study and between the researchers studying those systems)
Face-to-face interaction is key (between researchers themselves, and between researchers and other stakeholders – policy makers, managers and importantly the people in the systems and places being studied)
It takes time (because of all of the above)

This last point was emphasized in several places; it takes time to generate links between disciplines. And it can be frustrating. For CHANS research to be successful, one of the key steps is to identify individuals that are willing to make the same leap across a disciplinary divide that you want to. CHANS researchers aren’t alone in having these kinds of discussions right now, and there are lessons to be learned from many different groups investigating the web of human-environment relationships. That’s where the workshop ended in Utah, but no doubt the discussion about relationships will continue – possibly in forums like that offered by CHANS-Net.

Posted on 2009-03-06

Abandon Hope

Last Friday I was aiming to go to a seminar by Dr Michael Nelson entitled An Unprecedented Challenge: Environmental Ethics and Global Climate Change. Unfortunately time flies when you’re coding [our ecological-economic forest simulation model] and I missed it.

But I found a few bits and pieces on the MSU website that I assume are related. Like his recent article Abandon Hope in The Ecologist (written with <a href="
http://www.conservationethics.org/CEG/personnel.html” class=”regular” target=”_blank”>John Vucetich), and this associated MSU interview in which he outlines his argument:

Even if they aren’t quite what was discussed on Friday, it’s still interesting stuff. Nelson’s argument is that if the only reason we have to live sustainably is the hope that environmental disaster will be averted, it’s unlikely that we’ll actually avert those disasters. Why? Because hope is a pretty weak argument when confronted by a continual news stream about how unsustainable western societies are and because many messages suggest disaster is inevitable.

It seems much of this argument stems from Nelson’s dissatisfaction with books like Jared Diamond’s Collapse which spends the vast majority of 500 pages discussing the demise of previous societies and what could go wrong now, then finishing with a 5 page section entitled Reasons for Hope.

Nelson’s dissatisfaction reminds me of William Cronon’s argument against the Grand Narratives of global environmental problems that I wrote about previously.

Cronon argued that global, ‘prophetic’ narratives are politically and socially inadequate because they don’t offer the possibility of individual or group action to address global problems. Such ‘big’ issues are hard for individuals to feel like they can do anything about.

Part of Cronon’s solution was the identification of ‘smaller’ (more focused) stories that individuals will be better able to empathise with. However, Cronon also played the hope card – suggesting that these more focused narratives offer individuals more hope than the global narratives.

Focusing on smaller issues closer to home may help – doesn’t hope become a stronger argument when the problems faced are less complex and the solutions are seemingly closer at hand? But Nelson seems to be suggesting that (as any ardent sports fan will tell you) it’s the hope that kills you.

“Instead of hope we need to provide young people with reasons to live sustainably that are rational and effective. We need to equate sustainable living, not so much with hope for a better future, but with basic virtues such as sharing and caring, which we already recognize as good in and of themselves, and not because of their measured consequences.”

Nelson’s is an ethical argument – that living sustainably should be portrayed as the ‘the right thing to do’, and that we should do it regardless of the consequences.

But then the question arises: how do we live sustainably? How do I know what the right thing to do is? Given a choice (on what printer paper to buy, for example) what decision to I make if I want to be sustainable? In order to make this choice we immediately need to start measuring the future consequences of our decisions. The future is an inherent part of the sustainability concept – it is about maintaining system processes or function into the future. So when we make our lifestyle decisions now, guided as they might be by the virtue of ‘doing the right thing’, we still need to have some idea about how we want the future to be, and which actions are more likely to get us there.

Nelson may be right – blind hope in a better future may prove counter productive given the current stream of global, prophetic, doomsaying narratives. But equally, just saying ‘do the right thing’ may be equally confusing for many people. Nelson isn’t arguing that this is all we should do, of course – he also suggests there is a “desperate need for environmental educators, writers, journalists and other leaders to work these [virtuous] ideas into their efforts”. It would be a good thing if living sustainably was more widely understood as ‘doing the right thing’. But this virtue will remain largely irrelevant if we don’t also work out how individuals and societies can live sustainably.

So what’s the result of all this thinking? It seems we should be focusing less on on doomsaying prophetic narratives (boiling seas bleaching coral reefs on continents thousands of miles away, stories of global warming when there’s a foot of snow outside, and so on) and more on what the individual person or group can do now, themselves, practically. In conjunction with the argument of acting virtuously with respect to sustainability, this focus may provide people with ‘rational and effective’ reasons, leaving them feeling more optimistic about the future and empowered to lead sustainable lives.

Update – 6th March
Okay, how about a couple of quick examples to go with that rhetoric? The cover story of this month’s National Geographic Magazine is a good one – Peter Miller looks at how we can start making energy savings (reducing CO2 emissions) around our own homes. And of course, I should have already pointed out the BBC’s Ethical Man as he works out how to keep his environmental impact to a minimum. Currently he’s attemting to traverse the USA without flying or driving. The ethics of Ethical Man are more implied than stated explicitly, but it’s another example of the sort of reporting is discussed above – showing how individuals can act now rather than merely hoping for a better future.

Posted on 2009-02-27

ESA 2009 Abstract

February 2009 seems to be the month of abstracts. Here’s another we just submitted to the 94th Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting, the theme of which is Ecological Knowledge and a Global Sustainable Society.

Local winter white-tailed deer density: Effects of forest cover pattern, stand structure, and snow in a managed forest landscape
James D. A. Millington, Michael B. Walters, Megan S. Matonis and Jianguo Liu
Michigan State University

Background/Question/Methods
White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are a ‘keystone herbivore’ with the potential to cause tree regeneration failure and greatly affect vegetation dynamics, stand structure and ecological function of forests across eastern North America. In northern mixed conifer-hardwood forests, local winter-time deer populations are dependent on habitat characterized by patterns of forest cover that provide shelter from snow and cold temperatures (lowland conifer stands) in close proximity to winter food (deciduous hardwood stands). Stand structure may also influence winter spatial deer distribution. Consequently, modification of forest cover patterns and stand structure by timber harvesting may affect local spatial deer distributions, with potential ecological and economic consequences. Here, we ask if forest cover pattern and stand structure, and their interactions with snow depth, can explain winter deer density in the managed forests of the central Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA. For each local winter deer density estimate (from fecal pellet counts) we calculate stand-level characteristics for surrounding ‘landscapes of influence’ of radius 200 m and 380 m. For these data, and modeled snow depth estimates, we use multivariate techniques to produce predictive models and to identify the most important factors driving local deer densities across our 400,000 ha study area.

Results/Conclusions
Distance to the nearest conifer stand consistently explains the most variance in univariate regression models. Deer densities are highest near lowland conifer stands in areas where the proportion of hardwood forest-cover is high but the mean tree diameter-at-breast-height is low. Multiple regression models including these factors explain up to 38% of variance in deer density and have up to a 68% chance of correctly ranking a site’s deer density (relative to other sites within our study area). We are unable to conclusively show that snow depth has a significant impact on winter deer density, but our data suggest that more detailed investigation into the combined effect of distance to lowland conifer and snow depth may prove fruitful. Our results quantify clear effects of stand structure and forest cover composition on the winter spatial distribution of white-tailed deer. We briefly discuss how these results can be used in an ecological-economic simulation model of a managed forest for tree regeneration risk assessment. Use of these results, and the simulation model, will help identify management practices that can decrease deer impacts and ensure the ecological and economic sustainability of forests in which deer browse is proving problematic for tree regeneration.

Posted on 2008-12-19

Geographical Perspectives: Externalities, Inputs and Participation

One of the most enjoyable things about studying as a post-graduate in a UK Geography department was the diversity of conversation topics I could get myself into in the corridors, over lunch, and after work in the pub. Investigating social, economic, cultural, atmospheric, geomorphological, and ecological patterns and processes (too name just a few) geography departments contain scholars with interests and skills that span the globe’s physical and social environments. This variety of backgrounds and worldviews can lead to widely differing perspectives on the current affairs of any particular day.

In many ways my PhD studies, funded by an interdisciplinary research studentship from the ESRC and NERC, allowed (demanded?) me to search out these differing perspectives and engage in these conversations. However, this diversity of perspectives isn’t appealing for faculty members focused narrowly on their own particular research specialism and the current paper they are writing about it. Maybe they just don’t have time. Or maybe there’s something deeper.

The distinction between the social sciences (human geography) and natural sciences (physical geography) has led to somewhat of a divide between these two ‘sides’ of Geography. As my former tutor and advisor Prof. David Demeritt highlights in the latest volume of the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, ‘human’ and ‘physical’ geographers have become so estranged that dedicated forums to initiate ‘conversations across the divide‘ of Geography now occur regularly at annual conferences. Demeritt’s article discusses how ‘Environmental Geography’ is often touted as having the integrative research potential to bridge the human-physical divide.

Environmental Geography (EG) explicitly sets out to examine human-environment interactions and is generally understood to be the intersection of Human and Physical in the Geography Venn diagram. Essentially, EG is the Geographical version of the Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS) research program that has become prominent recently largely thanks to NSF funding. Whereas CHANS emphasises systemic concepts (thresholds, feedbacks, resilience etc.), EG emphasises concepts more at home in the geographical lexicon – scale, space and (seemingly most often absent from CHANS research) place. This is not to say that these concepts are exclusively used by either one or the other – whether you do ‘CHANS research’ or ‘Environmental Geography’ is also likely to be determined by where your research funding comes from, what department you work in, and the type or training you received in graduate school.

One of the main points Demeritt makes in his commentary is that this flat distinction between Human and Physical Geography is not as straight forward as it is often made out to be. Friedman’s world may be flat, but the Geography world isn’t. Demeritt attempts to illustrate this with a new diagramtic 3D representation of the overlap between the many sub-disciplines of Geography (most of which are also academic disciplines in their own right):

Thus, “Rather than thinking about geography just in terms of a horizontal divide between human and physical geography, we need to recognise the heterogeneity within those very broad divisions. …within those two broad divisions geography is stretched out along a vertical dimension. … Like the fabled double helix, these vertical strands twist round each other and the horizontal connections across the human-physical divide to open up new opportunities for productive engagement.” [p.5]

This potential doesn’t come without its challenges however. Demeritt uses EG to demonstrate such challenges, highlighting how research in this field is often ‘framed’. ‘Framing’ here refers to the perspective researchers take about how their subject (in this case interactions between humans and the natural environment) will be (should be) studied. Demeritt highlights three particular perspectives:

1. The Externality Perspective. This perspective might be best associated with the reductionist mode of scientific investigation, where a specific component of a human-environment system is considered in isolation from any other components. Research disregards or ignores other work in sub-disciplines, whether horizontally across the human-physical divide or vertically either side, and concentrates on understanding a specific phenomena or process.

2. The Integrated Perspective. We might think of this perspective as being loosely systematic. Rather than simply ignoring the connections with other processes and phenomena considered in other sub-disciplines, they are used as some form of ‘input’ to the component under particular consideration. This is probably the mode that most closely resembles how much CHANS research is currently done, and how most ‘interdisciplinary’ environmental research is currently done.

3. The Participatory Perspective. This third approach has become more prominent recently, associated with calls for more democratic forms of science-based decision-making and as issues expertise and risk have come to the fore in environmental issues. This mode demands scientists and researchers become more engaged with publics, stakeholders and decision-makers and is closely related to the perspective of ‘critical’ geography and proponents of ‘post-normal’ science.

Demeritt discusses the benefits and challenges of these approaches in more detail, as I have briefly touched on previously. Rather than go over them again, here I want to think a bit more about the situations in which each of these modes of research might be most useful. In turn, this will help us to think about where engagement with other disciplines and sub-disciplines will be most fruitful.

One situation in which the externality perspective would be most useful is when the spatial/temporal scope of the process/phenomena of interest makes engagement between (sub-)disciplines either useless or impossible. For example, reconciling economic or cultural processes with Quaternary research is likely to extraordinarily difficult (but see Wainwright 2008). A second would be when investigation is interested more in ‘puzzle solving’ than ‘problem-solving’. For example, with regards research on Northern Hardwood Forests the puzzler would ask questions like ‘what is the biological relationship between light availability and tree growth?’ whereas the problem-solver might ask ‘how should we manage our timber harvest to ensure sufficient light availability allows continued regeneration of younger trees in the forest understory?’.

The integrated approach has often been used in the situation when one ‘more predictable’ system is influenced by another ‘less predictable’ system. One system might be more predictable than another because more data are available for one than another, because less assumptions are invoked to ‘close’ one system for study than another, or simply because the systems are perceived to be more or less predictable. A prime example is the use of scenarios of global social end economic change to set the parameters of investigations of future climate change (although this example may actually have slowed problem-solving rather than sped it).

The participatory perspective will be useful when system uncertainties are primarily ethical or epistemological. Important questions here are ‘what are the ethical consequences of my study this phenomena?’ and ‘are sufficient theoretical tools available to study this problem?’. Further, in contrast to the externality mode, this approach will be useful when investigation is interested in ‘problem-solving’ rather than ‘puzzle solving’. For example, participatory research will be most useful when the research question is ‘how do we design a volcano monitoring system to efficiently and adequately alert local populations such that they can/will respond appropriately in the event of an eruption?’ rather than ‘what are the physical processes in the Earth’s interior that cause volcanoes to erupt when they do?’

Implicit in the choice of which question is asked in this final example is the framing of the issue at hand. Hopefully it is clear from my brief outline that it is a close relationship between research objectives and the framing or mode of the research. How these objectives and framings are arrived at is really at the root of Demeritt’s commentary. Given the choice, it will be easy for many researchers to take the easy option:

Engaging with other perspectives and approaches is not just demanding, but also risky too. … Progress in science has always come precisely from exposing ourselves to the possibility of getting it wrong or that things might not work out quite as planned’. [p.9]

Thinking clearly about the situations in which different modes of study are most useful might help save both embarrassment and time. Further, it also seems sensible to suggest that most thought should be done when researchers are considering engaging non-scientists in the participatory mode. If it is risky to expose ones self to fellow scientists, who understand the foibles of the research process and the difficulties of grappling with new ideas and data sets, it will be even more risky when the exposure is to non-scientists. Decision-makers, politicians, ‘lay persons’ and the general public at large are likely to be less acquainted with (but not ignorant of) how research proceeds (messily), how knowledge is generated (often a mixture of deductive proofs and inductive ideas), and the assumptions (and limitations) implicit in data collection and analysis. So when should academics feel most confident about parachuting in from the ivory tower?

First, it seems important for scientists to avoid telling people things they already ‘know’. Just because it hasn’t been written down in a scientific journal doesn’t mean it isn’t known (not that I want to get into discussion here about when something becomes ‘known’). We should try very hard to work out where help is needed to harness local knowledge, rather than ignoring it and assuming we know best (this of course harks back to the third wave). For example, while local farmers may know a lot about the history and consequences of land use/cover change in their local area, they may struggle to understand how land use/cover change will occur, or influence other processes, over larger spatial extents (e.g. landscape connectivity of species habitat or wildfire fuel loadings). In other situations, local knowledge may be entirely absent because a given phenomena is outside the perception/observation of the local community. In this case, it will be very difficult (or impossible) for them to contribute to knowledge formation even though the phenomena affects them. For example, the introduction of genetically modified crops will potentially have impacts on other nearby vegetation species due to hybridization, yet the processes at work are at a scale that is unobservable to lay persons (i.e genetic recombination at the molecular level versus farmland biodiversity at the landscape level).

The important point in all this however (as it occurs to me), seems to be that the ‘framing’ one researcher or scientist adopts will depend on their particular objectives. If those objectives are of the scientific puzzle-solving kind, and can be framed so that the solution can be found without leaving the comfy environment of a single sub-discipline, engagement will not happen (and neither should it). The risks it poses means that engagement will happen only if funding bodies demand it (as they increasingly are) or if the the research is really serious about solving a problem (as opposed to solving a puzzle or simply publishing scientific articles). As the human population grows within a finite environment the human-environment interface will only grow, likely demanding more and more engaged research. As I’ve highlighted before, a genuine science of sustainability is more likely to succeed if it adopts an engaged, participatory (post-normal) stance toward its subject.

Engaging researchers from other (sub-)disciplines or non-scientists will not always be the best option. But Geography and geographers are well placed to help develop theory and thinking to inform other scientists about how to frame environmental problems and establish exactly when engaging with experts (whether certified or not) from outside their field, or even from outside science itself, will be a fruitful endeavour. Geographers will only gain the authority on when and how interdisciplinary and participatory research should proceed once they’ve actually done some.

Demeritt, D. (2008) From externality to inputs and interference: framing environmental research in geography Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 34(1) 3 – 11
Published Online: 11 Dec 2008
doi:10.1111/j.1475-5661.2008.00333.x

Posted on 2008-11-23

Modelling Pharmaceuticals in the Environment

On Friday I spoke at a workshop at MSU that examined a subject I’m not particularly well acquainted with. Participants in Pharmaceuticals in the Environment: Current Trends and Research Priorities convened to consider the natural, physical, social, and behavioral dimensions regarding the fate and impact of pharmaceutical products in the natural environment. The primary environmental focus of this issue is the presence of toxins in our water supply as a result of the disposal of human or veterinary medicines. I was particularly interested in what Dr. Shane Synder had to say about water issues facing Las Vegas, Nevada.

So what did I have to do with all this? Well the organisers wanted someone from our research group at the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability to present some thoughts on how modelling of coupled human and natural systems might contribute to the study of this issue. The audience contained experts from a variety of disciplines (including toxicologists, chemists, sociologists, political scientists) and given my limited knowledge about the subject matter I decided I would keep my presentation rather broad in message and content. I drew on several of the topics I have discussed previously on this blog: the nature of coupled human-natural systems, reasons we might model, and potential risks we face when modelling CHANS.

In particular, I suggested that if prediction of a future system state is our goal we will be best served focusing our modelling efforts on the natural system and then using that model with scenarios of future human behaviour to examine the plausible range of states the natural system might take. Alternatively, if we view modelling as an exclusively heuristic tool we might better envisage the modeling process as a means to facilitate communication between disparate groups of experts or publics and explore what different conceptualisations allow and prevent from happening with regards our stewardship or management of the system. Importantly, in both cases the act of making our implicitly held models of how the world works explicit by laying down a formal model structure is the primary value of modelling CHANS.

There was brief talk towards the end of the meeting about setting up a workshop website that might even contain audio/video recordings of presentations and discussions that took place. If such a website appears I’ll link to it here. In the meantime, the next meeting I’ll be attending on campus is likely to be the overview of Coupled Human-Natural Systems discussion in the Networking for Environmental Researchers program.

Direction not Destination

Blog by James Millington, PhD

Tag: Environmental