Global Environmental Change Understanding the Human Dimensions (1992) / Chapter Skim
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5 Problems of Theory and Method
5 Problems of Theory and Method
Pages 167-199
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From page 167... ...
An effective research program must therefore address these problems from the start, to improve the foundation for future research. The theoretical and methodological problems arise from the nature of human interactions with the global environment.
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From page 168... ...
If analysts make erroneous assumptions about how people affect the environment, they may err in estimating rates of environmental change and, perhaps more significantly, by underestimating the uncertainty of their analyses. If they make erroneous assumptions about how the environment affects people, they may neglect feedback processes that might be used to mitigate or adapt
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From page 169... ...
For example, the information usually generated by the soil science disciplines is not of the kind needed to analyze the economic effects of soil erosion; soil scientists could produce the information that economists and policy makers need, given input on the nature of that information. In addition, social scientists have developed methods that may be useful for developing and validating natural science models of global change processes.
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From page 170... ...
If social scientists make erroneous assumptions about the relative importance of different human activities as causes of global change or about the likelihood of particular environmental changes, they risk misdirecting their efforts toward understanding human activities with minimal impact on the global environment or human responses to improbable events, both of which ensure that ~;~a~ science tangs wall ne tr~v~ai or irrelevant to problems of global change Isee Stern and Oskamp, 19871. If social scientists make erroneous assumptions about the aspects of environmental change that will affect people, they may produce misleading resuits.
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From page 171... ...
Environmental problems have already generated important interdisciplinary contributions in small subfields, such as environmental perception, natural hazards studies, environment and behavior, human ecology, and resource management, often focused on policy questions about land management, energy conservation, and management of natural and technological hazards. Global change research may offer an occasion for the broader development of environmental social science, if special efforts are made to involve researchers from several disciplines in continuing collaboration on common projects See Chapter 71.
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From page 172... ...
it_ r ~ -A ~-~ ~~~ ~~~ ~ ~~~~~ ~ ~~O At' This is true partly because there is reasonable agreement on the general form of the models, if not on the details of what should be included in a mode} and how submodels should be linked. Physical and biological processes are modeled with difference, differential, and accounting balance equations representing stocks and flows of physical entities.
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From page 173... ...
This situation suggests various theoretical needs that must be met before simulation models or other formal methods are used to project the human activities that generate, or respond to, global environmental change. These theoretical needs are for concepts and analytical tools for understanding human-environment relations at particular levels of analysis and time scales, and for connecting different levels and time scales.
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From page 174... ...
As the case study of China indicates, comparative studies using data from different political systems can do much to specify the relationships governing energy demand. As the case study of the causes of CEC production shows, longitudinal studies within single countries can show how transformations in energy use patterns can follow from changes in technology and settlement patterns that appear to lie outside the energy system.
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From page 175... ...
Evidence presented in Chapter 3 suggests that market economies are much less energy-intensive than state-socialist ones; if this relationship is reliable, the rapid change in Eastern Europe may have significant implications for the global environment. Research Needs Although it is hard to imagine progress in social science sufficient to predict the timing of social revolutions, it is possible to imagine a growing ability to predict the probability of such changes.
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From page 176... ...
The explanatory variables typically used in the social sciences are not necessarily applicable to the longer time scales. A focus on decades to centuries appears at first glance to favor some explanatory variables over others, and possibly some social science disciplines over others.
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From page 177... ...
Such changes can indirectly affect the global environment through impacts on economic development, energy demand, and popula lion growth rates.
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From page 178... ...
Research Needs Global change studies can benefit greatly from focused studies of the sources of variation in those slowly changing aspects of human systems that have major environmental impacts. Other social variables that affect the environment, but that operate on much shorter time scales, also deserve attention.
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From page 179... ...
For example, population pressures and market-based demand, which vary in strength across the globe and by resource and environmental setting, can have global environmental effects. Albedo changes in the North American Great Plains are, in part, a response to agricultural land use changes that are, in turn, influenced by national and international (but not locals agricultural demands.
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From page 180... ...
In addition, there is need for studies below the global level designed to assess the possibility that critical human-environment relationships, and the identity of the most important variables affecting those relationships, may vary with the spatial scale of the analysis {Chisholm, 1980, 19821 and to specify the links between levels of analysis. DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM OF REFLEXIVITY Reflexivity is important for global change research because understanding global change can alter the global environment itselfnot, of course, through any physical properties of knowledge, but indirectly through effects on human activity.
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From page 181... ...
SELECTING APPROPRIATE METHODS This section first addresses the issue of appropriate methods for the basic science of human interactions with the global environment- that is, for understanding the nature of the relevant human systems and their interactions with environmental systems. It then turns to the corresponding applied science the development and proper use of this understanding for informing practical choices among ways to respond to global change.
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From page 182... ...
One can construct a plausible research agenda by thinking through the knowledge that would be required to build mathematical models of each of the subsystems represented by boxes in the figure (including an expanded number of boxes to replace the single one labeled human activ~tiesJ and to link the models to each other. In fact, some commentators on the research agenda for global environmental change seem to give an important place to the task of building and linking models such as those implied in the diagrams National Research Council, 1990bJ.
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From page 183... ...
sacrifice realism to generaTity and precision; or {3J sacrifice precision to realism and generality. The first approach of sacrificing generality for realism and precision is typical of most simulation models developed for policy analysis.
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From page 184... ...
Of course, these first two types of models are not distinct, as simulation models are usually built with a large number of simple analytic models linked together. Historically, the analytical models have had the disadvantage of making simplifying assumptions that presumed equilibrium or stasis, and so are not ideal for studying Tong-term responses.
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From page 185... ...
Along with quantitative modeling approaches, it will be critical to proceed with studies using other traditional social science methods and aimed at more accurate specification of the relationships that models represent quantitatively and of the conditions under which those relationships develop and change. We conclude, therefore, that at least for the near term, the strength of emphasis on building integrative models that marks other parts of the global change research strategy is premature for studying the human dimensions.
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From page 186... ...
Different methods are more or less appropriate depending on the level of spatial or temporal aggregation of the questions asked, the availability of standardized data, the number of variables of interest, and so forth. But for the broad project of global change research, we emphasize the importance of a multimethod approach.
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From page 187... ...
Nevertheless, social scientists have developed techniques aimed at assessing the social effects of environmental change and of policy interventions and at placing values on effects of very different kinds, which are not readily measurable on a common scale. Social Impact Assessment Methodology A set of methods, known collectively as social impact assessment (SIA)
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From page 188... ...
Forma] Modeling Approaches A dominant approach in the early days of SIA was to develop and apply computer simulation models for impact assessment {Dietz and Dunning, 1983; Leistritz and Murdock, l981J.
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From page 189... ...
Formal models applied to the consequences of global environmental change may have analogous uses and problems. The demand for social impact assessments of the anthropogenic effects of global warming is already large and will certainly grow.
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From page 190... ...
The other problem is that SIAs, which take considerable effort and expense, especially if used to assess global effects, are likely to distract attention from more important analytical and modeling questions, including fundamental questions about interactions between environmental systems and human responses. A lesson of the last two decades of SIA that might also become a lesson of applying SIA methods to global change is that simulation models of the sort described here have limited utility in advancing scientific knowledge or in aiding serious discourse on policy: their value may be illusory.
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From page 191... ...
The problem of limited resources is exacerbated by the marginal linkage of impact studies to the prestigious centers of core disciplines. The main streams of most social science disciplines have ignored the effects on society of the physical and biotic environment and of technology.
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From page 192... ...
In addition, mission agencies that usually fund only applied social science research, but that have some basic research programs in the natural sciences, should initiate basic research in the social sciences as well. Methods for Valuation To have practical importance, any assessment of the human consequences of global change, or of responses to it, must be combined with some means of placing values on the consequences.
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From page 193... ...
This suggests a simple lesson for research on human dimensigns of global change. Although the social sciences cannot resolve the value questions at the heart of individual and collective decision-making about global change, social scientists should offer their best systematic insights into methods for understanding values, value conflicts, and the implications of alternative approaches to individual and collective choice.
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From page 194... ...
The last decade has seen increasing attention to the use of models in policy analysis and collective decision making. Most of that literature has been sharply critical of the effect of simulation models on the policy process {Baumgartner and Midttun, 1987; Brewer, 1983; Freedman et al., 1983; Greenberger, 1983; Greenberger et al., 1976; Habermas, 1970; Hoos, 1972; Meadows and Robinson, 1985; Robinson, 1982, l9SS; Stern, 1984, 1986; Wynne, 19841.
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From page 195... ...
As noted in the discussion of social impact assessment, this way of using models can either limit creativity and debate or provoke skepticism. In the latter case, the models are ignored rather than being used in an informative role.
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From page 196... ...
We reached four broad conclusions. INTERDISCIPEINARY COLLABORATION IS ESSENTIAE The nature of global environmental change is such that the variables of central concern to a variety of disciplines typically
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From page 197... ...
It should be a high priority of the human interactions research effort to support problem-centered interaction among social and natural scientists, for example, through research projects that require such contact, problem-focused scholarly meetings, and interdisciplinary research centers. NEW THEORETICAL Toots ARE REQUIRED Because global change studies are inherently interdisciplinary, and especially because the object of study requires analysis at spatial and temporal expanses much greater than most social scientific theory encompasses, these studies challenge social science to develop new theoretical tools.
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From page 198... ...
Models should be part of a dialogue of methods, with several complementary methods being used to give a more complete picture of human interactions with the global environment than any single method can produce. POST HOC ANALYSES ARE ESSENTIAL FOR EVALUATING HUMAN RESPONSES The public sector will often be involved in efforts to redirect the social driving forces of global environmental change or to
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From page 199... ...
Agencies and foundations that support basic research on global change should play a key role in fostering rigorous, theoretically informed, and methodologically well-designed empirical studies assessing the effects of human responses to global change. In particular, we recommenci that ace teaera~ agencies anal sponsor programs anticipated to affect processes of global environmental change should routinely include in their budgets funds to evaluate the effects of those programs after they have been enacted.
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