Global Environmental Change Understanding the Human Dimensions (1992) / Chapter Skim
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8 A National Research Program on the Human Dimensions of Global Change
8 A National Research Program on the Human Dimensions of Global Change
Pages 235-256
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From page 235... ...
, other appropriate federal agencies, and private funding sources. Each has implications for funding that we address in the final section of this chapter.
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change requires' to begin with, a greatly strengthened" partnership between the natural sciences and the social sciences. Nowhere is the case for mutual respect and constructive collaboration between natural scientists and social scientists more ner.~i`Te then in etiorts to come to terms with global change.
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From page 237... ...
are not only appropriate in planning terms but also conducive to strengthening the partnership between natural scientists and social scientists working in this field. Our committee notes as well that some of the necessary research on the human dimensions of global change, particularly concerning human responses to and consequences of global change, would be appropriate for support by the newly emerging Mitigation and Adaptation Research Strategies program being proposed by CEES.
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Further applications of existing approaches can continue to yield useful insights. At the same time, the global change research agenda poses challenges for the understanding of human behavior arid social institutions that require extraordinary efforts to push beyond existing disciplinary and theoretical categories.
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The committee is aware of the great scientific uncertainties that sometimes exist about the relative importance of different human activities as proximate causes of particular global changes. Human activities that seem to be of only modest importance today may loom much larger in the future, either because they have increased greatly in magnitude or because new knowIedge shows that they are more important than previously thought.
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; they deserve special study as forms of global social change. The emphasis should be on global comparative research, that is, studies at a single level of analysis that examine the range of variation in the relevant phenomena around the world and studies tracing the relationship across time between global social change and global environmental change.
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if: Research should make a systematic effort to compare and contrast human responses at different levels of social organization. Responses to changes in environmental systems by individuals, corporations, communities, and countries may vary in terms of both the ease with which they are initiated and the consequences of pursuing them.
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lh. There is a need for studies of the robustness of human systems (in Mu cling social, technical, agricultural, economic, and political systemsJ in the face of global environmental change.
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Because knowledge about likely global changes is always incomplete or imperfect and because alternative responses will affect human values and interests in different ways, conflicts are inevitable at whatever level decisions are taken. Rational responses to global environmental changes will consequently require the establishment of institutional arrangements to evaluate available knowledge relating to such changes, facilitate decision making about responses to the changes, and manage the resultant social conflicts.
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All topics selected for focused research should meet the following criteria: they deal with matters that are of first-order significance to understanding causes, consequences, and responses to global environmental change; they raise questions that typify larger classes of concerns relating to the human dimensions of global change; they address one or more of the major categories of global environmental change; they show promise of yielding timely advances regarding questions of broad interest to the social sciences.
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Research on this issue can provide insights as well into other aspects of the global industrial metabolism. Since changes in energy intensity in recent years have been, at least in part, a response to shortages and to the development of new technologies, research on this topic can contribute to our general understanding of the ways in which socioeconomic systems respond to environmental changes.
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Research on methods of valuing these kinds of consequencesespecially methods capable of producing at least ordinal rankingscould yield high returns measured in terms of improving the quality of public discussion of appropriate ways of responding to global environmental changes. Valuation research should explicitly address the subjective nature of valuation and the phenomenon of differences in valuation, for instance, by exploring ways of soliciting valuations from different actors as part of the social decision process.
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To understand human responses to global change, therefore, we need to learn more about individual and collective attitudes toward risk, factors affecting propensities to launch anticipatory responses, and the complexities of collective decision making when consequences may be profound but not experienced until much later. In this context, it may prove helpful to consider the literature on risk assessment and human behavior in the face of natural hazards as sources of insights into human responses to global environmental changes.
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Partly, this reflects a widespread conviction that international cooperation will be necessary to solve all the major problems arising from global environmental changes. It also stems from a sense that the study of international cooperation is an area in which major advances in understanding of collective-action problems in general are now within our grasp.
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In some areas, in fact, the quantity and quality of data available to social scientists compare favorably with the data available to natural scientists. Yet little has been done to take stock of the data currently available and, especially, to consider data problems in the light of careful judgments regarding the types and quality of data needed to conduct innovative research.
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Global Change Research Program focused budget is slated to go to NASA and that the EOS program will consume most of this funding, facts that raise questions about the achievement of a proper balance in allocating funds among global change research priorities. As noted in Chapter 6, the committee recommends that social scientists should be included in all phases of the design and operation of EOS and EOSDIS.
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Through it, social and natural scientists prepared to make a long-term commitment to the study of the human dimensions of global environmental change could spend up to two years interacting intensively with scientists from other disciplines, especially scientists from across the social sciencenatural science diviner In the university world, academic departments organized around established disciplines control the rewards available to researchers. Those who wish to succeed in this world consequently experience strong incentives to develop courses that fit into the mainstream of their home disciplines and to conduct research whose products are publishable in the most prestigious journals of these disciplines.
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interacting intensively with social scientists and natural scientists from other disciplines working in the area. Such fellowships should be open to advanced graduate students, postdoctoral scientists, and mid-career scientists on a competitive basis.
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For instance, some centers may devote particular attention to global environmental changes that are systemic in nature, like climate change or ozone depletion, while others deal more with cumulative changes, like the loss of biodiversity or desertification. We have identified several distinct models that are worthy of consideration by those responsible for setting up the national centers: {i)
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In our judgment, there is a persuasive case for maintaining relatively close ties between universities and the national centers. Most of the theoretically significant advances in our understanding of human behavior have occurred in university settings in contrast to independent centers, which show a marked tendency to focus more on applied research and to become associated with one or another ideological perspective.
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There are good reasons to believe both that this program element can absorb almost unlimited funds and that there is a tendency to favor the allocation of resources to this function as the lowest common denominator among decision makers who disagree on substantive priorities. Nonetheless, we believe that the fiscal 1991 budget, in which a little over 20 percent of the funds allocated to human interactions research goes to data acquisition and dissemination, reflects an appropriate judgment concerning the priority to be given to data issues in a national research program on the human dimensions of global change.
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256 I GLOBAL E~IRONMENTAT CHANGE light of the National Research Council's conclusion that the human interactions science priority is "the most critically underfunded in the fiscal 1991 budget for the USGCRP" INational Research Council, l990c:95l, an increase of this magnitude over a short time period seems fully justified. In our view, support for appropriate parts of the research program outlined here could come from an emerging Mitigation and Adaptation Research Strategies program as well as from the Global Change R Program.
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