Global Environmental Change Understanding the Human Dimensions (1992) / Chapter Skim
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2 Global Change and Social Science
2 Global Change and Social Science
Pages 24-43
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From page 24... ...
Recognizing such phenomena, the National Research Council's Committee on Global Change, which originally consisted entirely of natural scientists, has consistently emphasized the importance of the human dimensions and has increasingly involved social scientists in its efforts (Clark, 1988; Na 24
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From page 25... ...
It is consequently time for social scientists to take seriously the challenge of mapping a strategy to add to knowledge of global environmental change. GLOBAL CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS Global environmental changes are alterations in natural {e.g., physical or biological!
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From page 26... ...
Warming will also affect the global hydrological cycle by changing precipitation and evaporation patterns, leading to shifts in vegetative cover; these changes in turn could amplify the warming in areas where desertification is taking place. Another possibility is that some global changes may trigger dampening Negative)
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From page 27... ...
None of the environmental changes in question has moved beyond the early stages of its projected trajectory, and several of the global changes of greatest concern have yet to manifest themselves in any unambiguous and convincing fashion. Given the short-term
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From page 28... ...
Projections of temperature trends over the next century are based largely on scenarios of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere (chiefly carbon dioxide, methane, CFCs, and nitrous oxidesI. Projections of the equilibrium temperature response, expressed as a global mean temperature, are shown in Figure 2-1 for four scenarios, one assuming current growth rates and the others assuming progressively increasing controls of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere.
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From page 29... ...
C, and D, which assume increasing levels of control of emissions. Uncertainty about the effect of emissions on temperature change could increase the 2100 temperature under business-as-usual assumptions by as much as an additional 2.0° C or decrease it by 1.4° C
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From page 30... ...
The number of species appears to have increased since the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago, but it has recently been declining at an unprecedented rate due to human activities. The rate of extinctions has been estimated at 1,000 or more times that before human intervention Wilson, 19881.
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From page 31... ...
~ ' stilt, the phenomena are important because the most serious impacts of gradual environmental changes on human welfare {for example, the buildup of carbon dioxide) may result from an increased frequency of catastrophic events, like floods and crop failures, rather than from slow changes in average ~ ~ v ~ ~ ~ · -^~ ~1 ~ temperatures.
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From page 32... ...
It also increases the demand for knowledge both because these experiments may threaten the whole earth and because they have the potential to set catastrophes in motion before their effects are even noticed. Global environmental changes can result from the interactions of local systems with each other and with larger-scale systems.
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From page 33... ...
Some of the activities of human systems, such as fossil fuel burning and agricultural conversion of wetlands, are significant proximate causes of global environmental change. That is, they directly alter aspects of the environment in ways that have global effects.
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From page 34... ...
We use the phrase, "what humans value," broadly. It refers not only to outcomes that affect human health and material well-being, but also to outcomes such as extinction of species, disruption of ecosystems, and Toss of natural beauty, on which humans may place aesthetic, spiritual, or intrinsic value.
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From page 35... ...
The key issues for social scientists center on human responses to actual or anticipated global changes. In addition, as Figure 2-2 shows, human responses to actual or anticipated global changes frequently trigger feedback processes that affect the anthropogenic sources of global change.
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From page 36... ...
For example, researchers who examine the different patterns of energy consumption in the United States and Canada on the one hand and Western Europe and Japan on the other have much to say about the relative importance of geography {for example, distances between human settlementsI, demography {for example, the dispersal of human populations into suburbsI, economics {for example, the relative costs of labor and energy as factors of production}, infrastructure {for example, the prevalence of central heating in homesI, and public policy {for example, taxes, subsidies, and policies governing rents from natural resources} as determinants of the propensity of North Americans to rely more heavily on energy as a factor of production than Europeans or especially the Japanese do {e.g., Schipper et al., 1985; Schipper, 19891. Similarly, researchers who examine the pace of deforestation and the spread of large-scale cattle ranching in the Amazon Basin are engaged in a lively debate about the relative importance of institutional factors (for example, systems of land tenure!
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From page 37... ...
This theory-based research strategy has the potential, over time, to enable social science to address more confidently the pointed, policy-oriented questions that will continue to arise. KNOWLEDGE BASE OF ENVIRONMENTAL SOCIAL SCIENCE Most of the social science research relevant to global environmental change has been undertaken and organized not so much within the traditional disciplines as within subfields that are usually interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary in scope, such as cultural ecology, environmental history, environmental perception,
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From page 38... ...
Of all the environmental social sciences, this subfield has the longest tradition of research that is global in scope {e.g., Kotlyakov et al., 1988; Parry et al., 1988J. The emphasis on the "built environment" in the environment and behavior literature in environmental psychology and environmental sociology makes this research tangential to some issues of global change; nevertheless, these suLfields provide empirical, methodological, and theoretical insights useful to some aspects of the problem {e.g., DunIap and Michelson, 1991; Craik and Feimer, 19871.
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From page 39... ...
Attention has been given both to long sweeps of prehistory end history E.g., Butzer, 1976; Cronon, 1983; McEvoy, 1986; Merchant, 1991; Pyne, 1982; Rabb, 1983; Richards, 19861, and to contemporary change {e.g., Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987; Netting, 1968; Rappaport, 1967; Turner and Brush, 1987; Rosa et al., 19881. Human ecology incorporates these regional, local, and historical concerns but also attempts to integrate micro-social phenomena and social interactions into an understanding of human-environment relations and draws on evolutionary approaches to social and environmental change {Borden et al., 1988; Dietz and Bums, 1991; Dietz et al., 19901.
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From page 40... ...
The research addresses fundamental issues relating to the anthropogenic sources of global environmental change or the human consequences of or responses to global change. We favor studies that seem likely to shed light on patterns of behavior that: nave high impact, for example, if a proximate cause of global change, such as emissions of major greenhouse gases, is highly sensitive to the behavior or if a behavior is highly sensitive to an anticipated global change; have multiple impacts, for example, increases in crop acreage have combined effects on biological diversity and releases of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane; -are likely to become more important over a time scale of decades or centuries, even if they do not have high or multiple impacts now; affect the robustness of societies under the impact of global environmental changes, that is, their ability to withstand such changes without major disruptions of human life; affect the capacity to respond appropriately to global change,
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From page 41... ...
The research helps develop theoretical tools that will facilitate future studies of the human dimensions of global change. Among the most general theoretical needs are improved ways to analyze social change on the time scale of decades to centuries and to make connections between different levels of analysis and of spatial and temporal aggregation.
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From page 42... ...
The research has strong potential to contribute to effective communication across social science disciplines, or between social scientists and natural scientists working on global environmental change, and to facilitate collaboration that bridges intellectual divisions. It seems evident that success in understanding global change will require effective alliances across disciplines, particularly between social scientists and natural scientists.
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From page 43... ...
In that Covey' basic understanding of the HANOI types of decisions and beb~viors that cause OI respond to global change can also groat.
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