Comments on: Climate Change Futures http://72.10.34.174/vss/2007/07/climate-change-futures/ An ARC Collaboration Thu, 20 May 2010 03:21:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Carlo Caduff http://72.10.34.174/vss/2007/07/climate-change-futures/comment-page-1/#comment-4310 Carlo Caduff Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:18:57 +0000 http://anthropos-lab.net/vss/2007/07/climate-change-futures/#comment-4310 Amelia's and Melinda's post pose, among other things, the question of critique in domains that are emergent. What kind of critique is adequate to things that are emergent? Amelia's concern with inclusion/exclusion is important. At the same time, I was wondering if this concern is not also what drives the ecological endeavour, i.e. the attempt to include as many things as possible? It might also be interesting to compare the holism that has long dominated anthropological inquiry with biocomplexity's holism. I wonder if something similar might happen in biocomplexity: The more one decides to focus on co-relations and inter-relations between cultures the more difficult it gets to see what makes cultures discrete. This leads to the well-known argument that there are no discrete cultures, but if there are no discrete cultures, how can there be co-relations and inter-relations? Amelia’s and Melinda’s post pose, among other things, the question of critique in domains that are emergent. What kind of critique is adequate to things that are emergent? Amelia’s concern with inclusion/exclusion is important. At the same time, I was wondering if this concern is not also what drives the ecological endeavour, i.e. the attempt to include as many things as possible? It might also be interesting to compare the holism that has long dominated anthropological inquiry with biocomplexity’s holism. I wonder if something similar might happen in biocomplexity: The more one decides to focus on co-relations and inter-relations between cultures the more difficult it gets to see what makes cultures discrete. This leads to the well-known argument that there are no discrete cultures, but if there are no discrete cultures, how can there be co-relations and inter-relations?

]]> By: Melinda Cooper http://72.10.34.174/vss/2007/07/climate-change-futures/comment-page-1/#comment-4309 Melinda Cooper Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:40:46 +0000 http://anthropos-lab.net/vss/2007/07/climate-change-futures/#comment-4309 Amelia. Yes I'm interested in how this co-implication of the social, the biological and the economic via the complex seems to paralyze political critique and to naturalize (or ontologize?) certain forms of political economic organization as if they were simply a manifestation of 'life itself'. I mean you end up with the delusion that the transformation of ecosystems into sources of bioeconomic surplus value, say in contemporary bioremediation strategies, is a kind of fact of life, a natural capitalism of ecosystems. The biocomplexity approach is very much in vogue in theories of economic innovation such as evolutionary economics and post-Schumpeterian, Santa Fe style economic approaches. The question for me becomes how to formulate a political critique of this kind of scientific/commercial ontologizing without opting for the apocalyptic mode (oh know all is crisis and catastrophe) or falling back on an anachronistic ontology of nature, for example the idea of an essential balance of nature. I'd be very interested in hearing more about your dissertation research - especially how the local economic system is formulated as part of a larger bio/ecological system. Amelia. Yes I’m interested in how this co-implication of the social, the biological and the economic via the complex seems to paralyze political critique and to naturalize (or ontologize?) certain forms of political economic organization as if they were simply a manifestation of ‘life itself’. I mean you end up with the delusion that the transformation of ecosystems into sources of bioeconomic surplus value, say in contemporary bioremediation strategies, is a kind of fact of life, a natural capitalism of ecosystems. The biocomplexity approach is very much in vogue in theories of economic innovation such as evolutionary economics and post-Schumpeterian, Santa Fe style economic approaches. The question for me becomes how to formulate a political critique of this kind of scientific/commercial ontologizing without opting for the apocalyptic mode (oh know all is crisis and catastrophe) or falling back on an anachronistic ontology of nature, for example the idea of an essential balance of nature.
I’d be very interested in hearing more about your dissertation research – especially how the local economic system is formulated as part of a larger bio/ecological system.

]]> By: Amelia Moore http://72.10.34.174/vss/2007/07/climate-change-futures/comment-page-1/#comment-4231 Amelia Moore Fri, 06 Jul 2007 21:41:44 +0000 http://anthropos-lab.net/vss/2007/07/climate-change-futures/#comment-4231 Part of my own upcoming dissertation research surrounds the very topic of emerging forms of environmental research and the concomitant forms of sociality that either stem from the science, or equally importantly, forms of sociality that are assumed to exist and which then "require" new forms of interdisciplinary scientific approach. Specifically, I am going to examine contemporary coral reef conservation in the Bahamas and the development of a form of rationality known as biocomplexity (see earlier posts on this site for more info). After a cursory look at the website, I would venture that biocomplexity is just the sort of rationality at work in the Harvard health study. For those scientists who advocate a biocomplex outlook and approach, notions of the environmental and the ecological are now inextricably linked with concerns over the social in interesting ways. In the small arena I am studying, Bahamian reef conservation, the social is construed largely as a localized human economic system which is subsumed and sustained by regional and global biological systems. Designing large, interdisciplinary, multi-cited research projects which examine components of these systems is seen as the current responsibility of engaged science. Importantly, it is also seen as an amazing opportunity for the scientific community to branch into new networks and new arenas of cooperation. Crisis is also always opportunity. It is not at all surprising to see this rationale in the arenas of epidemiology and health risk assessment. In all this expansion of ideas of the vital that stem from emergent environmental imaginaries, I am beginning to wonder what might be left out of these new projects, programs, and designs. Perhaps examining what is written out of these grand plans may shed more light on the stakes of the creative rebiologization of human life, only one aspect of which is climate change. Part of my own upcoming dissertation research surrounds the very topic of emerging forms of environmental research and the concomitant forms of sociality that either stem from the science, or equally importantly, forms of sociality that are assumed to exist and which then “require” new forms of interdisciplinary scientific approach. Specifically, I am going to examine contemporary coral reef conservation in the Bahamas and the development of a form of rationality known as biocomplexity (see earlier posts on this site for more info). After a cursory look at the website, I would venture that biocomplexity is just the sort of rationality at work in the Harvard health study. For those scientists who advocate a biocomplex outlook and approach, notions of the environmental and the ecological are now inextricably linked with concerns over the social in interesting ways. In the small arena I am studying, Bahamian reef conservation, the social is construed largely as a localized human economic system which is subsumed and sustained by regional and global biological systems. Designing large, interdisciplinary, multi-cited research projects which examine components of these systems is seen as the current responsibility of engaged science. Importantly, it is also seen as an amazing opportunity for the scientific community to branch into new networks and new arenas of cooperation. Crisis is also always opportunity. It is not at all surprising to see this rationale in the arenas of epidemiology and health risk assessment. In all this expansion of ideas of the vital that stem from emergent environmental imaginaries, I am beginning to wonder what might be left out of these new projects, programs, and designs. Perhaps examining what is written out of these grand plans may shed more light on the stakes of the creative rebiologization of human life, only one aspect of which is climate change.

]]> By: Michael Sales http://72.10.34.174/vss/2007/07/climate-change-futures/comment-page-1/#comment-4230 Michael Sales Fri, 06 Jul 2007 20:10:24 +0000 http://anthropos-lab.net/vss/2007/07/climate-change-futures/#comment-4230 This blog caught our attention as a result of our tracking the use of scenarios. My firm, Art of the Future, is the developer of a scenario methodology known as Structural Dynamics. Structural Dynamics attempts to integrate systems thinking with scenario narratives to articulate a comprehensive landscape of future possibilities in any field to which the methodology is applied. Certainly the blight of global warming is a veritable store house of disturbing scenarios. And, it may also be the case that facing the reality of the threats associated with global warming may also provide a maturational element in human history that has long been needed. A lot of good things could come from treating global warming as the very serious danger it is. Thus, there are some very intriguing potential "balancing loops" that are being set in motion by global warming, in addition to the very scary "reinforcing loops" that easily occupy the front of the mind. A comprehensive description of the future ignited by global warming ought to pay some attention to the unintended positive developments too, e.g., the prospect that 2B people will participate in Live Earth in someway tomorrow, 07/07/07. (Worthy of note to this futurist: 07/07/07 has proven to be the most popular date for getting married, at least in the United States, of any day in recorded history. One wonders if Mr. Gore is superstitious.) If anyone would like to know more about Structural Dynamics, here the link: http://www.artofthefuture.com/SD.html I look forward to reading more about the scenario methods popular on this site. Thanks again for your contribution, Michael This blog caught our attention as a result of our tracking the use of scenarios. My firm, Art of the Future, is the developer of a scenario methodology known as Structural Dynamics. Structural Dynamics attempts to integrate systems thinking with scenario narratives to articulate a comprehensive landscape of future possibilities in any field to which the methodology is applied.

Certainly the blight of global warming is a veritable store house of disturbing scenarios. And, it may also be the case that facing the reality of the threats associated with global warming may also provide a maturational element in human history that has long been needed. A lot of good things could come from treating global warming as the very serious danger it is. Thus, there are some very intriguing potential “balancing loops” that are being set in motion by global warming, in addition to the very scary “reinforcing loops” that easily occupy the front of the mind. A comprehensive description of the future ignited by global warming ought to pay some attention to the unintended positive developments too, e.g., the prospect that 2B people will participate in Live Earth in someway tomorrow, 07/07/07. (Worthy of note to this futurist: 07/07/07 has proven to be the most popular date for getting married, at least in the United States, of any day in recorded history. One wonders if Mr. Gore is superstitious.)

If anyone would like to know more about Structural Dynamics, here the link: http://www.artofthefuture.com/SD.html

I look forward to reading more about the scenario methods popular on this site.

Thanks again for your contribution, Michael

]]> By: Melinda Cooper http://72.10.34.174/vss/2007/07/climate-change-futures/comment-page-1/#comment-4228 Melinda Cooper Fri, 06 Jul 2007 16:44:05 +0000 http://anthropos-lab.net/vss/2007/07/climate-change-futures/#comment-4228 The first thing that strikes me in this report is the expansive definition of the ‘bio’ it offers. It begins by announcing that ‘climate change is the context for life on earth’ (5). The field of the vital incorporates the biospheric, the climatic, the biogeochemical and the epidemiological. The report very pointedly complains of a lack of interdisciplinarity between the natural, biological and economic sciences (no mention of the political sciences!) Its methods are inspired by earth’s systems science and the theory of punctuated evolution (26). What this means is that formerly separate domains such as health are now addressed as dimensions of the one biospheric system, in which all factors are inter-related and, under certain circumstances, mutually reinforcing. (By the way Carlo has pointed out to me that this doesn't mean climate change will increase the incidence of any one epidemic - on the contrary, it will perhaps reduce the incidence of influenza. The point is rather that the risks are correlated rather than discrete.) The report is interested in the risk scenarios associated with climate change –but incorporates health as a major concern within this category, so that the evolution of the earth’s temperature becomes inseparable from a whole speculative scenario of disease emergence, migration and resistance. To give some idea of the wealth of health-related risks associated with climate change, I cite from a future scenario outlined in the third section of the report: ‘A new class of losses involving human health and mortality emerges within the life/health branch of the insurance industry. These are driven by thermal extremes, reduced water quality and availability, elevated rates of vector-borne disease, air pollution, food poisoning, and injuries/mortalities from disasters and associated mental health problems. Other health consequences become manifest in natural systems that directly or indirectly impact humans, including coral reef bleaching, agricultural diseases or other events that hamper food production; animal and live-stock diseases; and forest pests. Mobilization of dust, smoke and CO2 linked aeroallergens (pollen and mold) exacerbate already high rates of asthma and other forms of respiratory disease’ (97). In a word, emergent climate change is treated as inextricably linked to emerging infectious and environment-related disease. The first thing that strikes me in this report is the expansive definition of the ‘bio’ it offers. It begins by announcing that ‘climate change is the context for life on earth’ (5). The field of the vital incorporates the biospheric, the climatic, the biogeochemical and the epidemiological. The report very pointedly complains of a lack of interdisciplinarity between the natural, biological and economic sciences (no mention of the political sciences!) Its methods are inspired by earth’s systems science and the theory of punctuated evolution (26). What this means is that formerly separate domains such as health are now addressed as dimensions of the one biospheric system, in which all factors are inter-related and, under certain circumstances, mutually reinforcing. (By the way Carlo has pointed out to me that this doesn’t mean climate change will increase the incidence of any one epidemic – on the contrary, it will perhaps reduce the incidence of influenza. The point is rather that the risks are correlated rather than discrete.) The report is interested in the risk scenarios associated with climate change –but incorporates health as a major concern within this category, so that the evolution of the earth’s temperature becomes inseparable from a whole speculative scenario of disease emergence, migration and resistance. To give some idea of the wealth of health-related risks associated with climate change, I cite from a future scenario outlined in the third section of the report: ‘A new class of losses involving human health and mortality emerges within the life/health branch of the insurance industry. These are driven by thermal extremes, reduced water quality and availability, elevated rates of vector-borne disease, air pollution, food poisoning, and injuries/mortalities from disasters and associated mental health problems. Other health consequences become manifest in natural systems that directly or indirectly impact humans, including coral reef bleaching, agricultural diseases or other events that hamper food production; animal and live-stock diseases; and forest pests. Mobilization of dust, smoke and CO2 linked aeroallergens (pollen and mold) exacerbate already high rates of asthma and other forms of respiratory disease’ (97). In a word, emergent climate change is treated as inextricably linked to emerging infectious and environment-related disease.

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