It is a very fundamental principle indeed that Knowledge is always gained by the orderly loss of information, that is, by condensing and abstracting and indexing the great buzzing confusion of information that comes from the world around us into a form which we can appreciate and comprehend. (K. Boulding) How do humans acquire knowledge? [...]
Already for decades, ecologists are aware that proper modelling and management of fisheries has to incorporate the behaviour of fishermen. An early example was a model of two different fishing strategies (Allen and McGlade 1987). A more recent analysis investigates different harvesting strategies in an anegnt-based simulation model (ABM) (Brede and de Vries 2009). Let [...]
The force of technology is illustrated with some numbers. Fishing power, defined as the product of number of ships and potential catch per ship, has globally increased sixfold between 1970 and 2005. There was a massive increase in ship size, with supertrawlers as floating fish factories operating for months on sea. In 2016 the global [...]
To every natural form, rock, fruit or flower, Even the loose stones that cover the high-way, I gave a moral life, I saw them feel, Or link’d them to some feeling; the great mass Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all That I beheld, respired with inward meaning. Wordsworth, Prelude For the [...]
An analysis of the outcomes of the World Value Survey (§4.2) over the period 1989-2004 has been used to identify popular support for the transition to a market economy in India and China (Migheli 2010). It is based on a set of questions about the role of competition, government intervention, income inequality, hard work and [...]
In an abstract scientific sense, modelling is a coding process and creates a relation between a ‘natural’ and a ‘formal’ system (Figure 1a; Rosen 1985). As scientists refine existing and construct new theories, there may (temporarily) be two different formal systems to describe the same natural system. An example of such complementarity is the wave [...]
There are some empirical, illustrative case-studies in which catastrophic did happen. The first classical example is the interactive dynamics between the spruce budworm, its predators and the boreal forest in North America (Holling 1986; Meadows 2008). When the budworm became a ‘pest’ and northern forests were sprayed with the insecticide known as DDT to control [...]
In the context of sustainable development, the emphasis is usually on depletion and a key question is: How big is the resource or, in expert jargon, what is the geological resource base? First, I look at mineral ores. Solid evidence on resource ore quantity and quality is limited by its very nature to those regions [...]
The car as a lock-in The car has gained a dominant position in present-day mobility and transport, not in the least because the costs of pollution, noise, accidents, congestion and use of space are not or only partly internalised. It makes other modes of transport less attractive, not only economically but also regarding other quality [...]
[see also this link here.] Global Sustainability 27 september 2019 (e18). The seven-plus billion human beings on the planet are increasingly connected through material and informational exchanges. Their everyday behaviour and their desires, emotions, aspirations and expectations are still very different and diverse, yet there seems to be a shared universal idea(l) about ‘the good [...]