Sustainability Science Textbook 2nd Edition

Bert J.M. de Vries

Chapter 82024-03-06T17:03:16+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Understanding, modelling, managing complexity

Keywords

(Scientific) knowledge Modelling (agent behaviour) Complexity Post-normal science Metamodel Transition theory Social dilemma Categories of goods and services

The parts of reality studied in sustainability science are complex, evolving socio-ecological systems (SES) and it is no easy task to assess the status and quality of scientific knowledge about them. Some reflection on epistemology, concepts and methods is necessary.

  • Complexity can be conceived in terms of (degree of) objectivity and (degree of) connectivity. The NUSAP approach in post-normal science and the distinction between ‘Newtonian’ Mode-1 and transdisciplinary, participatory Mode-2 science are are among the proposals to ‘manage’ complex issues. Analyzing the situation in terms of consensus on values and consensus on knowledge is also a powerful heuristic in brokering science and policy. The distinction between natural and social sciences is always in the background;
  • Models and modelling techniques are important in deepening understanding of natural and human systems. Natural and social sciences have each their own epistemological and methodological traditions and practices and the integration of concepts, theories and methods is one of the challenges in sustainability science. In particular, it is important to develop common theories of human behaviour as part of the evolving complex system science (CSS);
  • There are clear limits to what can sensibly be done with formal models. Other ways of communicating scientific insights and contributing to public discourse are the use of metamodels and statistical regularities and also analogs and metaphors. Also orga nizing concepts and methods, such as transition theory, elementary models (learning-by-doing, depletion and substitution), competition-cooperation games and social dilemmas and rivalry and excludability in goods and services, support effective investigation, communication and dialogue.

Test your understanding of this chapter by reviewing the study questions below.

Answer:

The core element in an inductive process of scientific enquiry is to generate empirical laws from observations and measurements in controlled experiments, followed by inference. It is the empiricist approach.

Statements or facts, however, cannot be derived solely from observations and measurements. In interaction with controlled experiments, a formal system is developed and used to generate qualitative statements and scientific theories. This  is the path of deduction and the core of the rationalist approach.

Answer:

In mainstream science, laboratory experiments with animals or people give ‘objective’ scientific results within the paradigm of empirical reductionism. In Modernity, with the emphasis on the individual, this is the E-I domain in the agent representation of Ferber (2007). It coincides with the ‘materialist’ A1‹-›A2 axis in worldview space. Individual (human) agent behaviour is largely described in biological-medical terms (instincts, habits).

When more elaborate (human) behaviour is considered, emotions, values, expectations and intentions enter the description. The ‘interior state’ of a person matters. This is the I-I domain in Ferber’s representation and coincides with the ‘immaterialist’ B2 corner in worldview space. It is the domain of psychology as well as of the esoteric and spiritual.

The insights that individual (human) agents do not live in isolation brings interactions between agents into the description. This is the horizontal dimension in worldview space and incorporates not just a ‘materialist’ description (the E-C domain) but also the ‘immaterialist’ description (the I-C domain) of culture.

Answer:

  • A metamodel about transport and mobility is to assume that car density is a power curve type of relation of income, e.g. CarDensity = A*(income)b with b < 1. A more refined model would include the empirical finding that the parameter b differs for different regions of the world. One option is to make A and/or b a function of population density.
  • A correlation which is often used in scenario analyses is the relationship between birth rate of a population BR and the average income I: BR(I) = (I/I0)a with a between 0 and -1. It becomes a mental model: population growth will g down with rising income. Such a relation describes a negative feedback.
  • In discussions, it is often assumed that the impact I of a pollutant is proportional to the emission rate ER: I ≈ ER. However, an adequate metamodel has to insert both inflows (ER) and outflows (breakdown rate BR via natural or other means). This incorporates the possibility of accumulation of the pollutant in a system (air, water, soil) to a concentration c. The accompanying metamodel reads: dc/dt = ER – BR, with BR ≤ ER.

Answer:

Transitions are processes of major and long-term changes to fulfill societal functions such as food, housing, health care, communication and transportation. More in particular, technological transitions involve changes in technology and infrastructure and in user practices and networks, in regulations and in symbolic meaning. The usual (meta)model to describe the trajectory of key variables is the logistic growth curve.

Answer:

Learning-by-doing refers to the phenomenon, empirically supported for a variety of products and processes, that the specific costs of a product or process tend to decline loglinearly with the cumulative output or application. This means: a halving of the specific cost for every doubling of output or application.

Substitution is the process in which one good or service is replaced by another good or service, because of relative cost advantages and other advantages e.g. in user comfort. The multinomial logit function is a formula to approximate such a process.

Depletion refers to the exploitation of a resource, which is confronted with limits such as using up a finite resource stock (fossil fuels, minerals) or a finite usage potential (water, solar, wind). It can be approximated with a negative feedback loop, in which costs tend to rise with cumulative exploitation (unless compensated by technical progress).

Answer:

A clear social dilemma occurs when the individual has an incentive to let others take care of the common good (that is: to be a ‘free rider’). Plausible answers are:

  • littering in your neighbourhood: YES, provided a clean environment is considered a common good
  • admission to a class on sustainability science: NO, but getting oneself in against the rules implies more students and hence, perhaps, lower quality education
  • diverting income to tax havens in order to evade taxes: YES, even though it may be legal
  • launching 16,000 thousand satellites into orbits around the earth: NO, as long as there is no formal recognition that the atmosphere is a commons which use has to be regulated
  • membership of a trade union that fights for higher wages: YES, because those who are not a member do benefit from the higher wages if these are negotiated
  • protesting in a dictatorship with secret police: NO, because with the prevailing power relations – unjust as they may be – there is formally no common good to be protected (although in later perspective, the protesters’ actions may be seen as sacrifice)
  • emitting carbon dioxide that causes global warming: YES, because the atmosphere and protecting it against anthropogenic disturbance is (increasingly) seen as a common good.

Answer:

Generally speaking, resources are called common pool resources (CPR) when their use by a person or company interferes with the use by others. In economic terminology: they are rivalrous and (in principle) non-excludable. Some good or service is called a public good (PG) when its use or enjoyment does not interfere with use or enjoyment by others: they are non-rivalrous and (in principle) non-excludable.

  1. Most watersheds will be CPRs, because their use for irrigation, drinking water, fishing or transport runs into limitations. The more people use it, the more the available resource (water, fish, room) will diminish. Hence the emergence of property rights, quota etc.
  2. Intellectual property (IP) can be a PG, because its use has in principle no deleterious effects on its essence which is information. Indeed, its use often inspires improvement. However, its generation has taken effort (work, finance) which has led in industrial economies to their protection in the form of patents. For the duration of the patent, it is a non-rivalrous excluded ‘club good’.

Answer:

  • Sunrise: non-excludable, non-rival, so it is a public good – no payment needed
  • A lighthouse: non-escludable, non-rival, so it is a public good – in this case it is being paid for with tax money
  • Breakfast: assuming you bought the food yourself, it is excludable and rival, hence a private good.

Answer:

If a university offers a course in Sustainability Science, it is open for students who have paid the university fee. It is then a non-rivalrous excluded ‘club good’. If the university offers it (partly or wholly) as open-access (as a ‘studium generale’ for instance), it becomes a public good (PG). However, if it is vastly successful, it can become so crowded that it is no longer non-rivalrous, ether as club good or public good. Other forms of exclusion are then to be introduced e.g. access quota or entrance fees.

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