In the food security literature it is common to read about a coupling or ‘nexus’ that binds toget... more In the food security literature it is common to read about a coupling or ‘nexus’ that binds together food production, energy strategies, including the use of biofuels, and climate change. With regard to food security, the principal reasons for this coupling are clear. Meaningful planning for future food production and distribution requires: 1. relatively accurate predictions of future energy availability, bearing in mind that in the developed world agriculture is one of the largest consumers of this commodity; 2. prior knowledge of the likely ratio of land available for food production relative to that required for biofuel production; and 3. well founded projections of the rate and magnitude of climate change, these being of particular significance in estimating how much land is likely to be available for agriculture, what future yield trends are likely to be, and what targets and time frames will be needed for the breeding of new crop cultivars which, even with the aid of new techn...
This article assesses how science-policy interactions are conceptualised in the social sciences w... more This article assesses how science-policy interactions are conceptualised in the social sciences with special reference to climate change and the IPCC. In terms of the dimension of distance (or proximity) between science and policy we discern two ideal-type cases: a 'two-worlds' and a 'one-world' perspective. The first understands science and policy as independent spheres separated by a clear gap, while the second perceives science and policy as tightly coupled. These two perspectives, presented here in detail and in various sub-variants in order to show their complexity appear dominant also in the discussions on how to improve, not only describe, the interaction between science and policy. We argue that this situation of opposing perspectives is not beneficial, nor properly recognised by scholars in the field. In response to this we present a typology that may serve as a modest and judicious way for thinking about and making more nuanced choices in designing science-policy relations.
Since the period of environmental activism and policy debate that dates from around the end of th... more Since the period of environmental activism and policy debate that dates from around the end of the 1960s, the idea has been firmly entrenched that pollution and resource depletion are complementary sources of threat and anxiety. They are the pincers of environmental risk that threaten industrial society on either side. If pollution does not get us, resource depletion will. Such an idea was made explicit in the modelling commissioned for the 1972 Club of Rome report, for example, where the scenarios traded one form of threat for the other. 1 Even if we did not imperil ourselves by running out of fossil fuels in the near future, the burning of the fuels would create so much pollution that we would choke ourselves to death. On this view, pollution and resource depletion are the export and import ledgers of society's transactions with the natural world. Grave and persistent problems with either aspect of the enterprise could prove disastrous. In the years that followed, this distin...
More Heat Than Light is a history of how physics has drawn some inspiration from economics and al... more More Heat Than Light is a history of how physics has drawn some inspiration from economics and also how economics has sought to emulate physics, especially with regard to the theory of value. It traces the development of the energy concept in Western physics and its subsequent effect upon the invention and promulgation of neoclassical economics. Any discussion of the
Nature: From nature to natures: contestation and …, 2005
Page 401. 50 STANDING IN FOR NATURE The practicalities of environmental organizations&#x2... more Page 401. 50 STANDING IN FOR NATURE The practicalities of environmental organizations' use of science Steven Yearley Source: Kay Milton (ed.). Environmentalism: the view from anthropology, London: Routledge, 1993, pp. 59-72. ...
In the food security literature it is common to read about a coupling or ‘nexus’ that binds toget... more In the food security literature it is common to read about a coupling or ‘nexus’ that binds together food production, energy strategies, including the use of biofuels, and climate change. With regard to food security, the principal reasons for this coupling are clear. Meaningful planning for future food production and distribution requires: 1. relatively accurate predictions of future energy availability, bearing in mind that in the developed world agriculture is one of the largest consumers of this commodity; 2. prior knowledge of the likely ratio of land available for food production relative to that required for biofuel production; and 3. well founded projections of the rate and magnitude of climate change, these being of particular significance in estimating how much land is likely to be available for agriculture, what future yield trends are likely to be, and what targets and time frames will be needed for the breeding of new crop cultivars which, even with the aid of new techn...
This article assesses how science-policy interactions are conceptualised in the social sciences w... more This article assesses how science-policy interactions are conceptualised in the social sciences with special reference to climate change and the IPCC. In terms of the dimension of distance (or proximity) between science and policy we discern two ideal-type cases: a 'two-worlds' and a 'one-world' perspective. The first understands science and policy as independent spheres separated by a clear gap, while the second perceives science and policy as tightly coupled. These two perspectives, presented here in detail and in various sub-variants in order to show their complexity appear dominant also in the discussions on how to improve, not only describe, the interaction between science and policy. We argue that this situation of opposing perspectives is not beneficial, nor properly recognised by scholars in the field. In response to this we present a typology that may serve as a modest and judicious way for thinking about and making more nuanced choices in designing science-policy relations.
Since the period of environmental activism and policy debate that dates from around the end of th... more Since the period of environmental activism and policy debate that dates from around the end of the 1960s, the idea has been firmly entrenched that pollution and resource depletion are complementary sources of threat and anxiety. They are the pincers of environmental risk that threaten industrial society on either side. If pollution does not get us, resource depletion will. Such an idea was made explicit in the modelling commissioned for the 1972 Club of Rome report, for example, where the scenarios traded one form of threat for the other. 1 Even if we did not imperil ourselves by running out of fossil fuels in the near future, the burning of the fuels would create so much pollution that we would choke ourselves to death. On this view, pollution and resource depletion are the export and import ledgers of society's transactions with the natural world. Grave and persistent problems with either aspect of the enterprise could prove disastrous. In the years that followed, this distin...
More Heat Than Light is a history of how physics has drawn some inspiration from economics and al... more More Heat Than Light is a history of how physics has drawn some inspiration from economics and also how economics has sought to emulate physics, especially with regard to the theory of value. It traces the development of the energy concept in Western physics and its subsequent effect upon the invention and promulgation of neoclassical economics. Any discussion of the
Nature: From nature to natures: contestation and …, 2005
Page 401. 50 STANDING IN FOR NATURE The practicalities of environmental organizations&#x2... more Page 401. 50 STANDING IN FOR NATURE The practicalities of environmental organizations' use of science Steven Yearley Source: Kay Milton (ed.). Environmentalism: the view from anthropology, London: Routledge, 1993, pp. 59-72. ...
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