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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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It’s the environmental question of our time: what sustainable practices can keep our planet optimally habitable? Now a group of international scientists has published a report outlining five key areas of concentration necessary to protect the environment, as well as human societies and economies. The report was published by the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the International Social Science Council.
And the winners are…
Forecasting —we need to have pertinent & accurate forecasts of future environmental conditions and their consequences for people.
The second is observing. We need to develop better observation systems to record global and regional environmental change.
Three is something they call confining—anticipating and recognizing disruptive environmental change to quickly manage it.
Four: Responding—Determine those institutional, economic and behavioral responses that will make global sustainability possible.
Lastly, five is a big one: encourage innovation in technology and policy to achieve sustainability.
Clearly, these bullet points represent an overarching, general strategy. The next step, already underway, is to create an organized and focused international structure that can make these five recommendations a reality—and soon: the ICSU hopes for significant progress in all five areas within the next decade.
—Christie Nicholson
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11 Comments
Add CommentAhhhh. Politics and science merge. Perhaps the publication should be renamed Scientific Political American. [SPA]
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeriously? What about "thinking" and "breathing"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother mightly blow struck in the cause of Prolix.
I am currently in a masters program for environmental science and I find articles like these rather frustrating. Businesses and councils and foundations and the like are all mostly run by my parents generation who not only have destroyed our environment but also taught their kids to do the same. When reports like these come out it is like a blow to my face- oh look we still aren't doing anything, we will leave that work to you. Thanks guys. We already know the information, lets go fix it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"lauragroomes", I am the parent of your generation, but I agree with you. We have already recognized the problem and we have concluded what caused the problem, and we know how to fix the problem. We have already studied the problem to death and there is no need to continue procrastinating. We know that the problem is "fossil fuel" and to fix the problem...stop using fossil fuel. We have the technology to eliminate the problem and we do not have to wait until we get it perfect before we start correcting the problem. That decade they want to take to study the problem, we could have already fixed the problem and stopped it from creating more problems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo how many international scientists did take to figure we should "do good stuff"???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you are interested in this topic, as I am, you should read David MacKay's (free) online book: "Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air". It's the best introduction to the subject I've ever seen, by far. Read it! http://www.withouthotair.com/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike "JamesDavis", I'm a member of the parental--even grandparental--generation. And like "JamesDavis", I'm in total agreement with "lauragroomes". As indicated in multiple previous Scientific American full (in print) articles, we already know how to generate all the energy we need from renewable resources, and we know how to store that energy when the sun isn't shining or the wind isn't blowing. We should not be developing ANY new fossil fuel sources, and we should be converting to 100% generation of electricity (enough for electric cars, too!) from renewables as fast as we can--Manhattan project speed!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShame on the International Council for Science for spending a great deal of time on a hugely important problem and coming up with nothing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1 to 5 absolutely pathetic. Really looks as though BP and Shell paid for this time wasting exercise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe institutional and business thinking that has dragged and pulled and pushed us into this mess is not the thinking that will get my children and theirs out of this predicament.
Lauragroomes : I am a grandad. In the sixties, young people believed most of the advertising drivel they were fed on, so very few people had even heard of Climate Change.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisToday the USA seems not to have grown up, whereas such regions as Europe have populations who seem to be far more mature than many americans. The US cannot block the development of the green economy even if it wants to!
And the winners are… Forecasting,observing, confining, Responding, innovation....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre these not the prerequisites of any business strategy??? and if so why does it take so long for the science community to recognize these simple lessons that are taught in any business school?
We should be using these tools not thinking about learning to use them, have we only amateurs in policy making positions?
We have no hope of saving civilization if we maintain this pace of progress.
I am worried about my children.