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with such ecosystemic characterisics as
emergent properties
of energetics of biogeo-
chemical models. Likewise, their complaint about the absence of social interactions
within ESS, while perhaps applicable to the work subsequently inspired by ESS, also
misrepresents the original aim of ESS, which deliberately excluded the human sphere
(see above). The issue here is one of the naïf, initial representation of ESS. If it is
to be used in policy formation, the social context cannot be ignored, and the use
and abuse of models and their results must be considered (Oreskes et al., 1994;
Demeritt, 2001). It is not clear, though, that this use is the same as ESS having
'hegemonising tendencies' (Clifford and Richards, 2005, p. 381). In their argument
for a pluralistic approach to social science, Clifford and Richards are remarkably
restrictive about what is permissible within social science, and indeed, about the
question of whether ESS is one approach or many. The central issue is whether ESS
has to be a model of everything, everywhere, all the time. Clifford and Richards
argue that ESS must be, and thus argue that it is unscientifi c on the grounds that it
cannot affect closure on any question (in the sense that any research can come to
a well-defi ned result unaffected by the lack of defi ned boundaries to the research).
The initial vision of ESS expressed in Bretherton (1985) is much broader. It notes
that different science questions will need to employ different formulations relating
to explicit and implicit spatial and temporal scales. No model can live up to the
everything, everywhere, all the time goal (see Wainwright and Mulligan, 2003), so
this argument is something of a straw man.
A more serious case for the appropriation of physical geography approaches
under the banner of ESS comes from the discipline of geology (or Earth Science for
locations where that nomenclature has been seen to be more politic). There have
been a number of institutions, courses and individuals who have imported the
'systems' into 'Earth science' for a range of motives. For example, the textbook of
Merritts et al. (1997, p. 10) called
Environmental Geology: An Earth System Science
Approach
suggests that ESS is a natural successor to a sequence of approaches with
illustrious protagonists. First came 'The Dawn of Science', with Ptolemy and Aris-
totle, second 'The Scientifi c Revolution' of Newton, Steno, Kepler, Galilei and
Copernicus, third 'The Age of Earth and Evolution' with Curie, Darwin, Lyell and
Hutton, and fourth 'The Plate Tectonics Revolution' with McKenzie, Morgan, Hess
and Wegener. The fi fth step of 'Earth System Science' is interestingly
not
carried
out by scientists with geological track records; in this case, the examples given are
Rowland's work on CFC emissions and the ozone hole and Lovelock's work on
Gaia theory. Merritts et al. defi ne a single Earth system comprised by various
subsystems, or 'spheres' (litho-, pedo-, hydro-, bio- and atmo-), and including
humans and their actions. Skinner et al. (1999: fi rst edn 1995) and Ernst (2000,
p. 525) also use a very similar terminology, which would not be out of place in any
physical geography text since Chorley and Kennedy (1971). The same development
is seen in the evolution of the infl uential text of Press and Siever. The 1982 edition
of
Earth
uses the 'Earth Machine' of plate tectonics as a structuring element; systems
only explicitly appear on page 40 as 'time-rock units'. Press et al. (2004) use systems
terminology throughout. Systems are 'what comes after plate tectonics'. The text-
book by Ernst et al. (2000) is related to an elementary course at Stanford called
'Introduction to Earth Systems', developed since 1993 with a philosophy that is
'problem-focused, not discipline-focused' (Ernst et al., 2000, p. vii). The emphasis
is on fi nding 'appropriate ways to
integrate
high-quality disciplinary work from
