The sustainability transition - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 86

It follows that the real challenge today is to increase our understanding
of the complex dynamics - including the feedback loops - characteristic of
coupled systems (Palmer et al . 2004). This is much easier said than done.
How can we integrate human actions into models of the carbon cycle, the
nitrogen cycle or the hydrological cycle (Global Carbon Project 2003)?
How should we address the fact that human actions can give rise not only
to self-fulfilling prophesies (e.g. the amplification of business cycles) but
also to self-denying prophesies (e.g. forecasts of diseases likely to spread in
the absence of preventive measures)? The difficulty in addressing questions
of this sort will lead some scientists to avoid them on the grounds that they
are not ripe for scientific analysis. But this is an unsatisfactory reaction to
the situation in which we now find ourselves. To the extent that problems
like climate change and variability are emerging as undeniable realities,
a refusal to confront the causal mechanisms underlying such problems is
asking for trouble in terms of the need to link science and policy.
Fundamental implications
The argument spelled out in the preceding subsections has a number of impli-
cations regarding the need to rethink our analytic tools. First and foremost
is the proposition that we can no longer focus our attention on biophysical
systems, treating the impacts of human actions as minor disturbances or per-
turbations. Whatever the merits of earlier analyses that proceeded by setting
the impact of anthropogenic forces aside by assumption, such procedures are
no longer viable. In the growing category of cases in which human actions
constitute major drivers, there is no alternative to integrating human actions.
This is not to say that there is no room for studies in which human actions are
marginal or even irrelevant. Analyses of fluctuations in the sun's radiation or
even the succession of ice ages during the course of the Holocene can proceed
without an emphasis on human actions. But as soon as we come to large-
scale concerns like understanding the future of the Earth's climate system, the
omission of anthropogenic forces is no longer an acceptable strategy.
Understanding human-dominated ecosystems will certainly require the
development of a new generation of analytic models and methods. Despite
the hopes of some members of the research community, there is no way to
graft simple and tractable terms covering human actions onto familiar models
of biophysical processes. Here, too, the case of climate change and variabil-
ity is striking. The present 'no analogue' state of the Earth's climate system
reflects the impacts of human actions, mostly in the realms of land use change
and industrialization (Steffen et al . 2002). Human responses to actual climate
change - not to mention anticipatory responses to the prospect of climate
change - will be determined by a wide range of social, economic, political
and legal factors. The way forward in dealing with these forces is anything but
clear. However, refusing to tackle matters of this sort is not an option.