Transitioning Toward Sustainability Advancing the Scientific Foundation: Proceedings of a Workshop (2016) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 1-6
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Our Common Journey outlined three priority tasks for advancing sustainability science: • "Develop a research framework that integrates global and local perspectives to shape a ‘place-based' understanding of the interactions between environment and society; • Initiate focused research programs on a small set of understudied questions that are central to a deeper understanding of interactions between society and the environment; and • Promote better utilization of existing tools and processes for linking knowledge to action in pursuit of a transition to sustainability." The past 15 years brought significant advances in observational and predictive capabilities for a range of natural and social systems, as well as the development of other tools and approaches useful for sustainability planning. In addition, other frameworks for environmental decision making, such as those that focus on climate adaptation or resilience, have become increasingly prominent.
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Global Change Research Program developed a pilot system of indicators,5 and lastly, the Board on tmospheric A Sciences and Climate (BASC) released a report on abrupt impacts of climate change that recommended the development of an early warning system for identifying emerging climate threats.6 This workshop was a collaboration between the Science and Technology for Sustainability Program and BASC, and was organized around several key questions: • What are the major advances in sustainability science since Our Common Journey was released in 1999, what are the remaining gaps, and what have been critical barriers to progress?
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Society's efforts to meet the needs of people resulted in major unintentional negative consequences, such as airshed-wide smog, climate change, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and major changes in global biogeochemical cycles. The report committee for Our Common Journey, Dr.
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Areas of use and solutions-oriented fundamental research for sustainability goals include hazards and resilience, food security, climate change, natural capital and ecosystem services, and global health. Secondly, there has been progress in the focusing and framing of the study and pursuit of sustainability.
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Researchers made advances toward an inclusive set of indicators related to capital assets, such as with the inclusive wealth index, which aims to provide countries with a realistic understanding of their wealth and prospects for long-term sustainability.7 In some research areas, however, there is a drive to create new indicators while not giving enough attention to how indicators relate to other indicators. Instead of collecting data on new indicators, it would be more useful to map existing indicators against ongoing efforts.
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A professional organization that draws the discussion together around sustainability science would also help advance efforts and build capacity. The field of sustainability science is in a transition, but researchers need to keep designing research efforts that focus on the supply chain of knowledge needed to push the field forward.
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