Sarah Cornell

1. A PARTNER WITHDr Sarah Cornell
York, July 2015
Sustainability challenges
in a complex world

2. Steffen et al. 2007. “The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?”
Williams, Zalasiewicz, also Revkin
Our current location: The Anthropocene
Images: Springer Verlag 2005

3. +4
0
-4
-8
Time, thousands of years ago
Changeintemperature
frompresentday,°C
Plot shows GRIP ice core O18 isotope data – a measure of past air temperature
Holocene
Homo sapiens
living in Asia… … in Australia and Europe
Neolithic revolution –
first villages and farming
Roman
empire
100 80 60 40 20 0
many rapid temperature changes
(glacial periods) through history
The 2°C global warming policy target
Business-
as-usual
trajectory
Desired
‘stable state’
The Anthropocene challenge:
People are pushing the planet in one direction,
but want things to stay the same

4. How do we know
what complex systems
are doing?

5. The ‘Bretherton Diagram’ (NASA 1988) set out the observational, conceptual and
computational modelling framework for 1-2 decades of global change research.
How do we know? We simplify. We observe*.

6. GHG Emissions
MAGICC
ICLIPS
tool
Impacts
Alternative economic
modules; simulation
of mitigation
Downscalers
Scengen
Spatial
CLIMATE TOOLKIT
Economy Climate System
E3MG v1
Alternative
Climate
Modules
of varying
complexity

7. GHG Emissions
MAGICC
ICLIPS
tool
Impacts
Alternative economic
modules; simulation
of mitigation
Downscalers
Scengen
Spatial
CLIMATE TOOLKIT
Economy Climate System
E3MG v1
Alternative
Climate
Modules
of varying
complexity
New Tech
RICE
Land & ocean
Carbon cycles
Biomes (simple) BC
Goldstein
Hydrology
Health:
dengue
Coarse (global) damage
UK drought algorithms

8. GHG Emissions
MAGICC
ICLIPS
tool
Impacts
Alternative economic
modules; simulation
of mitigation
Downscalers
Scengen
Spatial
CLIMATE TOOLKIT
Economy Climate System
Alternative
Climate
Modules
E3MG
v1New Tech
RICE
Land & ocean
Carbon cycles
Biomes (simple) BC
Goldstein
Hydrology
Health:
dengue
Coarse (global) damage
UK drought algorithms
MIND
Sectoral/regional damage
Crops
Food
Health:
malaria
Health:
Heat stress
DINAS-coast
(sea-level rise)
Biomes (complex)
Famous

9. GHG Emissions
MAGICC
ICLIPS
tool
Impacts
Alternative economic
modules; simulation
of mitigation
Downscalers
Scengen
Spatial
CLIMATE TOOLKIT
Economy Climate System
Alternative
Climate
Modules
E3MG
v1New Tech
RICE
Land & ocean
Carbon cycles
Biomes (simple) BC
Goldstein
Hydrology
Health:
dengue
Coarse (global) damage
UK drought algorithms
MIND
Sectoral/regional damage
Crops
Food
Health:
malaria
Health:
Heat stress
DINAS-coast
(sea-level rise)
Biomes (complex)
Famous
Air Pollution
Adaptation simulation
Ecosystems,
Biodiversity
Corals

10. GHG Emissions
MAGICC
ICLIPS
tool
Impacts
Alternative economic
modules; simulation
of mitigation
Downscalers
Scengen
Spatial
CLIMATE TOOLKIT
Economy Climate System
Alternative
Climate
Modules
E3MG
v1New Tech
RICE
Land & ocean
Carbon cycles
Biomes (simple) BC
Goldstein
Hydrology
Health:
dengue
Coarse (global) damage
UK drought algorithms
MIND
Sectoral/regional damage
Crops
Food
Health:
malaria
Health:
Heat stress
DINAS-coast
(sea-level rise)
Famous
Air Pollution
Adaptation simulation
Ecosystems,
Biodiversity
Corals
Land use
change
Migration/
security
??
Temporal
Extreme event predictors
Extreme outcome predictors
Biomes (complex)

11. GHG Emissions
MAGICC
ICLIPS
tool
Impacts
Downscalers
Scengen
Spatial
CLIMATE TOOLKIT
Economy Climate System
E3MG v1
New Tech
RICE
Land & ocean
Carbon cycles
Biomes (simple) BC
Goldstein
Hydrology
Health:
dengue
Coarse (global) damage
UK drought algorithms
MIND
Sectoral/regional damage
Crops
Food
Health:
malaria
Health:
Heat stress
DINAS-coast
(sea-level rise)
Famous
Air Pollution
Adaptation simulation
Ecosystems,
Biodiversity
Corals
Land use
Change
Migration/
security
??
Temporal
Extreme event predictors
Extreme outcome predictors
Biomes (complex)
Housing
Transport
Population

12. GHG Emissions
RICE
MIND
MAGICC
BC
Goldstein
Famous
Crops
FoodHydrology
ICLIPS
tool
Impacts
Land & ocean
Carbon cycles
Land use
Change
Downscalers
Scengen ??
Spatial Temporal
Extreme event predictors
Health:
dengue
Health:
malaria
Health:
Heat stress
Ecosystems,
Biodiversity
Corals
Sectoral/regional damage
Coarse (global) damage
Biomes (simple)
Biomes (complex)
Extreme outcome predictors
CLIMATE TOOLKIT
Air Pollution
Migration
/security
Adaptation simulation
UK drought algorithms
DINAS-coast
(sea-level rise)
feedbacks
Economy Climate System
New Tech
E3MG v3
Health:
respiratory
Housing
Transport
Population

13. Kuhn, Wiegent and Luterbacher, 1992. Pathways of Understanding : The Interactions of Humanity and Global Environmental
Change. University Center, MI: The Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN).

14. What kind of complex system
is planet Earth?
(apart from large… many parts, of many different kinds, with multiple connections,
and that interact across all scales (von Bertalanffy 1968)

15. Living and non-living parts
of the planet interact.
They co-evolve.
Some living parts think,
and have foresight.
The Gaia Hypothesis –
our planet functions as a
single organism that maintains
the conditions necessary
for its survival.
James Lovelock

16. “hybrid” systems
• assemblages of inorganic, organic and social systems
(de Landa, Deleuze, Bhaskar)
Adaptive systems
• Resilience (and resiliencespeak)
self-organizing, responsive, co-evolving
Purposive systems?
Learning systems?
(OR and management heuristics, classic systems methods,
Ackoff & Gharajedaghi 1996 – purpose in wholes/parts)

17. What do we want this
complex system to do?

18. The Brundtland report:‘Sustainable development aims
to promote harmony among human beings
and between humanity and nature’.
And it specifies a multifaceted integration:
• a political system that secures effective citizen participation in decision making,
• an economic system that is able to generate surpluses and technical knowledge on a self-reliant and
sustained basis,
• a social system that provides for solutions for the tensions arising from disharmonious development,
• a production system that respects the obligation to preserve the ecological base for development,
• a technological system that can search continuously for new solutions,
• an international system that fosters sustainable patterns of trade and finance, and
• an administrative system that is flexible and has the capacity for self-correction.
World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our Common Future, A/42/427.
Chapter 2 The concept of Sustainable Development. www.un-documents.net/ocf-02.htm.

19. 1987: Harmony between humanity and nature, among human beings
1992: climate, ecosystems, human-changed landscapes (UNFCCC, CBD, UNCCD)
2000: 8 millennium goals – nb No. 8 (systemic change) has been ignored
2010: 20 biodiversity targets
2012: 9 then >12 sustainability goals proposed
2015: 17 goals, many targets, hundreds of indicators…
Complicating the analysis sort of suggests (some) people don’t really want to change...
Creeping “complicatification” in global steering:

20. Image:www.informationsecuritybuzz.comGlobal-network
A PARTNER WITH