Summer 2018: Sustainability Leadership
Course Disclaimer
Every attempt is made to provide a syllabus that is complete and that provides an accurate overview of the course. However, circumstances and events may make it necessary for the instructor to modify the syllabus during the semester. This may depend, in part, on the progress, needs, and experiences of the students.
Teaching Philosophy
The material covered in this course is exciting and can also be challenging. I encourage you to ask questions in class if you are uncertain about concepts, ideas or formulas. I recommend that you read the reading material weekly, prior to the lecture and study your own lecture notes frequently. The material that I cover in this class will build upon itself, and reading through course notes regularly will allow you to catch problems early, if you find that you are having them.
Honor Code
By taking this course, you agree to adhere to Old Dominion University’s honor code. Cheating on exams, quizzes, plagiarism in written work, and failing to participate fully in group work will not be tolerated; infractions will be dealt with according to University policy. General honor code guidelines for various course assignments are posted in the on Blackboard (Policies > General Policies); all students are responsible for reading, understanding, and following those guidelines.
All students should follow the principles of the ODU Honor Code: https://www.odu.edu/about/monarchcitizenship
Honor Code: We, the students of Old Dominion University, aspire to be honest and forthright in our academic endeavors. Therefore, we will practice honesty and integrity and be guided by the tenets of the Monarch Creed. We will meet the challenges to be beyond reproach in our actions and our words. We will conduct ourselves in a manner that commands the dignity and respect that we also give to others.
Academic Integrity
Old Dominion University is committed to students' personal and academic success. In order to achieve this vision, students, faculty, and staff work together to create an environment that provides the best opportunity for academic inquiry and learning. All students must be honest and forthright in their academic studies. Your work in this course and classroom behavior must align with the expectations outlined in the Code of Student Conduct, which can be found at http://www.odu.edu/oscai. The following behaviors along with classroom disruptions violate this policy, corrupt the educational process, and will not be tolerated:
- Cheating: Using unauthorized assistance, materials, study aids, or other information in any academic exercise.
- Plagiarism: Using someone else's language, ideas, or other original material without acknowledging its source in any academic exercise.
- Fabrication: Inventing, altering or falsifying any data, citation or information in any academic exercise.
- Facilitation: Helping another student commit, or attempt to commit, any Academic Integrity violation, or failure to report suspected Academic Integrity violations to a faculty member.
Requirements of the ODU Departments of Biological Sciences and Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Science
By taking this course, you agree to adhere to the requirements and policies of the ODU Department of Biological Sciences and the Department of Ocean Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; these may be found on Blackboard (Policies > General Policies).
Missing Classes
If you miss a class no make-up will be provided. If you missed a class and homework was due, you have to email the homework on the same day, unless it is impossible due to documented medical conditions.
If you miss a week or more of classes because of an illness, personal crisis of some kind, or illness of immediate family member, you should notify the Office of Student Affairs and submit required documentation (http://studentaffairs.odu.edu/sos/). Once your request has been validated by the Office of Student Ombudsperson Services (S.O.S.), the course instructor will be issued an official absence notice. Nevertheless, these notices do not “excuse” the absence, nor do they guarantee that the student will be permitted to make up tests. The absence notice simply documents that the student’s illness or other circumstances indicate that the student was unable to participate in class for designated period of time. The authority to excuse absence rests with the instructor, whose decision is final.
If you are Experiencing Difficulty
If you are having any difficulty – with specific course content or anything else we can help with – please do not hesitate to ask for help. Please come and talk to me in person as soon as the problem arises. Remember also that you have access to a variety of student services on campus.
If you have any Special Needs
Please inform me as soon as possible of any special needs you might have, including medical conditions that may require special accommodation.
Withdrawl
A syllabus constitutes a contract between the student and the course instructor. Participation in this course indicates your acceptance of its schedule, requirements, and policies. Please review the syllabus and the course requirements as soon as possible. If you believe that the nature of this course does not meet your interests, needs or expectations, if you are not prepared for the amount of work involved or if you anticipate that the class meetings, assignment deadlines or abiding by the course policies will constitute an unacceptable hardship for you, you should drop the class by the drop/add deadline, which is located in the ODU Schedule of Classes.
Managing Conflicts
If you are having a conflict with another student in your class, please let us know right away. Any issues we cannot resolve among ourselves will be taken to either the Biology Department Chair, Dr. Wayne Hynes, or the OEAS Department Chair, Dr. Fred Dobbs, for mediation.
Class Schedule
Note that all deliverables have to be uploaded to Blackboard.
May 2018
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
---|---|---|---|---|
Apr 30 |
May 1 |
May 2 |
May 3 |
May 4 |
May 7 |
May 8 |
May 9 |
May 10 |
May 11 |
May 14 Class 1: Prologue: Introduction to the course; Part 1: Sustainability leadership. Part 2: Setting up the projects Class slides |
May 15 |
May 16 Class 2: Part 1: Wicked problems, participatory modeling and conceptual models. Part 2: Initiating the Research Class slides |
May 17 |
May 18 6:00 PM: Answers for Question Set 1 are due |
May 21 Class 3: Part 1: Decisions, biases, and the creation of knowledge. Part 2: Conceptual models Class slides |
May 22 |
May 23 Class 4: Part 1: Systems theory — the Earth's life-support system. Part 2: Hazards Class slides |
May 24 |
May 25 6:00 PM: Answers for Question Set 2 are due |
May 28 Memorial Day, no class |
May 29 6:00 PM: Draft outline and bibliography for research papers are due |
May 30 Class 5: Part 1: Risk Assessments. Part 2: Vulnerabilities Class slides |
May 31 Pickup and validation of Card in Falls Church |
Jun 1 6:00 PM: Answers for Question Set 3 are due |
June 2018
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
---|---|---|---|---|
Jun 4 Class 6: Evidence-based leadership. Part 2: Foresight Class slides |
Jun 5 | Jun 6 Class 7: Part 1: Scenario-based planning. Part 2: Decision making Class slides |
Jun 7 |
Jun 8 6:00 PM: Answers for Question Set 4 are due. 6:00 PM: Workplan for service learning week is due |
Jun 11 Fieldwork Week |
Jun 12 | Jun 13 | Jun 14 Presentations for research project are due. Draft Research Papers are due. |
Jun 15 |
Jun 18 Class 8: Part 1: Governance for sustainability. Part 2: Options Class slides 8:00 AM: Answers for Question Set 5 are due |
Jun 19 | Jun 20 Class 9: Part 1: Ethics and Morality of Conservation - or not to Conserve. Part 2: Recommendations Class slides |
Jun 21 |
Jun 22 |
Jun 25 |
Jun 26 | Jun 27 | Jun 28 IDS 369 Internship Orientation Workshop |
Jun 29 IDS 369 Internship Orientation Workshop |
July 2018
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
---|---|---|---|---|
Jul 2 Final Draft of research paper is due on July 1, 2018. Late submission will result in less time for the polishing of the final report. |
Jul 3 | Jul 4 | Jul 5 |
Jul 6 Fieldwork videos and Reflections are due on July 8, 2018. Late submissions will not be accepted. |
Jul 9 Start of Internship |
Jul 10 | Jul 11 | Jul 12 |
Jul 13 |
Jul 16 |
Jul 17 Final research paper is due on July 17, 2018 at midnight. |
Jul 18 | Jul 19 |
Jul 20 |
Jul 23 |
Jul 24 | Jul 25 | Jul 26 |
Jul 27 |
Class 1 (05/14/2018): Part 1: Introduction to the course; Part 2: Sustainability leadership; Part 3: Setting up the projects
Prologue: Introduction to the course
The class is a Service Learning class, which implies that the students will work in small groups on real-world projects throughout the class. During each class, we will have a part that is related to the theory of sustainability leadership and relevant skills, and another part that relates to working on the projects. We have defined three “real-world challenges” related to the impacts of climate change, sea level rise, and human pressure on the Everglades National Park.
In the sustainability leadership part of each class, we will discuss a number of questions in the sustainability leadership part. Please, be prepared to participate in the discussion of these questions, which requires to read the listed documents prior to the class.
In the “real-world challenges” part of each class, the students will carry out research related to their challenge, prepare the fieldwork, and draft the research paper. During the fieldwork week, they will continue the research, prepare a presentation each, further develop the report, and collect material for a brief video (each student is required to prepare a 2-min video). After the fieldwork, the research paper will be finalized.
Part 1: Sustainability leadership
Defining sustainability leadership can be done by asking a number of questions.
- What is leadership?
- What is sustainability? Sustainability is an emerging characteristic of a dynamic system; it is not built into a system by design.
- How can we define sustainability leadership: maintaining a system - impacting it - in a way that keeps positive futures open.
- What systems are we referring to? We consider biological, social and economic systems, communities, including whatever technical support the community may have developed.
- What is the underlying concept? We use the concept of a system being embedded in a life-support system, on which the system under consideration depends.
- Do we have a core principle? Principle: sustainability emerges if we meet the needs of the community and its members, while safeguarding the life-support system on which the well-being of the current and future system's members depends.
Sustainability leadership requires an understanding of the challenges to sustainability and developing viable strategies to meet these challenges and maintain the community embedded in the life-support system. This requires:
- Knowing the system, the members, the life-support system
- Assessing a situation; reflect on own biases that could impact the assessment; understand the biases of others, of the community and the limitations these biases constitute for possible paths of the system.
- Detect and understand threats, analyze vulnerabilities, assess risks
- Have foresight - and interact with others about the desirable futures
- Understand the decision making framework, know the stakeholders,
- Work with the community to develop options
- Implement options and critically assess their impact on the community and its life-support system.
Reading List
Mandatory readings:
Torres (2017) (Torres, P., 2017. It’s the end of the world and we know it: Scientists in many disciplines see apocalypse, soon. Salon.)
Miller (2013) (Miller, T. R., 2013. Constructing sustainability science: emerging perspectives and research trajectories, Sustainability science, 8(2), 279-293.)
Ward et al. (2017) (Ward, J., Chiveralls, K., Fioramonti, L., Sutton, P., Costanza, R., 2017. The decoupling delusion: rethinking growth and sustainability. The Conversation.)
Haque (2018) (Haque, U., 2018. Why capitalism is obsolete - and why humanity's future depends on what's next. Eudaimonia & Co., March 26, 2018.)
Additional Readings
Lu (2017) (Lu, D., 2017. We would need 1.7 Earths to make our consumption sustainable. Washington Post)
Ropeik (2015) (Ropeik, D., 2015. The Threat To Life On Earth Because Human Instinct is More Powerful Than Reason.)
Gee, B., 2011. Economic Crisis and the Normalcy Bias. See https://www.nolanchart.com/article8861-economic-crisis-and-the-normalcy-bias.html.
Mercier and Sperber (2017) (Mercier, H., and Sperber, D., 2017. The Enigma of Reason. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. )
Biermann (2014) (Biermann, F., 2014. Earth System Governance: world politics in the anthropocene. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.)
Part 2: Setting up the projects
The three “real-world challenges” we will work on as part of the service learning are:
- Impacts of climate change and sea level rise on ecosystem services (ESS) in the Everglades National Park (ENP): Consider the ESS of the ENP, including their economic value, and assess how climate change and sea level rise might impact these ESS.
- Effects of sea level rise (SLR) on the part of the Florida Bay inside the ENP and mitigation and adaptation strategies for the American Crocodile: Assess the morphological and ecological changes future SLR may cause in the Florida Bay and evaluate the impacts on habitats of the American Crocodile. Develop adaptation strategies.
- Vulnerability assessments for ENP habitat(s): Assess the main vulnerabilities of selected ENP habitats and identify the main threats due to human activities. Consider realistic socio-economic scenarios and propose mitigation and adaptation strategies.
For all three challenges, the time window to be considered should be on the order of 30 to 80 years (2050 to 2100). It will be important to link the three challenges together. Thus, (1) will provide information ESS in Florida Bay to (2). (2) will provide information on morphology changes in Florida Bay due to sea level rise to (1) and (3) and also provide scenarios for the American Crocodile population to thee two groups. (3) will provide socio-economic impact scenarios to (1) so that their relative importance can be compared to climate change and sea level rise impacts.
The students will form three groups of three students around these challenges. It is required to apply the adaptation science approach to the topic. It will be important to distribute the chapters between the students. All students will contribute to all chapters, but individual students will be leading each chapter. Initially, each group will exchange thoughts on how to collect relevant information. Each group will assess how they want to approach the topic and distribute the work among the group members.
In this first class, we will constitute three groups with three students each. In each group, the students will decide on responsibilities for the various chapters of the project reports. Each report has six chapters, and each student will be responsible for two of these chapters.
Reading List
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (2016)
Management of Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Species and Their Habitats. Version 1. Florida Fish and Wildlife Service. Available at html.
Class 2 (05/16/2018): Part 1: Wicked problems, participatory modeling, and conceptual models. Part 2: Initiating the research
Part 1: Wicked problems, participatory modeling and conceptual models
Many sustainability-related problems are “wicked problems”, i.e., social or cultural problems that are difficult or impossible to solve. These problems constitute a class of problems that defy solution, even with our most sophisticated analytical tools. They have the following characteristics: (1) There is no agreed-upon statement of the problem; in fact, there is broad disagreement on what ‘the problem’ is. (2) Because a definitive statement of the problem is lacking, the search for solutions is open ended. Different groups of stakeholders champion alternative and competing solutions. They often frame the problem in a way that favors their preferred solution. (3) Addressing the problem is complex because resource and political constraints are constantly changing. (4) Constraints also change because numerous interested parties come and go, often change their minds, change the rules by which the problem must be addressed, or fail to communicate.
The problems are also wicked for four reasons: (1) incomplete or contradictory knowledge, (2) the large number of people and opinions involved, (3) the often very large economic burden required to address the challenge, and (4) the interconnected nature of these problems with other problems.
There are different approaches to address wicked problems. Participatory modeling is a means to develop a conceptual model that could help to explore scenarios towards a common goal of a group or community.
Conceptual models, often in form of stock and flow models, provide a basis to explore and understand the processes in a complex system.
Reading List
Mandatory Readings
For conceptual stock and flow models, see https://vensim.com.
Part 2: Initiating the research
Steve Traxler, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will provide background information on the three challenges addressed in the service learning.
The students will start to discuss the system associated with each of the challenges and draft goal statements. An initial concept of how different stakeholder groups are impacting the system will be discussed. This will define the wicked problem that their challenge represents.
Reading List
TBA
Class 3 (05/21/2018): Part 1: Decisions, biases, and the creation of knowledge. Part 2: Conceptual models
Part 1: Decisions, biases, and the creation of knowledge
The goal is to understand how world views of neighborhood, parents, schools, etc. create a very personal bias, community and cultural biases, and how these biases impact the reflections we have of the world, and how they often direct our decisions and even the creation of knowledge. With respect to personal bias, the aim is to understand how world views of neighborhood, parents, schools, etc. create a very personal bias.
Our perceptions of reality are reflections of the “real world”, the thing by itself, and these reflections are impacted by individual, group, and cultural biases and preconceptions. The deviations of our reflections from the “thing itself” as well as our biases direct our deliberations, limit options for decision, and even guide the creation of knowledge. Particularly when dealing with complexity and threads, awareness of the own biases and those of others can help to reduce their impacts and open avenues to evidence-based deliberations and problem assessments.
Realize that communities at different levels have biases in how they see the world inside and outside the cultural context. Biases are necessary to find a way to live in the complex world and to deal with knowledge gaps. There are many ways of living in the Earth's life-support system and many of them are sustainable - but many others are not. Cultural biases keep a society often from understanding the laws and messages of nature, and this can threaten the community. Biases also have a significant impact on how we see threats and what we consider hazards.
Reading List
Mandatory Readings:
View: “How Not to Be Ignorant About the World” by Hans and Ola Rosling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm5xF-UYgdg
Kolbert (2017) (Kolbert, E., 2017. Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds - New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason. The New Yorker)
White (2011) (White, M. D., 2011. Why Did We Evolve the Ability to Reason? To Argue! The final step in human evolution is — the lawyer? Psychology Today)
Lee and Lebowitz (2015). See http://www.businessinsider.com/cognitive-biases-that-affect-decisions-2015-8. See also the Wikipedia article on cognitive distortions.
Additional Readings:
Christian (2013) (Christian, S.E., 2013. Cognitive Biases and Errors as Cause - and Journalistic Best Practices as Effect, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 28, 160—174, DOI: 10.1080/08900523.2013.794674)
Hutson (2017) (Hutson, M., 2017. Living a Lie: We Deceive Ourselves to Better Deceive Others. Scientific American).
Lukianoff and Haidt (2015) (Lukianoff, G. and Haidt, J., 2015. The Coddling of the American Mind. The Atlantic, September 2015)
Jensen (2016) (Jensen, R., 2016. The coddling of the capitalist, white-supremacist, patriarchal american mind. Resilence.org).
Part 2: Conceptual models
The students in each group will discuss their personal reflections of the challenge that their group is focusing on and analyze how their cognitive biases may impact these reflections. They will further detail the system each group is going to consider and define the issue that requires some form of adaptation. They will also discuss how cognitive biases might impact the reflections different stakeholder groups might have oef the issue.
The students will develop conceptual models for each of the three challenges. At the end of the class, each group should have a sketch of the conceptual model for the system they are considering, as well as a refined goal statement and a detailed sketch ]of how different stakeholder groups are impacting the system.
Reading List
Class 4 (05/23/2018): Part 1: Systems theory — the Earth's life-support system. Part 2: Hazards
Part 1: Systems theory — the Earth's life-support system
Systems theory provides a transdisciplinary approach to understand the behavior of a complex entity. “A system is a cohesive conglomeration of interrelated and interdependent parts that is either natural or man-made. Every system is delineated by its spatial and temporal boundaries, surrounded and influenced by its environment, described by its structure and purpose or nature and expressed in its functioning. In terms of its effects, a system can be more than the sum of its parts if it expresses synergy or emergent behavior. Changing one part of the system usually affects other parts and the whole system, with predictable patterns of behavior. For systems that are self-learning and self-adapting, the positive growth and adaptation depend upon how well the system is adjusted with its environment. Some systems function mainly to support other systems by aiding in the maintenance of the other system to prevent failure. The goal of systems theory is systematically discovering a system's dynamics, constraints, conditions and elucidating principles (purpose, measure, methods, tools, etc.) that can be discerned and applied to systems at every level of nesting.” (Wikipedia, 2018)
The concept of system of system allows to couple systems in various ways and to address complexity and levels of systems.
In the context of sustainability leadership, systems theory provides a basis to vitualizes the entity under consideration as a collection of interrelated parts bound together to operate sustainably. Each part can be considered as a system interacting with the other systems. The relationships between the parts are as important as the parts themselves. The whole of the system of interrelated systems (ecosystem, human community, humans and built environment embedded into the non-human environment) creates an environment that operates as the Earth's life-support system. This planetary system is interrelated with is extraterrestrial environment.
From a system-point of view, the Earth's life-support system is in a transition to a high-energy state, with potential severe changes in meteorological and hydrological hazards. This transition is caused by a single-species high-energy pulse and is associated with recent rapid climate change. The projected trajectory of the system includes more rapid climate change and a large sea level rise during the next centuries unparalleled by all changes experienced by civilization. This change in the overall state of the planetray system will have impacts on all systems within this system of systems.
An important concept for system observations is that of Essential Variables.
Reading List
Mandatory Readings
Academic Room, 2013. Systems Theory. html.
Additional Readings
Part 2: Hazards
In each group, work on identifying the hazards that could impact the system the group is considering. Take a time horizon of at least 50 years and up to 100 years.
Reading List
Mandatory Readings
Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact Technical Ad hoc Work Group. April 2011. A Unified Sea Level Rise Projection for Southeast Florida. A document prepared for the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact Steering Committee. 27 p. pdf.
Caffrey, M. A., Beavers, R. L., Hoffman, C. H., 2018. Sea Level Rise and Storm Surge Projections for the National Park Service Natural Resource Report Series NPS/NRSS/NRR—2018/1648, pdf, local pdf.
Additional Readings
IPCC, 2013: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 1535 pp. Available at AR5. Extract information/projections for Florida.
Pachauri, R. K., Allen, M. R., Barros, V. R. et al., 2014. Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II, and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), IPCC.
U.S. Climate Change Research Program, 2007. Our Changing Planet - The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2008, U.S. Climate Change Research Program, Washington, D.C., A report by the U.S. Climate Change Research Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, and a Supplement to the President's Budget for Fiscal Year 2008. Available at http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/ocp2008/default.htm.
Boesch, D.F., Atkinson, L.P., Boicourt, W.C., Boon, J.D., Cahoon, D.R., Dalrymple, R.A., Ezer, T., Horton, B.P., Johnson, Z.P., Kopp, R.E., Li, M., Moss, R.H., Parris, A., Sommerfield, C.K.}, 2013. Updating Maryland's Sea-level Rise Projections, Special Report of the Scientific and Technical Working Group to the Maryland Climate Change Commission, 22 pp., University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Cambridge, MD.
Gesch, D. B., Gutierrez, B. T., Gill, S. K., 2009. Coastal Elevations. In Titus, J. G., Anderson, K. E., Cahoon, D. R., Gesch, D. B., Gill, S. K., Gutierrez, B. T., Thieler, E. R., Williams, S J. (eds.): "Coastal Sensitivity to Sea Level Rise: A Focus on the {Mid-Atlantic Region", U.S. Climate Change Science Program, Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.1, 25-42.
National Research Council, 2013. Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises. National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 2013. Committee on Understanding and Monitoring Abrupt Climate Change and Its Impacts; Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate; Division on Earth and Life Studies.
Sanford, T., Frumhoff, P. C., Luers, A., Gulledge, J., 2014. The climate policy narrative for a dangerously warming world, Nature Climate Change, 4, 164-166.
Church, J. A., Clark, P. U., Cazenave, A., Gregory, J. M., Jevrejeva, S., Levermann, A., Merrifield, M. A., Milne, G. A., Nerem, R. S., Nunn, P. D., Payne, A. J., Pfeffer, W. T., Stammer, D., Unnikrishnan, A. S., 2013. Sea Level Change, In Stocker, T. F.,Qin, D., Plattner, G.-K., Tignor, M., Allen, S.K., Boschung, J., Nauels, A., Xia, Y., Bex, V., Midgley, P. M. (eds.): Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA., pages 1137-1217.
Werners, S. E. et al. Thresholds, tipping and turning points for sustainability under climate change. Curr. Opin. Env. Sustain. 5, 334–340 (2013).
Sweet, W. V., Kopp, R. E., Weaver, C. P., Obeysekera, J., Horton, R. M., Thieler, E. R., Zervas, C., 2017. Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States. NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 083. pdf.
Flavelle, C., 2017. The Nightmare Scenario for Florida’s Coastal Homeowners - Demand and financing could collapse before the sea consumes a single house. Bloomberg. html.
Dangendorf, S., Marcos, M., Wöppelmann, G., Conrad, C. P., Frederikse, S., Riva, R., 2017. Reassessment of 20th century global mean sea level rise. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1616007114. html.
Analyze how risk is managed, understood, ignored in different cultures and how physical laws are integrated in risk assessments.
Mandatory Readings
Paul Smith: Gaining a Better Understanding of How to Cope with Extreme Low Probability and High Impact Shock Events — And What About Sea Level Rise? Presentation at 3RC Event, September 16, 2015. pdf.
Union of Concerned Scientists, 1992
Additional Readings
Berger, A., Brown, C., Kousky, C., Zeckhauser, R., 2011. The Challenge of degraded environments: How common biases impair effective Policy, Risk Analysis, 31(9) 1423-1433. pdf.
Rusbridger, A., 2015. Climate change: why the Guardian is putting threat to Earth front and centre. The Guardian. March 6, 2015, see html
Anderson, J., 2017. The psychology of why 94 deaths from terrorism are scarier than 301,797 deaths from guns. Quarz, html
Simonetta, J., 2016. The Other Side of the Global Crisis: Entropy and the Collapse of Civilizations. See here
The threat of terrorism:
Bouzar, D., Escaping Radicalism. Scientific American Mind, May/June 2016, 41-43.
Dutton, K., Abrams, D., 2016. Extinguishing the threat. Scientific American Mind, May/June 2016, 44-49.
Reicher, S. D., Haslam, S. A., 2016. Fueling Extremes. Scientific American Mind, May/June 2016, 35-39.
Lewandowsky, S., June 21, 2016. Why is populism popular? A psychologist explains. https://theconversation.com/why-is-populism-popular-a-psychologist-explains-61319.
Analyze the vulnerabilities of your system.
Plag, H.-P., Jules-Plag, S., 2013. Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Ecosystems. In Pielke Sr., R. A., Seastedt, T., Suding, K. (eds.): Vulnerability of Ecosystems to Climate, Volume 4 of: Climate Vulnerability: Understanding and Addressing Threats to Essential Resources, 163-184, Elsevier. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-384703-4.00105-2.
Shellenbarger Jones, A., Bosch, C., Strange, E., 2009. Vulnerable Species: the Effects of Sea-Level Rise on Coastal Habitats. In Titus, J. G. et al. (eds.): "Coastal Sensitivity to Sea-Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region", U.S. Climate Change Science Program Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.1,
73-83.
Karl, T. R., Melillo, J. M., Peterson, T. C. (eds.), 2009. Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, Cambridge University Press.
Kelly, P. M., Adger, W. N., 2000. Theory and practice in assessing vulnerability to climate change and facilitation adaptation, Climatic Change, 47, 325-352.
For evidence-based management and leadership, it is important to realize that facts tend to be incomplete, often outdated, wrong, misinterpreted. It is important to understand the role of paradigms and immutable truths in the interpretation of facts. For the assessment of trends, understanding the problems of inductions, the meaning of Black Swans, possible surprises, is highly relevant. With sustainability being an emerging property of a system, monitoring the system and identifying its trajectory provides a basis to decide on the necessity of interventions. These interventions can oppose the system's current development to prevent undesired futures or utilize the system processes to direct it into a more desirable futures.
Mandatory Readings
Capra, F., 1996. The Web of Life. Random House Publishers. Read chapters 1 and 2. The PDF is also available in the workspace library.
Kirchhoff, C.J., Lemos, M.C., Dessai, S., 2013. Actionable knowledge for environmental decision making: Broadening the usability of climate science, Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 38, 393-414. pdf.
London, J., 1908. To Build a Fire. See https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/to-build-a-fire.pdf or http://www.jacklondons.net/buildafire.html. A quote: “The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man's place in the universe.”
Plag, H.-P., 2016. Knowledge Must Translate into Action - “They had all the Knowledge ...” Column 12 in “On The Edge.” ApoGeo, 31(2), 8-10, Spring 2016, http://apogeospatial.com/knowledge-must-translate-into-action/.
Additional reading:
Boyle, M., 2017. Environmentalism used to be about defending the wild – not any more. The Guardian, May 22, 2017. html.
Taleb, N. N., 2010. The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility. Random House Publishing Group.
Kilby, B., 2015. A Psychologist Explains Why People Don't Give a Shit About Climate Change. Vice, Posted on June 9, 2015, html.
McBrayer, J. P., 2015. Why Our Children Don’t Think There Are Moral Facts. New York Times, March 2, 2015, html.
Cock, J., 2011. How the term “scientist” came to be. Posted on February 16, 2011 at http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/02/16/origin-of-scientist/
Develop foresight and possible scenarios for the future of the system under consideration.
Seligman, M. E. P., Tierney, J., 2017. We aren't built to live in the moment. New York Times, html.
How can we develop foresight and explore possible futures within the framework of system thinking? A system of systems view on the Earth system and the embedded anthroposphere provides a theoretical framework to research the nature of feedback loops and their role for future developments in the earth system. Scenario-based simulations can be used to explore possible the future and provide guidance for the development of interventions that bring the system closer to desirable futures.
Köhler et al. (2018) (Köhler, J., de Haan, F., Holtz, G., Kubeczko, K., Moallemi, E., Papachristos, G., Chappin, E. J. L., 2018. Modelling Sustainability Transitions: An Assessment of Approaches and Challenges. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 21(1), html, DOI: 10.18564/jasss.3629.)
The unsustainability of our modern civilization is mainly a result of the mainstream economic model that can be traced back to Adam Smith's work published in the late 18th century. Based on his work, the purpose of economy is the creation of human wealth, while no value is being attached to the preservation of a healthy planetary life-support system. Economic thinking focusing on the creation of more human wealth impacts most decisions made at all levels of governance. Conservation very often has to fit into this economic thinking.
Can sustainability emerge out of a society that disregards non-human wealth, discounts the future and makes decisions mainly based on economic considerations? What other governance is needed to have sustainability as an emergent property?
Why are current governance structures to a large extent decoupled from the risk perception of a large fraction of scientists, non-governmental organizations, and leading thinkers that indicates that our civilization is facing major existential threats? What governance structures would be need to address these global threats?
Union of Concerned Scientists (1992)
An important classical work on ethics related to conservation is Aldo Leopold's book A Sand County Almanac and sketches here and there first published in 1949, in which he explores a “land ethics” (see https://www.aldoleopold.org/about/the-land-ethic/) as a basis for conservation.
However, today very often, the need and options for conservation are discussed in an economic setting with economic arguments playing an important role in decisions of whether and what to conserve. The question has to be raised whether sustainability can emerge in the current mainstream economic thinking and what ethical and moral problems arise if economic thinking is applied to decision making in conservation.
It also has to be asked whether economic thinking as a basis for conservation planning is ethical within the prevailing ethical frameworks. Can we ethically justify that we give priority to those other species that are of benefit for us and provide ecosystem services we value?
Mandatory Readings
Lane, M., 2017. A new professional ethics for sustainable prosperity. Center for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), html, pdf.
Davies, W., 2017. Moral Economies of the Future - The Utopian Impulse of Sustainable Prosperity. Center for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), Working Paper No 5, pdf.
Additional Readings
Agence France-Press, 2018. Giant African baobab trees die suddenly after thousands of years. The Guardian, June 11, 2018. html.
Jackson, T., 2016. Beyond consumer capitalism - Foundation for a sustainable prosperity. Center for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), Working Paper No 2, pdf.
Binswanger, H. C., 1998. The Challenge of Faust. Science, 281(5377), 640-641, DOI: 10.1126/science.281.5377.640, html. Local pdf.
Bernstein, S., 2017. How a Math Formula Could Decide the Fate of Endangered U.S. Species.
Feds consider "conservation triage" that would let some animals go extinct to save funds for protecting others. Scientific American, html.
Hartl, B., 2017. Wyoming Governor Attacks Endangered Species Act. Common Dreams, html.
Ferry (2017) (Ferry, D., 2017. It’s Time to Let Certain Animals Go Extinct. Outside online.)
It will be important to ensure that the recommendations for the three challenges are tangible and point towards more desirable futures.
The service learning requires a week of fieldwork in the Florida Keys and Everglades National Park area. The preliminary schedule for the week is:
June is a month with extremely high mosquito pressure in the Florida Keys and Everglades National Park, particularly in some areas where fieldwork will be conducted. Therefore it is important that all participants have clothing that protects against mosquito bits. A bug jacket is mandatory and bug pants are recommended. For bug jackets, see for example the bug jacket offered at Amazon.v
Answer five of the seven questions.
Due Date: May 18, 2018, 6:00 PM Answer five of the seven questions.
Due Date: May 25, 2018, 6:00 PM Answer five of the seven questions.
Due Date: June 1, 2018, 6:00 PM Answer five of the seven questions.
Due Date: June 8, 2018, 6:00 PM Answer five of the seven questions.
Due Date: June 15, 2018, 6:00 PM This project provides an opportunity to investigate a real-world issue of regional interest and its global impact and to apply the mitigation and adaptation concepts discussed in class to the kinds of issues you will be expected to understand as a professional, an informed citizen and a voter. Working on the project will also allow you to develop and/or improve your skills in research, writing, oral communication, and working in a cooperative, group setting.
The five main areas of Adaptation Science as defined in Moss et al. (2013) should be reflected in the structure of your report, i.e., the hazards, the vulnerabilities, foresight, decision making, and options.
Assume that you are writing this papers in support of decision making by a specific stakeholder group engaged in addressing the real-world issue. Write the research paper in a way that a non-expert can understand the text.
The paper has to be typed with one-and-a-half line spacing preferred. Start with the title of your paper. Then write you name and the class identifier below the title. Then have the numbered sections of your paper (see below). Give each section a meaningful headline. At the end, include the bibliography with the heading "References". For the format of references, see below the section on References.
Insert figures and tables in the text. Figures and table must be numbered and must be referenced in the test. Figures must have a caption below the figure, including the source of the figure. Tables have a caption above the table. Make sure that each caption explains the figure or table sufficiently but does not add significant text.
All units should be System International units (e.g., km instead of miles; mm, cm, m instead inches and feet; degrees Celsius instead of Fahrenheid; g and kg, instead of pounds).
Your paper should have seven sections. After an introductory section, you will consider the five areas of adaptation science. A final section will summarize your recommendations on how to address the issue you are considering. You will present the following information, with appropriate attention to detail throughout and the appropriate bibliography.
The project paper counts for 35% of final grade. 20% or for the draft and 15% for the final paper.
The oral presentation counts for 20% of final grade.
The oral presentation should last 15 minutes. Less time means you haven’t covered the topic in sufficient depth. More time means you did not practice and not prepared sufficiently. Your goals for the presentation are to inform the audience (general public and your peers) about the real-world issue and to convince your audience to care about it and act responsible. Presentations must include illustrations. When you develop your presentation, be sure you are paraphrasing source material (i.e., putting it into your own words) rather than reading sections of material copied verbatim from your sources. The latter will be considered a violation of the ODU Honor Code and will result in significant grade penalties! You cannot read your presentation from the cards or from the screen! This will result in grade penalties.
Note that the research paper and the presentation are important parts of the writing class. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask!
Citations and Reference have to follow the documentation style defined by the Council of Scientific Editors, known as the CSE style. See SSF-Guide or the WISC page for more information on the CSE style.
Examples of acceptable references are:
Class 5 (05/30/2018): Part 1: Risk assessments. Part 2: Vulnerabilities
Part 1: Risk assessments
Risk assessments are a tool to better understand potential threats that could lead to loss of property, livelihood and lives, and lead to an undesirable future.
Reading List
Part 2: Vulnerabilities
Reading List
Class 6 (06/04/2018): Part 1: Evidence-based leadership. Part 2: Foresight
Part 1: Evidence-based leadership
Reading List
Part 2: Foresight
Reading List
Class 7 (06/04/2018): Part 1: Scenario-based planning. Part 2: Decision making
Part 1: Scenario-based planning
Reading List
Part 2: Decision making
Reading List
Class 8 (06/18/2018): Part 1: Governance for sustainability. Part 2: Options
Part 1: Governance for sustainability
Reading List
Part 2: Options
Reading List
Class 9 (06/20/2018): Part 1: Ethics and Morality of Conservation - or not to Conserve. Part 2: Recommendations
Part 1: Ethics and Morality of Conservation - or not to Conserve
Reading List
Part 2: Recommendations
Reading List
Fieldwork Week
Overview
Fieldwork preparations
Question Set 1
Question Set 2
Question Set 3
Question Set 4
Question Set 5
RESEARCH PROJECT DETAILS
Purpose
Readership
Format
Content
Project Paper
Oral Presentation
Questions
References
, A. D., Hadly, E. A., Bascompte, J., Berlow, E. L., Brown, J. H., Fortelius, M., Getz, W. M., Harte, J., Hastings, A., Marquet, P. A., Martinez, N. D., Mooers, A., Roopnarine, P., Vermeij, G., Williams, J. W., Gillespie, R., Kitzes, J., Marshall, C., Matzke, N., Mindell, D. P., Revilla, E., Smith, A. B., 2012. Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere. Nature, 486, 52-58, doi:10.1038/nature11018.
Barnosky
Plag, H.-P., Jules-Plag, S., 2013. Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Ecosystems. In Pielke Sr., R. A., Seastedt, T., Suding, K. (eds.): Vulnerability of Ecosystems to Climate, Volume 4 of: Climate Vulnerability: Understanding and Addressing Threats to Essential Resources, 163-184, Elsevier. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-384703-4.00105-2.
Taleb, N. N., 2012. Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder. Random House.
Plag, H.-P., Brocklebank, S., Brosnan, D., Campus, P., Cloetingh, S., Jules-Plag, S., Stein, S., 2015. Extreme Geohazards — Reducing the Disaster Risk and Increasing Resilience. European Science Foundation.
MARI, 2017. Fall 2017: Natural hazards and Disasters. http://www.mari-odu.org/academics/2017f_disasters. Accessed on September 14, 2017.
Examples of citations of the above sources in the text are:
- Barnosky et al. (2012) found ...
- ... might lead to a significant state shift (Barnosky et al., 2012).
- ... a transition from being resilient to being antifragile (Taleb, 2012).
- ... loss of coastal ecosystems (Plag and Jules-Plag, 2013).
Timeline and Activities
- Feb. 2, 2018: Each student will select or propose a topic. Instructor will assign the final topics.
- Feb. 19, 2018 (Class 12): During this weeks you will need to do the research on the topic and find the best and most appropriate sources (websites and papers) that will have all the information to address the four questions. You have to use at least 6 sources. Make a list of all sources. The format has to follow the documentation style defined by the Council of Scientific Editors, known as the CSE style (see SSF-Guide or the WISC page for more information on the CSE style).
- Feb 23, 2018: Submit the bibliography list together with a brief outline of your paper before 6:00 PM via email to both instructors. You will not get points for the outline and bibliography but the failure to turn it in by the due date or the failure to submit it in a required state/format will result in 5 penalty points. Moreover, we will not be able to give feedback and support, if you don't submit the outline and bibliography.
- Mar 19, 2018 (class 18): Work on writing the draft of the paper.
- Mar 23, 2018: Submit the draft of the paper before 6:00 PM via email to both instructors. Please note: the draft does not mean something you put together at the last minute. It should be the best paper version you can produce. The draft will be corrected and edited and returned to you as soon as possible.
- Mar 28, 2018 (class 21): Work on revising your research paper.
- Apr 6, 2018: Submit the final research paper before 6:00 PM by email to the two instructors.
- Apr 11 (class 25), Apr 16 (class 26), Apr 18 (class 27): Presentations of research papers will be scheduled. Your final presentation is due on the day before the class you are scheduled to present.
Except in extraordinary circumstances, you will receive NO credit for the presentation if you are not in class the day it should be presented.
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