environmental literacy in science and...

Environmental Literacy in Science and SocietyFrom Knowledge to Decisions

In an era where humans affect virtually all of the Earth’s processes, questions arise about whether we have sufficient knowledge of human–environment interactions. How can we sustain the Earth’s ecosystems to prevent collapses and what roles should practitioners and scientists play in this process? These are the issues central to the concept of environmental literacy.

This unique book provides a comprehensive review and analysis of environmental literacy within the context of environmental science and sustainable development. Approaching the topic from multiple perspectives, it explores the development of human understanding of the environment and human–environment interactions in the fields of biology, psychology, sociology, economics, and industrial ecology.

The discussion emphasizes the importance of knowledge integration and transdisciplinary processes as key strategies for understanding complex human–environment systems (HES). In addition, the author defines the HES framework as a template for investigating and transforming sustainably coupled HES in the 21st century.

Roland W. Scholz chairs the Natural and Social Science Interface in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Zurich. A mathematician, psychologist and decision theorist by training, he is particularly interested in environmental systems analysis, human–environment interactions, environmental decisions, and risk assessment. He has led numerous large-scale transdisciplinary processes to foster sustainable transitions of urban and regional systems.

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Cambridge University Press978-0-521-19271-2 - Environmental Literacy in Science and Society: From Knowledge to DecisionsRoland W. ScholzFrontmatterMore information

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Environmental Literacy in Science and SocietyFrom Knowledge to DecisionsRoland W. ScholzETH Zurich Institute for Environmental DecisionsChair of Natural and Social Science Interface

Some chapters are coauthored by Claudia R. Binder, Fridolin Brand, Justus Gallati, Daniel J. Lang, Quang Bao Le, Roman Seidl, Timo Smieszek and Michael Stauffacher






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© R. W. Scholz 2011

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First published 2011

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication dataScholz, Roland W. Environmental literacy in science and society : from knowledge to decisions / Roland W. Scholz ;

some chapters are coauthored by Claudia R. Binder ... [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-521-19271-2 (hardback) – ISBN 978-0-521-18333-8 (paperback) 1. Environmental education. 2. Environmental sciences. I. Gallati, Justus. II. Title. GE70.S35 2011 304.2–dc22 2011011288

ISBN 978-0-521-19271-2 HardbackISBN 978-0-521-18333-8 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.






To Maya






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Contents

List of boxes ixAcknowledgments xiiiPraise for the book xvPreamble xviiOverview: roadmap to environmental literacy xviiiLegend of the roadmap xxii

Part I Invention of the environment: origins, transdisciplinarity, and theory of science perspectives

1 What knowledge about what environment? 3

2 From environmental literacy to transdisciplinarity 15

3 Basic epistemological assumptions 29

Part II History of mind of biological knowledge

4 Emerging knowledge on morphology, ecology, and evolution 45

5 From molecular structures to ecosystems 94

Part III Contributions of psychology

6 Psychological approaches to human–environment interactions 137

7 Drivers of individual behavior 190

Part IV Contributions of sociology 8 Traditional sociological approaches to

human–environment interactions 215

9 Modern sociological approaches to human–environment interactions 231

Part V Contributions of economics 10 Origins of economic thinking and the

environment 257

11 Contemporary economic theories dealing with the environment 281

Part VI Contributions of industrial ecology

12 The emergence of industrial ecology 307

13 Industrial agents and global biogeochemical dynamics 320

Part VII Beyond disciplines and sciences

14 Integrated systems modeling of complex human–environment systems 341Roland W. Scholz, Justus Gallati, Quang Bao Le, and Roman Seidl

15 Transdisciplinarity for environmental literacy 373






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Contents

Part IX Perspectives for environmental literacy

20 New horizons: environmental and sustainability sciences 525

Glossary 537References 551Index 626

Part VIII A framework for investigating human–environment systems (HES)

16 The HES Postulates 407

17 The HES framework 453Roland W. Scholz, Claudia R. Binder, and Daniel J. Lang

18 Applying the HES framework 463Roland W. Scholz, Claudia R. Binder, Daniel J. Lang, Timo Smieszek, and Michael Stauffacher

19 Comparing the HES framework with alternative approaches 509Roland W. Scholz and Fridolin Brand






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Boxes

Part I Invention of the environment: origins, transdisciplinarity, and theory of science perspectives 1

1.1 The ability to read the environment: Polynesian navigation 4

1.2 Correcting negative human impacts: Ascension’s spring 5

1.3 Ignoring environmental collateral damage: British forests 7

1.4 What type of rationale underlies human decisions? Models of man and rationality 9

1.5 The double environment: Ossianic dreams 11

2.1 Origins of a sustainable relationship with the environment: mining and brewing 17

2.2 The literacy of environmental system vulnerability: Einstein’s honeybees 18

2.3 Conflicting incentives on the macro and the micro level: population growth 20

2.4 Does unintended ecological suicide cause societal collapse? Easter’s canoes and Greenland’s fish 21

2.5 Knowledge integration as a means of environmental literacy: from disciplines to cultures 23

2.6 An architecture of knowledge for environmental literacy: from case empathy to propositional logic 25

3.1 What is part of me and what is part of the environment? My pig heart valve 30

3.2 No human–environment complementarity: Maya constructions of the world 35

Part II History of mind of biological knowledge 43

4.1 The difficulty of discriminating between humans and animals in archaic thinking: totemism 49

4.2 At the crossroads between naturalist and magic impacts: ancient Egypt’s medical knowledge 56

4.3 Mayans’ physical and symbolic treatments of diseases: “me’winik” or gallbladder cancer? 57

4.4 How many types – and where do they come from? Semen and genders 65

4.5 Emerging geology meets biology: catastrophes, infinite time, and evolution 71

4.6 The dilemma of empiricism, religious dogma, and theory: Linné’s mule plants 76

4.7 Driving species to adaptation: Lamarckism 81

4.8 Frauds, sleights of hand or simplifications in embryonic similarities? Evo-devo and abortion 85

4.9 Too stupid to adapt: dodos and kakapos 88

4.10 Climate variability: Dansgaard–Oeschger events 89

4.11 Perceived environments: tick cybernetics 92

5.1 A continuum of sexes in plants and animals? American Holly and Hollywood 98

5.2 From basic via applied research and public experimentation: Pasteur’s Quadrant 102






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List of boxes

6.13 Correct perceptions but incorrect judgments: group power 183

6.14 Signs of environmental compliance: buttons 184

6.15 Resource dilemmas need social solutions: Mongolian grassland 185

7.1 Why don’t we have coherent preferences? Arrow’s cyclic triads 194

7.2 Not following expected value: the Allais paradox 195

7.3 Emotions and cognition: anxiety-reducing snails 199

7.4 Flashbulb memory, risk perception, and fatal crashes: the impacts of September 11 201

7.5 What drives cognitive performance? Beyond savantism 203

7.6 Do values affect perception: “le waldsterben” 208

7.7 Fuel efficiency in car purchase: Hummer’s symbolic motives 210

Part IV Contributions of sociology 213

8.1 The myth of permanent population growth: pestilence and Old World diseases 221

8.2 People, not experts, have brought the toxification of nature and people to the forefront: what role should experts take? 224

8.3 Resource scarcity drives societal and ecological decline: West Africa’s emptied sea 228

9.1 Environmental injustice: landfills, Chernobyl, and the north–south problem 237

9.2 The environment as an input–output system: New York’s Fresh Kills waste disposal 239

9.3 Humanization of the environment: the home alone fish 247

5.3 The central dogma of molecular biology: the protein as a sink? 105

5.4 Why should a mouse gene work in a fly? Eys and Seys 107

5.5 Eating intelligence: memory transfer? 111

5.6 The immune system: the unsung hero 118

5.7 Understanding fundamentals of ecosystems: the ten principles of New Ecology 124

5.8 Biodiversity and extinction: the rise and fall of species 127

5.9 Sociobiological and eco-ethological adaptation: Tibet fraternal polyandry 131

Part III Contributions of psychology 135

6.1 Do aesthetics follow a natural law? The golden section 140

6.2 The chemical and symbolic notion of odor: you stink 142

6.3 The wonder of crisp flowers: the probabilistic nystagmus 147

6.4 Anticipating environmental information: networking “Ferrari cones” 149

6.5 Behavior is a function of the person and the environment: field theory 151

6.6 Coherent patterns of environmental setting and behavior: is this a church, Mommy? 156

6.7 How do we order the world? Gestalts, prototypes, and misgestalts 159

6.8 Stages of environmental literacy: the invisible man 161

6.9 An intriguing complex concept: time 167

6.10 What means one million years? Nuclear waste 168

6.11 When and why does environmental noise harm? Trains and planes 174

6.12 Group decision schemes matter: the Bay of Pigs fiasco 182






List of boxes

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14.3 Dynamic patterns in coupled HES: collective irrigation management 354

14.4 Emerging systems: slime mold 362

14.5 The Prisoner’s Dilemma: strategies and the emergence of cooperation 365

14.6 Social dilemmas: contributing to a land reclamation system or not? 370

14.7 Interactive household and landscape agents: Vietnam deforestation 371

15.1 A transdisciplinary process needs methods: sustainable future of industry 383

15.2 From parsons to Napoleon: variants of mediation 387

15.3 Science, not only a matter of universities: building the Tower of Babel 396

15.4 Academic–industrial transformation of the world food production: Haber– Bosch 398

Part VIII A framework for investigating human–environment systems 405

16.1 The human animal is building environments: small huts and Las Vegas 409

16.2 Level hierarchies in biological systems: controlled genes? 417

16.3 An impact of technological and societal changes: cosmopolitical institutions? 422

16.4 Parallel societies: Sinti, Roma, and Amish people 423

16.5 Interfering interests between nations, banks, and individuals: green housing 428

16.6 The origins of feedback loops: Ktesibios’ water clock 435

16.7 Multiple feedback loops in complex systems: Forrester’s world model 438

16.8 Rebound effects in introducing ecoefficient mobility systems: Swissmetro 440

Part V Contributions of economics 255

10.1 Mercantilism’s collateral damage: changed landscapes 261

10.2 Energy in economics: the curse of coal 264

10.3 Incorporating transportation costs in rents: Von Thünen circles 270

10.4 Economics as a kind of chess game: Nash equilibria 275

10.5 Internalization of negative external effects: Pigovian taxes 277

10.6 Constructing new agents for improving environmental quality: Pareto optimality arguments 278

11.1 No more endless plains: the end of cowboy economics 282

11.2 Mineral reserves become larger if prices rise: Earth’s mineral resources economic cycle 287

11.3 Cost–benefit analysis: a Faustian bargain? 293

11.4 The second law of thermodynamics and economic processes: Ayres vs. Daly 295

11.5 Cost, not physical availability, matters: unlimited solar energy? 298

Part VI Contributions of industrial ecology 305

12.1 Cycling drivers for recycling: GDR’s SERO 311

13.1 A critical element of sustainable agriculture: phosphorus 322

13.2 Trading and auctioning pollution: acid rain 331

Part VII Beyond disciplines and sciences 339

14.1 Climate impacts of the agrarian society: pest impacts? 343

14.2 Societal complexity, unsustainable resources flows, and indebtedness: the western Roman Empire 345






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List of boxes

18.1 Different views on biomass energy potential: biofuel 488

18.2 The technological view on bioethanol production: T Fords 489

18.3 A neutral CO2 balance means not

renewable: bioethanol boomerangs 492

18.4 Endocannibalism and inbreeding: kuru, BSE, and vCJD 497

Part IX Perspectives for environmental literacy 523

20.1 The HES framework in brief: a short manual 530

16.9 Emerging environmental awareness: nuclear eyewatch 441

16.10 Secondary feedback loop management in agriculture: crop-field rotation 442

16.11 Loops in technical systems: Three Mile Island 447

16.12 Climate changes in an uncertain world: sea level rise 449

16.13 Understanding the environmental impacts of disasters: the Dust Bowl phenomenon 450






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Accidents can happen, often when one least expects them. On April 14, 2006, Dana, an escaped Doberman pinscher, knocked me off my bicycle when I was training for the forthcoming racing season. When viewing my fight to recover from brain injury, it was René Schwarzenbach, the Dean of the Department of Environmental Sciences, ETH, who seized the chance. Noticing that I was not yet prepared to struggle through the daily research, teaching and transdisciplinary pro-ject obligations of my institute, he suggested: “Now you have more time than before. Stop writing papers and write a comprehensive book on what you have elabor-ated in the last two decades.” I took the challenge. Thus, one could say that this book is a product of an accident.

“You,” in this place, is definitely not only “I, myself.” As it is with staged races in cycling, which I experi-enced as a late competitive (hobby) racing cyclist, you can only finish if you have an excellent team. A staged race asks you to cope with a multitude of exigencies in a wide range of profiles, including flat and mountain stages. Thus you must have a strong team of specialists and helpers for all situations, especially if the race has 20 stages. Sometimes, you even need people to push you uphill!

However, preparing for a race is as important as running it. The 20 chapters that this book offers for the reader are the result of 29 “reader circle” exercises. I consider these to be a kind of pre-race exercise, in which the territory for each of the 20 chapters, or “stages,” of the book was thoroughly scouted.

The very idea of writing this book emerged from the insight that environmental and sustainability sciences needed a “theory and resource book” that supports coupled human–environment and transdis-ciplinary research. Just before the bicycle accident, a blueprint of this book took shape through my work with Claudia R. Binder, Daniel J. Lang, and Michael Stauffacher and other former senior researchers from my team.

Let us go back to the cycle race metaphor. Race teams need coaches, proper training and workout part-ners, and a dedicated technical staff.

I consider the reviewers of different track sections to be my coaches and the members of the “reader circle” to be my training partners.

In the biology part, which tendered some previ-ously unknown terrain and steep heliclines, I needed some more coaches. Here Peter Edwards, Theo Koller, Jukka Jokkela, Bo Samuelson, Beda Stadler, and Josef Zeyer drilled me. Patricia Holm, Walter Schaffner, and Gottfried Schatz helped me in difficult parts of the route. In psychology, Michael Siegrist and Paul Vlek, and in sociology, Andreas Diekmann, Matthias Gross, Gerhard Lenski, and Klaus Seeland were my coaches. Economics again was a demanding section, and I want to thank Catharina Bening, Stefanie Engel, Bernard Lehmann, Markus Ohndorf, and John Tilton. In the new terrains of industrial ecology, Volker Hoffmann and Reid Lifset, and in the modeling section, Andreas Ernst and Wander Jager took the coaching job. My special thanks go for Tim McDaniels, Cliff Davidson, and Anton J. M. Schoot Uiterkamp, and particularly Charles Vlek, who meticulously challenged me in most of the stages.

The team mates in the “reader circle” were Fridolin Brand, Thomas Flüeler, Peter de Haan, Justus Gallati, Bastien Girod, Fadri Gottschalk, Berit Junker, Thomas Köllner, Daniel Lang, Quang Bao Le, Marco Morosini, Siegmar Otto, Roman Seidl, Timo Smieszek, and Michael Stauffacher, who ran many or all legs of the race with me. As one can see, the last stages of writing the books’ contents, involved breaking new ground, and I was grateful to find among these team mates sev-eral experienced external coaches and a team of inspir-ing “co-racers.”

I was also fortunate that several PhD and masters students dedicated some of their time and focus to helping me find the straightest and surest track for my message. Here, this team of “junior cyclists” includes

Acknowledgments






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Acknowledgments

Laura de Baan, Mónica Berger González, Yann Blumer, Julia Brändle, Matthias Dhum, Rainer Gabriel, Martin Hitziger, Grégoire Meylan, Corinne Moser, Matthias Näf, Anja Peters, Alexander Scheidegger, Andy Spörri, Anna Stamp, Saša Parađ, Evelina Trutnevyte, Andrea Ulrich, Timo von Wirth, Stefan Zemp, and, in particu-lar, Pius Krütli, who provided most significant support in the transdisciplinarity stage.

The technical staff included mechanics, masseurs, and a procurement team. Here Sandro Bösch and Rebecca Cors took on special roles. Sandro meticu-lously tracked mountains of book material, which were permanently upgraded to a whole text, and designed the large numbers of figures. Rebecca was the kneader of the text. She worked through all parts of the book as a sparring partner, checking for cohesion and coher-ence. She cooperated with Stefanie Keller, Erin Day, and Devon Wemyss, who not only checked the English but helped to improve the understandability of this multidiscipline book.

As racers need many bottles of liquid to drink each day, a writer of a book needs many resource books each week. Here my thanks go to Ursula Müller and her team, who acquired many, sometimes difficult to find, books, and to Robert Bügl, Silvia Cavelti, Marco Huber, and Andrea Ziegler, who ensured that all the bottles put into the reference list were properly pre-pared. Cyclists of today need sophisticated electronic equipment for keeping records and communicating with other team mates, before and during the race. We were fortunate to have team mate Andarge Aragai, who provided just the right software and hardware to keep our work going around the clock.

Special thanks go to my personal assistant Maria Rey. One of her main tasks before the bicycle accident

was to coordinate my ambitious cycling training schedule with my full research and teaching agenda. While this book introduced new and unexpected chal-lenges here, she managed it with an agility and reliabil-ity that makes her an invaluable part of the team, and we learned that managing a multistage book writer is even more difficult than managing the scheduling of an ambitious hobby cyclist.

Dominic Lewis, from Cambridge University Press, may be seen as a “tour-de-book-chef.” The team was surprised as to how easy it was to communicate with him and how patiently and clearly he responded to special requests. It was most impressive to see how Dominic’s technical (editorial) staff – Sarah Beanland, Abigail Jones, and Megan Waddington – allowed for an absolutely frictionless and satisfactory concourse.

Naturally, of utmost importance if you undertake such a big project, is your home base. Writing such a book changes one’s life and entails an intense two-shift work week, which, in this case, endured over sev-eral years. Here my wife Maya – to whom this book is dedicated – has been the ultimate backup. She has been a counterpart in many vivid discussions about the book’s essential messages, and a wonderful helper in the long course of recovering after the bicycle accident.

What began as an opportunity soon developed into an obligation. Those who share the experience with me and know what it means to write a challenging book or to participate in a staged race would most certainly agree that these trials often become an obsession.

While I have many to thank for contributing to the writing of the book who are not mentioned above, the responsibility for its content, however, remains my own.






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“Roland Scholz has written a visionary book that for the first time comprehensively approaches modern sustainability challenges by recognizing the critical role of integrated human, natural, and built domains in the complex systems that characterize the Anthropocene. It is an important step forward in our ability to under-stand, and respond ethically and rationally to the demands of environment, technology, and society in a context of complexity that is increasingly beyond trad-itional disciplinary and policy approaches for linking theory and practice.”Braden Allenby, Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics and Professor of Law, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, Arizona State University, USA

“Society has yet to make the ‘great transition’ toward sustainability. We still increasingly appropriate the world’s non-renewable resources, fail to safeguard eco-system services on which civilization depends, and elect irresponsible government leaders. What is the solu-tion? In this brilliant work, Roland Scholz addresses these issues head-on in a remarkably open and honest exploration of human-environment systems. Scholz argues that we need new knowledge and new science to tackle these challenges: the ‘environment’ must be redefined as a co-evolving system coupled to human systems. Furthermore, he demonstrates that interdis-ciplinary research is not enough – we need transdisci-plinary research to integrate our scientific knowledge in a way that results in sustainable decision making. The book is critically important in providing a roadmap to begin the transition to a sustainable world; the reader experiences an unforgettable journey toward eco-logical literacy, achieving a sufficient understanding of human-environment interactions to manage the earth’s biogeochemical cycling in a sustainable way. With over 7 billion people on the planet, it is a journey we have no choice but to take. This is a must-read for anyone who relies on planetary resources and ecosystem services.”

Cliff Davidson, Thomas C. and Colleen L. Wilmot Professor of Engineering and Director of the Center for Sustainable Engineering, Center for Energy and Environmental Systems and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Syracuse University, USA

“Developing adequate solutions for human-environ-mental problems requires both substantive expertise and a deeply interdisciplinary perspective. Anyone who doubts this assertion need spend but a few min-utes reading almost any part of Roland W. Scholz’ monumental work on Environmental Literacy to have their doubts erased. In addition to thoughtful theoret-ical discussion they will find case after case of detailed worked-out examples that illustrate both the complex-ity, and the exciting intellectual challenges, that face students and professionals working to create a better and more sustainable world.”M. Granger Morgan, Lord Chair Professor in Engineering; Professor and Department Head, Engineering and Public Policy; Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering and Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University, USA

“Half a century ago Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring. It marked not only the beginning of the modern environmental movement but it also laid the foundation for the strongly interdisciplinary field of environmental sciences. The field emerged from a range of contributing natural and social sciences dis-ciplines. Over the years it was shaped and codified in innumerable papers and books. Following the emer-gence of the concept of sustainable development it also further developed into specific disciplines like sustainability science. Still one of the grand challenges of any field of science remained. No one had yet suc-ceeded in creating an overarching synthesis of the field. That is until now. In his monumental magnum opus Environmental Literacy Roland Scholz not only presents

International praise for Environmental Literacy in Science and Society






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International praise

human populations. Roland Scholz strongly pleads for broad, multi- and interdisciplinary thinking about human–environment interactions. In the author’s view, human and environmental systems cannot be separated. Rather, their interaction should be the cen-tral topic of our visions, methodologies and strategies. For natural scientists and technologists this requires a basic familiarity with how human individuals and societies function. For behavioral and social scien-tists it demands a solid appreciation of specific envir-onmental problem domains. By consequence, actual policy-making should rest upon integrative team-work. Scholz’s book provides for an inspiring boost to our own environmental literacy, what it is and how it historically developed. It’s a fruitful basis for exten-sive student courses. And it may well serve as a refer-ence book for scientists, policy-makers and other key actors who want to improve and reflect on sustainable transitions.”Charles Vlek, Professor of Environmental Psychology and Decision Research, Department of Behavioural and Social Sciences. University of Groningen, The Netherlands

an outstanding in-depth analysis and splendid review of the field but he goes far beyond it. He also presents a strategic framework to address the many challenges we 21st-century humans are facing in our interactions with the environment. Moreover he convincingly shows the preconditions for using a framework for effective and feasible strategic decision making and action. It requires a good integrated knowledge of dis-ciplines like biology, psychology, sociology, economics and industrial ecology as well as a genuine understand-ing of the transdisciplinary processes that characterize human–environment systems. In conclusion, Scholz’s book is both a sparkling sourcebook and an advanced textbook for sustainability science. It is also the first successful attempt to produce a convincing theory of coupled human-environment systems. And finally, it presents a strategic framework for environmental deci-sion making and action based on that theory.”Ton Schoot Uiterkamp, Professor of Envir onmental Sciences, Center for Energy and Envir onmental Studies, University of Groningen, The Netherlands

“Collective environmental and social problems con-stitute the dark side of increasing wealth for growing






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Key questions

This book addresses three major questions:

Q1 Who invented the (concept of ) environment, why, when and in what manner?

Q2 What rationales do we find in different human systems and environmental systems, and how do they interact?

Q3 Do we need a “disciplined (i.e. discipline-grounded) interdisciplinarity” in transdisciplinary (i.e. theory–practice-based) processes to cope successfully with the challenging environmental problems of the twenty-first century?

Preamble

FiguresThere are a few figures that represent essentials of this book and which are referred to throughout the text. These figures are marked with an asterisk and can be found separately on the foldout page at the end of the book.






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from the social-epistemic environment, which is his-torically and culturally shaped?When, why, and in what context are human systems concerned about the state, dynamics, potential, and negative impacts of environmental states and resources?What drives human systems (such as individuals, groups, companies, and societies) to exploit, pro-tect, or sustainably cope with the environment?How can conflicts and dilemmas between individ-ual and societal environmental behavior (i.e. inter-ferences between the micro and the macro levels of human systems) be explained?What constitutes sound environmental literacy, sustainability learning, and sustainable behavior?

Preparing for map readingPart I of this book consists of three chapters that illu-minate why environmental literacy is of interest and what it is. We define different types of human and environmental systems and explain how these systems relate and interact. We further introduce some tools (i.e. epistemological assumptions) that are helpful to better understand what the reader will encounter in the different stages of the journey.

From the origins to the future of environmental literacyTo read our answers to the questions above, the reader can continue in Parts II–VI on a journey from the his-tory to the future of environmental literacy in science and society. We introduce epistemological assump-tions as prerequisites for coping better with the chal-lenges of examining environmental literacy.

After this initial descent into the origins of envir-onmental literacy, we wander through a handful of sci-entific disciplines. These stages of our journey will not always be the most convenient ones. Depending on the

Overview: roadmap to environmental literacy

Natural and social environments are constantly adapting to changing demands from human systems. This particularly holds true as we see increasing impacts on the natural environment and resources from human systems. A key question is whether societies and their subunits have sufficient know-ledge about the structure, dynamics, limits, and potential of human–environmental systems to func-tion and evolve in a sustainable manner. And what role can science take to help in this venture? We deal with these fundamental problems under the head-ing of environmental literacy. “Environmental liter-acy” means the capacity to perceive, appropriately interpret, and value the specific state, dynamics, and potential of the environmental system, as well as to take appropriate action to maintain, restore, or improve these states. This book elaborates what knowledge and capabilities should be available in science and society to develop suitable strategies for coping with critical interactions of human systems with environmental systems. This should ultim-ately help to avoid the unintended and unpleasant environmental rebound effects of human action, and allow us to cope with conflicting interests which may hamper sustainable transitions.

Given these societal and scientific challenges, this book is a source book for those interested in the following questions related to environmental literacy:

Why and when was the concept of the environment developed?Do we have to redefine the environment when facing that most processes in the material–bio-physical layer of the Earth are affected by human action?How do various scientific disciplines deal with the interrelationship between human systems and the environment?How can we distinguish the material–biophysical environment, which includes the built environment,







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themselves to reduce environmental impacts result-ing from production, business, and services. Here we encounter some engineering methods that allow the assessment of manmade environmental impacts. But we also look at some special sites, such as eco- industry parks, from which we can learn to better cope with material flow. What is more, we see how indus-trial ecology offers broad, long-term perspectives and strategies for the future of environmental literacy. This offers a global view that highlights the fundamental changes that the landscape of human–environment interaction has undergone in the past and also the new structures and components that this landscape might exhibit in the future.

Our journey could have taken another route with different stops. Besides biology, we could also have looked, for instance, at geology, and, instead of indus-trial ecology, at civil and environmental engineer-ing. Naturally, other disciplines, such as geography or anthropology, could deserve their own chapter. However, we think that the selected disciplines allow the demonstration of why and when various types of contributions to environmental literacy emerged in academic disciplines.

The reader might ask why we are not visiting some new, exotic and more exciting domains, such as envir-onmental or sustainability sciences. These two dis-ciplines are the current home base of the author, and scientists from these disciplines are the most likely to use our roadmap to promote environmental literacy. As key question 3 of the Preamble indicates, we explore each discipline both for its unique knowledge and for the value it can bring to investigations that involve more than one discipline. We call this perspective, common to environmental and sustainability sciences work, “disciplined interdisciplinarity.”

Provisions for traveling beyond the boundaries of disciplines and sciencesThe first part of the journey highlights how many issues from different disciplines are indispensable to culti-vate environmental literacy. But knowledge from lone disciplines only takes us partway toward answers to today’s environmental problems. In Part VII, this book introduces three new perspectives that are required to take us further.

The first is that today’s environmental problems cannot be managed without incorporating analysis of human systems that affect many processes on all levels,

disciplinary background of the reader, he or she will sometimes have to row upstream. We start with biol-ogy, where we learn about the origins of human know-ledge about organismic environments and about how societies can successfully conserve and develop this knowledge. We also explore those biological principles that are of special interest for mastering sustainable development. We make an excursion to the frontline of research on microstructures, such as the cell, and the immune system. Here we can discover how import-ant the environment is for these systems and how they process environmental information. A compara-tive view of large-scale biological systems reveals that they are strongly affected by human systems and miss the essential self-regulating, homeostatic properties of microstructures.

We then look to psychology to gain an under-standing of the biophysical, social, and cognitive foundations of human perception, decisions, and behavior. The sections on psychology also provide insight into the drivers of individuals and small groups when interacting with the material and social environment.

In the next stage, sociology, we focus on theories that consider the natural environment and technol-ogy as significant factors of societal development. Just as with psychology, we meet approaches that provide insights into the drivers of societies in human–envi-ronment interaction and that explain why and when environmental issues raise concern. However, we will learn that we can find a material–biophysical layer in many but not all sociological approaches. In some they are hidden, in some they do not exist.

The last stage in looking at social sciences is eco-nomics. Following our own curiosity we explore the roles that material, biophysical, land and other resources play from the view of classical and neoclas-sical economics, and the types of goods that are dealt with in this discipline. In new terrains of economics, we will see that economists make highly controversial assumptions about how one should deal with natural resources and the material–biophysical environment. Some seem to be reckless, whereas others seem overly troubled about their future markets and companies. We also learn that many ideas from other sciences have invaded the new subfields of economics that deal with the environment.

Next, we look at industrial ecology, a small but steadily growing discipline investigating how com-panies, industrial branches, and trade can reinvent






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subunits and superordinate systems. The latter can be communities or societies.

An important point of the guidebook is that we have to conceive HES as coupled, inextricably intertwined, systems. However, the guidebook also explains that we must first have a thorough look at the environment, in particular at the material–biophysical environment if we want to understand what a specific HES looks like, how it evolved and what future development might take place. The HES are explained by a Postulate that describes different types of feedback loops that may be at work in HES.

We will see that the HES Postulates draw on what we have learned when looking at the scientific dis-ciplines in the first part of the journey. Our knowl-edge of social sciences, for example, will help us to understand the interests and values that underlie the rationale of human systems when interacting with the environment.

Having become familiar with the individual Postulates, we know how the Postulates relate to each other and how they can work together during an inves-tigation of an environmental issue. We put forth this HES framework as a template for transdisciplinary collaboration.

Four cases for demonstrating HES literacyEquipped with the HES framework, we are prepared to take a closer look at the challenges and threats of human–environment interactions. In Part VIII, we make four excursions, each of them demonstrating the improved environmental literacy gained by working with the HES Postulates.

Trip 1 looks at epidemic and pandemic threats. Using the HES Postulates we learn that the outbreak of pandemics is shaped by more than the mechanisms of viruses and bacteria. The type and severity of pandemics, and the unexpected rebound effects that may result from various pandemic management approaches, ask for an examination of the behavioral, contact, and mobility matrices of human systems. A look at micro and macro structures and their interactions is needed here.

Trip 2 involves an excursion to Switzerland. We scrutinize how transdisciplinary processes involv-ing scientists and key agents, as well as people from the region, are helping government and industry to better adapt to market and environmental con-straints. We learn that transdisciplinary processes are

from molecular up to global biogeochemical processes of the material–biophysical environment. This asks for redefinition of the environment and the destination of the journey. We will discuss a new goal for the second stage of the journey, which includes an anthropocenic redefinition of the environment.

Second, environmental literacy requires an inte-grated view of knowledge about the environment and human–environment interactions. This requires new techniques of making and processing pictures. We will see how “integrated modeling” becomes a vital means of extending environmental literacy and allows a deeper understanding of what we have seen. This will facilitate in taking an interdisciplinary view.

Third, we will notice that, in the first stages, dis-ciplinary scientists face limitations in acquiring all the information about the environment. Thus, we, along with these scientists, have to leave our travel route and step into real-world cases to gain valuable additional information from directly talking, interacting, col-laborating with, and getting first-hand information from the people and human actors who are directly experiencing, benefiting from, and interacting with the environment. This provides a completely new per-spective, which we call transdisciplinarity. We will see that the people incorporated in transdisciplinary proc-esses benefit from and appreciate these mutual learn-ing processes.

Extending environmental literacy: the human–environment systems Postulates and the HES frameworkAfter this intermediate stop and reorientation, we explore new territory and the character of the jour-ney changes. It will slightly resemble an excursion into more complex domains. Instead of the environ-ment, human–environment interactions become the object and objective of the journey. It becomes diffi-cult to keep track of our place, to figure out where to go first, and to know what we need to move toward these new destinations. Thus we offer Part VIII as a guide-book that outlines seven Postulates, or assumptions, for investigating human–environment systems (HES). This travel guide consists of seven Postulates, the HES Postulates. The HES Postulates depict the constituents of the HES world, how HES behave, how they can be classified, and of what they are and are not aware. We also examine the drivers of human systems and the conflicts that may exist between individual agents or







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may also help to understand the structure, main sub-ject matters and the storyline of this sourcebook.

Who should use this book?The overview suggests that this book might be of interest to those who are curious about how the environment interacts with human systems and how human systems, from the individual through groups, organizations, companies, communities and society to the whole human species, can become capable of adequately adjusting and adapting to the continuously changing and increasingly anthropocenically shaped environment.

These primary readers are researchers from the emer-ging fields of environmental and sustainability sciences who are interested in human-environment interactions or systems. Clearly, it is also relevant to anthropologists, human ecologists, geographers, and environmental planners, or people working in the hyphenized fields of sciences, such as environmental–psychology, -sociology, or -economics. Readers will also no doubt include people from the natural sciences, including ecology and those working with the climate and atmosphere. The book will also be of interest to those working in environmental chemistry and those in different branches of engineering sciences, such as industrial ecology, may learn from the comprehensive, integrative, coupled system perspective which looks at the constraints, feedback loops, and regu-latory mechanisms of HES.

Environmental literacy is not only seen from an academic learning perspective but is rather focused here on what we call societal didactics. Thus, it should contribute to societal learning about how to cope with environmental challenges and provide access to the rationale of human–environment interactions. Further, this vision and the practice of transdis-ciplinarity were motivators for writing the book. However, as expressed in the Preamble, establishing a thorough, discipline-grounded interdisciplinary knowledge about HES, which favors transdiscipli-nary processes that deal with the current and future environmental challenges, is the very vision and mission of this book.

useful to identify robust orientations to find sustain-able solutions.

Trip 3 looks at how HES manage basic supply serv-ices. The jaunt takes us to Sweden, where we encoun-ter unexpected limits to biofuel resources. Here we see how proper identification of secondary feedback loops is a key feature of sustainability learning.

Lastly, trip 4 provides profound insights into the difficulties that human systems and societies face when making trade-offs and protecting natural resources in the anthropocenically formed environment. The case we look at is the dilemma of establishing a recycling management system for some minerals (i.e. phos-phorus) when simultaneously aspiring to eliminate and dispose of material matter (e.g. carcass meal and bones), which includes high concentrations of the said mineral but also dangerous pathogens.

Upon our return from these trips, we check whether the guidebook and the HES framework have served as an effective compass for environmental literacy as we have defined it above. To do this we compare the HES framework with alternative travel guides.

The vision on future environmental literacyThe journey closes in Part IX by identifying key com-ponents that may promote environmental literacy (“Sustain–abilities”, see Chapter 20.4.1). These are the new fields of environmental and sustainability sciences that cope with inextricably coupled HES. The HES framework, based on disciplined interdisciplinarity, allows a thorough investigation and understanding of complex environmental problems. Transdisciplinarity includes processes which use knowledge from theory and practice to generate socially robust solutions for sustainable development.

How to access the chapter overviewsAfter the novelist-like overview, the reader can best gain access to the content of the book by reading the sections “What to find in this part” on the front pages of all nine parts and of the 20 chapters. A closer look at the roadmap and its extended legend on pages xxii–xxiii






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Legend of the roadmap

The concept map shows how the ideas in this book relate. The figures in the concept map come from informational boxes that are sprinkled throughout

the book and tell stories from around the world, both historic and contemporary, that illustrate our message.

Our starting point is the question, “Who invent-ed the environment?” Chapter 1 describes how humans’ awareness of their impacts on the envir-

onment developed and when and why the concept of the environment was invented. Chapter 2 provides a first def-inition of environmental literacy and introduces the value that transdisciplinarity can bring to how humans address environmental issues. Chapter 3 introduces the concept of environment based on an organismic, cell-based defin-ition of the human individual and the complementarity of material–biophysical and social-epistemic levels of human and environmental systems. Here we describe the basic ontological and epistemological assumptions that under-lie our world view and thesis.

To discuss the issue, “What disciplines can and can’t tell us,” we review contributions to environ-mental literacy from five academic disciplines –

biology, sociology, psychology, economics, and industrial ecology – in Parts II through VI. Taking two chapters to cov-er each discipline, we review the history of mind for each, examining which aspects of human–environment interac-tions were of interest during different time periods. We also review key theories from each discipline and prospective future perspectives that can inform environmental literacy.

In Part VII, Chapters 14 and 15 describe the piv-otal, integrating function of “managing inter-faces to become literate.” We examine how

knowledge integration and transdisciplinarity help us to decrease the complexity of environmental issues, which warrant an “Anthropocenic redefinition of the environ-ment in a coupled human–environment setting.”

We put forth seven Postulates, P1 to P7, to organize the complexity of today’s environmen-tal issues and related research.

The HES framework is a methodological schema for employing the Postulates in an integrated manner when investigating environmental issues.

To give readers a feeling for the HES framework in action, Chapter 18 presents four case studies.

Chapter 19 compares the HES framework with alternative approaches and shows what added value it can provide.

The last chapter presents “Perspectives for future research in human–environment sys-tems,” and links the coupled systems and the

transdisciplinary perspective (see bottom left of the concept map and key question 3).






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Legend of the roadmap






environmental literacy in science and...

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