Sarah Cornell's contribution to the Desirable Tomorrows conference (https://desirabletomorrows.org), May 2021

1. Sarah Cornell
@sarahlizcornell
Resilient & Desirable
Tomorrows
Reflections on global change science
in a globalized society
Image shown in presentation removed prior to sharing:
Painting of Vikarn, Sweden by Stephen M. Redpath, 2020

2. • Risk, reality, resilience
Understanding change – past, present, future
• The crisis of global change
Science’s messages for people and planet
• Postneotransdisciplinarity
The dynamic place of science in today’s society
Today’s
themes

3. Risk,
Reality,
Resilience
Image: Aula Magna (Byggnad 060)
© 2012 Agneta Hollström / Stockholm University

4. Resilience
The capacity of a system to cope with change
and continue to develop
exploitation
consolidation
release
reorganization
www.resalliance.org/adaptive-cycle
https://whatisresilience.org
Margulis & Sagan 1995 What is life?
Risk,
reality,
resilience

5. Risk,
reality,
resilience
Future risks?
– insights from the past
Steffen et al 2018 Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810141115
• Understanding trajectories of the human world
requires analysis of long-term Earth system dynamics
• Feedbacks between life and climate influence
the stability and variability of the Earth system
• In Earth’s past, fast changes were rare catastrophic
events – meteor crashes, mega-eruptions etc
• These ‘natural experiments’ provide insights about
the scales and rates of change and of recovery

6. History of Earth’s temperature
Figure adapted from data compilation by G. Fergus 2007/2014, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png
Holocene
GSF 2014
HOT
COLD Holocene
Human societies
rely on stability
and predictability
Glacial cycles
Risk,
reality,
resilience
Earth system science seeks to understand,
quantify and predict biophysical changes

7. History of Earth’s temperature
Figure adapted from data compilation by G. Fergus 2007/2014, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png
Holocene
GSF 2014
HOT
COLD Holocene
Human societies
rely on stability
and predictability
Glacial cycles
Biogeochemical cycles
Physical dynamics of
ocean, atmosphere,
land and ice
Earth’s tilt (obliquity)
Earth’s age (volcanicity, tectonics)
Orbital cycles (precession, eccentricity)
Risk,
reality,
resilience
Earth system science seeks to understand,
quantify and predict biophysical changes
Macroecological
functioning
biodiversity

8. History of Earth’s temperature
figure adapted from data compilation by G. Fergus 2007/2014, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png
Biogeochemical cycles
Physical dynamics of
ocean, atmosphere,
land and ice
Earth’s tilt (obliquity)
Earth’s age (volcanicity, tectonics)
Orbital cycles (precession, eccentricity)
Risk,
reality,
resilience
Macroecological
functioning
biodiversity
Earth system science shows how human
activities are altering the Holocene trajectory
Holocene
GSF 2014
HOT
COLD
2100
2050
Paris Agreement
The Anthropocene
climate is uncertain
CN Waters et al 2016 The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene.
Science 351(6269): aad2622, doi:10.1126/science.aad2622

9. Today’s reality?
– interconnected, polarized
and under pressure
• Social activities such as trade and finance
transform spatial patterns and
systemic connections of the
‘global production ecosystem’
Risk,
reality,
resilience
Nyström et al 2019.Anatomy and resilience of the global production
ecosystem. Nature 575 98-108 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1712-3

10. • Social activities such as trade and finance
transform spatial patterns and systemic connections
• 2020-2021 has exposed and increased inequalities,
and intensified political divides
Risk,
reality,
resilience
Berkhout et al 2021 The Inequality Virus. Oxfam Briefing Paper Jan 2021
DOI: 10.21201/2021.6409
Oxfam’s 2020 survey of economists found that the majority think that
the coronavirus will increase inequalities in their country
– and that their government has no plan to mitigate these increases
INCOME WEALTH
RACIAL
GENDER
Today’s reality?
– interconnected, polarized
and under pressure

11. Risk,
reality,
resilience
• Evidence keeps mounting of
severe impacts already now*
• Climate change
• Biodiversity loss
• Resource stress
• Pollution
• Social activities such as trade and finance
transform spatial patterns and systemic connections
• 2020-2021 has exposed and increased inequalities,
and intensified political divides
Today’s reality?
– interconnected, polarized
and under pressure
*See https://reliefweb.int/disasters

12. Resilient tomorrows?
Risk,
reality,
resilience
Connectivity, diversity and functional redundancy
– properties that shape resilience

13. Resilient tomorrows?
Risk,
reality,
resilience
Connectivity, diversity and functional redundancy
– properties that shape resilience
• Knowledge helps retrace social-ecological connections
• Engagement across societies’ many knowledges and
creativities helps find options for informed action
• Widened dialogues help to provide capacity to
experiment – and fail safely – as crisis looms
Robin Wall Kimmerer 2013 Braiding Sweetgrass
Bernardine Evaristo 2019 Girl, Woman, Other

14. The crisis of
global change

15. The crisis of
global change We call for action and document the
rising pressures and declining resilience,
year after year, discipline by discipline

16. The crisis of
global change
We document the
implementation failures
and the high costs
and irrationality
of inaction
(at length)

17. The crisis of
global change
The further Earth moves beyond the boundaries,
the higher the risks of large scale, irreversible change
The processes are:
• Climate change and ocean acidification
(mainly due to CO2 emissions)
• Biodiversity loss
• Perturbed biogeochemical cycling
(release of N and P)
• Land use and land cover change
• Freshwater abstraction
• Systemic chemical pollution
• Altered atmospheric physics and chemistry
(aerosol loading, stratospheric ozone depletion)
We synthesize and simplify
complex messages to inform action
The planetary boundaries framework
highlights nine human-altered
Earth system processes
Steffen et al 2015 Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet.
Science 347, 1259855 DOI: 10.1126/science.1259855

18. The crisis of
global change
Paglia 2016, Transformation, Temporality and Telecoupling in a Time of Environmental Crisis, KTH Stockholm, TRITA-HOT 2071
Koselleck and Richter 2006, Crisis. J Hist Ideas 67 (2):343-356
Why the inaction?
Is global environmental change
not a ‘proper’ crisis?
Crisis Lysis
Acute change created
by specific circumstances
Chronic disintegration

19. Postneotransdisciplinarity
Challenges
for the science
for tomorrow
Universities, as privileged loci of research, debate, and
intellectual cooperation, should be prepared to cope
with these challenges and uncertainties

20. Diagnosis:
• Disciplinary rigidity
• Perceptions of interdisciplinary quality
• Conflicted views on role of scholars in policy advocacy
“For a major institution such as a modern university
to ignore global change problems simply because they do not
conform to the university's historical organizational structure
is intellectually derelict and socially irresponsible…”
J
anuary 1992
Stephen H. Schneider
Transdisciplinarity
Science
for tomorrow

21. Science
for tomorrow
Neotransdisciplinarity
Diagnosis:
• Increasing ‘complexification’
• Difficulties with ‘democratization’ and knowledge claims
• Conflicts in intentionalities and differing goals
 Not just the role but the nature of science is changing
International Journal of Social Science 168: 219-229 – 2001
Science for the twenty-first century:
from social contract to the scientific core
Gilberto C. Gallopín, Silvio Funtowicz, Martin O’Connor, and Jerry Ravetz
“The danger of analytical streams of research
is getting an exactly right answer for the wrong question.
The danger of integrative streams is having an
exactly right question but a useless answer.”
(paraphrasing Holling 1998).

22. Science
for tomorrow
Postneotransdisciplinarity
“Now that the natural and physical sciences
are finally convincing politicians that half a century
of research really does show that human activity
is the dominant influence on earth surface processes,
the human sciences have entered their
posthumanist moment and want to talk
about the agency of trees and wolves…”
Progress in Human Geography 31(6) (2007) pp. 837–846
Cultural ecology: the problematic human
and the terms of engagement
Lesley Head*
DOI: 10.1177/0309132507080625

23. Science
for tomorrow
Postneotransdisciplinarity
Predatory journals
Negotiated ‘science’
Post-truth and alternative facts
Misinformation and (mis)representation
Echo chambers, clickbait, information overload
Slippery science in policy:
Net zero emissions
No net loss of biodiversity
Self-determined ‘science-based’ targets

24. Rethinking today’s knowledge-action systems…
• Beyond just material  cognitive, experiential, emotional
• Beyond just ‘Western, educated, industrialized, rich and
democratic’ perspectives
• Beyond just ‘normal’ science-policy channels
Ives et al 2018 Reconnecting with nature for sustainability. Sustainability Science 13:1389–1397 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0542-9
Gallopin 2001 The Latin American World Model: three decades ago. Futures 33 77–88 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0016-3287(00)00055-0
Aguiar et al 2020 Co-designing global target-seeking scenarios. Global Environmental Change 65, 102198 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102198
Cornell et al 2013 Opening up knowledge systems for better responses to global change, Environ Science & Policy 28 60-70, doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2012.11.008
Science
for tomorrow
Postneotransdisciplinarity
New scientific
responsibilities

25. Engaging knowledge,
creativity and commitment
of science, politics,
business and citizens
Science for
desirable tomorrows:
reconnected,
diverse,
contingent
@sarahlizcornell, sarah.cornell@su.se