Sheila Jasanoff

Carlo C. Jaeger

Peter M Haas

Peter Cebon

Urs Dahinden

Huw C. Davies

Dieter Imboden

Focusing on the Alpine region to look at climate change's regional manifestations.Although climate change is a global problem, there is a growing recognition of the need to look at its regional manifestations and management. This book takes such a regional approach to the Alpine region. The result of the ongoing Swiss research program Climate and Environment in the Alpine Region (CLEAR), it incorporates the work of an independent network of approximately fifty researchers from a variety of disciplines.The Alpine region is the perfect focus for such a study because of the wealth of historical and contemporary data. The contributors avoid impractical "absolute" solutions to the problem of climate change. They explicitly recognize that climate policy involves not just environmental policy but also economic, agricultural, social, and urban policy. The science required for climate policy need not provide a single definitive answer to the problem of climate change. Rather, it can contribute a variety of insights, explanations, scenarios, and open questions to the public debate. The authors aim at a science for policy that helps to develop realistic options in an ongoing debate involving scientists as well as policymakers and ordinary citizens.Topics covered include past and current climate dynamics, scenarios for future climate development, the sensitivity of plant and soil ecosystems to climate change, scenarios for future ecosytem development, and creative policy responses to mobilize regional action for industrial innovation. The topics are addressed in the spirit of Integrated Assessment (IA), a method that combines scientific and social expertise to explore political and technical strategies for dealing with environmental problems such as climate change.

Regional Perspectives on Climate Change

Views from the Alps

J. David Tàbara

Julia Jaeger

This book provides the reader with a state-of-the-art view of research on sustainable development. Its emphasis lies on the transformative dimension of this research: sustainable development can only be realized through a far-reaching transformation of the situation humankind finds itself in at the beginning of the third millennium. The contributions are written by leading world experts in the conceptualisation and actual practice of sustainable development. The book provides a timely overview of ideas and methods as well as a variety of original learning examples on the most innovative approaches on sustainability science.

Volume 1: Transformative Science Approaches for Sustainability

European Research on Sustainable Development

Jill Jäger

Bernd Kasemir

Matthew T. Gardner

This book discusses how citizens can participate more effectively in sustainability science and environmental policy debates. It discusses designs for participatory procedures, and experiences of their application to issues of global change. While the focus is on citizen participation, the involvement of specific stakeholders - including water managers and venture capitalists - is also addressed. The book describes how focus group methods were combined with the interactive use of computer models into new forms of participation, tested with six hundred citizens. The results are discussed in relation to other important topics, including greenhouse gas and water management. By combining this with an examination of issues of interactive governance and developing country participation, the book provides state-of-the-art, practical insights for students, researchers and policy makers alike.

A Handbook

Public Participation in Sustainability Science

Ortwin Renn

Eugene A. Rosa

Thomas Webler

Risk as we now know it is a wholly new phenomenon, the by-product of our ever more complex and powerful technologies. In business, policy making, and in everyday life, it demands a new way of looking at technological and environmental uncertainty. In this definitive volume, four of the world's leading risk researchers present a fundamental critique of the prevailing approaches to understanding and managing risk - the 'rational actor paradigm'. They show how risk studies must incorporate the competing interests, values, and rationalities of those involved and find a balance of trust and acceptable risk. Their work points to a comprehensive and significant new theory of risk and uncertainty and of the decision making process they require. The implications for social, political, and environmental theory and practice are enormous. Winner of the 2000-2002 Outstanding Publication Award of the Section on Environment and Technology of the American Sociological Association

Risk, Uncertainty and Rational Action

Carlo C. Jaeger

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