Thomas Dietz

1
Symposium on Linking Environmental Research and
the Behavioral and Social Sciences 25 April
2007 Committee on Human Dimensions of Global
Change
Thomas Dietz Director, Environmental Science and
Policy Program Michigan State University environme
nt.msu.edu
"Everything has been said before, but since
nobody listens we have to keep going back and
beginning all over again." Andre Gide Of course
you were listening, but some things are worth
repeating.
2

• Major points
• We need both Type 1 (disciplinary) and Type 2
  (neodisciplinary) research. Different strategies
  are required for each.
• Type 1 research often isnt targeting the right
  topics and is about an order of magnitude too
  small.
• Type 2 research is critical bu has several
  limiting factors. The biggest may be data.

3
The MA cartoon of the system to be studied.
Source Carpenter et al. 2006
4
We are trying to occupy Pasteurs
Quadrant Assessments and NRC reports move
research toward use value. Disciplinary wind
is more problematic.
Consideration of Use? No
Yes
Disciplinary Wind
Stakeholder Gravity
Pasteur
Bohr
Yes
Quest for fundamental understanding?
Commons research
Assessments
No
Edison
After Donald Stokes. 1996. Pasteur's Quadrant
Basic Science and Technological Innovation.
Washington, D.C. The Brookings Institution Press.
5

• What are the core theoretical questions that
  would motivate social, behavioral and economic
  research on environmental topics that would
  results in improved understanding of
  environmental phenomena as well as contributions
  to the core social science fields?
• The assumptions are
• We dont have the right questions.
• If we had the right questions, the science would
  happen.

6

• We have already identified the questions!
  Repeatedly! They speak to fundamental science
  within and between the disciplines!

The identification of these questions hasnt
yielded nearly enough of the science we need.
What evidence is there that new questions will
change this? Theory is hard but it isnt costly.
Its the data, training and institutional change
that are both hard and costly.
7

• Its useful to distinguish two types of research
• 1. Environment as an example to which the
  discipline is applied
• (e.g. Sociology of the environment)
• 2. Research that looks at the links between
  coupled human and natural systems creating a new
  field (or fields)
• (e.g. human ecology)
• The disciplinary machinery could help a lot with
  problems that can be addressed with Type 1
  research.
• It is ill equipped to address many questions that
  are Type 2, and these are among the most
  pressing
• -Drivers of environmental change
• -Vulnerability and resilience
• -Links between human wellbeing and ecosystem
  services
• -Long term coevolution of coupled human and
  natural systems
• So promoting Type 1 and 2 require somewhat
  different strategies.

8
The disciplines are not well mobilized even for
Type 1 research.
An array of disciplines with the most engaged on
the left and the least engaged on the right.
Anthropology Economics
Political Science Psychology Sociology
Geography
Sociology, last 25 years (rough estimates) ASR
AJS have published 1800 papers, ltlt10 on
environment. One presidential address in the
1980s. So 0.5-5 of the core of sociology is
mobilized around these issues. Marginal increases
in attention by the core still wont get us to
where we need to go quickly enough.
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Most Type 1 research in the disciplines is not
driven by the grand challenges, the
assessments, and other priority setting
mechanisms. The internal structure of the
disciplines are ill-equipped to change thisthe
leadership does not engage with these
processes. However, the disciplines are
historically contingent constructs. Some things
dont change, most things do change when examined
across 2 academic generations. (What did your
major professors major professor work on?) So
change is a cohort process. Two problems
--Getting environment closer to the center of
the disciplines --Getting folks to work on the
important issues related to environment
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Moving from Pidgin to Creole

• For Type 2 research we need to sustain emergent
  disciplines (neodiscipines)
• Workers develop a trading language (pidgin)
  sufficient to get the work done
• Over time, this can evolve into a Creole, a
  full language building on the best of both
  parents

After Peter Galisons Image and Logic A Material
Culture of Mircophysics (1997)
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• Encouraging Type 2 research is especially urgent.
• The fundamental problems are not a lack of
  questions, but a lack of resources on which
  careers can be built. We need
• Sustained funding for neodisciplinary work
• NSF role is essential but mission agencies are
  needed too.

12

• Type 2 research, continued.
• Data that allows articulation between human and
  ecological systems
• I would rate this as the top priority.
• Success of Land Use/ Cover Change research
  substantially a result of good data readily
  accessible to good researchers. I think this is
  strong evidence of the effects of good data.
• Many wasted opportunities as a result of hubris
  or defending borders
• NEON Environment module in General Social
  Survey/ International Social Survey Program
• LTERs are doing better but still in early
  development.
• WATERS?
• Other modalities

13

• Type 2 research, continued.
• High prestige venues for scholarship.
• Lots of good journals but something to rival the
  top disciplinary journals is needed
• Science, Nature and PNAS of course, but
• We need the environmental social science
  equivalent of Ambio, EST, Frontiers in Ecology
  and Environment.

14

• Some local examples.
• STIRPAT research program
• (www.stirpat.org)
• -Conscious effort to speak across disciplines,
  engage with diverse communities.
• -Publications in American Sociological Review and
  Social Science Quarterly but also Ambio,
  Ecological Economics, Frontiers, Human Ecology
  Review and Journal of Industrial Ecology, PNAS.
• Simple starting point that makes sense to all
  disciplines then elaborated.
• Taking on questions/ hypotheses from multiple
  disciplines.
• Viewing the effort as a research program and not
  a just a set of papers.
• Commons research is another example at a larger
  scale.
• Public participation/ deliberation/ decision
  making may become one too.

15

• MSU strategy Working with and transforming the
  disciplines
• New faculty hires (infecting departments with
  new approaches)
• Job description set by interdisciplinary team to
  fill critical gaps
• ESPP pays for position for five years with no
  teaching load for ESPP
• Mortgage model Department assumes position
  funding after 5 years
• Search committee joint between ESPP and
  department
• Department is tenure home, ESPP advisory
• So far 2 faculty in risk, 1 in soil physics,
  4-6 searches underway in coupled human and
  natural systems/ modeling.
• First two hires have the Starr award, a UNEP GEO
  fellowship and a Robert Wood Johnson fellowship
  between them (in first two years)

16

• MSU strategy, continued
• Doctoral specialization
• Four course (minor) open to students on 40 Ph.D.
  programs
• Margaret Leinens T-shaped graduate student
  with discipline as the base and interdisciplinary
  program as the crossbar.
• Cohort effect central We use Gallisons
  linguistic metaphor.
• Its less what they learn than the intellectual
  connections they make to each other and to the
  evolution of the science globally

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Getting data for Type 2 research is very
difficult. Consider just units of analysis.
Ecology Social sciences
Any alignment above individual and below globe is
a graphic artifact.
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MSUs Geospatial Information Support Team

• Data Hub
• One site to find many layers of high quality data
  in ready to use form
• Finding GIS data on the web
• Web links with annotation
• MSU Data Viewer/ archive
• Michigan
• National
• World
• Posting Data
• A location for MSU researchers to publish GIS
  data
• Metadata creation
• Also training and support

19

• Major points
• We need both Type 1 (disciplinary) and Type 2
  (neodisciplinary) research
• Type 1 research often isnt targeting the right
  topics and is about an order of magnitude too
  small.
• Type 2 research is critical has several limiting
  factors but the biggest may be data.

20
Heeding Lepidus

• Noble friends,
• That which combined us was most great, and let
  not
• a leaner action rend us. Whats amiss,
• May it be gently heard. When we debate
• Our trivial differences loud, we do commit
• Murder in healing wounds. Then, noble partners,
• The rather for I earnestly beseech,
• Touch you the sourest points with sweetest
  terms,
• Nor curstness grow to the matter.
• Triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Antony and
  Cleopatra, Act II, Scene II

John Hopkins, James Hayes, RSC
But to be optimistic Well, the first days are
the hardest days, don't you worry anymore When
life looks like Easy Street there is danger at
your door R. Hunter and J. Garcia