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Complexity and climate change: An epistemological study of transdiciplinary complexity theories and their contribution to socio-ecological phenomena
Jennifer Lynn Wells
Paperback. ProQuest, UMI Dissertation Publishing 2011-09-09.
ISBN 9781243854810
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Förlagets beskrivning
My dissertation is divided into two parts. The first part summarizes and analyzes the rapidly growing literature on complexity theories throughout the disciplines. This includes the study of complex systems, nonlinearity, networks, hierarchy, feedback, emergence and self-organization in many kinds of systems -- material, social and ecological. I synthesize and analyze a vast literature, creating a typology of the dozens of critical aspects and implications of complex systems. Then I create a framework that encompasses all of these aspects and implications, the broadest possible interpretation of complexity theories, which I call the Generalized Complexity Framework (GCF). Specifically, the GCF contains six groups of characteristics of complex systems. The first three groups represent the transdisciplinary ontological and epistemological aspects of complex systems. The second three groups represent the fundamental aspects of complex systems in the realms of the natural sphere, the social sphere, and the entire or transdisciplinary sphere. Throughout Part One I explore both failures and successes of the applications of complexity theories throughout the disciplines, and how these common fundamental aspects of complex systems manifest myriad implications for science, institutions and policymaking. The second part of the dissertation analyzes the ways in which the complexity field is and is not useful in addressing the science of climate change. First, I conduct an in-depth study of two major global ecological assessment reports, Climate Change 2007 (the International Panel on Climate Change, IPCC) and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005), analyzing how complexity has and has not been taken up and deployed in study and policy for climate change. Through this example I am able to articulate the significance of feedbacks, thresholds, tipping points, uncertainty and unknowability to climate change. I highlight the philosophical assumptions underlying modern and contemporary approaches to science and policy, including the ways in which complexity theories contribute to significant debates in fields such as science and technology studies, philosophy of science, economics, environmental management, ethics, and environmental justice. I focus on the importance of multiple intersecting positive feedbacks, network causality, thresholds, tipping points, and how these issues are and are not captured by various scientific and policy approaches. In the final case study chapter, I carry through a similar analysis, this time addressing the question of how complexity theories are and are not useful in addressing the ethics of climate change. For this I analyze three groups of ethical theories that relate to climate change. In each case, I explore how well complexity is taken up and employed, and how they may or may not be beneficial. Through this analysis of ethical theories I show that complexity theories helps to explain issues such as uncertainty, unknowability, and complexification, and that this lends credence and power to climate ethics. Ethical theories appear to be strengthened by their adherence to the fundamental aspects of complexity theories and to the GCF. Policy instruments such as the precautionary principle are not only supported, but likely also are advanced further by this approach. I suggest the bases for a framework for policymakers that would explicate issues and challenges in adequately integrating complexity concepts into various realms, including both scientific study and ethical theory. This incorporates challenges and insights drawn from the case study of both climate science and climate ethics. I argue that
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Complexity and climate change: An epistemological study of transdiciplinary complexity theories and their contribution to socio-ecological phenomena
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