Ramblemuse Touch Points

At a recent Earth Systems Science Partnership (ESSP) conference in Bejing, one of the plenary sessions was on the Importance of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Earth System Science. The description of the session noted the importance of continued research and mitigation strategies to offset negative impacts of global environmental change.

There is no doubt that humans have now become a global geophysical force, affecting the functioning of the Earth System in many ways and causing planetary-scale environmental changes. But humans are also the victims of these changes, suffering increasingly from the impacts of a changing climate and the loss or degradation of ecosystem services. How can food and energy supply be ensured in a sustainable manner? These are complex research questions that call for the highly interdisciplinary approach followed by the four projects of the Earth System Science Partnership on carbon, food, water, and health. The links between sustainability and Earth System Science are becoming stronger, and this Plenary Session will highlight how the four ESSP projects directly tackle the Earth System Science – sustainability connection.

A new joint project between the ESSP and the World Health Organization (WHO) on Global Environmental Change and Human Health (GECHH) was also announced.

The project aims to create an international network of researchers who can identify and quantify health risks posed by global environmental change, and develop adaptation strategies that are cost effective for reducing health risks.

It’s called Earth System Science, by the way, because you can’t understand what happens just by looking at individual parts. Changing one thing affects something else that effects something else, … Often the cycles close, which may decrease the original change (negative feedback) or increase it (positive feedback). In some cases, a small initial change in a sensitive system can shift a lot of things. This is the real world application of the metaphor of the single straw that broke the camel’s back. Here’s an introductory book on systems thinking by Virginia Anderson.