Abstract
How to tackle uncertainties and ensure quality in integrated assessment for sustainability? To what extent does the choice of the methodology condition the narrative produced by the analysis? The present work argues that the two questions are tightly coupled. The technique is never neutral. If we are the tools of our tools, as suggested by Thoreau, then it can also be said that language is not only a vehicle for communication, it is the driver as well. For this reason, in sustainability assessment it is not unusual to discern a close relationship between arguments made and methods adopted. In the present work a set of six reflexive analytical tools – we call them lenses – is suggested which could be pooled to the effect to appraise and improve the quality of integrated assessment and the resulting sustainability narratives, and to alleviate the constraints of the method-argument dependency. None of the lenses is new and each has been used before. Never have they been used together. The lenses are (i) Post-normal science (PNS), (ii) Controversy studies, (iii) Sensitivity auditing, (iv) Bioeconomics, (v) Ethics of science for governance, and (vi) Non-Ricardian economics. The six lenses are illustrated together with a set of case/narratives/arguments. The lenses allow some narratives – or methodologies – to be shown as either implausible or inadequate, and new narratives to be developed to tackle pressing sustainability issues, which expand the horizon of possible strategies for a solution.
Highlights
Narratives are a key element of sustainability assessments, even while they are not always explicitly articulated
The integrated assessments developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) offer no scenario exploring the effects of discontinuing economic growth, globally or in the affluent countries, as policy options around sufficiency or degrowth were considered implausible, making continued economic growth for the 80 years the default choice (Spangenberg and Polotzek, 2019)
An approach that addresses models and indicators used at the science-policy interface, which builds on uncertainty and sensitivity analysis, checks against rhetoric use of modelling and deconstructs dubious quantifications A necessary complement to neo-classical economics that analyses the interactions of societal socio-economic processes with ecological processes by focusing on metabolic patterns of socioecological systems across different levels and scales Approach tackling the integration of ethical concerns in science development and use at the policy interface
Summary
Narratives are a key element of sustainability assessments, even while they are not always explicitly articulated. This selection of lenses and proponents may result from a “contingent gathering of personalities dissatisfied with the dominant paradigms of integrated assessment”, as noted by a perceptive reviewer They can be thought of as an advocacy coalition, if not yet a school, the Centre for the Study for Science and the Humanities at the University of Bergen has become a common home where these ideas have currency and are disseminated in books (Benessia et al, 2016; Kovacic et al, 2019), projects, articles, symposia and courses. - pollinators decline - the closest likely ecological catastrophe - is the result of systemic institutional and regulatory failure These are just examples, and the positions taken in this work are not meant to represent a corpus, containing a unique revealed truth, which is offered as a substitute for existing narratives. We than discuss what is achieved when these lenses are taken in combination
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