The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of AmericaVolume 92, Issue 1 p. 124-127 SYMPOSIUM REPORTSFree Access Symposium 10: Planetary Stewardship and the Millennium Assessment of Human Behavior (MAHB) First published: 01 January 2011 https://doi.org/10.1890/0012-9623-92.1.124AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat The organizer of the symposium was Paul R. Ehrlich of Stanford University, and the co-organizer Hal Mooney, also of Stanford University. The moderator was Mary E. Power, University of California, Berkeley. It was held during the ESA Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 4 August 2010. The August 2010 ESA meetings in Pittsburgh took place just weeks after the tragic and unexpected death of a renowned climate scientist and leading international voice for better planetary stewardship, Steve Schneider. Paul Ehrlich and Hal Mooney, his colleagues at Stanford, had organized a Symposium that furthered his search for ways to reduce human damage to the Earth's atmosphere and biosphere. Planetary Stewardship, recently renamed Earth Stewardship, is a current ESA framework that builds on the Sustainable Biosphere Initiative and other previous and ongoing efforts of the Society. Under this rubric, ecologists are collaborating with other natural and social scientists, as well as with practitioners—resource harvesters, land managers, decision makers, and other concerned citizens—to find more effective ways of communicating our knowledge and concerns about environmental trajectories, and to explore and implement solutions. At the same time, a group of Stanford natural and social scientists and humanities scholars, including Steve, inaugurated in 2009 a Millennium Assessment of Human Behavior (MAHB 〈http://mahb.stanford.edu/〉 “pronounced mob”). MAHB aims to expose society to the full range of population–environment–resource–ethics–power issues, and also to encourage cooperative research into ways to effect cultural change. In this symposium, Professors Ehrlich and Mooney invited six scholars from outside of environmental science to present their work and views on these issues. A concluding panel–audience interchange, moderated by Dr. Rosina Bierbaum, engaged audience members in the follow-on discussion. Paul Ehrlich introduced the Symposium by asking “Why the MAHB?” No one has spoken out more forcefully, or for longer, on how the human enterprise has led to the current environmental problems: loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, climate disruption, toxification of Earth, and increased probability of pandemics and resource wars (possibly nuclear). The view of the founders of MAHB at Stanford is that further scientific understanding is not what is limiting our ability to respond appropriately to correct our course. MAHB has launched a global discussion among members and the public to find ways that human behavior, toward other people and toward the planet, can be rapidly modified. One central goal is to close key parts of the “culture gap”—the chasm between what most educated people now know individually about the world and the knowledge possessed by their entire society about environmental science. (In hunter–gatherer societies every individual possessed virtually all the non-genetic information of the society.). The gap is especially troubling in the case of elected officials and other leaders. Paul stressed the need to bring the attention of decision makers and the public to the two most-ignored drivers of deterioration, population growth and overconsumption by the rich. The MAHB's goals include: (1) exposing society to the full range of “inconvenient truths” regarding population–environment–resource–ethics–power issues, (2) sponsoring a broad global discussion of the human predicament involving the greatest possible diversity of people, and focusing on human goals and assembling a vision of a sustainable future, and (3) trying to close crucial parts of the culture gap. The MAHB differs from other millennial assessments in seeking input from both the scholarly community and the general public. MAHB's ultimate goal is nothing short of the redirection of collective human behavior to alter civilization's course and avoid a global collapse. The second address, by Prof. Robert Cialdini, Arizona State University, offered some surprising suggestions for taking concrete steps in this direction. Ecologists, and probably most people, are unaware of the power of “social norms, which refer to what most people do (descriptive social norms) and what most people approve (injunctive social norms).” Bob showed with experimental data that these norms are strong forces directing human action, but that people are unaware of this power. We tend to lack the self-awareness to understand the causes of our own actions, and strangely, we tend not to use the “action-instigating power of normative information” when we attempt to influence the actions of others. Bob showed very convincing data from experimental surveys in which various messages were compared for effectiveness in persuading people to practice conservation or recycling in their homes, communities, or hotels. Although the alternative messages pointed out advantages for the target's self-interest, for the environment, for future generations, the impact of these motivating statements was always less than the normative message: that neighbors were attempting to conserve energy in the home, or that most of the previous occupants of the same hotel room have used their towel twice or more. Bob closed by remarking that the use of social norms should be investigated as a highly effective, nearly costless means of changing the human relationship with Earth's environment—requiring no large technological fixes, tax incentives, or regulatory changes. Eugene A. Rosa, Washington State University, then presented a talk by himself and Thomas Dietz, Michigan State University, on “Crossing disciplinary boundaries to understand human drivers of environmental threats.” As an early MAHB member, Gene pointed to the overwhelming role that anthropogenic or human drivers have played in global ecological damage. He articulated the MAHB's goal, “combining what we know about human drivers of environmental threats with what the social sciences know about changing human behavior and institutions.” The first task would be “identifying the key human activities—at both the local, cumulative level and at the systemic level—most responsible for global environmental change.” Various social sciences have made considerable progress in deciphering interrelatedness of land use and land cover change; vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation; governance of common pool resources; and demographic and economic factors. Each advance required integrating ecological principles and findings into disciplined social science research. Gene detailed the STIRPAT model and research program in “structural ecology” 〈http://stirpat.org/〉, which adds social and political variables and more statistical flexibility to the widely adopted IPAT formula: Impact = Population × Affluence × Technology (Ehrlich and Holdren 1971, Dietz et al. 2007) Professor Dennis Pirages, University of Nevada Las Vegas, then gave a political scientist's perspective on “Governance—a political science standpoint.” The outdated “dominant social paradigm” among political scientists, he said, was developed over the course of the Industrial Revolution, and can no longer guide humanity as it confronts environmental scarcity. “While the physical sciences have done an excellent job of documenting these interrelated environmental problems, solutions must come from the social sciences, particularly political science. But in the face of this rapidly deepening global predicament, political science research is still dominated by an agenda that has evolved out of the concerns of a much different world.” As political scientists attempt to correct the anachronistic mismatch of the 19th–20th century political science frameworks with 21st century world realities, they may become crucial partners for change. Dennis proposed a new research agenda for political science, particularly in the United States, to develop an educated electorate who would choose intelligent leadership capable of foresight and anticipatory thinking; to streamline a Congress that would facilitate rather than frustrate change; to find positive roles for the United States in a world of deepening globalization; and finally, to redefine security and reallocate security spending as military threats to our well-being are replaced by those coming from our changing relationship with nature. Jason W. Clay, the Executive Director of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), then spoke on the necessity of engaging the private sector in his address “Feeding people and maintaining the planet: the 2050 challenge of freezing the footprint of food.” The largest human impacts on the planet come from enterprises related to food production. Because neither NGOs nor academics shape global food systems, he realistically pointed out that we must engage the private sector. WWF is working with the 100 global companies that govern how we produce 15 key commodities. WWF helps companies and producers align incentives throughout supply chains to ensure long-term partnerships. WWF has identified 10 “food wedges” that would allow us to produce enough food for all and still have a living planet. These wedge strategies involve intensifying productivity of lands currently or previously used for agriculture, using genetics, target crops, better practices, rehabilitation of degraded land, technology, property rights, waste and post-harvest losses, overconsumption, and carbon. Collectively, he argued that these strategies should allow us to increase food production while simultaneously reducing its footprint. The final talk, by Anantha Kumar Duraiappah of the UN International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), was on “Valuing nature: multiple identities and plurality of values.” The value systems that guide our behavior, he said, are influenced by gender, culture, knowledge, education, religion, and ecological conditions, among other factors. Monetary economic valuation of natural systems assume that all individuals behave as market agents, with a sole identity of a self-maximizing entity. This single metric approach cannot capture the plurality of values set by diverse individuals on natural systems. For example, there are widespread and long-standing tensions between self-maximization of individual utility (profit) vs. contributing to the welfare of others and society. Anantha held that the false assumptions of present valuation approaches, that individuals behave as a single self-maximizing identity that values natural systems purely as a monetary economic good, may lead to policies that perpetuate the decline of our natural systems. New approaches from the human dimension literature may reveal some ways forward. The concluding panel discussion was skillfully moderated by Rosina Bierbaum, Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) at the University of Michigan. She and the speakers fielded a number of questions from the large audience until the session adjourned for Dr. John Holdren's noon Plenary Address. The ongoing Stewardship–MAHB collaboration will obviously not reach all its goals rapidly. Throughout, the participation of ecologists will be essential to assuring that environmental science perspectives are sound. Humankind's past actions have already committed the planet to a substantially altered future. Yet some human stewardship practices have sustained their resources and environments through centuries, including windows of variable climate and episodes of catastrophe. The task ahead is to learn from our past and also to find new, creative, and scientifically defensible actions that protect our environment from further degradation, and sustain and restore natural ecosystems and the services they provide. Literature cited Dietz, T., Rosa, E. A, and York. R. 2007. Driving the human ecological footprint. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5: 13– 18. Wiley Online LibraryWeb of Science®Google Scholar Ehrlich, P. R., Holdren, J. P. 1971. Impact of population growth. Science 171: 1212– 1217. CrossrefCASPubMedWeb of Science®Google Scholar York, R., Rosa, E. A., and Dietz. T. 2003. STIRPAT, IPAT and ImPACT: analytic tools for unpacking the driving forces of environmental impacts. Ecological Economics 46 ( 3): 351– 365. CrossrefWeb of Science®Google Scholar Volume92, Issue1January 2011Pages 124-127 ReferencesRelatedInformation