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2nd Seminar on Future Earth in Asia

I would like to invite you to the 2nd Future Earth in Asia seminar on Wednesday, May 21st. We will have Professor Alan Mix from Oregon State University, USA, and Dr. Berta Martin-Lopez from Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. We would like to invite you all to participate in this seminar/discussion to share your ideas and exchange opinions on their research and Future Earth.

The title and description of the presentations will be announced on the RIHN web site.

Date: Wednesday May 21, 2014
Time: 10:00-12:00
Place: Lecture Hall, RIHN (→ Access)
Organizer: Future Earth Unit of Center for Research Development Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN)
Program

Spearkers:


【Speaker 1】 Prof. Alan C. Mix
College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, USA
Co-chair, Science Steering Committee, IGBP/PAGES (Past Global Changes).

Title : “PaleoPerspectives on the FutureEarth”

Abstract:
Why is study of the geologic past part of a new program called Future Earth? The past has already happened, so isn’t it just old news? We need to predict (and create the policies that will define and manage) the future! But as the famous American baseball player Yogi Berra said when asked who would win the World Series, “making predictions is difficult, especially about the future”.

If Future Earth is developing a science of sustainability, we must ask what we wish to sustain. And for how long? It can’t be that we seek stasis. There is no such thing in a coupled Earth system, and we probably wouldn’t want to stay the same anyway. We want to solve problems, to develop in new ways that are beneficial, and, well, “sustainable” “over the long term”. To do this we must understand how to live in the context of an earth system that is always changing, both naturally and due to human influence.

Among the greatest changes facing us is the radical perturbation of Earth’s natural carbon cycle caused by human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. How will this play out over the long term? Although there are many things we don’t yet understand, we know with certainty that the response of the climate, carbon cycle, and its various impacts, will play out as a transient response; choices we make now will set a future trajectory over centuries to millennia. Key process that control long-term responses include the massive heat and chemical storehouse of the ocean, the interaction of ice sheets with glaciers with sea level. We need a long-term perspective, and paleoscience is the only observational window into the important long timeframes of dynamic adjustment of the Earth system.

So to understand the future, it is essential that we study the past to understand the processes that control Earth’s long-term transient responses. Here I focus on three issues. First, we expect the future to be warmer, but can we understand the scale of anthropogenic climate change relative natural climate variability, to guide policy? Second, the concept of “tipping points” or “planetary boundaries” have become popular. Even if they are not predictable, might they be detectable? Third, we often think about future warming in response to carbon emissions, but in reality the carbon cycle and climate are coupled and have the potential for both vast warming and vast cooling, mainly due to the flux of carbon into and out of the ocean. Can paleoscience help us understand how the carbon cycle and climate interact? Yes, Yes, and Yes.

Biography:
Prof. Mix specializes in paleoceanography of surface and deep-ocean circulation, paleoecology, and paleoclimatology from cave deposits. He is a director of Stable Iso-tope Laboratory at Oregon State University and a co-chair of PAGES (Past Global Changes) project in IGBP (International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme ).


【Speaker 2】Dr. Berta Martin-Lopez
Department of Ecology, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain

Title : “Ecosystem services assessments: dealing with complexity”

Abstract:
Recognizing that biodiversity conservation is about species and ecosystems as much as humans and society suggests an interesting change in the way we have traditionally approached to biodiversity conservation. If we want to move beyond documenting biodiversity erosion, then we should be aware that human societies are part of nature and recognize that societies are highly interconnected with the biophysical life-support system, thus conforming social-ecological systems. As biodiversity conservation is part of ecological and social processes, conservation actions are embedded in social-ecological systems. The study of social-ecological systems focuses on understanding the relationships existing between nature and society, analyzing either the contributions made by biodiversity to human wellbeing (i.e. ecosystem services) or the human actions that, through institutions, affect the ecosystems integrity (i.e. governance system).

On the one hand, acknowledging that ecosystem services is a complex concept (as it bridges two complex systems -ecosystems and social systems-), invite us to rethink how to design a comprehensive approach for their assessment. In this context, the ecosystem service research needs as much variety of methods as complexity and value plurality exists in the system we want to analyze (i.e. social-ecological system). Consequently, scientists should be cautioned to approach the ecosystem services research from a real interdisciplinary point of view (which includes different disciplines, from biophysical, to sociological, to economic science), incorporate multiple values (from biophysical to monetary values) and consider multiple forms of knowledge (which includes not only scientific or technical but also experiential or local ecological knowledge).

On the other hand, as the governance system involves the diversity of ways in which humans and nature interact; the governance of social-ecological system (or the ecosystem service governance) requires as more variety of processes as more complexity exists in the system to be managed. In fact, the process of governing social-ecological systems should entail institutional diversity (i.e. informal institutions, formal rules and economic institutions) at different organization scales (i.e. polycentrism). Therefore, we could never protect biodiversity if we will not previously restore the informal institutions that safeguard those humans’ belief- and knowledge-systems that real connect with biosphere at local scale.

Biography:
Dr. Martin-Lopez is assistant professor at the Department of Ecology, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. She is also researcher at the Social-Ecological Systems Laboratory, Autonomous University of Madrid. Her research interests focus on ecosystem services assessment from and interdisciplinary approach that includes the ecological, socio-cultural and economic dimensions. In addition, she is particularly focused on the institutional analysis of biodiversity and ecosystem services, in which her research aims to elucidate the role of informal institutions and local ecological knowledge in the governance system. She has published around 50 scientific papers, and was involved as lead author in the Spanish Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and as main author in the “The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity”, as well as expert for creating the conceptual framework of IPBES. Currently, she is member of the scientific committees in ecoServices and PECS (Programme of Ecosystem Change and Society ) international initiative.


【Discussions】 Research Agenda for Future Earth, etc


Contact:

Yuko Onishi
Future Earth Unit of Center for Research Development Research Institute for Humanity and Nature
FutureEarthRIHN@chikyu.ac.jp

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