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Examining past examples of rapid, transformational changes in energy technologies could help governments understand the factors associated with such transitions. We used an existing dataset to assess government strategies to connect new energy technologies with national narratives. Analyzing the diffusion stories told by experts, we demonstrate how governments connected the new technologies with their national narratives. The United States government supported the development of nuclear power after World War II with the national narrative that the United States was destined to improve creation, increasing the potential of raw materials exponentially for the nation’s good (“atoms for peace,” electricity “too cheap to meter”). In Brazil, the development of sugar cane ethanol was supported by the government’s invoking the national narrative of suffering leading to knowledge and redemption, coupled with the quest for improved societal well-being (technological development to produce ethanol and employment for farmers). In Sweden, biomass energy was tied to the national narrative of local control, as well as love of nature and tradition (the use of natural products). We found strong evidence that the pairing of technological transformations with national narratives facilitated the successful development and implementation of these major energy technologies in the three cases analyzed here.

This chapter looks at several interpretive models that help to define and explains the equity debates about responses to climate change. It discusses equity issues in climate discourses, distributional principles and allocational issues, procedural fairness, and the relationship of equity issues to social solidarity. A two-dimensional map of human values provides a tool for bringing equity issues into integrated assessment. The chapter deals with suggestions for ways to incorporate equity concerns into integrated assessment. The assumption that decision-makers are responsive to prices underlies the economic modules of all integrated assessment models. Efficiency, unlike equity, is inherent in the very idea of integrated assessment. Historical responsibility as an equity principle has strong support in the literature and politically in developing countries, but there are also valid counter-arguments. Issues of equity in climate change serve to highlight the central importance of the concept of social solidarity to understanding the social and political discourses about climate.

Social network analysis (SNA) is well recognized as a tool for informing climate change adaptation; however, this methodology is limited by a focus on quantitative structural analyses (how many nodes and ties exist, and between whom), rather than accessing richer information about their meaning (value content of ties). One way to improve the usefulness of SNA is to purposefully complement the structural analysis with cultural elements that can be drawn from field datasets. In this network-governance case study from Queensland, Australia, research on organizations involved in water management and flood responses events showed that cultural values were important in influencing network connections and preferred approaches to flood pre-planning and response. For example, there were differences in organizational preferences for the numbers and types of links that are rooted in different values. From this, Mary Douglas’ Cultural Theory categories of individualists, hierarchists, and egalitarians were extended to analyze the types of ties between network nodes, the preferred approaches of different types of organization, and the problematic links and missing links among network nodes. This work illustrates that analyses of both structural SNA and cultural values can be used to improve regional-level adaptation activities such as disaster management. Here, increased knowledge about social networks, network ties, and cultural values can facilitate a process of social learning that will help societies adapt to climate change impacts.

Activities are already underway within the development community to improve climate-change adaptation decision making. In these and related efforts, a focus on building resilience is an important objective, one that resonates with development objectives. Compiling and applying indicators will help development practitioners consider resilience in projects, plans, and decision making. Exactly how to do this is a challenging, but important task. Drawing on diverse methods in the literature, this paper identifies factors important to understanding the evolution of resilience over time and space, and suggests a framework for developing indicators that analysts might select as useful for particular places or sectors. The paper lays the groundwork for an assessment framework that can make future development and adaptation choices more resilient. The framework is intended as a starting point for wider discussions of factors that contribute to building resilience and thus provide the basis to develop a toolkit of metrics and approaches. These discussions will need to bridge research on climate-change adaptation and resilience with practice.

U.S. government agencies are now directed to assess the vulnerability of their operations and facilities to climate change and to develop adaptation plans to increase their resilience. Specific guidance on methods is still evolving based on the many different available frameworks. This technical paper synthesizes lessons and insights from a series of research case studies conducted by the investigators at facilities of the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense. The paper provides a framework of steps for climate vulnerability assessments at Federal facilities and elaborates on three sets of methods required for assessments, regardless of the detailed framework used. In a concluding section, the paper suggests a roadmap to further develop methods to support agencies in preparing for climate change.

Although links exist between development targets, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and climate change goals of adaptation and mitigation, the nature and extent of those links have only been loosely explored in the literature. While efforts to integrate climate change adaptation into development are increasingly prevalent, gaps remain in understanding the specific relationships, potential synergies, and trade-offs in the integration process. This article reviews the links and identifies and analyses three main themes. First, the review suggests that tools are needed to more effectively capture interactions within decision-making processes, and proposes a framework for more focused analyses of these relationships. Second, the framework supports examination of the two sets of goals – development and climate – together, evaluating alternative policies and programmes for their outcomes and identifying key relationships between development, poverty alleviation, and climate goals in both present a...

A new modeling effort exploring the opportunities, constraints, and interactions between mitigation and adaptation at regional scale is utilizing stakeholder engagement in an innovative approach to guide model development and demonstration, including uncertainty characterization, to effectively inform regional decision making. This project, the integrated Regional Earth System Model (iRESM), employs structured stakeholder interactions and literature reviews to identify the most relevant adaptation and mitigation alternatives and decision criteria for each regional application of the framework. The information is used to identify important model capabilities and to provide a focus for numerical experiments. This paper presents the stakeholder research results from the first iRESM pilot region. The pilot region includes the Great Lakes Basin in the Midwest portion of the United States as well as other contiguous states. This geographic area (14 states in total) permits cohesive modeling of hydrologic systems while also providing strong gradients in climate, demography, land cover/land use, and energy supply and demand. The results from the stakeholder research indicate that, for this region, iRESM should prioritize addressing adaptation alternatives in the water resources, urban infrastructure, and agriculture sectors, including water conservation, expanded water quality monitoring, altered reservoir releases, lowered water intakes, urban infrastructure upgrades, increased electric power reserves in urban areas, and land use management/crop selection changes. For mitigation in this region, the stakeholder research implies that iRESM should focus on policies affecting the penetration of renewable energy technologies, and the costs and effectiveness of energy efficiency, bioenergy production, wind energy, and carbon capture and sequestration.

Policies to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions might be made more effective if we can better understand the pathways by which transformative technologies become significant components of energy systems. Indeed, the central question of mitigation revolves around the scope of policy to influence or accelerate the diffusion of low-carbon technology. While market forces clearly influence technology deployment, understanding the longer-term and large-scale changes in the energy system requires a broader understanding of the relative influence of institutional, behavioral, and social factors. This paper presents the results of an interview-based, comparative case approach to investigating systematically the relative importance of these non-economic factors influencing technological change across technology and country contexts. We identified two low-carbon energy sectors (bioenergy and nuclear power) that underwent significant changes over the past 50 years in the energy portfolio of three countries: Brazil, Sweden, and the United States. We identified nine categories of factors that might contribute to these large technological transformations, and then evaluated, via interviews with sector participants in each country, which factors were viewed as being determinative or highly influential in the trajectory of that technology in their country context. We also draw out policy implications and directions for future research.

As the emphasis in climate change research, international negotiations, and developing-country activities has shifted from mitigation to adaptation, vulnerability has emerged as a bridge between impacts on one side and the need for adaptive changes on the other. Still, the term vulnerability remains abstract, its meaning changing with the scale, focus, and purpose of each assessment. Understanding regional vulnerability has advanced over the past several decades, with studies using a combination of indicators, case studies and analogues, stakeholder-driven processes, and scenario-building methodologies. As regions become increasingly relevant scales of inquiry for bridging the aggregate and local, for every analysis, it is perhaps most appropriate to ask three “what” questions: “What/who is vulnerable?,” “What is vulnerability?,” and “Vulnerable to what?” The answers to these questions will yield different definitions of vulnerability as well as different methods for assessing it.

Recent surveys, polls, and other research focused on stakeholder attitudes towards the nascent commercial deployment of carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies revealed that the general public knows relatively little about CCS. Given this lack of knowledge with respect to the concept of CCS—let alone first-hand experiential knowledge derived from seeing these technologies deployed in local communities—it is imperative to re-examine how research on CCS stakeholder involvement is conducted and how the results of these studies are reported. This paper will explore several such framing issues regarding future stakeholder involvement activities.

This study builds on an earlier analysis of resilience of India and Indian states to climate change. The previous study (Brenkert and Malone, Clim Change 72:57-102, 2005) assessed current resilience; this research uses the Vulnerability- Resilience Indicators Model (VRIM) to project resilience to 2095 and to perform an uncertainty analysis on the deterministic results. Projections utilized two SRES- based scenarios, one with fast-and-high growth, one with delayed growth. A detailed comparison of two states, the Punjab and Orissa, points to the kinds of insights that can be obtained using the VRIM. The scenarios differ most significantly in the timing of the uncertainty in economic prosperity (represented by GDP per capita) as a major factor in explaining the uncertainty in the resilience index. In the fast-and- high growth scenario the states differ most markedly regarding the role of ecosystem sensitivity, land use and water availability. The uncertainty analysis shows, for example, that resilience in the Punjab might be enhanced, especially in the delayed growth scenario, if early attention is paid to the impact of ecosystems sensitivity on environmental well-being of the state. By the same token, later in the century land- use pressures might be avoided if land is managed through intensification rather than extensification of agricultural land. Thus, this methodology illustrates how a policy maker can be informed about where to focus attention on specific issues, by understanding the potential changes at a specific location and time—and, thus, what might yield desired outcomes. Model results can point to further analyses of the potential for resilience-building.

U.S. government agencies are now directed to assess the vulnerability of their operations and facilities to climate change and to develop adaptation plans to increase their resilience. Specific guidance on methods is still evolving based on the many different available frameworks. Agencies have been experimenting with these frameworks and approaches. This technical paper synthesizes lessons and insights from a series of research case studies conducted by the investigators at facilities of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Department of Defense. The purpose of the paper is to solicit comments and feedback from interested program managers and analysts before final conclusions are published. The paper describes the characteristics of a systematic process for prioritizing needs for adaptation planning at individual facilities and examines requirements and methods needed. It then suggests a framework of steps for vulnerability assessments at Federal facilities and elaborates on three sets of methods required for assessments, regardless of the detailed framework used. In a concluding section, the paper suggests a roadmap to further develop methods to support agencies in preparing for climate change. The case studies point to several preliminary conclusions; (1) Vulnerability assessments are needed to translate potential changes in climate exposure to estimates ofmore » impacts and evaluation of their significance for operations and mission attainment, in other words into information that is related to and useful in ongoing planning, management, and decision-making processes; (2) To increase the relevance and utility of vulnerability assessments to site personnel, the assessment process needs to emphasize the characteristics of the site infrastructure, not just climate change; (3) A multi-tiered framework that includes screening, vulnerability assessments at the most vulnerable installations, and adaptation design will efficiently target high-risk sites and infrastructure; (4) Vulnerability assessments can be connected to efforts to improve facility resilience to motivate participation; and (5) Efficient, scalable methods for vulnerability assessment can be developed, but additional case studies and evaluation are required.« less

The vulnerability of India and Indian states to climate change was assessed using the Vulnerability-Resilience Indicator Prototype (VRIP). The model was adapted from the global/country version to account for Indian dietary practices and data availability with regard to freshwater resources. Results (scaled to world values) show nine Indian states to be moderately resilient to climate change, principally because of low sulfur emissions and a relatively large percentage of unmanaged land. Six states are more vulnerable than India as a whole, attributable largely to sensitivity to sea storm surges. Analyses of results at the state level (Orissa, and comparisons between Maharashtra and Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh) demonstrate the value of VRIP analyses used in conjunction with other socio-economic information to address initial questions about the sources of vulnerability in particular places. The modeling framework allows analysts and stakeholders to systematically evaluate individual and sets of indicators and to indicate where the likely vulnerabilities are in the area being assessed.

Climate change is increasingly recognized as having national security implications, which has prompted dialogue between the climate change and national security communities—with resultant advantages and differences. Climate change research has proven useful to the national security community sponsors in several ways. It has opened security discussions to consider climate as well as political factors in studies of the future. It has encouraged factoring in the stresses placed on societies by climate changes (of any kind) to help assess the potential for state stability. And it has shown that changes such as increased heat, more intense storms, longer periods without rain, and earlier spring onset call for building climate resilience as part of building stability. For the climate change research community, studies from a national security point of view have revealed research lacunae, such as the lack of usable migration studies. This has also pushed the research community to consider second- and third-order impacts of climate change, such as migration and state stability, which broadens discussion of future impacts beyond temperature increases, severe storms, and sea level rise and affirms the importance of governance in responding to these changes. The increasing emphasis in climate change science toward research in vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation also frames what the intelligence and defense communities need to know, including where there are dependencies and weaknesses that may allow climate change impacts to result in security threats and where social and economic interventions can prevent climate change impacts and other stressors from resulting in social and political instability or collapse.

The concept of “science” usually includes commitments to reason, objectivity, and disinterest in the search for truth about the nature of the world. In this view, politics, in the sense of maneuvering to gain power, corrupts both the process and the product of science. However, we show that science is political through and through—in the process of constructing scientific knowledge in maintaining disciplines and in being responsive to partisan sponsorship. Nevertheless, the practitioners of both science and politics maintain the boundary between the two fields; in fact, the disciplines most dependent upon government support tend also to be the most autonomous. This situation becomes understandable when both fields are considered as discursive practices. Then scientific debates can be seen as productive precisely because they derive from an objective agreement about science as an autonomous intellectual enterprise and science itself can be seen as a politics of truth.

Given the aim to motivate people to conserve energy in homes, we need to understand what drives people’s energy use behavior and how it can be influenced. This article describes applied energy conservation campaigns at two U.S. military installations where residents do not pay their own utility bills. Customized approaches were designed for each installation based on a broad social-psychological model. Before-and-after energy use was measured, and residents were surveyed about end use behaviors. Residents said they were motivated by the desire to do the right thing, set good examples for their children, and have comfortable homes. For sustained change, respondents recommended continued awareness and education, disincentives, and incentives. Findings support some aspects of a social-psychological model, with emphasis on altruistic and egoistic motives for behavioral change. These studies may have implications for situations where residents are not billed for individual energy use, including other government-subsidized facilities, master-metered apartments, and university dormitories.

Climate change research is hampered by the gap between two styles of research, raising fundamental issues of standpoint. Interpretive-style researchers see themselves as at the center of the environment, experiencing it from within; their involvement is what allows them to gain knowledge. Descriptive-style researchers see themselves as outside the environment they analyze; their distance is what allows them to gain knowledge. This fundamental difference indicates that attempts to meld the two styles in articulating global-local links are both wrong-headed and doomed to failure. Instead, we should look for complementarities and attempt to bring the differently achieved knowledge to bear on global problems.

Historically, people and their governments have not understood or been prepared for the social, economic, and political instability that can result from energy scarcity or deterioration of the environment. Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is an example from centuries ago where an isolated population irreversibly damaged its finite resources. The cutting of trees to move stone statues had a cascade effect on other resources and led to a dramatic decline in both population and prosperity (Diamond, 2005; Fagan, 2008; Pointing, 1991). More recently, in Darfur, human struggle over access to oil resources, compounded by problems wrought by persistent drought, produced both socioeconomic isolation and regional ethnic disconnection, magnifying a conflict that displaced nearly 2.5 million people (International Crisis Group—Sudan). We contend that disasters such as these can be mitigated or even averted if the complex connections and dependencies of the issues involved can be revealed and if there is a social network to connect isolated areas of expertise and knowledge in order to fully understand and visualize the problems and consequences to leaders and policy makers. This article describes a developing international effort to create a strategic foresight capability addressing the intersection of increasing energy demand and global environmental issues, such as climate change and declining natural resources.

This document is part of a larger, programmatic effort to assist federal agencies in taking action and changing their institutions to achieve and maintain federal sustainability goals, while meeting their mission goals. FEMP is developing guidance for federal agency efforts to enable institutional behavior change for sustainability, and for making sustainability “business as usual.” The driving requirement for this change is Executive Order (EO) 13514, Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance. FEMP emphasizes strategies for increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy utilization as critical components of attaining sustainability, and promotes additional non-energy action pathways contained in EO 13514. This report contributes to the larger goal by laying out the conceptual and evidentiary underpinnings of guidance to federal agencies. Conceptual frameworks focus and organize the development of guidance. We outline a series of progressively refined conceptual frameworks, including a multi-layer approach, key steps in sustainability implementation, a process view of specific approaches to institutional change, the agency Strategic Sustainability Performance Plans (SSPPs), and concepts related to context-specific rules, roles and tools for sustainability. Additionally, we tap pertinent bodies of literature in drawing eight evidence-based principles for behavior change. These principles are important foundations upon which to build in selecting strategies to effect change in organizations. Taken together, this report presents a suite of components that inform the training materials, presentations, web site, and other products that provide guidance to federal agencies.

There has never been a greater need for delivering timely and policy-relevant information on the magnitude and evolution of the human-disturbed carbon cycle. In this paper, we present the main thematic areas of an ongoing global research agenda and prioritize future needs based on relevance for the evolution of the carbon-climate-human system. These include firstly, the delivery of routine updates of global and regional carbon budgets, including its attribution of variability and trends to underlying drivers; secondly, the assessment of the magnitude of the carbon-climate feedback; and thirdly, the exploration of pathways to climate stabilization and their uncertainties. Underpinning much of this research is the optimal deployment of a global carbon monitoring system that includes biophysical and socio-economic components. © 2010 Elsevier B.V.

Recent efforts to characterize the interactions among climate change and national security issues raise challenges of relating disparate bodies of scientific (both physical and social) knowledge as well as determining the role of innovation in meeting these challenges. Technological innovation has been called for to combat climate change, increase food production, and discover new ways of generating energy, and proposals for increased investments in R&D and technology deployment are to be met with everywhere. However, such policy decisions in one domain have impacts in other domains—often unexpected, often negative, but often capable of being addressed in planning stages. This technological tool allows its users to embody the knowledge of different domains, to keep that knowledge up to date, and to define relationships, via both a model and an analytic game, such that policy makers can foresee problems and plan to forestall or mitigate them. Capturing and dynamically updating knowledge is the accomplishment of the Knowledge Encapsulation Framework. A systems dynamic model, created in STELLA®, simulates the relationships among different domains, so that relevant knowledge is applied to a seemingly independent issue. An analytic game provides a method to use that knowledge as it might be used in real-world settings.

Research and analyses have repeatedly shown that impacts of climate change will be unevenly distributed and will affect various societies in various ways. The severity of impacts will depend in part on ability to cope in the short term and adapt in the longer term. However, it has been difficult to find a comparative basis on which to assess differential impacts of climate change. This chapter describes the Vulnerability-Resilience Indicator Model that uses 18 proxy indicators, grouped into 8 elements, to assess on a quantitative basis the comparative potential vulnerability and resilience of countries to climate change. The model integrates socioeconomic and environmental information such as land use, crop production, water availability, per capita GDP, inequality, and health status. Comparative results for 160 countries are presented and analyzed.

Targets and timetables dominate the policy response to climate change. Is it wise to rely on a strategy that has yet to get off the ground? Or could Zen and social science suggestsensible alternatives?

Publisher Summary Carbon dioxide capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies face formidable technical barriers. But just as formidable are the implementation issues that must be addressed. CCS developers should exploit existing structural opportunities for innovation of electric power systems and current weaknesses in the systems, rather than trusting that “technology will find a way.” Essential aspects of the diffusion process are the policy reform, technological innovation, managerial improvement, financial resources, and social acceptance/cultural knowledge. The diffusion process is nonlinear and highly interactive; thus, efforts in all areas need the coordination of network links to create a pathway to successful diffusion. Success in technology diffusion is never assured. However, careful attention to the essential elements of diffusion and to the creation of niches in these elements can greatly increase the chances of success.

This report evaluates the scope and effectiveness of the public participation pr ograms, including Site-Specific Advisory Boards (SSABs), at seven U.S. Departmen t of Energy (DOE) sites: Fernald, Hanford, Los Alamos, Nevada, Oak Ridge, Paduc ah, and Savannah River. The primary purpose of the study is to assist both DOE Field and Headquarters managers in reviewing and understanding lessons learned o ver the past decade concerning public participation programs administered by the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM). The evaluation provides a snapsh ot of selected EM public participation programs at a particular point of time. It is based on interviews and site visits conducted between January and June 200 2- a time of change within the program. The study focuses on public participati on programs that incorporate a variety of activities and address a wide range of individual site activities and decisions. It uses the Acceptability Diamond as an evaluative framework to answer questions about stakeholders' experiences wit h, and assessment of, DOE-EM's public participation programs. The Acceptability Diamond, which was developed by researchers from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in previous research, identifies four program dimensions - substanti ve issues, decision-making process, relationships, and accountability - that det ermine the effectiveness of an agency's interactions with local communities. Es sentially, a public participation program may be deemed effective to the extent that it provides for open disclosure and addresses all four acceptability dimens ions in ways that are appropriate and effective for a particular community and s ituation. This framework provides a guide for agencies to 1) set objectives, 2) design public participation and oversight programs, and 3) set criteria for eva luating program effectiveness. In the current study, where the framework is use d as a means of assessing program effectiveness, the focus is on stakeholders' p erspectives of public participation: on the nature of DOE-EM's public disclosure and the four interrelated dimensions of DOE-EM's interactions with its neighbor ing communities

Publisher Summary Diffusion of large-scale technologies requires coordination among manufacturers of those technologies supporting structures and products, consumers/buyers of the technologies, and governments who must support the diffusion process. This coordination must provide niche markets, within which the parties have the opportunity to develop the new technologies, shaping and correcting them so that they fulfill needs without creating new, insoluble problems. The clear advantages of the new technologies often appear only after their introduction and use in niche markets, that is, after a period of “learning-by-doing.” Analysis of the diffusion process becomes more complex and acute when environmental considerations feature prominently in the design of new technologies and when government-supported technology “push” is the dominant factor, rather than some known or presumed consumer need. Issues important to the diffusion of large-scale technologies for capturing and disposing of carbon dioxide include the extent/size of the system to be replaced, whether or not the new technology substitutes one-for-one for the old technology, the number of competing technologies, whether a market is an early or late adopter, specific initial conditions the availability of complementary technologies and affordable fuels, and the ability of inventors and entrepreneurs to solve problems that arise. These issues must be considered in planning for the diffusion of carbon capture and disposal systems.

Considering climate change and globalization together as a research topic can illuminate the structures and processes of both. Globalization and climate change theories can be categorized as economic, political, and cultural on one dimension, and on another dimension as emphasizing the conflicts between the global and national/local levels, the dominance of the global, or the hybrids and pastiches created by mixing the global and local. Climate change, as an issue that creates and is created by a global sense of the world, is bound up in both its analysis and its policy proposals with the same issues that confront globalization theorists. The proliferation of theories and analyses in globalization and climate change reflects the emerging nature of both areas of social scientific thought. Activities and 'flows are changing too rapidly to be satisfactorily categorized and mapped. Moreover, there are no clear advantages to one form of action, since all phenomena are multifaceted, with bundled positive, neutral, and negative characteristics. However, the very explosion of ideas and proposals reflects the energy and willingness to seek future directions that will bring increased well-being for both humans and the environment.

In FY1999, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory conducted an energy efficiency campaign for residential housing at the Fort Lewis Army Installation near Tacoma, Washington. Preliminary weather-corrected calculations show energy savings of 10{percent} from FY98 for energy use in family housing. This exceeded the project's goal of 3{percent}. The work was funded by the U.S. DOEs Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The project adapted FEMP's national ``You Have the Power Campaign'' at the local level, tailoring it to the military culture. The applied research project was designed to demonstrate the feasibility of tailored, research-based strategies to promote energy conservation in military family housing. In contrast to many energy efficiency efforts, the campaign focused entirely on actions residents could take in their own homes, as opposed to technology or housing upgrades. Behavioral change was targeted because residents do not pay their own utility bills; thus other motivations must drive personal energy conservation. This campaign augments ongoing energy savings from housing upgrades carried out by Fort Lewis. The campaign ran from September 1998 through August 1999. The campaign strategy was developed based on findings from previous research and on input from residents and officials at Fort Lewis. Energy use, corrected to account for weather differences, was compared with the previous year's use. Survey responses from 377 of Fort Lewis residents of occupied housing showed that the campaign was moderately effective in promoting behavior change. Of those who were aware of the campaign, almost all said they were now doing one or more energy-efficient things that they had not done before. Most people were motivated by the desire to do the right thing and to set a good example for their children. They were less motivated by other factors.

Environmental security and environmental risk are closely related concepts. We argue in this chapter that researchers and policymakers can employ the approaches used in risk analysis to address concerns about environmental security. Environmental degradation most often engenders societal controversy, not armed conflict. Indeed, the potential for armed conflict — a focus of research in environmental security — is slight, and the literature emphasizing possible resource wars distracts attention from the need to study ways in which risk analysis can help to settle environmental controversies.

In the animal kingdom, there is a major distinction between organisms that have hard outer shells or external skeletons and those that have their bony support structures on the inside. The hard-shell species rely for their security on the integrity of their covering. Thus they are immune from predators until the shell is broken, at which point they rapidly succumb. The price that hard-shell species pay for their initial immunity is limited mobility and inflexibility of response options when attacked. In contrast, soft bodied animals with internal skeletons are easily damaged by attackers but repair more rapidly. Furthermore, their higher mobility and greater flexibility enable them to avoid many hazardous situations and to respond adaptively when they are unavoidable.

Fleishman et al have submitted a critique of a paper previously published in this same journal by Malone, Dooley and Bradbury. This submission represents our response to the critique by Fleishman et al. This submission reiterates our position that polling the public writ large as to the value of CCS research is not a technically sound way of understanding how CCS technologies might deploy in the future.

This paper discusses seven propositions: climate change and poverty are linked by the issue of vulnerability; the hardest equity issues arise because of qualitative differences in the nature of climate change and policy impacts on the poor and those who are better off; poverty cannot be understood in terms of lack of goods or income, or even basic needs, but must rather be understood in terms of people's ability to participate in the social discourse that shapes their lives; emerging multi-dimensional measures of poverty are much better than those based on income or needs, but may continue to underestimate sociocultural factors; eliminating poverty and developing societal resilience require building social diversity; climate change and policy impacts on the poor do not conform very well to analytic dichotomies of national and international, or intragenerational and intergenerational; in the final analysis climate protection and poverty elimination may be most effectively achieved through local-level actors and their global networks.

This is four-part work providing an international view of climate change which is designed to complement the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Second Assessment report. The complete work is a benchmark document summarising current understanding of of the contributions of the social sciences to the interdisciplinary issues of global climate change. It brings together widely scattered information and highlights both current research strengths and key areas for further research. The books survey the state of the art of the social sciences with regard to global climate change research; recognise global climate change research as policy relevant; review what is currently known, uncertain, and unknown in the social science areas relevant to global change; assemble and summarise findings from the international research community; report these findings within behavioural and interpretive frameworks as appropriate; and assemble this information to enlighten the future formulation and conduct of policy-relevant scientific research. The volumes in this four-part work cover resources and technology (Volume 2); tools for policy analysis (Volume 3); and, in Volume 1, begin with the societal framework. Volume 4 is presented as a readable summary for non-professionals. The first chapter of Volume 4 comprises the introductory section of each of the three more specialist volumes.