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Disrupted Balance

Author: Vasbinder Jan Wouter
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9813239239
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
Human society is no stranger to catastrophe, but the challenges the world faces today -- a ballooning population, intense global connectivity and the unquenchable thirst of human consumption -- have synergised to make disruptions more frequent, intense and far reaching. Despite the complexity of these problems, the response should not be to give up and surrender to these forces, the crash can be avoided. Humanity does possess the scientific, technological and social knowledge to not just survive, but also to emerge from the tumult by being more resilient and sustainable societies. The most urgent question, therefore, is how can we act on this knowledge. This book brings together 12 esteemed authors from diverse fields ranging from geology to governance, who have come together to collectively issue a unifying clarion call to action.

Disrupted Balance

Author: Vasbinder Jan Wouter
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9813239239
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Disaster Risk Reduction in Asia Pacific

Author: Helen James
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811648115
Category : Economic development
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
This book brings together interdisciplinary perspectives from across the Asia Pacific region, covering four main sections: 1) Governance, 2) Education and Capacity, 3) Science, Technology, Risk Assessment and Communities, and 4) Recovery. The chapters address different dimensions of Sendai Framework of Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), which are linked to Sustainable Development Goals, as well as Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Helen James was a specialist in Mainland Southeast Asia, especially Thailand and Myanmar (Burma). In 1997 she was awarded the order of Benchamabhorn, Member of the Most Noble Order of the Kingdom of Thailand by H.M. King Bhumibol Adulyadej for services to Thai history, language, education and culture. Helen passed away in April 2020. Rajib Shaw is the professor in Graduate School of Media and Governance in Keio Universitys Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC). Earlier, he was the Executive Director of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR), a decade-long research program co-sponsored by the International Science Council (ISC) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Reduction (UNDRR). He is a Senior Fellow of Institute of Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) Japan, and the Chairperson of SEEDS Asia and CWS Japan, two Japanese NGOs. Vinod Sharma is the First Professor of Disaster Management in India, and one of the pioneers in DRR in South Asia. He is also the Founder Coordinator of National Centre of Disaster Management (now National Institute of Disaster Management). He is well versed with the national, state and local disaster management legislation, institutions and systems through work as Vice-Chair, Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority with a diverse education that includes international development, sustainability and water governance. Anna Lukasiewicz researches topics around the distribution of natural resources (including how decision-making processes are structured and stakeholder-decision maker interactions); water governance (including water management, climate change adaptation and stakeholder engagement); and natural hazard management (especially policy around disaster resilience). She works mainly at the interface of justice and natural resource management. .

Evolution of Science, Technology and Innovation Policies for Sustainable Development

Author: Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
Publisher: United Nations
ISBN: 9210478487
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
This book aims to give policy makers an overview of the evolution of science, technology and innovation (STI) policies in a selected number of East Asian countries. China, Japan, Republic of Korea and Singapore have transformed their economies and societies in recent decades. From STI policies that enabled catch-up growth, these countries have evolved towards policies that are more aligned with sustainable development through integrating social, economic and environmental dimensions into their STI policies. The forthcoming Fourth Industrial Revolution is also reshaping STI policies in these countries as governments prepare to support the development of frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence, as well as respond to the impacts of these technologies on their societies and economies. Governments are also evolving themselves as the public sector opens up to integrating innovations from civil society and the private sector and further strengthen the innovation capacity of the public sector to improve policy making processes and deliver services to their constituents. All three themes are explored in this book in separate chapters, through a comparative analysis of the STI policies of China, Japan, Republic of Korea and Singapore. The experiences of these countries can serve as useful references for other countries in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond that are interested in utilizing national level STI policies to achieve sustainable development, particularly in the context of the emergence of frontier technologies.

Complexity and Resilience in the Social and Ecological Sciences

Author: Eoin Flaherty
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137549785
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
This book introduces a new approach to environmental sociology, by integrating complexity-informed social science, Marxian ecological theory, and resilience-based human ecology. It argues that sociologists have largely ignored developments in ecology which move beyond functionalist approaches to systems analysis, and as a result, environmental sociology has failed to capitalise not only on the analytical promise of resilience ecology, but on complementary developments in complexity theory. By tracing the origins and discussing current developments in each of these areas, it offers several paths to interdisciplinary dialogue. Eoin Flaherty argues that complexity theory and Marxian ecology can enhance our understanding of the social aspect of social-ecological systems, whilst a resilience approach can sharpen the analytical power of environmental sociology.

The Stockholm Paradigm

Author: Daniel R. Brooks
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022663244X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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Book Description
The contemporary crisis of emerging disease has been a century and a half in the making. Human, veterinary, and crop health practitioners convinced themselves that disease could be controlled by medicating the sick, vaccinating those at risk, and eradicating the parts of the biosphere responsible for disease transmission. Evolutionary biologists assured themselves that coevolution between pathogens and hosts provided a firewall against disease emergence in new hosts. Most climate scientists made no connection between climate changes and disease. None of these traditional perspectives anticipated the onslaught of emerging infectious diseases confronting humanity today. As this book reveals, a new understanding of the evolution of pathogen-host systems, called the Stockholm Paradigm, explains what is happening. The planet is a minefield of pathogens with preexisting capacities to infect susceptible but unexposed hosts, needing only the opportunity for contact. Climate change has always been the major catalyst for such new opportunities, because it disrupts local ecosystem structure and allows pathogens and hosts to move. Once pathogens expand to new hosts, novel variants may emerge, each with new infection capacities. Mathematical models and real-world examples uniformly support these ideas. Emerging disease is thus one of the greatest climate change–related threats confronting humanity. Even without deadly global catastrophes on the scale of the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, emerging diseases cost humanity more than a trillion dollars per year in treatment and lost productivity. But while time is short, the danger is great, and we are largely unprepared, the Stockholm Paradigm offers hope for managing the crisis. By using the DAMA (document, assess, monitor, act) protocol, we can “anticipate to mitigate” emerging disease, buying time and saving money while we search for more effective ways to cope with this challenge.

Grand Challenges For Science In The 21st Century

Author: Gulyas Balazs
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9813276452
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
This interesting book is a compilation of the lectures and discussions held during a four-day event — Grand Challenges for Science in the 21st Century — organized by Para Limes at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.The elite group of speakers included Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner who called on all scientists to adopt a truth-seeking approach and not be afraid of challenging assumptions. The other panellists were Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and past President of the Royal Society, the much-cited Terrence Sejnowski from the renowned Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the well-known keynote speaker in economics and complexity sciences Brian Arthur, the former President of the European Research Council Helga Nowotny and the Director of the Parmenides Center for the Conceptual Foundations of Science Eors Szathmary.The lively sessions were moderated by the Danish writer Tor Norretranders. The panel tackled topics from evolution and the origin of the universe to modern technologies and artificial intelligence. The challenges presented during the event are bound to get the reader thinking about what may lie ahead in our future.

Buying Time For Climate Action - Exploring Ways Around Stumbling Blocks

Author: Jan Wouter Vasbinder
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9811249202
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The 2021 IPCC report made one thing crystal clear — global climate change is here to stay. Time is up. We need to act or climate change will lead to inconceivable suffering by billions of people. Buying Time for Climate Action is the combined narrative of world class experts, all committed to help humanity survive its largely self-induced destructive course. Changing that course requires urgent action. Determining which actions will lead to helpful change requires insights into the stumbling blocks that always emerge when actions aimed at change are planned, resulting in lost time. The experts who contributed to this volume, through their expertise, networks, wisdom and creativity, have largely concluded that the way to cope with the stumbling blocks is to avoid them by focusing on grassroots initiatives. Their narratives and discussions, presented in this book, highlight such thinking.The book is essential reading for anyone committed to help avoid an existential disaster for humanity, and ready to move plans into effective action.Related Link(s)

The Major Metaphors of Evolution

Author: Salvatore J. Agosta
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030520862
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
This book presents a unified evolutionary framework based on three sets of metaphors that will help to consolidate discussions on evolutionary transitions. Evolution is the unifying principle of life, making identifying ways to apply evolutionary principles to tackle existence-threatening crises such as climate change crucial. A more cohesive evolutionary framework will further the discussions in this regard and also accelerate the process itself. This book lays out a framework based on three dualistic classes of metaphors – time, space, and conflict resolution. Evolutionary transitions theory shows how metaphors can help us understand selective diversification, as Darwin described with his “tree of life”. Moreover, the recently proposed Stockholm paradigm demonstrates how metaphors can help shed light on the emergence of complex ecosystems that Darwin highlighted with his “tangled bank” metaphor. Taken together, these ideas offer proactive measures for coping with existential crises for humanity, such as climate change. The book will appeal to biologists, philosophers and historians alike.

Fit for Purpose? The Futures of Universities

Author: Jan Wouter Vasbinder and Jonathan Y H Sim
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9811268959
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description

Understanding Risk

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309089565
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Understanding Risk addresses a central dilemma of risk decisionmaking in a democracy: detailed scientific and technical information is essential for making decisions, but the people who make and live with those decisions are not scientists. The key task of risk characterization is to provide needed and appropriate information to decisionmakers and the public. This important new volume illustrates that making risks understandable to the public involves much more than translating scientific knowledge. The volume also draws conclusions about what society should expect from risk characterization and offers clear guidelines and principles for informing the wide variety of risk decisions that face our increasingly technological society. Frames fundamental questions about what risk characterization means. Reviews traditional definitions and explores new conceptual and practical approaches. Explores how risk characterization should inform decisionmakers and the public. Looks at risk characterization in the context of the entire decisionmaking process. Understanding Risk discusses how risk characterization has fallen short in many recent controversial decisions. Throughout the text, examples and case studiesâ€"such as planning for the long-term ecological health of the Everglades or deciding on the operation of a waste incineratorâ€"bring key concepts to life. Understanding Risk will be important to anyone involved in risk issues: federal, state, and local policymakers and regulators; risk managers; scientists; industrialists; researchers; and concerned individuals.