Gibberish

The Study of Coupled Human-Environment Systems: A Separate Scientific Field?

In this essay, I argue that the study of coupled human-environment systems (CHES) should be established as a separate scientific field. Such a new field is crucial for acquiring a new comprehensive view of sustainability, a concept that is understood and misunderstood in so many ways that some researchers even regard it useless. With a new view, new theories of sustainability that shed light on long-term organic solutions to sustainability can follow. The new field of CHES shall be guided by the science of complex adaptive system (CAS).

Let's begin with looking back at the history of philosophy and science. Before Socrates, the fundamental question for philosophers was "What is there?" or "What does the world consist of?" It was a striving to understand the environments of humans. Socrates started a new inquiry by asking "What way ought we to live?" It was a shift of focus from understanding the environments to humans ourselves. When Descartes came along in the 17^th century, his questioning of "What can I know?" set epistemology at the center of philosophy for three hundred years. Schelling introduced a different philosophy, in which humans are an integral part of nature that is perpetually evolving. Hegel further developed Schelling's idea of ever changing processes in the dialectic, but identified this dynamics more in historical processes. In the 20^th century, we have witnessed philosophy dominated by Existentialism Philosophy and Analytic Philosophy. Whereas Existentialism Philosophy deals with the existence of humanity in a godless world, Analytic Philosophy departs from epistemology-centered philosophy to logic-based philosophy. Tackling petty questions like "What are we really saying when we say so-and-so?" Analytic Philosophy is focused more on analysis than the subject. Now, I think, it comes time in philosophy to ask some important questions again along the line that the Greeks had started: What's the relation between what's out there and us? What is our destiny? It's time to renew what Schelling had initiated. It's time to employ Hegel's dialectic to seek to understand the dynamic interconnections between nature and us. It's time to look at the existence of humanity not only in a godless world but also within the natural world. It may not matter as much "What we can know", as to know how humans and nature can co-live better.

Natural sciences like physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy and ecology have produced significant knowledge about the world around us. Modern social sciences, such as political science, economics, psychology, sociology and anthropology, have greatly increased our understandings about ourselves. But "The whole is more than the sum of its parts", as Aristotle concisely put in the Metaphysics. The science of CAS initiated in the Santa Fe institute has already launched a holistic way of looking at the world. In the realm of science, I believe, it also comes time to go beyond the divide of the disciplines, to integrate all we have learned about the natural world and humans, and put together a big picture of CHES. Science and philosophy should go shoulder-to-shoulder in this new inquiry.

Let's also take a practical point of view: the tremendous environmental problems we face force us to study humans and nature in a linked manner. We humans have long been used to exploiting nature for our own needs. Equipped with modern technologies, we have gone very far and even think we can conquer nature. We take it for granted that nature is our servant always ready to offer her service. Until recently, as non-renewable energy resources are depleting quickly, habitat losses due to human activities have led to many species dying out, more severe natural hazards are occurring as a result of global climate change caused by increasing greenhouse gases, fisheries have collapsed in many oceans because of overfishing, water resources have been contaminated by pollutions, industrialization and urbanization have taken so many fertile croplands that we are having difficulty feeding the increasing populations, we finally realize that we have a serious problem, so serious that we may ask the question whether humanity can continue to thrive on earth. We know that these environmental problems can't be solved by technologies alone. Neither can they be fully understood by studying the natural world or human activities alone. A holistic view of CHES is essential for understanding the dynamics of such systems and for generating insights into long-term organic solutions to sustainability.

Let's now look closer at the study of CHES. To study CHES, we need to know the needs, economic activities and behaviors of people. We need to know the dynamics of the natural environment. We also need to know how people and their environment interact and understand the long term feedbacks. Therefore, the study of CHES is by nature multi-disciplinary (or trans-disciplinary). Economics, political science, behavior science and ecology are all useful. But none of them alone is capable of such an inquiry simply because of their local focus. Even ecologists who study the environments of living things as a system don't include humans in ecosystems. Among all disciplines, geography seems more likely to carry on this inquiry with its subfields of political geography, economic geography, physical geography and human geography etc. Geography offers some useful tools as well: GIS, Remote Sensing, spatial modeling and mapping. Its essential concept of scale is also essential for studying CHES. Indeed, some sporadic research on CHES can be found mostly in geography. However, its wide-ranging subfields focus mainly on the geographic aspect of the subjects, they don't provide sufficient depth. Thus, geography will not do the job either. The resilience alliance has been active in studying the resilience of social ecological systems. Resilience is an important property of such systems, but it is not the key to sustainability. A more comprehensive view than resilience makes more sense.

In addition, significant barriers (practical, philosophical and attitude barriers) to interdisciplinary research exist, and strongly hinder the study of CHES. Practical barriers such as acquiring funding, publishing papers and gaining recognition still exist extensively. The identity of inter-disciplinarians is another practical issue as none of the traditional labels applies to them. Philosophical barriers arise from the different research paradigms in different disciplines including ways of defining the problem and choosing the approach to solving problems. Extensive interdisciplinary contempt is a major attitude barrier. It is natural to be dubious about the way people in another discipline discuss a problem of my interest. And it is easy to think my discipline is incredibly challenging and important, and yours is largely full of people who couldn't make it in mine. If the study of CHES is established as a separate field, we will be able to create a community of scholars with shared goals and interests and draw more attention and resources, the great barriers to CHES research will be lifted, and the study of CHES and the sustainability endeavor will take off at a whole new level.

I hope, at this point, I have convinced you that the necessity of establishing the study of CHES as a separate scientific field in this historical moment is obvious. The enormous environmental problems and the urgency of dealing them make the formation of CHES critical for transcending the great interdisciplinary barriers.

Then, what should this new field of CHES look like? It should be guided by the science of CAS. It should first acquire a new comprehensive view of sustainability. It should look at sustainability as a global property of CHES emergent from the actions of humans and the laws of nature, the interactions between humans and nature and the long term feedbacks. It should have a clear goal of generating insights into how humanity and nature can better co-live. It should focus on understanding the interactions, long term feedbacks, dynamics and emergent properties of CHES. It should build upon various well-studied disciplines. It should address sustainability in a comprehensive way: individual behaviors, market mechanisms, public policies and technologies. It should investigate the roles of multiple players: governments, cooperates, interest groups, individuals. It should view sustainability as multi-dimensional: to natural resources, to biodiversity, to climate change, to pollutions etc. It should incorporate the vulnerability research in climate change and adaptation into its larger framework. It should study sustainability at multiple geographical scales: communities, regions, nations, the entire globe. It should study the evolution of CHES and its potential pathways into future. It should apply multiple methods and make more use of computer models in order to explore the dynamics. Most of all, it should foster new theories of sustainability. Theoretical breakthroughs in sustainability research are very likely to come from this new field of CHES.

Not only will the study of CHES be guided by the science of CAS, it will also feed back to and make contributions to the science of CAS. Just as CAS is the science of the 21^st century, the study of CHES will also be a scientific field of the 21^st century.