In October we held our Uncertain World Summit, with a host of events and interactions to meet with new communities, think around new ideas and establish new solutions for what’s in store for us in the future. You can read the other blogs covered in ‘Our Uncertain World’ at the bottom of this blog. Join the conversation with us on Twitter using the hashtag #UncertainWorld and contribute your thoughts and concerns to our (virtual) graffiti wall. ——————————————————
(Note to the reader: I’d like to mention that, from this point forward, I shall try not to use the word ‘uncertainty’. Not because it isn’t important to talk about, but because I didn’t want this blog to be absorbed by recognising it. There were many things that came out of the Uncertain World Summit that I felt were rather certain and I’ll try to focus on those for a change).
The Uncertain World whiteboard – full of notes and ideas!
The two-day event was replete with bite sized chunks of climate science and policy making, washed down with group discussions and (at the end) Somerset wine. The attendee list was a vibrant jumble of scientists, philosophers, policy makers and industry leaders gathered together to discuss climate change. To do justice to the wealth of talks would be impossible in a short blog; there were contributions from a range of sectors including health, defence and agriculture as well as from climate researchers on topics such as sea level rise and land use change. Instead of reporting on the presentations, I thought I would focus on some of the recurring themes I noted from the discussions.
The first discussion I want to chalk up on the blogging-blackboard is the issue of science falling into the void between the scientific community and policy makers. The chain of decisions that propels a scientific revelation out of the lab and into the lives of ordinary people is convoluted and confused. How can we expect the world to save itself when the world doesn’t know what it needs saving from? The methodical production of scientific progress wrapped up in a safety blanket of statistical error is hard to chew on for the policy makers and even harder to digest by the general public. This became somewhat of a theme as I moved through the discussion groups (and now I see also in Adam Corner’s blog – it is clearly something that needs to be addressed at the base level).
The second issue to make it onto my summit-summary was how to best assimilate the objectives of climate change prevention into the everyday lives of the population. There was a unanimous resolution that, in order to elicit any modifications in people’s everyday routines, the impetus should be positive rather than negative: Employing threatening forecasts of apocalyptic temperature rise (however true they may be) simply isn’t an effective motivation when the effects aren’t yet tangible to the majority of the population. Instead, communicators should be painting the picture of the switch to green as a platform for economic growth facilitating more job prospects and greater social equality.
Reviving and utilising national (and international) pride is essential
to stimulating a universal response to climate change.
The mechanisms to power this change were harder to isolate. There was recognition that, in order to stimulate a universal response, reviving and utilising national (and international) pride is essential. The argument drew from examples of past regional and global cooperation particularly the World Wars and the first man on the moon. If, as occurred in these examples, a country unites with a mutual aim it can transcend social divisions to become a more efficient machine. Of course, the challenge lies in putting climate change prevention on a sufficiently glamorous pedestal as to evoke such a response. To achieve this there were a host of creative solutions including setting up community food schemes and mobilisation the Woman’s Institute to the cause.
More generally, the discussion wavered around the best ways to implement the outcomes of the discussion, whether through legislation or communication. In a problem so laden with political and economic bias it is unsurprising the current global responses are flavoured with self-interest. Overcoming this, in my opinion, will be the biggest challenge of all. On a brighter note, I found the summit an amazing experience that broadened my thinking on climate change. Despite the gloominess of the situation, I went away from the event feeling that problem-solving had triumphed over defeatism and that there are several paths we can take that can lead us towards a greener future. We just need to persuade everyone to take one.
———————————————- This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Keri McNamara, a PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol.
The Cabot Institute is focussing on our Uncertain World this year, with a host of events to meet with new communities, think around new ideas and establish new solutions for what’s in store for us in the future. We are posting blogs during November on ‘Our Uncertain World’. Join the conversation with us on Twitter using the hashtag #UncertainWorld and contribute your thoughts and concerns to our (virtual) graffiti wall. Read other blogs in the series by visiting the weblinks at the bottom of this blog. —————————————————— Uncertainty runs through climate science like the lettering in a stick of rock. It will never ‘go away’ and no communication strategy should ever aim for this. But it does seem as if somehow, uncertainty has become a stick with which to beat climate change in a way that it has not for other areas of science (or perhaps more to the point, in other areas of life). So it is worth asking why this is the case, and what we can do to address this…
My background is in psychology, and there is a rich literature on the psychology of risks perceptions that is certainly relevant to communicating uncertainty in the context of climate change. We know that people discount certain risks and inflate others, given the chance many will lean towards ‘wishful thinking’ rather than a cold, rational assessment of the probabilities.
But to my mind, the challenge of communicating uncertainty in climate change goes beyond presenting information in a way that will ‘beat the biases’ of the human mind – although there is an important role for this. To me it is more about ‘going with the grain’ of public engagement with climate change, starting from ‘where people are’ and working backwards from there, rather than starting with the science…and this tends to be the approach we take at Climate Outreach, the organisation I work for
For example, its now well-established that some of the most important and consistent drivers of public engagement with climate risks are peoples values, worldviews and political orientation. Scepticism is essentially unjustified levels of uncertainty about climate risks…but what drives this perception is people’s ideas about the implications of climate risks for their lives. People work backwards from an outcome that they don’t like the sound of, or feel threatened by, and assess the underlying risks accordingly. So starting with those ‘implications’ is crucial, and why the focus of the second day of the Cabot Institute’s Uncertain World conference is so important.
Where will people live? What impact is climate change having on Civil Society and the voluntary sector? These are crucial questions covered in Day 2, and help to join the dots between the underlying science and the ‘social reality’ of climate change for non-scientists and specialists. Once people are more engaged with ‘solutions’ to climate change that they endorse or can identify with – when people hear a story about climate change that sounds like it was written about them – they are much more likely to be open to the science that defines and describes the underlying problem.
My sense is that the biggest step we could take (as a community of people from very different background and disciplinary perspectives) would be to develop much greater strategic capacity to ‘join the dots’ between the science and the stories that people engage with. At the moment, sustained public engagement with climate change does not happen in a co-ordinated way, but events like the Uncertainty Summit are important ways of bridging the gap between different disciplines and professions. If the expertise and diversity of perspectives represented at this meeting could be marshalled on a permanent basis, to provide a new type of institution explicitly tasked with full-time public engagement on climate change (from the science through to the social reality of the issue), we would have a level of public engagement proportionate to the scale of the challenge we face.
—————————————-
This guest blog was written by Adam Corner, Research Director at Climate Outreach. Dr Adam Corner is Climate Outreach’s Research Director, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Psychology, Cardiff University. Adam manages Climate Outreach’s research portfolio, oversees the ‘Talking Climate’ project website, and directs Climate Outreach’s collaborations with academic partners. He writes regularly for the national media, including The Guardian and New Scientist magazine.
Climate Outreach recently published a ‘Handbook’ on communicating uncertainty with Steve Lewandowsky and Mary Phillips at University of Bristol. Download the handbook.
This last week we have been focussing on our Uncertain World, with a host of events and interactions to meet with new communities, think around new ideas and establish new solutions for what’s in store for us in the future. You can read the other blogs covered in ‘Our Uncertain World’ at the bottom of this blog. Join the conversation with us on Twitter using the hashtag #UncertainWorld and contribute your thoughts and concerns to our (virtual) graffiti wall.
——————————————————————–
Over the past year, the Cabot Institute have been exploring this Uncertain World. I have been lucky enough to have attended, and written about, two events that have occurred this week – a public dialogue event and a Question Time event. This last blog is a way for me to reflect on the event and my thoughts on moving forward in a time of uncertainty.
At the events, I was particularly struck by how differently we perceive this uncertainty: both in our lived experience and our understandings of climate change. From concerns surrounding health to the criticism of how climate change is taught at school – every person I encountered or listened to saw something different and added new concerns. Particularly notable was the wide divergence in understandings of climate change, resilience and uncertainty between two of the generations present at these events. It is these perceptions that have guided my thoughts.
Out of fear of insulting you readers – I will refrain from labelling these generational conclusions in terms of ‘elderly’ and ‘young’, or ‘mature’ and ‘naïve’. Instead, I will simplify them slightly – naming them after two people in my life: Maggie (my Nan); and Mary (my goddaughter). Maggie is 77 and enjoying retirement; Mary is four months old and doing a good job at avoiding colic.
Maggie
Many lack concern for climate change because they feel that they will remain unaffected. There is a greater concern in episodes of more-traditional conflict. Aside from Atlantis, there is no historical reference for the fate of Tuvalu in a world of rising sea levels. We fear armed conflict because of popular memory but how can we conceptualise climate change when we have no reference point to refer to?
Generation Maggie remembers the Second World War and much of their understandings were guided by their memories of the uncertainty generated by the conflict and the communal responses to this danger. This provides an important window into understanding uncertainty – the traditional perception of an existential threat, and how climate change often exists outside of this framing.
The uncertainty generated by the conflict of World War II led to
communal responses to this danger. Image credit: Wikipedia.
With age often painted as a contributory factor in scepticism towards climate change, it is important to understand that this may not be borne out of a lack of belief. Instead, it is driven by the conflict between the uncertain nature of climate change and the tangible, real threat that traditional conflict has posed in the past.
This problem is very different from the Blitzkrieg that transformed our cities into rubble during World War II; and, rather than labelling these sceptics “idiots” (George Ferguson’s words, not mine), we need to seek to engage with those who perceive climate change as uncertain and empower them to understand its role as a greater risk than we have ever experienced. World War Two may be a scar on this nation, but climactic shocks provide a threat that will be even harder to resist.
This experience also points to an important case of pooling of risk. Risks and resources were shared, community spirit was emphasised and everybody played their part. Food insecurity created rationing which, in turn, led to personal innovation and better diets than today. This may be rose tinted glasses but, as discussions uncovered, it is this form of community engagement, support and joint-adaptation that might provide the most effective routes to tacking climate-induced uncertainty in the future. Some still hark back for a return to these times; perhaps we should also look back and look to this community-resilience for inspiration.
Mary
As Bristol Youth Mayor, Neha Mehta said at the Question Time panel, young people care. They have enthusiasm and empathy and, importantly, the desire for change. At the Question Time event, I found myself lucky enough to be sat behind Bristol’s Youth Council. For the hour and a half, their heads did not drop. In fact, it was one of their numbers that asked the most challenging, and perhaps most pressing question of the evening: just how compatible are meaningful steps towards climate mitigation and a capitalist system based in corporate profit? A question that many have tried to find the answer to and I will not dare not elaborate on.
Neha Mehta, Youth Mayor (left) at the Cabot Institute Uncertain World Question
Time event in October 2015.
This generation will suffer from a greater degree of uncertainty in employment, finance and fulfilment of fundamental needs than the generation that has come before. Significantly, this increased instability will occur at a time when climate change will become more evident and the need for adaptation more extreme. This is not a cry of defeat, perhaps this increased uncertainty in all parts of life shall result in an increased innovation, creativity and passion in meeting these challenges and fulfilling the necessary transformations. Evidence of this can be found in the fossil fuel divestment movements that are sweeping across the education institutions of the globe.
According to even medium projections, future generations will inherit a very different world to the one that you and I inhabit. This raises an important need to expand these discussions to younger generations. The solution to these problems cannot just come from the leaders of today, but also the stewards of tomorrow. The young must be inspired to see that change and strive for it. For Neha, the answer must lie in education. Climate change can no longer be simplified and taught as just one aspect of a wider syllabus. Lessons must seek to inspire and advocate the individual and social change necessary to combat climate change. It is only through this engagement that today’s young people can become the future leaders that the climate change regime really needs.
At the Question Time event, Leo Hickman posed a thought-experiment:
“Has one generation ever done anything selflessly for the next?”
But, why must the need to act lie in one generation? Successful mitigation and adaptation cannot only involve the empowerment of the young. There is no monopoly on change. It must occur at every level and embrace every member of the community – empowering them to make the behavioural changes that are necessary for resilience.
The framing of climate change as an issue of the selflessness of one (future) generation transfers the need to act from one generation to the next, whilst neglecting the role that the past may play in the present. The climate change regime cannot only look forward; it must also look back to older and previous generations for inspiration. It is not a question of one generation sacrificing all for the future – it is a necessity for generations to work together to ensure the future is empowered and a better world is left.
This must not be selfless sacrifice by a saviour generation, this needs to be a communal pooling to ensure resilience – and the precedents for this are there.
————————————————————–
This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Ed Atkins, a PhD student at the University of Bristol who studies water scarcity and environmental conflict.
This week we are focussing on our Uncertain World, with a host of events and interactions to meet with new communities, think around new ideas and establish new solutions for what’s in store for us in the future. We will be posting blogs every day this week on ‘Our Uncertain World’. Join the conversation with us on Twitter using the hashtag #UncertainWorld and contribute your thoughts and concerns to our (virtual) graffiti wall.
———————————————
The current rate of environmental change is unprecedented in Earth’s history and many aspects of climate change are understood. Yet, others are not. Scientists can say with a high confidence that temperatures and sea level rise – but continue to remain uncertain on the scale and speed of such processes. Policy makers are now challenged to make decisions that possess long term repercussions on the basis of information that is deemed uncertain. However, it is not just the science that may appear incomplete – social, economic and regulatory trends also remain unpredictable.
The Question Time panel, left to right: Neha Mehta (Bristol Youth Mayor); Ann Cousins (ARUP);
Peter Macfadyen (Ex-Comic Relief & Frome Mayor); Leo Hickman (Carbon Brief);
George Ferguson (Bristol Mayor); Andrew Kelly (Bristol Festival of Ideas).
This Question Time event forms part of a wider ongoing dialogue between the Cabot Institute and the Bristol public, based on making climate-based uncertainty real, relevant and personal for all – whilst exploring what climate change means for this city and its inhabitants.
As George Ferguson said in his opening statement,
“the stars do seem aligned for Bristol”.
This is true – the city is European Green Capital, one of the Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities, and possesses a vibrant sense of community that previous conversations have drawn upon. Recent surveys have shown that over two thirds of the city’s population are concerned with the effects of climate change – as a local and a global issue. This provides a clear mandate for this city, and its leaders to act.
Yet, as Ann Cousins and Leo Hickman argued – it is not just the traditional decision makers who must make these changes. The inspiration of figureheads cannot occur in a vacuum. We are all leaders – be it via changing our own behaviour or by engaging with others to change theirs.
What became particularly evident in discussions at the public dialogue event was the focus on the local community to meet uncertainty. It is this pooling of risk that resulted in some of our most innovative, and important, social institutions – with the NHS providing just one example. In the face of increased social uncertainty today, many have independently set up food banks and swap-shops – resulting in cooperative ventures and the circular economy becoming more commonplace. It is no secret that the effects of climate change will be first felt at the local level – and it is this pooling of risk that provides an important route to adaptation.
As Frome has shown – and Peter Macfadyen voiced – the answer lies at the community level. For meaningful change, policy must move beyond mere nudge theory and towards tipping points. Change can only occur by giving people agency – by inspiring them to embrace individual mitigation and adaptation strategies. From decreased wastage to selling the car and waiting at the bus stop. This cannot occur in isolation – it must embrace the complexity of climate change as a social issue and link it directly to the lives we live. Radical change will be necessary but it will be a quiet revolution, based on information and engagement.
Peter Mcfadyen (centre) tells the room that the answer to climate change lies
at the community level.
Although there may be wide agreement that climate change is occurring – there is often a popular disconnect between the phenomena and its consequences for us as societies and individuals. When the media talk about climate change scepticism, they are usually referring to people who are uncertain about the reality or seriousness of climate change. Psychologists at the University of Illinois have found an important discrepancy between how the term ‘uncertainty’ is meant in scientific reports and how it is interpreted by others [1]. This is a problem when the 2013 report of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change used the term over 2200 times – approximately 1.5 times per page of the report of the working group alone [2].
A number of the event’s questions focused on the need for radical change in Bristol – including the pedestrianisation of the M32, Oslo’s ban on cars, and a policies on inter-community recycling and reuse. This struck me – the desire for radical change was near-unanimous. But, how representative of this is Bristol as a whole? Many still posses a tunnelled vision and a drawbridge mentality in their understanding of shifting climates – “it’s not affecting me, why should I care?” Priorities lie elsewhere: securing basic needs, prosperity, health, etc. Sadly, climate change doesn’t possess the minds of many.
Seoul – pedestrianised one of its motorways. Is this on the cards for Bristol’s M32?
Image credit Better Nation.
Climate change continues to feel distant. A question for science, rather than society. We have seen the images of Hurricane Sandy and of sea level rise – but these are from a different world, a great distance from our front doors. The biggest question of the night for me will continue to plague me for a while longer: Has Bristol felt climate change enough to cause this behavioural change on an individual level? And, if not what will it take?
References
[1] David V. Budescu, Stephen Broomell & Han-Hui Poor (2009). Improving the uncertainty in the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Psychological Science, 20(3): 299-308
[2]Stephan Lewandowsky, Timotyhy Ballard, & Richard D. Pancost (2015). Uncertainty as Knowledge, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 373(2055).
————————–
This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Ed Atkins, a PhD student at the University of Bristol who studies water scarcity and environmental conflict.
This week we are focussing on our Uncertain World, with a host of events to meet with new communities, think around new ideas and establish new solutions for what’s in store for us in the future. We will be posting blogs every day this week on ‘Our Uncertain World’. Join the conversation with us on Twitter using the hashtag #UncertainWorld and contribute your thoughts and concerns to our (virtual) graffiti wall. Alternatively join us at our Question Time event on Wednesday 21 October at 6 pm and ask our local leaders how they will change their decision making as a result of our changing global environment. Tickets are free, book here.
———————————————————————–
Adaptation to climate change presents a unique challenge: the need to make important decisions on the basis of incomplete and uncertain information. We know that future environments shall be different from today’s, but we cannot be certain of the specifics of this change. The pointing out of uncertainty in predictions is a central part of scientific training and provides an important source of transparency in research. However, this has provided climate-skeptics with ammunition on the future of the climate change, the science that explores it and the related policies of mitigation and adaptation. As Adam Corner has written, the longer that the debates surrounding climate change focus on the uncertainty in future prediction, the less likely it is that any transformation will occur. A translation is necessary – and it is this that provides the focus of a series of events that the Cabot Institute is hosting on uncertainty, its role in our lives and climate change, and the opportunities that it can provide in moving forward.
A recent study has found that we, as individuals, have a tendency to prioritise daily experience over more-statistical knowledge – meaning that our personal experiences may have a greater influence on views of climate change than any conclusions drawn by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [1]. This is important: the complexity of society, ourselves and our relationships mean that we live with uncertainty every day. It is this socialised form of uncertainty, present across our world, that this public dialogue sought to explore and understand on the 17th October. Led by Hayley Shaw of the Cabot Institute, this event gave the impetus (and the microphone) to members of the public – allowing the communication of how uncertainty is felt in everyday life, its driver, and hopes and fears within an uncertain future.
The event placed its starting point at the (what would seem simple) question of ‘what is that makes a good and happy life?’ An admission: I am 25 years of age and have never even come close to seeking an answer to this question. Perhaps this is symbolic of my skewed personal priorities, or perhaps it points to something larger – our detachment from the elements of life that we enjoy and take for granted. It is this latter symbolism that guided much of the room’s deliberations – with a focus on the privileges we enjoy often being absent in other parts of the globe. Freedom, security and peace; physical and mental wellbeing; and access to basic resources to fulfil fundamental needs were all mentioned heavily. However, conversations also discussed on the more deliberative elements of life, such as autonomy and empowerment, justice and cultural and intellectual wealth. All of which were perceived by participants as never certain.
There were a number of notable themes that participants drew from these discussions. Firstly, was the near-complete focus on the personal and local level, with limited mentioned of our relationships with our state. Second, all characteristics of ‘a good life’ discussed possess a dual role: of both a driver towards and consequence of happiness. For example: many groups spoke about the need for a sense of purpose to truly enjoy life. However, if we to build a flow chart of these elements of a good life, where would we place motivation and self-worth? Whilst some would place it at the end, with a sense of purpose built by security, health and autonomy. I’d imagine that Iain Duncan Smith would disagree, placing it at the beginning as the gateway to personal growth.
Lastly, these points of stability often compete with each other – resulting in competition and trade-offs between them. It is this presence of uncertainty in securing many of these points that opened up an important conversation surrounding how these can be achieved, and the factors that influence their foundations. The economy reigned supreme in many of these deliberations – with the important links between personal income and fulfilling of basic human needs of food, health and shelter often asserted. Common themes of discussion also focused on the issues of migration and multiculturalism, justice and equality, and the nature of the globalised world and trade. Significantly, these are all systems that not only drive uncertainty but are products of it also.
Comments from the public during the event on Saturday 17 October.
Lastly, the group explored strategies of resistance against these forms of uncertainty. In these discussions, it was our understanding of these drivers of precariousness that provided our personal routes forward – be it via the personal choice of taking money outside of the globalised economy, or the need for solidarity, dialogue and knowledge-exchange as a means to challenge injustices. Notably, many of the answers often lay in the community and individual action, rather than the state – perhaps illustrated by the rise of food banks and cooperative endeavours as a means to fulfil important roles that the state does not.
With uncertainty providing an important issue in the communication of climate change, it was eye-opening to explore its sources in day-to-day life. The message from this event was simple: we all experience, explore and rebel against unpredictability on a daily basis – ranging from the mundane to the existential. However, these sources result in an increased degree of imagination and flexibility in our navigation of life. Without it, life would be pretty dull. Unpredictability does not restrict us from making important everyday decisions – so why should it inhibit any response to climate change? Uncertainty should not always be a dirty word.
References
[1] Anthony G. Pratt & Elke U. Weber (2014), Perceptions and communication strategies for the many uncertainties relevant for climate policy. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. 5(2): 219-232.
——————————————————————
This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Ed Atkins, a PhD student at the University of Bristol who studies water scarcity and environmental conflict.
The Festival of Ideas have invited partners and participants in the Festival of the Future City to contribute articles on areas of work they are engaged in of relevance to the upcoming events. Rich Pancost, Director of the Cabot Institute, blogs below.
Photo by David Iliff. License CC-BY-SA 3.0
Half of the planet lives in cities. By the middle of this century, that number will rise to nearly 75%, nearly 7 billion people. The decisions we make today will dictate whether those future cities are fit for purpose, whether they are just, sustainable, vibrant, resilient and pleasant. But those decisions must navigate an increasingly perilous web of urban complexity and global uncertainty.
The Nobel Prize winning physicist Niels Bohr famously said,
‘Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future,’
a quote that recognises and subverts the very nature of the scientific endeavour. Scientists aspire to understand something well enough that we can predict what will happen under certain conditions in the future, whether it be a chemical reaction or nuclear fission – or administering a drug or raising interest rates. In fact, prediction is the basis for all decision makers, not just doctors and engineers but mayors, CEOs, teachers and you. Whether it is predicting when you will run out of bread or predicting whether a residential parking scheme will bring about a net positive change to a congested city, we all make decisions based on what we think is about to happen or will happen if we take an action. In a simple world, we barely need to think about these things because the pattern has been reproduced numerous times or the solution will clearly address the challenge.
But we do not live in a simple world. We live in a complex world – an astonishingly complex world in which the landscape is changing faster than our ability to map it.
People are complex: our emotions, motivations, desires and fears make us notoriously (and wonderfully) difficult to understand and predict. Society is complex: our communities, whether they be geographical, historical, ethnic or religious, interact in marvellously messy ways. And most of all, our cities are complex. Beautifully, fantastically, unpredictably, frustratingly and vibrantly complex. Cities represent tens or hundreds or even thousands of years of ad hoc expansion, destruction and redevelopment; the accumulation of technological and infrastructural strata, from ancient paths, to great roads, to modern electrical grids, to smart city digital networks; and vast demographic changes including an aging population, migration, globalisation and a frightening increase in social inequality.
That is just the complexity within a city, but cities are not isolated from the rest of the world. They are nodes within a vast and increasingly complex global supply chain on which we depend for everything from our food and electricity to our culture and entertainment.
And adding yet additional layers of complexity are our global environmental and societal challenges. We are warming the planet and depleting it of vital resources. Those would be challenging enough given the complex interdependencies that now define 21st century society. Unfortunately, global warming could change our planet in ways that are unique in human history and possibly geological history. We have not experienced and our models cannot fully constrain this uncertain world. Forecasts for rainfall patterns, extreme weather events or food production are fraught with uncertainty – and by extension, so are forecasts for political insecurity and financial markets.
How does the complexity intersect and overlap, how do these systems merge, either dampening or enhancing their collective impacts? How will climate change and food insecurity, for example, exacerbate inequality? We do have tools for navigating these complex systems – ranging from cognitive shortcuts in decision making to community histories to sophisticated models. However, those are almost all based on experience, and experience loses value when the ground rules are changed. Our vast experiment with the Earth’s climate and ecosystem – making our world not just complex but complex and uncertain – makes it harder for scientists to predict the future, decision makers to plan and individuals to act with creative and empowering agency.
Of course, complexity need not be bad. Complexity and change can bring about positive challenges, shaking us out of complacency and inspiring creativity. Perhaps even more inspiring, complexity could be harnessed as a tool for connection rather than isolation. Although our interdependence makes us particularly vulnerable to conflict or instability on the far side of the planet, it also makes us all invested in one another’s lives. This also applies to the urban scale as exemplified by Bristol is Open, in which an additional layer of complexity – a publicly shared digital infrastructure managed by a smart city operating system – could generate new platforms for social cohesion. It could be a new set of cross-city linkages, a digital commons, or a shared lab for city-scale experimentation in which all of us are the scientists.
Ensuring how our complex cities thrive in an uncertain world is a rather exciting challenge that will likely require a range of solutions. During the Festival of the Future City we will explore both what it means to be a citizen in a complex city, how we navigate that complexity both on a personal and societal scale, and the new technologies that create both new challenges and new opportunities. In some cases, we should avoid unnecessary uncertainty, such as potentially devastating climate change. In others, we should harness the social and economic opportunities it presents. But in all cases, we ourselves must change. A more complex world requires a more resilient citizen or community, one that is empowered to learn, to improvise and to create.
On the 23rd of August, and as part of Bristol 2015 European Green Capital, I have the privilege of participating in a conversation about the future of our coastal seas that has been inspired by Luke Jerram’s ethereal and evocative Withdrawn Project in Leigh Woods. The conversation will include Luke, but also the esteemed chef, Josh Eggleton who has championed sustainable food provision and is providing a sustainable fish supper for the event, and my University of Bristol Cabot Institute colleague, Dani Schmidt, who is an expert on the past and current impacts of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems.
My engagement with Withdrawn has been inspired on multiple levels, primarily the enthusiasm of Luke but also arising from my role as Cabot Director and my own research on the oceans. Withdrawn inspires reflection on our dependence on the sea and how we have polluted and depleted it, but also on how we obtain our food and the people at the heart of that industry.
All of these issues are particularly acute for our island nation, ringed by nearly 20,000 kilometres of coastline and culturally and economically dependent on the sea. Beyond our own nation, over 2.6 billion people need the oceans for their dietary protein, a point driven home when I interviewed Sir David Attenborough on behalf of Cabot (see video below). He passionately referred to the oceans as one of our most vital natural resources. And of course, as Withdrawn reminds us, the oceans have vast cultural and spiritual value. It also reminds us that those oceans and those resources are at profound risk.
I’ve spent over 25 years studying our planet and its oceans. However, my first ocean research expedition did not occur until 1999, and it was a profoundly eye-opening experience. We were exploring the deep sea communities fuelled by methane extruded from the Mediterranean seafloor. Isolated from light, the ocean floor is a largely barren world, but in parts of the Mediterranean it is interrupted by explosions of colourful life, including tubeworms, bacterial colonies, fields of molluscs and strange and lonely fish, all thriving in exotic mountains of carbonate crusts cut by saline rivers. These are vibrant ecosystems but so far removed from the surface world and light that they instead depend on chemical energy sourced from deep below the bottom of the ocean. And even here we found human detritus, plastic and cans and bottles.
Those were powerful observations, in large part because of their symbolism: our influence on the oceans is pervasive and quite often in ways that are challenging to fully comprehend and often invisible to the eye. These include, for example:
The potentially devastating impact of plastic on marine ecosystems, including plastic nanoparticles that are now, for all intents and purposes, ubiquitous. Of course, pollutants are not limited to plastic – our lab now identifies petroleum-derived hydrocarbons in nearly every ocean sediment we analyse.
Ocean warming. A vast amount of the energy that has been trapped in the Earth system by higher greenhouse gas concentrations has been absorbed by the oceans. Its impact on marine life is only beginning to be documented, but it has been invoked, for example, as an explanation for declines in North Sea fisheries.
And these represent only a few of the chemical and environmental changes we are making to the marine realm. They do not even begin to address the numerous issues associated with our over-exploitation and poor management of our marine resources.
Compounded, these factors pose great risk to the oceans but also to all of us dependent on them. As Cabot Institute Director, I engage with an inspiringly diverse range of environmental scientists, social scientist, engineers, doctors and vets. And in those conversations, of all the human needs at threat due to environmental change, it is water and food that concern me the most. And of these, our food provision seems the most wildly unpredictable. The synergistic impact of warmer temperatures, more acidic waters, and more silt-choked coastal waters on a single shellfish species, let alone complex ecosystems such as coral reefs or North Sea food webs, is very difficult to predict. This uncertainty becomes even more pronounced if we factor in nutrient runoff from poorly managed land, eutrophication and ocean anoxia leading to more widespread ‘dead zones’. Or the impact of plastic, hydrocarbon, and anti-biofouling pollutants. The ghost ships of Withdrawn quietly tell the story of how our increased demand and poor management have led to overexploitation of fish stocks, causing an industry to face increasing uncertainty. But they also invoke deeper anxieties about how environmental change and pollution of our seas could devastate our food supply.
But Withdrawn, like other Bristol Green Capital Arts projects and like all inspiring art, does not telegraph a simple message. It does not shout to ‘bring back local fisherman’ or ‘save our oceans’. These messages are present but subtly so, and for that both Luke and the National Trust should be celebrated. The boats themselves are captivating and draw you into the fisherman’s efforts; they acknowledge our dependence on the ocean and that we must continue to exploit it. To others they are suggestive of some past catastrophe, a tsunami that has somehow deposited fishing boats in a wildly unanticipated place. And yet to others, they suggest the changing character of seas, seas that once stood 100 m higher than they do today and which almost certainly will do so again if all of our coal and oil is burned into carbon dioxide.
Withdrawn is about all of those things. And consequently, at its deepest level, I think Withdrawn is about change.
Ammonite by Alex Lucas as part of Cabot Institute’s Uncertain World art project.
Geologists have a rather philosophical engagement with the concept of change – on long enough timescales, change is not the exception but the defining character of our planet and life. I should clarify that the aforementioned Mediterranean expedition was my first proper research excursion to the modern seas, but it came long after numerous visits to ancient ones. In 1993, my PhD co-supervisor Mike Arthur took a group of us to Colorado where we collected samples from sedimentary rocks that had been deposited in the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway 90 million year ago, a Seaway from a hotter, ice-free world, in which higher oceans had invaded a downflexed central North American basin. That might not seem like a proper marine experience but to a geologist you can reconstruct an ocean in startling clarity from the bold clues preserved in the rock: current flows that tell you the shape of the coastline; fossils that reveal the ecosystem, from cyanobacterial mats on the seafloor to inoceramids and ammonites to great marine reptiles in the waters above; and the rocks themselves that reveal a shallow sea in which limestone was deposited across a great platform.
But it was only like this at some times. The fascinating aspect of these rocks is the complex pattern of sedimentation – from limestones to shales and back again – limestones that were much like the lime cliffs of Lyme Regis, switching in a geological blink of the eye to oil shales similar to those in Kimmeridge Bay, from which, further North and at greater depths and pressures, North Sea oils derive. Limestone. Shale. Limestone. Shale. A pattern repeated hundreds of times. In the Western Interior Seaway. Along the Jurassic Coast. Across the globe, from the Tarfaya, Vocontian and Maracaibo basins to the Hatteras Abyss, from Cape Verde to the Levant Platform. Cycles and cycles of astonishingly different rock types – all bundled up in patterns suggesting they were modulated by the ever changing character of Earth’s orbit. These cycles are change, from a sea with clear waters, little algal growth and ringed with reefs to one fed with nutrients and gorged with algal blooms and stripped of oxygen.
Change is a necessary and inevitable feature of our planet. And of the human condition.
But we seem incapable of resisting the urge to impose a value judgment for or against change. It is either viewed as a technocratic marvel to be celebrated or a violation against the natural state of the world and to be resisted. But often, change is conflated with loss. And there is something of loss in Withdrawn. These are the ‘Ghost Ships’ of Leigh Woods. Ghosts of a way of life that no longer exists. Ghosts of the animals these boats once hunted. Ghosts of some past and inexplicable event.
Of course, change will always be about progress vs loss, its value neither solely good nor bad but nonetheless inevitable. But just because a geologist recognises the inevitability of change does not mean he thinks we should be passive to it. Change will come but should be managed, a significant challenge given its rapid pace over the past 150 years. In fact, one of the main observations of Dani Schmidt’s research is that our current rate of environmental change appears to be essentially unprecedented in Earth history, let alone human experience.
My hope is that Withdrawn has caused people to engage with the concept of change. How do we manage change in the 21st century? How do we recognise those things that can and should be let go. As one visitor said, ‘We want to resist romanticising the past.’ Conversely, how do we decide what change must be moderated, because its cost is too high? We can reduce our plastic consumption and waste, and we can enforce more rigorous regulations to stop the pollution of our planet – and we should. More complicated questions arise from how we manage our dependencies on these precious marine resources, but it is clear that we can eat fish more sustainably, and chefs like Josh Eggleton are showing the way. We can create marine reserves that will not only conserve species but serve as biodiversity hotspots benefitting all of the oceans.
Perhaps most importantly, how do we recognise those things that must be preserved? When I see the ghost ships of Withdrawn, I feel the poignant loss of our connection with nature and our connection with what it provides. Our food is now produced far away, delivered to sterile supermarkets via ships, trains and lorries; maybe that is necessary on a planet of over 7 billion people but if so, we must strive to preserve our connection to the sea – to our whole planet – understanding what it provides and understanding its limits.
The final Withdrawn talk at Leigh Woods will be taking place on 23 August 2015 and will feature Cabot Institute scientists, Luke Jerram and chef Josh Eggeleton who will be cooking up a sustainable fish and chip supper for attendees. This event is sold out.
When I was told I would be coordinating all the marketing materials for the University of Bristol stands at the Festival of Nature, I was quite excited. Being a nature lover, I knew the job would fit me well. What I wasn’t prepared for was all the amazing things that our researchers have been working on and will be showing off at this year’s festival. I am really pleased to be involved in helping them to showcase their nature-based research and I hope you all enjoy the experience when you come and visit us.
Here are my top five things to look out for when you visit the University of Bristol tent:
H1N1 flu virus
1. Explore how your genes might help you to fight the flu
Who knew that your genetics can determine how well you can fight off the flu? At this stall you will find some biologists and veterinary scientists who will be showing you how your immune system has to keep up with ever-evolving viruses in order to keep your body free from infection. Expect to get involved in a ‘war’ between the viruses and the immune system…who’s going to win?
2. Discover the underground world of roots
Roots. Those long straggly things attached to the bottom of plants. What are they good for? These small structures are actually very clever and extremely vital to life on earth. Visit our biologists at this stand to find out how extraordinary this plant part is and get up close to the root systems to see how they interact with the soil and help bind it together to prevent soil erosion.
3. Learn about Bristol’s hidden river history
Did you know that Bristol has a hidden river running right through the city centre? Nope, neither did I! The Frome River used to flow where the Hippodrome is now, but it became so polluted that we buried it! Join our environmental historians for a hands-on journey around Bristol’s rivers and discover why Bristol’s hidden river history is so important in shaping our lives.
An ammonite. These would have been found in Bristol
under water when CO2 levels were at similar levels to
today. Image credit: Alex Lucas.
4. Have your say on our uncertain world
At the end of 2015, Paris will be hosting the COP21 – a huge international conference to try to agree a legally binding and universal agreement on climate. The aim will be to keep global warming below 2°C. At our Uncertain World stall, you will meet Cabot Institute scientists who study Earth’s past climate. They know from their research that sea level was much higher in the past when carbon dioxide levels were at similar levels as today. So what’s in store for our world and what are the uncertainties in our future? We will tell you what we know and what we don’t know and we would love to get you to write or draw your feelings and concerns on our uncertainty wall so that we can send a big Bristol message to Paris for the COP21.
5. Hear a family friendly story about climate change
If you do anything at the Festival of Nature this year, please do try and catch the Cabot Institute’s Dr James Norman who will be telling a story about climate change in the Talks Tent at 2.15 pm on the Saturday. This is not your average storyteller, this is a man who is passionate about what he talks about and will use his kids storybooks to ask – are we ever really going to change how we behave? James will take you through an amusing adventure via monsters, story books and kites stuck in trees to try and answer the question “if not now, when?”
The University of Bristol tent will be based in Millennium Square on Bristol Harbourside from Saturday 13 to Sunday 14 June. It’s free to attend our tent and talks. For more information about our tent and activities, visit our website here.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
———————————————
This blog has been reproduced with kind permission from the Festival of Nature news page.
This blog has been written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Communications Officer at the University of Bristol. Follow @Enviro_Mand.
