A Changing World: Redrawing the Map

Climate, Human Migration, Food Security The 11th Royal Colloquium May 2013 ISBN: 978-91-637-4831-8

Publishers: Kessler & Karlqvist

Editors: Elisabeth Kessler & Anders Karlqvist

Layout and printing: Dixa Tryckeri Solna 2014

Cover: Narsaq, Greenland. 2007 Photo: His Majesty Kung Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden A Changing World: Redrawing the Map Climate, Human Migration, Food Security The 11th Royal Colloquium May 2013

Editors: Elisabeth Kessler and Anders Karlqvist

Table of Contents

Introduction by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden 5

What are we up to? Anders Karlqvist 7

Knowledge: Its Nature, Its Application and Its Value John Hyman 11 Individual Choice and Collective Responsibility in the Age of Globalization and Complexity Ian Goldin 17 Overcoming “Tragedies of the Commons” with Self-regulating, Participatory Market Society Dirk Helbing 21

Manufacturing Cooperation Bo Rothstein 27

Knowing about Limits Susan Owens 31

The Road to the Future is Rooted in the Past Paul Alan Cox 37

Why Don´t Research Findings have Better Impact? Nina Rehnqvist 43 One Health – A Necessary Approach for the Future Björn Olsen, Josef Järhult, Jonas Waldenström and Charlotte Berg 47

With Education the Future Looks Better Wolfgang Lutz 53

Environmental Change and Migration Susan Martin 59 Perenniation: Revolutionary Pathways to Meet Farming’s 21st Century Challenges Jerry Glover 65

Learning to Think:Thinking to Learn Garry Brewer 73 The Age of the Arctic: Challenges and Opportunities in Arctic and Global Communities Terry V. Callaghan, Ranga B. Myneni, Liang Xu, Margareta Johansson 79

Urban Transport: A Complex Issue Arne Wittlöv 87

Kiruna: A City in Transformation Göran Cars and Kristina Zakrisson 93

From the Horizon of Abisko Göran Bäckblom 99 The Editors and Authors 105 Royal Colloquium May 2013: Programme 109 The Royal Colloquia History 113

Introduction by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden

In 1992, I invited a small group of scientists and decision makers to join me in a Royal Colloquium. The aim of the Colloquium was to discuss environmental protection, conservation, and the sustainable use of natural resources, all of which are issues of personal interest to me. The Colloquia have now become a tradition and new Colloquia have followed in a series of meetings that have broadly addressed the interplay between environment and society. Among other things, we have asked ourselves: What can we learn from history? What have we learnt? How do we go from knowing to doing? Over the years since 1992, our perspectives have changed and are still changing. Some problems and challenges remain in focus while others have been partly solved, reformulated, or simply set aside to make room for new challenges. We have also seen how advances in technology now allow us to look at the problems in new ways and to define emerging problems and reconsider some of the old ones. We all share a world in constant change, which means that we are constantly forced to redraw the map, both literally and figuratively. Today, we are in the process of geographically altering the map of the world, not only on a local but also on a global scale. The most obvious examples of anthropogenic activities influencing the environment include; energy use, resource depletion, food production, etc. These activities have led and continue to lead to climate change on a global scale. The mobility and migration of peoples are an inherent part of our history. What is new, however, is that we are currently witnessing demographic change on a grand scale. Peoples are being displaced for political, religious and economic reasons. In addition to which the effects of climate change are leading to displacement and relocation of large groups of people.

5 The challenges and threats to our environment are constantly with us, and over the years we have seen how human ingenuity has risen to meet these challenges and threats. However, human ingenuity and knowledge do not always lead to positive change: Trust in individuals, institutions and authorities is critical, if we are to make things happen. Good models are important. In this respect, the town of Kiruna can serve as an interesting example for the future. The whole town is in the process of being relocated. A detailed description of this process -- the challenges faced by the mining company, local politicians and citizens, and the decisions to be reached-- is given in some detail in this publication. The publication you now have in your hand is based on presentations and contributions by participants at my 11th Royal Colloquium. These articles are intended to provide some important insights into the geography of knowledge from the perspective of different disciplines and fields of expertise. They clearly illustrate the complexity of our societies and the world we are all part of. We tried to look through the gap in the curtain to catch just a glimpse of our common future. The result may be vaguely unsettling, but it is also full of hope.

Acknowledgements The 2013 Royal Colloquium and publication of this document were made possible by financial support from The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, The Marcus Wallenberg Foundation for International Science Cooperation, The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra), and LKAB (Luossavara-Kirunavara AB). We extend our sincere thanks to these organizations for their generous support of the whole Colloquium project.

6 Photo: A. Karlqvist A. Photo: What are we up to? Anders Karlqvist

The future of society is dependent on decisions made by people and institutions and their behavior and actions. Philosophers have since the dawn of time been struggling with understanding the illusive nature of knowledge and how we form beliefs. From a scientific perspective facts should provide the proper basis for knowledge. To know something is not only a matter of having the right opinion but to be able to explain and trust the underlying reasoning. Causality is a key factor which makes scientific knowledge different from value judgments in general or sheer luck. What makes this relationship between facts, knowledge, beliefs and action so difficult? Modern society can be characterized by two fundamental features; globalization and complexity. These characteristics are modern in the sense that they are basically driven by innovations in transport and computer/information technology. Local initiatives cannot be confined to local interests and activities but will often have widespread implications, in real time, involving even global opportunities and risks. Hence, rationality on a local level does not necessarily translate to global wisdom and attribution becomes difficult. Complexity and nonlinear relations make cause-effect difficult to comprehend or even counter intuitive. A systemic approach is necessary, but it is also important to go beyond existing institutional

7 boundaries. The interconnections between systems (transport, economy, energy etc.) become crucial. Organizational inventions are needed in order to grasp the full potential of globalization, while avoiding the destructive aspects of increased vulnerability and cascading risks. Information technology plays a decisive role in connecting people across nations and continents. Huge amounts of data are continually being collected and processed. Networks become the natural environment for economic activities, rendering the clas- sical model of economic man operating out of self-interests on a free market more and more obsolete. We are all interconnected both as consumers and producers. Know- ledge and beliefs are challenged and tested as relational concepts; What do other people think? Whom do we trust? The advent of modern information technology makes it possible to exercise such queries more effectively than ever before in history. Networks, as demonstrated by internet, are by their very nature non-hierarchical. The opportunities for external control are limited. The organizational principle is essential based on self-regulation. This makes a challenge for society, when fundamental values are at stake, calling for collective or even global solutions. Scientists are warning that mankind is approaching dangerous planetary limits if the environment is to be able to sustain life on the planet. To provide basic need for food, water, energy for growing populations we must find new ways to build trust. In other words what is needed is cooperation to sustain common goods. Much empirical research has been carried out in the investigation of “human nature” and what leads to solidarity and effective cooperative action. Neither self-interest nor altruism can provide the answer. The role of networks highlights the importance of reciprocity, we do what we expect other people to do to us. One conclusion from this observation is that the design of institutions plays a key role in fostering sound, and avoiding bad, collective behavior. A common way of describing the predicaments on the global scale is to phrase the problem in terms of limits. We can redraw the map but will always end up within the boundaries of the globe itself, where east meets west and south meets north. The “limits to growth” concept, introduced in the early 1970s, caught the imagination and caused heated debates, but the scientific underpinnings were simplified and the no- tion had a defeatistic tone. Later more sophisticated approaches have been introduced where boundaries and critical zones have been identified, based on rather thorough empirical data regarding climate, pollution, environmental degradation etc. Do we have the knowledge and the institutions in place to act on a truly global scale? The experience so far is not encouraging. Obvious obstacles are differences in living standard and population pressure making any solution difficult to implement unless it is feasible to combine sustainability with development, i.e. to satisfy economic progress for a large, and growing, population with only limited and sustainable use of natural resources. In specific situations such as in the medical sector, where we do have the knowledge to

8 improve health by e.g. preventive measures, the economic incentives in the short run appear to overtake the collective benefits and long-term effects of less quantitative and less profit- oriented measures. A key factor on the global level is demography and population development. Recent estimates and forecasts show that the threats of excessive population growth in the world might be overestimated and world population could level off sooner than earlier expected. Demographers indicate that this trend is primarily due to changing fertility patterns which are related to better education of women, especially in the developing world. This brings us back to our initial comment about the role of knowledge and trust. By influencing the actual geography of knowledge a major shift in behavior could be achieved. Global threats exemplified by the case of global warming or outbreaks of pandemics, call for new forms of scientific knowledge and new ways of communicating scientific insights. It is reasonable to think that the future will be different in terms of new dynamic decision-making environments, again fostered by an information-based society, where information, facts, dogmas, and ideas will travel around the world almost instantly. The organization of research will need to take new effective forms across traditional disciplinary boundaries, and education at the very basic level will need to be designed so to meet these new conditions. We trust what we see, perception is reality. For global phenomena, especially those with consequences in a distant future, the arguments leading from knowledge to trust to action are very difficult to achieve. This is a paramount challenge for science and the knowledge society as a whole. Scientific knowledge needs to resonate with the public. To introduce scientific findings only as threats instead of opportunities runs the risk of alienating science from society and moreover of leaving the door open for other more dangerous and simplified doctrines. Although the main thrust is future oriented, i.e. the future where and how we are going to spend the rest of our lives, we must keep in mind the possibility of using experiences gained in the past. Biology provides a long history of lessons of adaption to new environmental conditions and to make life on earth sustainable. Today´s researchers working in the fields of biodiversity and molecular biology have made valuable discoveries that are applicable in more applied and new contexts, for example, food production. What can we learn from our more immediate experiences here and now? The 2013 Royal Colloquium was held in a vulnerable and extreme environment, above the Arctic Circle, where the impacts of global warming are felt earlier and are more pronounced than in the temperate regions of the world. Ongoing research gives important clues to what is to be expected and what steps should be taken to mitigate eventual disasters.

9 The town of Kiruna with its iron ore mine is located in the Swedish region above the Arctic Circle, and because mining operations in the area are in the process of being extended directly under the town itself, the town and its infrastructure will undergo radical shifts in coming decades. This process provides a unique exercise in urban planning, highlighting issues involving political and public participation, transport and building planning, and not least coordination of public and private involvements in decision making and investment. Hopefully, the case of Kiruna will provide inspi- ration to others, bearing in mind however that in many parts of the world the map is being redrawn in more dramatic ways and people are forced to move under much less controlled circumstances. Global warming with rising sea levels, severe draughts, and flooding are expected phenomena that need to be handled with all the ingenuity, skill and experience that can be mobilized.

10 Image: W. Blake, The Temptation of Eve. in: Milton, Paradise Lost (1808) Paradise Milton, in: of Eve. Temptation The Blake, W. Image: Knowledge: Its Nature, Its Application and Its Value John Hyman

The original statement of the value of knowledge in Western literature is the story of Adam and Eve and the apple, the so-called story of the Fall of Man. The traditional interpretation of the story in the Christian tradition is that it is about human sin, and just punishment by a just God. But this cannot be the way the story was understood in the community in which it was first told and written down, for several reasons. First, we are told that before they ate the knowledge-giving fruit, Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed. According to the orthodox interpretation, this was a state of blissful innonence. But three thousand years ago nudity was not regarded as the happy condition of a noble savage, but as a horrible primitivity. Second, the orthodox interpretation says it was a sin to eat the apple. But the apple gave knowledge of the difference between good and evil, and one cannot commit a sin if one does not know the difference between good and evil, so it cannot have been a sin for Eve or Adam to eat it.

11 Third, knowledge in general, and knowledge about good and evil in particular, are good for human beings. This has always been considered the greatest stum- bling-block for the orthodox interpretation of the story, or, if the orthodox interpretation is accepted, for regarding God’s commandment not to eat the fruit as just. Julian ‘the Apostate’ makes the point in his polemic ‘Against the Galileans’, and the Serpent in Milton’s Paradise Lost presents it in compelling terms when he advocates disobedience to Eve. So the traditional interpretation of the story cannot be right. It must originally have been a Prometheus-like story about a god who is jealous of human progress. The Serpent resembles Prometheus, a being half-way between the earth-dwellers and the Gods, who steals the instrument of civilization from heaven and brings it to earth. God cannot undo what has been done, he can only punish the conspi- rators. Six centuries after Genesis was written down, Plato presented a puzzle about the value of knowledge in his dialogue Meno (97a-c): Socrates: If a man knew the way to Larissa, or any other place you please, and walked there and led others, would he not be a good guide? Meno: Certainly. Socrates: And a person who had the right opinion as to which was the way, but had never been there and did not really know, might also be a good guide, might he not? Meno: Certainly. Socrates: And presumably as long as he has the right opinion, he will be just as good a guide as the one who knows—if he believes the truth instead of knowing it. Meno: Just as good. Socrates: Hence true opinion is as good a guide to acting the right way as knowledge is … What makes the passage so interesting is this. The author of Genesis compares knowledge with ignorance, and it is not hard to see that knowledge is a valuable commodity if you compare it with ignorance. But Plato made the discovery that knowing isn’t the same thing as merely having the right opinion. You can hold a belief which happens to be true by chance, without knowing what you believe. For example, no one can know now which team will win the next World Cup. But all over the world there are people who fervently believe that their team is going

12 to win, and some of them will turn out to be right. That is what Plato meant by right opinion. But once we have drawn the distinction between really knowing and merely having the right opinion, it becomes much harder to explain why we prize knowledge as highly as we do. Knowledge and right opinion seem to be equally valuable as guides to action, because the one who knows the truth and the one who merely has the right opinion will offer the same advice. So why does it matter what we know? Plato did not doubt that knowledge is an indispensable guide to acting the right way, but he realized that it becomes more difficult to explain why, once we are awa- re of the distinction between knowledge and mere true belief. The solution Socrates presents after stating the problem in the Meno is that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief, because true beliefs are like the statues made by Daedalus, which were so lifelike that they ran away unless they were tied down: So long as they stay with us, [true beliefs] are a fine possession, and effect all that is good; but they do not care to stay for long, and run away out of the human soul, and thus are of no great value until one ties them down by working out the cause [αἰτίας λογισμῷ]. (Meno 97e-98a) The interpretation of this passage is controversial, but Socrates seems to be saying that what makes a true belief more durable, more stable, is understanding why it is true; and he is certainly saying that the stability of knowledge is what makes it more valuable than true belief: Once they are tied down, they become knowledge, and are stable. That is why knowledge is more valuable than true opinion. What distinguishes one from the other is the tether. (Meno, 98a) So Plato’s idea appears to be that knowledge involves understanding why the things we know to be true are true; and that understanding this makes us able to hold fast to the truth, and avoid lapsing into falsehood. And that explains why knowledge is more valuable than true belief. The solution is ingenious, but it is not convincing, for several reasons. I’ll mention two. First, beliefs that do not have a rational foundation are not necessarily unstable. Some of our most stable beliefs are inculcated in us as children, without being tied down by ‘working out the cause’—moral and religious beliefs, for example. The priests and rabbis and imams who guide us on the road to salvation generally tell us that they know the way. But even they are wrong, their beliefs tend to be stable, perhaps because the stabilizing effect can be achieved by merely believing you have ‘worked out the cause’.

13 Second, the stability of knowledge, and its status as knowledge, is not invariably due to evidence or rational support. For example, Russell and Whitehead completed their proof of the proposition that 1+1=2 on page 86 of volume two of Principia Mathematica, and perhaps this counts as ‘working out the cause’. But it is doubtful whether the proof transformed a belief that 1+1=2 into knowledge, or made it more stable, and less liable to ‘run away’. Modern theories of knowledge are not any better at solving Plato’s puzzle. The orthodox view for fifty years was that knowledge can be defined by sharpening the idea of luck or chance. For example, one idea was that knowledge is true belief that was formed by a reliable mechanism. But this view of knowledge doesn’t solve the puzzle, because the value of something does not depend on whether you got it through the operation of a reliable mechanism or by chance. For example, if you win the lottery, your prize is worth just the same, pound for pound, as the same sum earned by hard graft. Some philosophers think the lesson is that knowledge is not more valuable than true belief after all. But others have recently come to think that there is an alternative, if we adopt a new way of thinking about what knowledge is, which is originally due to Wittgenstein and Ryle. Here are their most significant remarks: ‘The gram- mar of the word “knows” is evidently closely related to that of “can”, “is able to”.’ (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §150) ‘“Know” is of the same family as skill words.’ (Ryle, The Concept of Mind, p.129) As soon as we think about knowledge in this way our conception of it is transformed, because it forces us to think about how knowledge is applied, how it gets exercised or expressed - because this is invariably how abilities are defined. For example, my knowledge of the fact that Hampstead is on the Northern Line gets exercised whenever the fact that Hampstead is on the Northern Line informs or guides the way I think or act, in other words, whenever it is one my reasons for modifying my thought or behaviour in some way. This happens every time I head for the Northern Line at King’s Cross to get home, or when I merely deduce from the fact that Balham is on the Northern Line that one can travel from Hampstead to Balham without changing lines. We cannot normally relate specific kinds of acts to specific items of knowledge by saying that a person is unable to do X unless he knows Y. For example, Meno can take the left fork whether he knows that it leads to Larissa or not. But he cannot take the left fork because it leads to Larissa unless the fact that it leads to Larissa is a fact he knows. So if we think of someone’s knowledge of a fact as an ability, it is not an ability to do a specific kind of act, but an ability to something, no matter what, for a specific reason, the reason being the fact known. Knowledge is therefore the ability to be

14 guided by the facts - to take facts into consideration, so that they inform our reasoning, when we decide what to think or what to do. This approach to defining knowledge also provides a new solution to Plato’s puzzle. For we do not only care about what people do, we also care about why they do what they do, in other words, we care about people’s reasons, and one aspect of this, especially where our own reasons are concerned, is that we want our reasons to be facts. We cannot expect to be guided by a pillar of cloud in the daytime and a pillar of fire by night, like the children of Israel crossing the desert. But we do hope to be guided by the facts. If all we cared about was getting to Larissa, true opinion would be as good a guide as knowledge. But if in addition to caring about what we do, we also care about why we do it, then, we are bound to value knowledge above mere true belief. This solution to Plato’s puzzle in the Meno ties knowledge and rationality together, but in the opposite way to Plato. Knowledge doesn’t necessarily depend on reasons, as Plato suggested, but it does essentially supply reasons. References 1. Hyman, J. 2015. Action, Knowledge and Will. Oxford University Press (to be published). 2. This article is a brief outline of some recent thinking about Plato’s puzzle. I go into the subject in depth in my 2015 book. A detailed discussion of the puzzle and some bibliography can also be found here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-value/

15 16 Individual Choice and Collective Responsibility in the Age of Globalization and Complexity Ian Goldin

Globalization We live in a more connected, complex and uncertain world than previous generations could have imagined would be possible. Globalization permeates every element of our daily lives and yet remains inadequately understood or managed. By globalization I mean the movement of people, goods, services and ideas across a widening set of countries. The process of globalization is not confined to multina- tional corporations and their global supply chains or banking conglomerates and their international investment portfolios. It impacts on even the most unsuspecting among us. Globalization has shaped our lives and options for the future. Globalization informs not only our choices but the composition of almost all the goods and services we consume. We are more tightly linked than ever before, the connections are more complex, more frequent and more central to our lives and

17 our economies. They shape the ways in which countries and societies are developing. Politics may be driven by local concerns, but the key opportunities and risks facing societies are increasingly determined beyond national borders. At the same time, what happens in any one community can quickly cascade into a global event. Small places and single individuals can become globally significant, just as what happens globally can have dramatic consequences for the most remote locality or community.

Global and local politics For politicians local concerns may often appear more important than global deve- lopments. Foreigners do not share a common history, background or nationality and laws, borders and other restrictions separate global citizens. But whether we live in Manhattan, Moscow or Mumbai, we are connected by an increasingly dense and complex web of overlapping and intertwined links. These are both physical and virtual and have allowed us to take the principle of comparative advantage to levels that David Ricardo could not have imagined when he was writing his path-breaking insights on global development in 1817. Although many are critical of globalization, few would deny the gains from integration and exchange. In this book we focus on neglected aspects of accelerated integration and notably the systemic risks that arise from globalization. Following earlier waves of globalization (from about 1820 to 1914 and 1960 to 1980 respectively), the period since around 1990 has been associated with innovative leaps in information and transport technologies – alongside a fundamental re-shap- ing of international politics and the global economy. The haphazard development of a range of integrated global relationships and systems, such as those associated with infrastructure, finance, transport, information, economics and business mean that the context of individual and other choices is constantly widening and becoming more complex. It is now impossible to account for all the consequences of any individual’s choices. This shortcoming pervades the global system of exchange of goods and services, skills, information and people. As the ramifications of individual or collective decisions are increasingly unclear, defining responsibility, rewards and punishment is more challenging.

Complexity As complexity increases, the task gets harder. Our actions, as individuals and through our local and national governments, are bound to have systemic consequences that we are unable to foresee in advance and often fail to understand afterwards. In a complex system, resilience becomes a separate goal, and has to be considered separately from other goals. Two interrelated problems arise. The first is that while each of our individual ac-

18 tions may be rational, collectively they may lead to failure. Economists and social scientists have studied the “tragedy of the commons” for centuries. The problem is compounded with population growth and as incomes rise and individuals become freer to choose what they want to consume. Bluefin tuna fishing was once sustainable, but in January 2013 one such tuna sold for $1.7 million. As with Rhinoceros horn, it is simply a question of time until the market mechanisms lead to extinction. Similar problems arise with biodiversity, climate change, antibiotic resistance and other management failures of the global commons. The more people on earth, and the higher our income, the more each individual’s activities have spill-over effects. The second challenge is that as complexity and integration grows, attribution becomes more difficult and the unintended or unknown consequences of actions rise. The failure to understand or even acknowledge the non-linear and highly complex nature of global linkages on every level of governance leads to growing weaknesses and can paralyze decision making. The world has become like a living organism, with the physical connections equivalent to blood pumping through veins and the virtual connections comparable to our nervous system. Understanding the system dynamics and interdependencies has become vital to sustainable global growth and development.

Systemic risk Each element of the global system – finance, supply chains, health, energy, the internet, the environment and others – need to be maintained in good health. The biggest systemic risk, however, is not the collapse of any one of these individual systems, but rather our capacity to manage the growing complexities and interdependencies between them. Politics and economics have demonstrated a singular failure to proactively address collective action failures or resolve problems with international cooperation. Historically, advances have arisen following terrible tragedies. Our current system of global management arose from the ashes of the Second World War. My hope is that increased information and education as well as closer physical and virtual connections are giving rise to a more informed global citizenry and should be ca- pable of producing more effective governance. We are able to learn faster because there are more educated people with more information at their fingertips. There has also been a release of individual genius as billions more people are becoming educated and engaged globally, so simply based on the random distribution of ex- ceptionally talented individuals engaging in global activities and problem solving, humanity should be able to identify more solutions. Collective genius is an even more powerful source of innovation. Many more minds can now be connected and contribute fragments of knowledge and information, leading to a more rapid

19 evolution of ideas. Connectivity and complexity is not only a curse. New networks and combinations of old and new ideas can yield powerful insights and new politics. This is urgently required to ensure that we are able to comprehend the power which has been unleashed and ensure it is managed inclusively and in a sustainable manner. The failure to harvest this potential will mean that globalization is perceived to be more of a threat than an opportunity. It risks being associated with increasing systemic risk and cascading crises. The consequence is likely to be rising xenophobia, protectionism and nationalism as individuals around the world seek to reduce their exposure to exogenous shocks. Such actions would be counterpro- ductive and compound global mismanagement. The challenge is to get ahead of the curve and harvest the benefits of globalization while building resilience and mitigating against the inevitable interdependency and vulnerability arising from increased connectivity and complexity. References Goldin, I., and M. Mariathasan, 2014. The Butterfly Defect: Why globalization creates systemic risks and what can be done, Princeton University Press. Goldin, I. 2013. Divided Nations: Why global governance is failing and what we can do about it. Oxford University Press.

20 Image: Courtesy of V. Ponce ([email protected]) Ponce V. Courtesy of Image:

Overcoming ”Tragedies of the Commons” with a Self-Regulating, Participatory Market Society Dirk Helbing

Our society is fundamentally changing. These days, almost nothing works without a computer chip. Processing power doubles every 18 months and will exceed the capabilities of human brains in about ten years from now. Some time ago, IBM’s Big Blue computer already beat the best chess player. Meanwhile, computers perform about 70 percent of all financial transactions, and IBM’s Watson advises customers better than human telephone hotlines. Will computers and robots soon replace skilled labor? In many European countries, unemployment is reaching historical heights. The forthcoming economic and social impact of future information and communication technologies (ICT) will be huge - probably more significant than that caused by the steam engine, or by nano- or biotechnology. The storage capacity for data is growing even faster than computational capacity. Within just a few years we will generate more data than in the entire history of humankind. The ”Internet of Things” will soon network trillions of sensors. Unimaginable amounts of

21 data will be collected. Big Data is already being praised as the “oil of the 21st century”. What opportunities and what risks does this create for our society, economy, and environment?

From ”homo economicus” to ”homo socialis”: the networked decision-maker Let’s start by analyzing the situation today. Probably, the most widespread economic paradigm is that of ”homo economicus”, who merely tries to maximize personal benefits. It is often believed that such behavior balances and coordinates the interests of individuals, as if controlled by an ”invisible hand” and automatically maximizes social welfare. If one believes in this neoclassical credo, then, economic problems arise mainly from the fact that there are too many regulations, or that some people do not adhere to the principle of self-regarding optimization. But why are there so many regulations, and why do many people have fairness preferences? It was long believed that the merciless forces of evolution and natural selection could not have created man other than as a selfish being. However, recent scientific insights teach us something else. It has been demonstrated that the very same evolutionary forces that create the ”homo economicus” may also produce a different kind of people under very realistic circumstances: the ”homo socialis”. ”Homo socialis” tries to reach favorable outcomes as well, but considers the impact on others when taking decisions. As a consequence, ”homo socialis” does not decide in an independent, but rather in an interdependent, ”networked” fashion. This has surprising consequences: while ”homo economicus” often runs into a ”tragedies of the commons”, for example, the exploitation and pollution of the environment, overfishing and/or global warming ”homo socialis” can overcome such problems and reach a higher success by conditional cooperativeness.

Reputation systems to master social dilemmas The above tragedies of the commons result from social dilemmas. These are situations, in which it would be good for everyone, if everybody behaved cooperatively, but where there is also a temptation to take advantage of the cooperativeness of others. Under such conditions, cooperation is likely to erode. To avoid this, it is common to establish regulations and enforce compliance with them by means of monitoring and punishment strategies. However, over time, the costs of such strategies have created enormous public debts, and in some cases de facto state bankruptcy. But there are also alternatives. The root problem is that we have created an institutional framework for ”homo economicus”, for which cooperation in social dilemma situations cannot thrive. But it would also be possible to create institutions for

22 ”homo socialis”; i.e. institutions which provide a suitable framework to support self-regulation. With such institutions for ”homo socialis”, the principle of Adam Smith’s ”invisible hand”, i.e. the favorable self-organization of a complex (market) system to the benefit of all, would work much better than with institutions for ”homo economicus”.

Paradigms in Economic Thinking

Economics 2.0 Economics 1.0 = Socionomics

Agent: Agent: self- other- Homo Homo regarding regarding Economicus Socialis

The difference between the “homo economicus” and the “homo socialis” is that the latter takes into account the interests of others when making decisions, which implies interdependent decisions or “networked minds.” The different nature of the “homo socialis” leads to a complex dynamics and another macroscopic outcome than expected for the “homo economicus.” In the case of public goods problems, for example, interactions of agents with strictly self-regarding preferences will lead to “tragedies of the commons,” while the self-regulation of the “homo socialis” can overcome this undesirable state and foster cooperation, leading to higher individual and social benefits. Due to the different system dynamics and different systemic outcomes, both types of agents cannot be described by the same body of theory. They require separate sets of literature and different institutions. How to envisage a self-regulating market system? The transfer of the principle of Swiss-style bottom-up democracy to the business world would probably be a good way to imagine this. What would be suitable institutions for ”homo socialis”? It is known that social

23 dilemmas can be overcome by various social mechanisms, such as genetic favoritism, direct reciprocity (”you help me, I help you”), or punishment of uncoopera- tive behavior. Genetic favoritism tends to create ethnic conflicts between tribes, while direct reciprocity may promote corruption. The punishment of non-cooperative behavior corresponds to our current approach, but this seems to have reached the limits of feasibility and affordability. Note, however, that there is a further approach, which transfers the success principle of social communities to the context of the ”global village”, namely reputation.

”Prosumers” and ”qualified money” Reputation systems in the internet spread very quickly. Nowadays, customers evaluate products and sellers, news, comments, politicians, institutions and companies. Reputation creates the opportunity to sell good quality for a higher price. Scientific studies of ebay and other electronic platforms show that customers prefer sellers who have good reputations, and that these sellers can charge more. When quality competition complements price competition, this can also create incentives to improve social and environmental production conditions, i.e. sustainability. Based on reputation principles, it would even be possible to establish a new kind of money, ”qualified money”, which could overcome some of the problems of the current financial system. The Information Age will transform markets fundamentally. In the following, I will outline just some aspects of the now emerging ”democratic, participatory market societies.” Flexible self-organization will play a much bigger role than today. The emergence of ”prosumers” illustrates this. These are consumers who participate in the production of the products they buy. Instead of just selecting existing products from a catalogue or choosing the special features of a personalized car, consumers will be able to create new components of products, new designs, or even entirely new products. For example, they could use a 3D printer to produce their own cell phone cover and distribute it to others. Or they could come up with their own fashion and upload it to a company webpage to produce it for them, their family, friends, and colleagues, or indeed customers all over the world. People could also distribute their own books, their own music and their own movies. Or they could put a team together to construct more sophisticated products.

An ”innovation ecosystem” of flexible ”projects” While the 20th century was an era of democratization of consumption, the 21st century can become an era of democratization of production. Next to today’s companies, flexible, participatory forms of production will emerge, which I term ”projects”. Creative minds will come together to realize a joint project idea. After com- pleting a project, everyone will be looking for another project or two, and so on.

24 Social media platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk will make it possible to bring ideas and skilled workers together. As a consequence, this will lead to a more direct participation of people in production processes. There will also be a much greater diversity of products, tailored to individual needs. Thus, while computers will increasingly replace our current types of routine and executive work, we will have an opportunity to replace these jobs by more creative activities. Production by large corporations will then be complemented by an innovation ecosystem made up of thousands of projects. The huge range of smartphone apps, that platforms such as app stores have enabled, gives just a first idea of the unlimited possibilities for new projects. Open Data and the Web2.0, Web3.0, etc. will further accelerate this development. However, Europe has not found its place in this new innovation universe, yet. Sui- table institutions must first be established: the aforementioned reputation system is just one of them. Furthermore, open platforms are needed to enable participation and cooperation. In order to encourage an open exchange of information and the emergence of an innovation ecosystem, new incentive systems are required, which reward creative contributions. For this, the relevance of innovations must be made measureable, and inventors must be compensated for the use their ideas, e.g. with micropayments. Last but not least, we need a new science, which helps us to understand and create the participatory market society. While current ”economics” is tailored to ”homo economicus”, the emerging ”economics 2.0” must be tailored to ”homo socialis”, the networked decision-maker. These and further institutions should be part of a far-reaching strategy to create an ”innovation accelerator”. An age of creativity and participation is ahead of us. We just have to use the opportunities that modern information and communication technologies offer. Re- putation systems and social media can promote awareness of the risks and benefits of our available decision alternatives. In particular, they can help us to address challenges such as global warming and other problems in a more cooperative and sustainable way. References Dirk Helbing, Economics 2.0: The natural step towards a self-regulating, participatory market society. Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review 10(1), 3-41 (2013); A new economy is born – Social decision-makers beat the “homo economicus”, e-print http://arxiv.org/abs/1309.7453.pdf; for related videos search youtube.com for “economics 2.0” or “economy 2.0”.

25 26 Photo: A.Karlqvist Photo: Manufacturing Cooperation Bo Rothstein

Points of departure The starting point for this article is a simple one. Namely that saving the earth from threats such as global warming and overuse of natural resources requires cooperation at all levels from the international to the very local. As it makes little sense to be the only nation that reduces emissions to avoid dangerous climate change, it is also no point in being the only one in the neighbourhood that sorts the garbage. The goods that are going to be provided need the cooperation from (almost) all participants because otherwise they will not be produced. This cooperation can in some cases be induced by force but in many cases that is not possible because it becomes too costly or too administratively complicated. As an alternative, agents may collaborate for common purposes if they trust that most other agents will collaborate. The central issue is then how trust that induces collaboration for common goods can be manufactured. Or in other words, how can solidarity be generated? For such an effort, it is important to start from a correct understanding of “human nature”. Ideas about “basic human nature” have had a long history in the social sciences that has now, I believe, finally been resolved mostly by experimental research (1-4). To make a long story short, the idea of man as a “homo economicus”

27 has simply been refuted by this type of research. Self-interest is for sure an important ingredient when people decide how to act, but it is far from as dominating as has been portrayed in neo-classic economics. Moreover, it would be impossible to create cooperative solutions of any kind if individual utility-maximizing self-interest would be “the only game in town”. The reason is that such individuals would always fall for the temptation to “free-ride” hoping that everyone else will contribute to the common good that the “free-rider” can benefit from without contributing. However, if a majority do this, cooperation will never come about (5).

Human behaviour and reciprocity However, this new experimental (and to some extent field) research does not present humans as benevolent altruists (6). True, there is altruistic behaviour, but it is usually restricted to very small circles of family and close friends. This lesson is important since it tells us that trying to mobilize political support for common goods by referring only to peoples’ altruistic motives is likely to fail (7). What comes out from this research is instead that reciprocity is the basic human orientation. The central idea here is that people are not so much motivated “from the back” by utility-based calculations or culturally induced norms. Instead, human behaviour is to a large extent determined by forward looking strategic thinking in the sense that what agents do, depends on what they think the other agents are going to do (3, 8). Thus, the idea of reciprocity recasts fundamentally how we should understand and explain human behaviour. Instead of looking backwards to what causes varia- tion in utility-based interests or culturally induced norms, the important thing is to understand how people’s forward looking perceptions about “other people” are constructed. Historical experiences and “collective memories” certainly play a role here, but research also shows that people update their perceptions based on new information (9). Results from this research show that most people are willing to engage in solidaristic cooperation for common goals even if they will not personally benefit from this materially (8, 10). However, for this to happen, three specific conditions have to be in place. First, people have to be convinced that the policy is morally justified (substantial justice). Secondly, people have to be convinced that most other agents can be trusted to also cooperate (solidaristic justice), that is that other agents are likely to abstain from “free-riding”. Thirdly, people have to be convinced that the policy can be implemented in a fair and even-handed manner (procedural justice) (11, 12). The first issue should not be so difficult to handle since most people would like the earth to survive. However, the second and third requirements have to be resolved by institutional design. This implies that solidarity is conditioned on the institutional design of the systems that are supposed to bring about the policies that will produce the common good.

28 It is important to realize that reciprocity also has a dark side. History and many contemporary events as well as experimental evidence show that “ordinary people” are willing to engage in the most horrible atrocities to other people (again, also if they do not personally benefit from their actions) if they are convinced that those “other people” would otherwise harm them. However, bad reciprocity also exists in less dramatic (and horrible) circumstances. Distrust in other agents or in the institutions may lead to a vicious circle that can break any system or policy set up to increase solidarity. Thus, we arrive at the conclusion that regarding collaborative efforts for common goods,, the basic nature of human behaviour – reciprocity – can go both ways. On the one hand, the idea of reciprocity stands against the cynicism about human nature that has been central to interest-based theories that has dominated most economic approaches in the social sciences (4). On the other hand, reciprocity is also in conflict with a naïve idea about human nature as genuinely benevolent and prone to collaboration for common goods. Instead, reciprocity tells us that if we through the design of institutions can make people trust that most other agents in their society will behave in a trustworthy and collaborative manner, they will do likewise. If not, they will defect, even if the outcome will be detrimental to their interests.

Social trust How then, can the necessary amount of social trust be generated? Again, recent empirical research gives a reasonably clear answer to this question. A high level of generalized trust is caused by high quality government institutions, especially the institutions that implement public policies. The central basic norm for these institutions is impartiality. This implies that things like discrimination and corruption are quite rare. Social trust is thus not generated “from below”, for example from civil society or voluntary associations, but “from above”, by how people perceive the fairness and competence of government institutions (13). The reason for this effect is that when people make up their mind if most people in their society can be trusted, they make an inference from how they perceive the authorities. If the local policeman, schoolteacher, social insurance administrator, judge or doctor cannot be trusted (because they discriminate against people like you, or ask for bribes, or give preferential treatments to some groups, etc.), then it is reasonable to assume that neither should you trust “people in general” in your society. And vice versa, if they are known to be honest, impartial, competent and fair, then it is likely that this will spill over to “people in general”. Thus, designing institutions that implement public policies is to create (or destroy) the social trust that is necessary for collaboration for common goods.

29 References 1. Fehr, Ernst, and Urs Fischbacher. 2005. ”The Economics of Strong Reci- procity.” In Moral Sentiments and Material Interests. The Foundations for Cooperation in Economic Life, ed. H. Gintis, S. Bowles, R. Boyd and E. Fehr. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. 2. Henrich, J., R. Boyd, S. Bowles, C. Camerer, E. Fehr, H. Gintis, and R McEl- reath. 2001. ”In search of Homo economicus: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies.” American Economic Review 91 (2):73-8. 3. Gintis, Herbert, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr, eds. 2005. Moral Sentiments and Material Interests. The Foundations for Cooperation in Economic Life. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. 4. Ostrom, Elinor. 1998. ”A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action.” American Political Science Reveiw 92 (1):1-23. 5. Rothstein, Bo. 2005. Social Traps and the Problem of Trust. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press 6. Henrich, Natalie, and Joseph Patrick Henrich. 2007. Why humans cooperate : a cultural and evolutionary explanation. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press. 7. Svallfors, Stefan, ed. 2007. The political sociology of the welfare state : institutions, social cleavages, and orientations. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. 8. Bicchieri, Chistina, and Erte Xiao. 2009. ”Do the Right Thing: But Only if Others Do So.” Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 22 (2):191-208. 9. Boyd, Robert, Herbert Grintis and Samuel Bowles 2010: Science 328 (5978) 617-20. 10. Levi, Margaret. 1998. Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism. New York: Cambridge University Press. 11. Levi, Margaret. 1991. ”Are There Limits to Rationality.” Archives Européen- nes de Sociologie 32 (1):130-41. 12. Rothstein, Bo. 1998. Just Institutions Matter: The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 13. Rothstein, Bo. 2011. The Quality of Government: Corruption, Social Trust and Inequality in a Comparative Perspective. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

30 Photo: A.Karlqvist Photo: Knowing about Limits Susan Owens

A long history Concern about limits to growth in a finite world has been present and vigorously debated in various guises for several centuries. Though it is interesting to trace the antecedents, this brief essay focuses on three major phases of the ‘limits’ discourse over the past half-century. It then identifies important questions about conceptualising, knowing about, and acting upon the putative limits to growth.

31 Limits and the ‘Growth Debate’ of the 1960s and 1970s Concern about limits in the modern environmental era was first articulated in the ‘growth debates’ that began in the 1960s, not coincidentally at a time when humans were leaving the confines of the planet and viewing it, for the first time, from outside; indeed, in these early debates, Kenneth Boulding’s well-known ‘spaceship earth’ metaphor clearly built upon that imagery (1). Boulding contrasted the careful husbandry of the spacecraft with that of the ‘cowboy economy’, forever moving on to new frontiers. Such imagery resonated with a new sense that the Earth, for the time being at least, was the only planet that humanity could hope to occupy. One American senator put it succinctly at the time: ‘We only have one planet. If we screw it up, we have no place to go’ (2). The 1960s was also a time of rapid economic growth, at least in the more developed economies. This very prosperity brought with it unwelcome environmental degradation, and raised questions in the minds of a politically-engaged, post-Second World War generation about the possibility, even the desirability, of expansion into the indefinite future. The best known articulation of the limits discourse at this time was in The Limits to Growth, a report based on successive runs of the ‘World III’ model at the Massa- chusetts institute of Technology (3). Its publication attracted enormous attention. There was a strong emphasis in Limits on the depletion of non-renewable resources, though population, industrial output, pollution (in the model, a single ‘global pollutant’), and food supply also featured as significant variables. The MIT team predicted that business-as-usual – that is, continued growth affecting all of these parameters – would breach planetary limits on an alarmingly short time scale. The most probable result, they argued, would be that population and consumption would overshoot sustainable levels and then collapse, leading to ‘a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline’ of human civilisation as it was then known (3: 23, 4). This unhappy ending could be avoided only by a rapid transition to a steady state economy in which the throughput of energy and raw materials would be minimised. Unsurprisingly, the assumptions, methods and prescriptions of Limits were widely examined and criticised, with its authors being accused, in particular, of misguided, neo-Malthusian reasoning. A deeply polarised, often acrimonious, ‘growth versus environment’ debate ensued (see for example refs 5-10).

The (unfulfilled) promise of ‘Sustainable Development’ Possible limits to growth came to be conceptualised in a very different way in the 1980s, as governments and others seized upon the reconciliatory message of the Brundtland Report, Our Common Future (after Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norwegian Prime Minister and Chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development [WCED], which deliberated on issues of growth and environment, and produced the report). By the late 1980s and 1990s, it had it become unfashionable to talk about limits at all. For Brundtland, environment and development were not

32 to be seen as separate and conflicting challenges but as being ‘inexorably linked’ (11: 37). The need, therefore, was to establish the mechanisms and institutions for ‘sustainable development’, famously defined by Brundtland as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (11: 43). This influential concept itself became the subject of multiple, often divergent, interpretations, and a quarter of a century later many critics would say that it had failed to live up to its original optimism and promise (for a discussion, see ref. 12). In the closing decades of the twentieth century, much was also made of society’s technical and institutional capabilities for doing more with less, offering the prospect of decoupling economic growth from its negative impacts on non-renewable and biophysical resources. Yet in spite of much progress in reducing the ‘environmental impact co-efficient of economic activity’ (13: 55), and other significant advances in the process of ‘ecological modernisation’ (14), environmental degradation persists, and its implications are considered by many to be increasingly severe. A fundamental problem is that, however much the efficiencies of energy and resource use improve (and they have improved substantially over half a century), absolute impacts matter, so that ecological modernisation does not lead straightforwardly to an environmentally sustainable world.

A new limits discourse for the twenty-first century? In the early twenty-first century, a discourse of limits has re-emerged, this time finding expression in a language of tipping points, critical thresholds and boundaries. Emblematic of this new discourse is a paper published in Nature by Johan Rockström (of the Stockholm Resilience Centre) and twenty-seven colleagues (15; for a commentary see ref. 16). The authors identify eleven essential biophysical systems or processes, which, they argue, might be tipped into new states if anthropogenic pressures intensify. Because the resulting conditions might differ substantially from those in which humanity has flourished for the past 10,000 years, there might be ‘detrimental or even catastrophic’ effects for large parts of the world (15: 472). This fate (reminiscent of The Limits to Growth) might be averted by identifying and respecting ‘safe’ thresholds associated with each system, and it is these thresholds which would delineate a ‘safe operating space for humanity’. Nine are estimated in the paper, three of which – relating to climate change, loss of biodiversity and the nitrogen cycle – are thought to have already been breached. The stark new language of limits has also been emergent elsewhere. So, for example, the respected German Advisory Council on the Environment (17: 3) believes that ‘the environmental policy debate will increasingly be determined by the central concept of environmental limits: unlimited consumption of natural resources is not possible in a finite world’; and in 2009, the then Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government warned that humanity could face a ‘perfect storm’ unless resource and environmental pressures were checked within a period of around 20 years (18, 19).

33 Critical questions These shifting conceptions of limits all have their own shortcomings and problems. The Limits to Growth failed to take account of feedback mechanisms on socio-economic systems and had no convincing answers about the fate of the world’s poor in its prescription for a steady state economy. ‘Sustainable development’ became muddled, raising false hopes that conflicting human ends could be satisfied simultaneously, or reverting to trade offs in which environmental sustainability was marginalised (12, 20). The concept of ‘planetary boundaries’, within which the ‘safe operating space for humanity’ might be defined, is at once deceptively simple and yet beset by uncertainties and political ambiguities. Collectively, however, these evolving conceptions raise criti- cally important questions. How is it, for example, that the idea of limits has co-existed for so long with the quest for increasing GDP, pursued as eagerly and ubiquitously in the twenty-first century as it was fifty years ago? Both perspectives are endorsed by intelligent people of goodwill, and it is almost as if the pursuit of growth, and concerns about limits to the Earth’s capacities exist in different, but parallel, worlds. A further important question, highlighted again by the ‘planetary boundaries’ debate, concerns the respective roles of the natural and the social sciences, and of politics and ethics, in identifying limits to growth, and indeed in conceptualising what might constitute limits in the first place. Even with greatly increased effort and reduced uncertainty, could earth and environmental scientists identify ‘the biophysical preconditions for human development’, as Rockström et al. (2009: 474) suggest? Or is it inevitable that in any such endeavour, science and politics would be necessarily and inextricably intertwined (16)? And finally, if the decoupling of growth and environmental degradation is itself a process that has limits, it is essential to ask, too, what might be the conditions for a good human life, and for social and political stability, in a world in which growth must be constrained.

References 1. Boulding, K. (1966) ‘The economics of the coming spaceship Earth’, in H. Jarrett (ed.) Environmental Quality in a Growing Economy, Baltimore, MD: Resources for the Future/Johns Hopkins University Press: 3-14. 2. Senator Bennett Johnson of Louisiana. Quoted in The Guardian, 29th June 1988. 3. Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J. and Behrens III, W. W. (1972) The Limits to Growth, New York: University Books. 4. Egan, E. (2013) Commentary: Meadows, Donella H. and Club of Rome, The Limits to Growth (1972), in L. Robin, S. Sörlin and P. Warde (eds.) The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change, New Haven and London: Yale University Press: 101-116. 34 5. Beckerman, W. (1974) In Defence of Economic Growth, London: Jonathon Cape. 6. Daly, H.E. (1973) Toward a Steady State Economy, San Francisco: W.H. Freeman. 7. The Ecologist (1972), ‘Blueprint for Survival’, Vol. 2, no. 1. 8. Hirsch, F. (1977) Social Limits to Growth, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 9. Mishan, E. J. (1967) The Costs of Economic Growth, Harmondsworth: Penguin. 10. Simon, J. and Kahn, H. (1984) The Resourceful Earth, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 11. World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our Com- mon Future, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 12. Owens, S. (2003) ‘Is there a meaningful definition of sustainable development?’ Plant Genetic Resources 1, 1: 5-9. 13. Jacobs, M. (1991) The Green Economy, London: Pluto Press. 14. Mol, A. (1996) ‘Ecological Modernisation, Institutional Reflexivity: Environmental reform in the late modern age’, Environmental Politics, 5, 2: 302-323. 15. Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K. et al. (2009) ‘A safe operating space for humanity’, Nature 461, 24 September: 472-475. 16. Owens, S. (2013) Commentary: Rockström, J., Steffen, W. Noone, K. et al., ‘A safe operating space for humanity’ (2009), in S. Sörlin,L. Robin and P. Warde (eds.) The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change, New Haven and London: Yale University Press: 491-505. 17. German Advisory Council on the Environment (SRU) (2012). Environ- mental Report 2012: Responsibility in a Finite World. Summary for policy makers. Berlin, SRU. 18. Beddington, J. (2009) Speech delivered to Sustainable Development UK, 19.3.09: http://www.govnet.co.uk/news/govnet/professor-sir-john-bedding- tons-speech-at-sduk-09 (accessed 9.10.13).

35 19. Beddington, J. (undated) ‘Food, energy, water and climate: a perfect storm of global events?’, London: Government Office for Science. 20. Owens, S. and Cowell, R. (2011) Land and Limits: Interpreting Sustaina- bility in the Planning Process, Second Edition, London: Routledge.

36 Photo: P.A. Cox P.A. Photo: The Road to the Future is Rooted in the Past Paul Alan Cox

There is an old Swedish proverb, “Gammal är äldst.” This literally translates as “Old is the oldest,” but to a Swede this proverb suggests that the old folks might just know a thing or two. As nearly any parent of a teenager can confirm, one of the conceits of youth is the belief that their elders, particularly their parents, are hopelessly mired in antiquated ways. A saying apocryphally attributed to Mark Twain reads, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.” Sometimes it turns out, the old ways prove to be better. As we face urgent issues including climate change, human migration, and food security, understanding the past may help us find new ways to adopt sustainable lifestyles. Scientific analysis of the lifestyles of our ancestors might help us to redraw the map as we plan a road to the future. In our changing world, redrawing the map requires an increased awareness of both space and time. A look backwards, not only through cultural history but also through biological and even geological time,

37 can deeply inform our road to the future.

We are not the first to view this landscape The area of northern Lappland where the 2013 Royal Colloquium was convened, was a landscape familiar to Carl Linnaeus. During his historic 1732 journey to Lappland, he sketched the broad, rounded glacial mountains like those that surround the Abisko field station. Linneaus also sketched the Sami people, who he quickly realized possessed great wisdom about biodiversity and its use (1). Image: Linnaeus 1732 Image:

Now, nearly three centuries later, the Royal Colloquium participants also discussed the importance of biodiversity—particularly indigenous knowledge about biodiversity—as well as more recent concerns about climate change and human migration. Yet, despite acknowledgment of the seriousness of our situation in this new millennium, there was a quiet undercurrent of optimism among the colloquium participants. We can take actions now which will indeed help. All of the participants want to contribute to the solution for the problems we collectively face.

Old ways are sometimes better Traditional cottages on Læsø island (situated between Gothenburg in Sweden and Aalborg in Denmark) have thatched roofs that have remained intact for over four centuries. Leaves of seagrass, the marine angiosperm Zostera marina, naturally break

38 off under water and are washed upon the island’s beaches. The islanders learned to gather this natural windfall, using the leaves along the beach to weave into roofing thatch. Since seagrasses are the most productive carbon dioxide fixers in the plant kingdom, each thatched roof on a Læsø cottage represents a major sequestration of carbon dioxide. Had the leaves been left on the beach to decompose, the carbon they contain would have been released to the atmosphere. It is therefore not surprising that seagrasses have been harvested by indigenous people around the world. In industrial societies, seagrasses were major sources of packing materials for fine glass (Sweden), fertilizers for crops (Newfoundland), and thermal and acoustic insulation (New England). Few music afficionados realize that the superb acoustic qualities of Carnegie Hall in New York City are provided by seagrass insulation. Not only do quilts packed with seagrasses provide acoustic isolation, they provide superb fire resistant insulation on cold winter nights. Prior to the 1930s, seagrass leaves were harvested from beaches on an industrial scale (2). However, the invention of fiberglass insulation and the disruption of World War II hastened the end of the seagrass industry. Perhaps it is time now for the industry to be restarted.

Really old ways are sometimes the best Near my home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is the world’s first national park, Yel- lowstone. As a young boy, I used to tour the geysers and hot springs with my ranger father and my biologist mother. Little did I suspect that ancient organisms resided in those thermal features. T. aquaticus, a bacterium that can withstand temperatures up to 95°C, can flourish in the boiling water because of its heat resistant DNA polymerase. Taq polymerase now forms the basis for all polymerase chain reactions (PCR) used in DNA fingerprinting, a discovery that netted Cetus Corporation a cool half billion dollars in patent rights, and its young California discoverer Kary Mullis a Nobel prize. Such molecules as Taq polymerase or more heat resistant enzymes derived from ancient organisms in undersea thermal vents are the foundation of a burgeoning biotech industry important in medicine, technology, and even space exploration. Even DNA has a novel role to play. Earlier this year, researchers announced that they had encoded all of Shakespeare’s sonnets as well as an audio recording of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech into a mass of DNA molecules smaller than the head of a pin (3). It is estimated that every manuscript, book, audio recording, and film on planet earth could be translated into DNA molecules equivalent in mass to a small box of Swedish fish candy. Such a compact archive of human knowledge could easily be launched into geosynchrous orbit from Spa- ceport Sweden in Kiruna, not far from where the Royal Colloquium convened in Abisko. If things go terribly wrong on this planet, perhaps an extraterrestrial

39 civilization might retrieve this box of Swedish fish containing the complete store of human intellectual achievement. At worst, the extraterrestrials would have something nice to eat at the end of their long voyage. Joking aside, the advantages of using this ancient form of information storage is its simplicity. Unlike current data farms which are massive consumers of electrical power, the information encoded into DNA can be maintained indefinitely without external energy inputs.

We ignore the oldest at our peril Providing bright colors to the Yellowstone hot springs are cyanobacteria, the world’s most ancient organisms. They preceded our advent on the earth by 3.5 billion years. Cyanobacteria—photosynthetic prokaryotes—created the earth’s oxygen atmosphere and today remain the world’s greatest absorbers of carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans. Appearing like green pea soup on a warm summer day, mass populations of cyanobacteria are easily visible from outer space since they can stretch clear across the Baltic. Sewage effluents, fertilizer in agricultural runoffs, and increasing temperatures have triggered cyanobacterial blooms from the Great Lakes of North America to Lake Taihu in China. Such cyanobacterial population explosions are carefully mo- nitored because they produce a variety of toxic molecules. But perhaps the blooms that pose the greatest hazard to people are those in small lakes, reservoirs, and slow moving streams near their cities, homes and farms. Paralleling the increase in cyanobacterial blooms is a steadily growing incidence of the tangle diseases, neurodegenerative illnesses such as Amyotrophic Lateral Scle- rosis (ALS), Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease which are characterized by misfolded and tangled proteins. Although the elderly are at an increased risk of developing tangle diseases, geography also plays a role. Researchers at the Karo- linska Institute find that residents of southern Sweden, a landscape replete with lakes and ponds, face a significantly increasing incidence of ALS (4). Increased risk of ALS has similarly been documented among New Englanders who live near cy- anobacterially-contaminated lakes and ponds, compared to those who reside near pristine waters (5). One culprit appears to be an unusual amino acid produced by cyanobacteria. BMAA (β-N-methylamino-L-alanine) resembles the common amino acid alanine with an added nitrogen and methyl group. Researchers in Australia and America discovered that much like a prion, BMAA inserts itself into neuroproteins in place of the amino acid serine, causing protein misfolding and tangles (6). There appears to be a tight link between environmental health and human health: pollution of our water likely generates an increased risk of neurological illness.

40 Conclusion: The road to the future is rooted in the past At face value, this statement appears to be a tautology since future events are clearly contingent upon their historical precedents. But as human beings, we have the ability to take actions now to determine the different trajectories that future generations will face. By carefully considering the experience of our ancestors, by analyzing the plethora of complex molecules produced by biodiversity, and by stu- dying the most ancient life forms on this planet, we can develop interventions that increase rather than decrease the number of options that will be available to our grandchildren. This road to the future must be built now. Thoughtful individuals from many nations have concluded that we are now at the crossroads. Human-induced climate change, the effects of which are most apparent in Arctic regions such as Abisko, could reduce food supplies, displace millions of people, and ignite mass human migrations. The ongoing loss of biodiversity may destroy as yet unknown molecular solutions to our most serious problems. Increasing pollution not only threatens clean water supplies for hundreds of millions of the poor around the world, but may also trigger neurological illnesses among affluent populations. Rooting the road to the future in the past increases the likelihood that we can quickly attain sustainable lifestyles. Using the past to find new ways to work with, rather than against nature, can also produce viable new industries that are environmentally benign. Ultimately, rooting the road to the future in the past increases our likelihood of developing sustainable lifestyles which we can bequeath to our grandchildren.

41 References 1. Linnaeus, C. 1881. Lachesis Lapponica, or a Tour of Lapland. London: J.E. Smith. 2. Wyllie-Echeverria, S., Cox, P.A. 1999. The seagrass (Zostera marina [Zosteraceae]) industry of Nova Scotia (1907–1960). Economic Botany 53(4): 419-426. 3. Goldman, N., Bertone, P., Chen, S., Dessimoz., LeProust, E.M., Sipos, B., Birney, E. 2013. Towards practical, high capacity, low-maintenance information storage in synthesized DNA. Nature. 4. Fang, F., Valdinarsdottir, U., Bellocco, R., Ronnevi, L.O., Sparen. P., Fall, K., and Ye, W. 2009. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in Sweden. 1991-2005. Archives of Neurology 66(4), 515. 5.Caller, T.A., Field, N.C., Chipman, J.W., Shi, X., Harris, B.T., Stommel, E.W. 2012. Spatial clustering of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and the potential role of BMAA. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis 13(1), 25-32. 6. Dunlop, R.A., Cox, P.A., Banack, S.A., Rodgers, K.J. 2013. The Non-Pro- tein Amino Acid BMAA is Misincorporated into Human Proteins in Place of L-Serine Causing Protein Misfolding and Aggregation. PLOS ONE 8(9): c75376.

42 Photo: SBU Photo: Why Don’t Research Findings have Better Impact? Nina Rehnqvist

A Changing World: Redrawing the map or trying to infl uence the world so that the map needs to be redrawn? In spite of political ambitions and actions the world seems to change haphazardly or as an effect of serendipity. The problems of today are commonly described as effects of climate-changes, uncertainties in economies, growing and ageing populations. All of these are objects of research and new findings are being presented daily. The many men and women who work daily with the aim to change the world for the better according to their opinions may feel frustrated that their ambitions fail. One reason for this may be that the direction of the intended change differs between people, due to preferences and values. Another reason is the fact that the impact of findings from research is surprisingly weak. The research findings are not leading to evidence-based decisions. Strong evidence is not necessarily followed by strong recommendations and, furthermore, weak evidence may be used by politicians, professionals or the public as a basis for strong recommendations.

43 Economic incentives are strong Economic incentives seem to be much stronger than are incentives derived from research findings that point at improvements in the quality of a specific societal activity. This is surprising since the main aims for actions by most people and societies are to achieve improvements in individual and collective health, quality of life, wellbeing, security and safety. Economic research is new. It is based on theories and assumptions, i.e. pure in- tellectually grounded evidence instead of empirical findings. New Public Manage- ment is a consequence of these theories. New Public Management has been shown to lead to cost-containment and a higher awareness of economic issues in societal organizations. But it has also turned the focus away from quality aspects and the objective of “doing good”. New Public Management has been introduced in many societies without reflection and/or evaluation. New Public Management is a result of research with a low level of evidence but high level of impact.

Incentives do not always lead to desired effects Health care is an example. The purpose of health care is to improve health indi- vidually and collectively as a result of which safety and security will also improve. There are specific organizations whose task it is to describe and convey how well a medical measure fulfills the aims of the measure, both regarding effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. Measures that are found to have a high level of certainty about their effectiveness, provided that the health care system undertakes necessary changes and are cost-effective, are not immediately implemented resulting in severe delays in the introduction of new therapies. The reasons vary from “Not Invented Here” syndrome”,” or unwillingness to accept other peoples’ findings to selfish prioritization of measures that are less sub- stantiated, but directed towards my personal situation rather than the common good. Another, and probably the main reason, is the complexity of the health care system. It is perhaps easier for decision makers to give in and accept that economic incentives rule even if the research and also gut feeling speak against this. Improvements in one area may lead to cost reductions or structural improvements in a different area, i.e. there is nothing in the change for me. Prevention leading to less demand for surgical procedures is an obvious example. In health care more than 12 % of the costs are due to malpractice, the underutilization of preventive measures is of the same order. These facts are known but very little is done about them. Another problem is the fact that the intended effects, health, happiness, security and safety, often lack robust and objective measures, added to which the criteria vary between individuals and also vary along the course of an individual’s lifetime.

44 In contrast, business success can be measured in how much profit has been gained. Societal success is mainly defined differently, due to political values, values that are difficult to measure. Longevity and life expectancy can be measured, but level of happiness and even health is difficult to measure objectively. And what time frame are we talking about? Is it for me and my generation that we are striving or is it for future generations. I believe most people would say for future generations, provided that it is bearable for me. But it is more problematic when it boils down to what sacrifices one is prepared to make. Today’s adults do not seem to be very prone to working for the common good. The European Union is one example, where the economic problems being faced are mainly due to the fact that the overarching purpose of EU has been forgotten, i.e. peace and stability, and has been replaced by economic incentives in EMU. EMU, without definition and agreements on common aims and values in the social field, was no more than wishful thinking and led to failure. To leave social issues as well as ethical issues to subsidiarity seems to be either cynical and lacking in trust in the EU idea or simply naïve and/or even stupid.

Is there consensus about the desired effects? What do we know about societal values and in which areas is there a common understanding? Equal value of all people; in theory yes, in practice no. Does this imply that everyone should enjoy the same circumstances, economic and societal, or does it mean that one should be given the same opportunities and then it is up to the individual to make use of them? The problem with the latter view is that people are different, due to genetic factors and/or different environmental circumstances, and these in turn interact with the societal context. Another problem is the principle that those with the highest needs are to be priori- tized and those with lesser needs must show solidarity and step back. Most people would concur with the first part of this statement but not with latter part, if it is up to them to abstain from claiming a procedure that they feel will have beneficial effects for themselves. There is evidence that economic differences within a society carry health risks. The better off you are the lower is the risk for disease, irrespective of level of income. There are also discussions as to whether there is threshold effect or not. The negative effects of a true socialistic society may now be considered to be evidence based. True socialism leads to decline and stagnation in a society. True equality in education leads both to mismatches between the workforce and jobs and, paradoxically, to a decline in general educational level, especially to a lack of

45 spearheads. There is no linearity between level of education and employment rate or even GNP. Furthermore, there does not seem to be a “satisfaction threshold” or a commonly defined level in fulfillment of needs. Needs escalate when the basic needs level is achieved. Ethical values are influenced and depending on religion and this is probably one reason for the statement that ethical issues are subsidiary. Measures in health care are seldom cost- saving. However, one exception is, e.g. advice on how to stop smoking. This discussion deals with what is cost- effective value for money. There may be agreement, or at least there is common practice in the OECD countries, that a measure is cost effective in health care or social care if the cost per Life Years Saved (LYS) or Quality of Life Years (QALY) is below 500 000 SEK. The estimate is based on an assumption that the tax burden or equivalent cannot be too high.

Summary This short paper, and the reasoning it contains, has dealt with health care since that is my area of competence. The reason why research findings concerning outcomes pointing at effects on other parameters than money, i.e. those reflecting soft values like wellbeing, sense of coherence, safety, health, have a low impact may be boiled down to complexity, both regarding the causality and the timing of effects. A passing metaphor: The impact of short sighted economic incentives may be compared to, peeing in ones pants. It feels good to start with and the effect is easily shown, but the long-term effects are unpleasant.

46 Image: S. Davidsson S. Image: One Health – A Necessary Approach for the Future Björn Olsen, Josef D. Järhult, Jonas Waldenström, Charlotte Berg

Consider the Earth’s history as spanning one day. Following the ‘Big Bang’, the first bacteria appeared at around 3 a.m., and the first viruses a few minutes later. The moment at which humans entered the scene is roughly 3 seconds before mid- night. In this instant, we evolved from hunters and gatherers into today’s farmers and urban creatures. During our evolution, we have constantly encountered, and sometimes became symbiotic with, microorganisms; these interactions have created what we are today. Given that our bodies consist more of bacteria and viruses than own cells, we are in fact bacterio- and virospheres and the constant interactions between our cells, the microorganisms, and the environment sculpt us and the other animals that surround us today. When we became farmers about 11,000 years ago this allowed us to reach higher population densities. However, in addition to milk, meat, wool, and eggs, the do- mestication and close proximity to animals also brought new circuits for propagation of microorganisms in humans, some with the potential to cause outbreaks, epidemics and, as the ultimate consequence, pandemics. (1) This process has con-

47 tinued into the modern age; during the last century we have tripled the population and today we are seven billion humans – probably the second most common mammal species – while comparatively there are approximately 75 billion domestic animals to sustain our need for food resources.

Microorganisms, pathogenesis, transmission The majority of microorganisms infecting man are zoonoses, shared with at least one other animal species. This is an important factor, as the epidemiology and evolution of microorganisms are influenced by their host range and the degree of speci- alization and specific adaptations involved in pathogenesis and transmission. Many emerging infections are spill-over infections, with no or limited human-to-human transmission, and as a consequence may have virulence properties not matching long-term propagation in the new hosts (1, 2). Such infections can be circulating within a given wildlife species, often without causing disease, but lead to problems when spread to humans. Transmission frequencies between different host species are key determinants for disease dynamics, and the outcomes of cross-species transmission events can range from dead-end transmission to putative pandemics (3). If our frame-work in medicine is too human-oriented, we may fail to identify the crucial parameters needed to alleviate disease risk, or even amplify problems. The increasing globalization and travel has resulted in a convergence of people, domestic animals and a decreased biological diversity in the environment resulting in a complex dynamic where the transfer of microorganisms and infections are closely interconnected. When Changing the equilibrium within ecosystems can result in increased opportunities for microorganisms to breach the species barriers. These changes include human intrusion in animal habitats through urbanization, farming, logging, mining, and recreation. This together with an increasing demand for meat and other animal-based food products require more intensive animal husbandry and an increase in international trade. Taken together, these factors have increased the demand of a consent view on the mechanisms behind emergence of novel as well as re-emerging infections.

The “One Health” movement The modern ’One Health’ movement (sometimes referred to as ’One Medicine’ or ’One World – One Health’) stems from the insight that human health, animal health, and ecosystem health are inextricably linked (4, 5). This is not a novel idea. Thoughts on this topic were presented by the German physician Rudolf Virchow during the 19th century (6). The One Health concept has been developed via global health networks using modern technology to link groups all over the world, and through specifically targeted international conferences aiming at facilitating collaboration.

48 There are several definitions of One Health. Adopting one of the broader ones, stating that One Health can be defined as ‘the collaborative effort of multiple disciplines to attain optimal health for people, animals and the environment’, means that many categories of potential threats to human, animal, or environmental health will be included. Such a definition will cover not only infectious diseases but also metabolic diseases and cancer. However, many researchers actively involved in One Health networks tend to focus mainly on emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases affecting both animals and humans. Furthermore, antibiotic resistance is often considered an important One Health issue.

Why is it important? Understanding the nature of multi-host pathogens, including the host parasite interaction and the effects variable environmental conditions have on these interactions, are essential goals to limit disease burden. Interventions should be applied where they produce the best positive outcome. For instance, if human disease is primarily driven by transmission from other animal sources, research should explicitly target pathogen evolution and transmission properties in the reservoir hosts, and not only be limited to symptoms in the patients or controlling spread among humans. It is crucial for us to increase our understanding of how changes in human habits and behavior, such as increased urbanization, the establishment of new settlements in proximity to wildlife, new food habits, increased travel, and urban farming influence the risks of disease transmission between wildlife, domestic animals, and humans. These trends, as well as climate change leading to changes in the habitats of animals, in vector distribution ranges, and in the long run also to altered human migration patterns, will influence the analysis and risk management in relation to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Recently, reports from China of unusual deaths from influenza started to appear. It was confirmed that the causative agent was influenza A virus of the H7N9 subty- pe. H7 subtypes very rarely infect humans, but are relatively common among wild ducks. The wild type H7 viruses are classified as low-pathogenic and do not cause, in contrast to the highly-pathogenic H5N1 virus, overt disease in birds. More cases have appeared, and the virus has now been detected in several regions of China. To- day, 373 cases have been reported and despite intensive care 114 have died. But the big question is, where does the virus come from and how do people get infected? It is shown that people get infected from birds, most likely through handling domestic ducks, pigeons, or gallinaceous poultry. South-East Asia is a known melting pot for influenza, where high densities of wild ducks, domestic poultry, pigs, and humans make cross-species transmission and re-assortment more likely. Further- more, the traditional live-bird markets where traders sell their animals directly to

49 the end-consumers augment the risk of transmission. The H7N9 virus causes one of many potential emerging infectious diseases and illustrates the need for an integrated approach. To evaluate the risk of further spread to humans, virologists need to identify the virus genotype, including specific mutations affecting host range, transmission, and virulence; health organizations and industry need to prepare seed vaccines as a preventative measure following possibility of human-to-human transmission; veterinarians, ecologists, and epidemiologists need to collaborate to characterize the virus reservoirs, and health officials need to react swiftly and deci- sively based on proper risk assessment. Another example is the “pandemic” of antimicrobial resistance. Today, clinicians often have to resort to toxic last-line antibiotics and sometimes lack treatment options. Selection of resistant bacteria at the site of infection is well studied but resistance development in the normal flora, spread of mobile genetic elements originating from environmental bacteria, the dispersion of antibiotics and resistant bacteria through human and animal waste and inter-species spread of resistant bacteria deserve more research attention (7).

What needs to be done? There are initiatives bridging the gap between disciplines. One notable achievement was the launch of ProMed, an online disease monitoring service that sum- marizes disease notifications in humans, animals, and plants from public sources. Today, it functions as a first line information channel for people with interest in emerging infectious diseases. ProMed had a pivotal role in SARS and H5N1 outbreaks, bringing researchers and authorities into contact, and currently serves as the best information channel for the H7N9 outbreak in China. A prerequisite for integration of disciplines is to construct meeting points for researchers with different backgrounds, enable them to carry out projects outside their normal domains, and to collaborate cross-disciplinary. Currently, researchers are expected to apply for grants from different research councils, all of which are nar- row in their approach. Funding agencies have an important role in this aspect, and through their calls they may channel more funds for cross-disciplinary One Health projects. This requires evaluation panels with representatives from different areas, and to readdress multidisciplinary research beyond lip service. We need to foster a new generation of researchers that interact more easily between fields. Joint curriculums in aspects of undergraduate studies in medicine and vete- rinary medicine with a basic understanding of ecology would be greatly beneficial, and construction of multidisciplinary research schools at Masters’ and PhD-levels is desirable. This needs to be extended, not only to ecologists, but also to health economists and professionals specializing in socio-cultural aspects of disease control.

50 Database sharing is another important aspect of the One Health philosophy. Re- searchers and authorities gather enormous amounts of samples in huge databases containing data from monitoring programs, test results, and characteristics for both humans and animals. Many of these samples and databases can be shared with other research groups without compromising patient/owner confidentiality. More effective use of the materials will facilitate urgent research and risk analysis in relation to emerging diseases and help prevent or limit outbreaks. There are several definitions trying to pin down the idea behind One Health. The most successful, although unknowingly, is probably Theodosius Dobzhansky´s: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution” (8). With a slight modification, “Nothing in medicine makes sense unless seen in the light of evolution” reflects the true spirit behind the One Health concept. References 1. Wolfe N, Dunavan C, Diamond J. Origins of major human infectious diseases. Nature 2007;447: 279-83. 2. Daszak P, Cunningham A, Hyatt A. Emerging infectious diseases of wildlife - threats to biodiversity and human health. Science 2000;287: 443-49. 3. Fenton A, Pedersen A. Community epidemiology framework for classifying disease threats. Emerg Infect Dis 2005;11:1815-21. 4. Cook R, Karesh W, Osofsky S. The Manhattan Principles on “One World, One Health” [Internet]. [Place unknown] [cited 2013 April 28]. 2004. Avai- lable from: http://www.oneworldonehealth.org/. 5. Zinsstag J, Schelling E, Waltner-Toews D,Tanner M. From “one medicine” to “one health” and systemic approaches to health and well-being. Prev Vet Med 2011;101:148-56. 6. Lerner H. The philosophical roots of the ”One Medicine” movement: an analysis of some relevant ideas by Rudolf Virchow and Calvin Schwabe with their modern implications. Studia Philosophica Estonica 2013;6: 97-109. 7. Wellington, EM, Boxall, AB, Cross, P, Feil, EJ, Gaze, WH, Hawkey, PM, et al. The role of the natural environment in the emergence of antibiotic resistance in gram-negative bacteria. Lancet Infect Dis 2013;13: 155-165. 8. Dobzhansky T. Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution. Am Biol Teach 1973;35:125-29.

51 52 Photo: A. Karlqvist A. Photo: With Education the Future Looks Better Wolfgang Lutz

Through most of its history humankind was threatened by extinction through diseases, famines and wars, and for individual members of our species life expectancies were less than half of what they are today. For the average person life was harsh, short and full of unpredictable dangers. Only during the 19th century mortality conditions started to improve, first in Europe and then after World War II across the world. This was the result of better living conditions based on increasing agricultural productivity and advances in hygiene and public health, and in the 20th century the rapid progress in curative medicine. Today, life expectancy at birth is above 80 years in a growing number of countries and the trend of strongly increasing life expectancy (2-3 years per decade) shows no sign of leveling off. The advancing education levels were an important underlying reason for these unpre- cedented improvements in the human condition.

Population trends Demographers have recently started to understand that the analysis of global po-

53 pulation trends should not be confined to the study of changing population size and age structure, but should explicitly factor education and health into their projection models. With this new emphasis on human capital the quality dimension is added to the conventional demographic focus on quantity. This has recently been studied and modeled through the application of multi-dimensional demographic projection tools. For all countries in the world they have reconstructed the changing population compositions by age, sex and level of educational attainment and projected them through alternative scenarios into the second half of the 21st century. Because population trends have a great inertia and the human life course is already more than 80 years in an increasing number of countries such changes in population size and composition can be projected with greater reliability than most other social and economic trends. If we know, e.g. how many women in any country today have completed high school at the age of 20 we have a good basis for projecting how many 70-year old women will have at least high school education half a century later. And, as will be discussed below, the educational level of the elderly is a key factor in their future health status. The Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU) has carried out a major global population projection exercise involving more than 500 international experts to assess the range of likely population trends over the 21st century (1). Unlike other projections this new set explicitly includes the changing educational composition of populations by age and sex, and reflects the fact that almost universally people with more education have lower mortality rates and women with more education have lower fertility rates. The emerging picture (see Fig. 1) shows that world population roughly doubled from 3.7 billion in 1970 to 7.2 billion today. This number is very likely to further increase by another 1-3 billion, depending mostly on the future course of fertility, and then level off or enter a slow decline.

Figure 1. Reconstruction and projection of the world by level of educational attainment 1970-2100 according to the fertility, mortality and education scenarios considered most likely (1). 54 is added to the conventional demographic focus on quantity. This has recently been studied and modeled through the application of multi-dimensional demographic projection tools. For all countries in the world they have reconstructed the changing population compositions by age, sex and level of educational attainment and projected them through alternative scenarios into the second half of the 21st century. Because population trends have a great inertia and the human life course is already more than 80 years in an increasing number of countries such changes in population size and composition can be projected with greater reliability than most other social and economic trends. If we know, e.g. how many women in any country today have completed high school at the age of 20 we have a good basis for projecting how many 70-year old women will have at least high school education half a century later. And, as will be discussed below, the educational level of the elderly is a key factor in their future health status. The Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU) has carried out a major global population projection exercise involving more than 500 international experts to assess the range of likely population trends over the 21st century (1). Unlike other projections this new set explicitly includes the changing educational composition of populations by age and sex, and reflects the fact that almost universally people with more education have lower mortality rates and women with more education have lower fertility rates. The emerging picture (see Fig. 1) shows that world population roughly doubled from 3.7 billion in 1970 to 7.2 billion today. This number is very likely to further increase by another 1-3 billion, depending mostly on the future course of fertility, and then level off or enter a slow decline. The scenario considered most likely will see the world population peaking at 9.4 billion around 2070 and then decline to around 9 billion by the end of the century. But this projection also reveals a remarkable increase in human capital. In 1970, the vast majority of the world population was still without any formal education or merely with (incomplete) primary education. At that time only some 90 million people or around 2 percent of the world population had any kind of tertiary education. Over the past 40 years this highly educated population has increased by a factor of seven while the total population only doubled. By the end of the century the most probable scenario shows an increase of the population with tertiary education to 3.1 billion which then will be a third of the entire world population including children. Correspondingly, the groups of people without education or with only primary education will greatly diminish. Since much of this improvement in educational attainment is already embedded in today’s age structure – where almost universally the young people are more educated than the older ones – this projection is quite robust, at least to the middle of the century. With this explicit focus on the changing educational composition of the population the future looks very different than when only the increase in population size

55 and the changing age structure are included in the models. The fact that the world population is likely to continue growing raise serious concerns about the future carrying capacity of the planet and the impacts of human consumption on biodiversity, climate change, and our life support systems in general. Equally, a focus on population ageing and the fact that the proportions of persons above age 65 are bound to significantly increase in all countries tend to give rise to a pessimistic outlook based on various assumed negative consequences of an increasing share of elderly people. In the remaining part of this paper I will illustrate, on the basis of recent scientific publications, that indeed the challenges associated with future population trends look very different and less negative when the changing educational composition of the population is explicitly taken into account. This is because there is convincing evidence that education empowers individuals and societies for a healthier, wealthier, more democratic and resilient future.

Education and empowerment First, it is important to note that education is not just one aspect of socio-economic status of people but that education causes changes in our cognition and the way we think about the future. While in social sciences no causation can be established for all times and all populations, there is extensive evidence for assuming what I call “functional causality” in the effects of education on demographic outcomes. Modern brain research leaves no doubt that every learning experience and in particular repeated experiences physiologically change our brains by building new synapses that not only store the information content of our experiences but also become an integral part of what forms our sense of personality. This has far reaching consequences for our behavior as it relates to health, economic activities, the organization and governance of societies, and finally our adaptive capacity to environmental change.

Education and health Mothers’ education has been widely recognized to be one of the most important factors in reducing child mortality. Extensive demographic and health surveys in most developing countries have shown that already some and often incomplete primary education of girls contribute to a higher survival probability of their children. They seem to gain a less fatalistic attitude and start to use simple precaution – such as boiling water for sterilization – and know better how to get access to existing health care facilities. Throughout the life course men and women at every age have lower mortality rates if they are better educated. This holds for poor and rich countries alike. The differences in life expectancy between the highest and lowest educational groups can be up to 12 years. The differentials do not diminish when previously uneducated parts of society also benefit from education. The benefits of education even influence the health status of the very old. Several studies show

56 that at any given age – say 70 or 80 – the disability rate of more educated men and women is significantly lower than for those with less education. This also quali- tatively changes our outlook with respect to the consequences of age. Projections show, e.g. that the proportion of disabled persons aged 40-75 in Western Europe and Asia is actually expected to decline rather than increase if these educational health differentials are considered together with the fact that we already know for sure that the future elderly will be better educated than today’s elderly.

Education and economic growth In economic theory it is commonly assumed that education has an important positive effect on economic growth, but until recently the statistical evidence for this assumption has been surprisingly weak. Studies show beyond any reasonable doubt that, at the individual level, more years of schooling generally lead to higher income. But at the macroeconomic level, empirical evidence relating changes in education measures to economic growth has been ambiguous because researchers used crude measures of human capital that did not differentiate by age. More recent studies that explicitly include the age structure of human capital provide unambi- guous statistical evidence that education is a consistently significant determinant of a country’s aggregate level of economic growth. The key to these new results lies in more detailed and more consistent national time series of educational attainment distributions by 5-year age groups. In some countries with rapid recent education expansions, such as South Korea, the elderly are still largely uneducated while the young cohorts are among the best educated in the world. It can be shown that economic growth was most rapid when the better educated cohorts entered the productive ages. Education measures that average across all age groups cannot cover these effects. There is another important finding of great policy importance: For poor countries with low human capital, only the combination of universal primary education with broadly-based secondary education results in the kind of rapid economic growth that has the potential to push countries out of poverty.

Education, quality of governance and adaptive capacity to environmental change There is an increasing body of literature that uses the above described demographic reconstructions and projections by age, sex and level of education to estimate the returns of investments in education on a broad array of desirable outcomes. In many of these studies the effect of education is explicitly compared to that of income, and almost in all cases improvements in education come out to be more important than higher income or economic growth. It is worth noting that the average education of women aged 20-39 seems to be of particular significance for societies. There is also overwhelming evidence that more educated people are less vulnerable to natural disasters in terms of being better prepared and being able to

57 recover better. In this respect education may be a key strategy for enhancing the adaptive capacity to already unavoidable climate change. In all these respects, with the empowering effect of education the future looks much better.

References

1. The Rise of Human Capital and the End of World Population Growth. In: World Population and Human Capital in the 21st Century. W. Lutz, W.P. Butz and S. KC. Editors. (forthcoming) Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

58 Photo: courtesy © G. Braasch. [email protected] Braasch. courtesy © G. Photo: Environmental Change and Migration Susan F. Martin

Introduction Discussion of the interconnections between climate change adaptation and migration is still in its infancy. Experts generally agree that the environment is but one of the many reasons that prompt people to migrate, sometimes operating on its own but more often through other mechanisms, particularly loss of livelihoods affected by environmental disruption (1, 2, 3). Yet, understanding is increasing that climate change may well increase the likelihood of both internal and international migration through four pathways: increased drought and desertification, rising sea levels, more intense and frequent storms, and competition for scarce resources (4). Recog- nizing these potential impacts, in 2010, Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) adopted the Cancun Adaptation Framework, which called on all countries to take “measures to enhance understanding, coordination and cooperation with regard to climate change induced displacement, migration and planned relocation, where appropriate, at national, regional and international levels.” Much of the attention to date focuses legitimately (given that most movements are likely to be within countries) on internal migration, with particular attention to adaptation policies that reduce the need for individuals to

59 migrate to get out of harm’s way, or, alternatively, involve mobility as an adaptation strategy that allows households to cope with environmental changes. Nevertheless, some international migration may well be needed, necessitating identification of appropriate admissions policies in potential destination countries.

Impact of climate change on migration patterns There are four paths, in particular, by which environmental change may affect migration either directly or, more likely, in combination with other factors:

• Changes in weather patterns that contribute to longer-term drying trends that affect access to essential resources such as water and negatively impact the sustainability of a variety of environment-related livelihoods including agriculture, forestry, fishing, etc. • Rising sea levels and glacier melt that cause massive and repeated flooding and render coastal and low-lying areas uninhabitable in the longer-term. • Increased frequency and magnitude of weather-related acute natural hazards, such as hurricanes and cyclones, which already destroy infrastructure and livelihoods and require people to relocate for shorter or longer periods (5). As climate change intensifies these events, even more people in developing countries will be at risk. • Competition over natural resources that may exacerbate pressures which contribute to conflict, which in turn precipitates movements of people. Con- flict will clearly make it more difficult to address the needs of climate-change affected populations, as witnessed in Somalia during the severe drought in the Horn of Africa. Only Somalia among the drought affected areas experienced high levels of famine and displacement.

The first two scenarios are likely to cause slow onset migration, in which people seek new homes and livelihoods over a lengthy period of time as conditions in their home communities worsen. The third and fourth scenarios are likely to create conditions that cause large-scale displacement, often in emergency situations. Hence, depending on the specific situation, migrants from environmental change may resemble labour migrants, seeking better livelihood opportunities in a new location, or they may resemble refugees and internally displaced persons who have fled situations beyond their individual control.

60 Some migration may be temporary while others may be permanent. The decision as to whether return is possible involves a range of variables, including the extent to which the environmental causes - either direct or through other channels - is likely to persist or frequently reoccur. Policies in the receiving communities and countries, depending on whether the migration is internal or international, will also affect the likelihood for return or settlement in the new location. In addition to immigration policies, the policies affecting return and settlement include land use and property rights, social welfare, housing, employment, and other frameworks that determine whether individuals, households, and communities are able to find decent living conditions and pursue adequate livelihoods. Return and reintegration is also affected by plans and programs to mitigate future dislocations from environmental hazards.

Who will be affected? Vulnerability or resilience to these situations—that is, the capability to cope or adapt to them—will determine the degree to which people are forced to migrate. The availability of alternative livelihoods or other coping capacities in the affected area generally determines the scale and form of migration that may take place. In slow-onset processes, such as intensified drought and gradually rising sea levels, the urgency to migrate may unfold over time since the environment and the harm associated with it change more slowly. But if alternative livelihoods are not available within a reasonable timeframe for affected populations, then migration may be the best or only option available, even in slow-onset situations. Generally, pre-existing levels of income, education and social networks influence the degree to which individuals and households are resilient and the manner in which they migrate. Those with greater resources may be able to find alternatives in situ, but they are also more likely to be able to relocate if necessary. By contrast, in acute events, whether natural ones such as hurricanes, cyclones, and floods, or human made ones, such as conflict, all persons regardless of income or other attributes may well need to evacuate at least temporarily. Often, however, the poorest and most vulnerable (for example, the elderly and handicapped) find themselves trapped in the direst situations, unable to move on their own and without resources to get assistance. Developing countries with a large proportion of people directly involved in agriculture, herding and fishing are particularly sensitive to environmental changes and to natural disasters. Youth in countries with high unemployment are another group likely to migrate in the face of environmental changes that further reduce economic opportunities. However, even highly destructive natural hazards will not necessarily result in humanitarian crises that cause massive displacement. Generally, the effica- cy of national and international policies, institutions and humanitarian responses influence whether people are able to cope with the after-effects of natural hazards in a manner that allows them to recover their homes and livelihoods.

61 Policy frameworks Often, the popular characterization of environmental migration is of movement to wealthy countries in the Global North. Many experts believe, however, that most migration will be internal or immediate cross border into neighbouring countries. Such migration may be particularly challenging as the receiving communities and countries will likely have few resources, legal structures, or institutional capacity to respond to the needs of the migrants. Geographical proximity may also mean that destination areas face some of the same environmental challenges as areas of migration origin (e.g. drought, desertification) and may offer little respite in this regard. Given the likely patterns of movement, helping poor countries to assist those potentially affected by climate change is the principal priority. Governments have only recently begun to think through ways to help their populations adapt to climate change. There are two principal ways in which migration fits into evolving adaptation strategies. First, adaptation is a way to reduce migration pressures and allow people to remain where they are by modifying agricultural practices, management of pastoral lands, infrastructure such as dykes and coastal barriers, fishing patterns and other strategies to reduce pressures on fragile eco-systems. Strategies also involve development of disaster risk reduction and conflict mediation strategies as part of adaptation planning. If governments do not take action to reduce the risks affected populations face from acute crises arising from natural disasters and competition over resources leading to conflict, they will be called upon to help later, and then the problem will be much more difficult to address. It is wise, therefore, for governments to invest now in resilience building strategies to pre-empt uncontrolled crisis situations as well as in more effective humanitarian responses to natural hazards and conflict. Second, migration is an adaptation strategy itself. Some countries see migration as a way to reduce population pressures in places with fragile eco-systems; others recognize that resettlement of some populations may be inevitable. Migration can be an effective way to manage the risks associated with climate change when done voluntarily and with appropriate planning. Policy makers should develop plans to help affected populations migrate in safety and dignity when migration is in their best interest: Involving the Diaspora in designing and funding adaptation strategies which enable affected populations to cope more effectively with climate change also makes for good policy. Just as the important role of Diasporas in promoting development has only recently been recognized, their role in adaptation needs to be given greater attention. Policies should avoid situations where affected populations are forced to move or move in emergency situations. Special attention should be paid to providing alternatives to irregular migration through targeted admissions programs in other countries. Immigration laws of most destination countries are not conducive, however, to

62 receiving environmental migrants, unless they enter through already existing admission categories (4). Typically, destination countries admit persons to fill job openings or to reunify with family members. Employment-based admissions are usually based on the labour market needs of the receiving country, not the situation of the home country. Family admissions are usually restricted to persons with immediate relatives (spouses, children, parents, and, sometimes, siblings) in the destination country. Humanitarian admissions are generally limited to refugees and asylum seekers. Some countries have established special policies that permit individuals whose countries have experienced natural disasters or other severe upheavals to remain at least temporarily without fear of deportation. The United States, for example, enacted legislation in 1990 to provide temporary protected status (TPS) to persons “in the United States who are temporarily unable to safely return to their home country because of ongoing armed conflict, an environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions.” Importantly, TPS only applies to persons already in the United States at the time of the designation. It is not meant to be a mechanism to respond to an unfolding crisis in which people seek admission from outside the country. Sweden and Finland have included environmental migrants within their immigration policies. Sweden includes within its asylum system persons who do not qualify for refugee status, but have a need for protection. Similarly, in the Finnish Aliens Act, “aliens residing in the country are issued with a residence permit on the basis of a need for protection if . . . they cannot return because of an armed conflict or environmental disaster.” A number of countries provide exceptions to removal on an ad hoc basis for persons whose countries of origin have experienced significant disruption because of natural disasters. To date, there are no examples of legislation or policies that address migration of persons from slow-onset climate changes that may destroy habitats or livelihoods in the future. For the most part, movements from slow-onset climate change and other environmental hazards that limit economic opportunities are treated in the same manner as other economically motivated migration. Intergovernmental dialogues on guiding principles, effective practices and institutional frameworks are needed to help governments in developing appropriate laws, policies and programs to address migration resulting from such situations.

63 References 1. Black, R., W. Adger, N. Arnell, S. Dercon, A. Geddes, D. Thomas (2011) “The Effect of Environmental Change on Human Migration.” Global En- vironmental Change 21, S3–S11. 2. Foresight: Migration and Global Environmental Change (2011) Final Pro- ject Report. The Government Office for Science, London. 3. White, G. (2011) Climate Change and Migration. Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press. 4. Martin, S. (2012) “Environmental change and migration: legal and political frameworks,” Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, Vol. 30, 2012: pp. 1045 – 1060. 5. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). World Disaster Report, Geneva. IFRC.

64 Perenniation: Revolutionary Pathways to Meet Farming’s 21st Century Challenges Jerry Glover

The challenge Farmers in this relatively young millennium face compounding pressures to meet the food needs of a growing, more demanding human population. Humans have more than doubled the yields of major grain crops over the past 60 years yet roughly one in seven people suffer from malnutrition (1). As the global population continues to grow, the demand for food, especially meat, also increases. Additionally, production of nonfood goods (e.g., biofuels) increasingly competes with food production for land and much of the land most suitable for annual crops is already in use (2). Global food security largely depends on these annual grains—cereals, oilseeds, and legumes—that are planted on almost 70% of croplands and supply a similar portion

65 of human calories. Three annual crops alone—maize, rice, and wheat—provide over 60% of human calories. Their production, though, often compromises essential ecosystem services, pushing some beyond sustainable boundaries (3). Annual crops are certainly important to humans and annual plants play important roles in wild plant communities. Problems arise, however, when annual plants dominate large areas of a landscape. Plant photosynthesis is the primary pathway through which earth’s land-based life utilizes the sun’s energy. The relatively short life spans of many annual plants reduce the amount of sunlight and rainfall they actively intercept (Fig. 1). Roots provide plants access to essential soil nutrients but annual plant roots are typically limited to the surface 50 cm or less. These limitations reduce their above- and below-ground productivity and leave the soil surface vulnerable to erosion. Farmers relying on annual crop plants must replant their fields, from seed, each season and this requires valuable labor, for preparing the field and sowing of the seeds, and money for purchasing the seed or additional labor. These challenges are particularly acute in specific regions of the world where food insecurity is greatest, such as Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Most of Africa’s soils are naturally poor in nutrients compared with those of the younger landscapes found in North America, for example. Farmers in SSA often worsen already poor lands by removing more nutrients than they return to the soil, losing some eight million tons of soil nutrients each year, estimated to be worth over USD 4 billion (4). It’s important to note that nearly all of the nutrients that build human bodies ultimately come from the soil on which farmers grow their crops and most humans don’t live near the soils producing their food. These and other factors have resulted in over 95 million ha of arable land in SSA having degraded or highly degraded soil. Population growth and erratic weather driven by climate change are exacerbating the problem. So, 21st century farmers must produce more food than ever before on roughly the same amount of land, with the least fertile soils in the history of agriculture, and while facing erratic weather patterns driven by climate change (5).

Perennial solutions An increased interest by agronomists, plant breeders, and ecologists in perenniation—the use of perennials (plants that live for two or more years) to support the production of food crops—could prove revolutionary in developing new farm options that ensure food and ecosystem security, even in the most challenging farm regions (5). Perennials can gain access to more of the soil’s nutrients and water, for a longer time than annual crops (Fig. 1). Their roots often extend more than two metres deep (compared with less than a metre for most annuals), and their growing seasons are longer. Because they produce more biomass, both above and below ground, they are better at reducing soil erosion, transferring organic inputs

66 to soil microorganisms and increasing the amount of carbon stored in the soil (6). These organic inputs and microorganisms then improve soil fertility and structure as well as increase water infiltration and storage — all of which increase the amount of water available to and used by crops. Moreover, by supplying the soil with carbon, perennials can improve the ability of food crops to use mineral fertilizers and, potentially, help farmers to adapt to climate change (7).

Figure 1. Ecosystem functions of annual and perennial crops (3) [Glover et al. 2010]. (Left) Annual crops have relatively short growing seasons, shallow rooting depths, and lower root densities. This limits their access to nutrients and water, increases their need for nutrients, leaves croplands more vulnerable to degradation, and reduces soil carbon inputs and provisions for wildlife. (Right) Perennial crops capture, retain, and use more precipitation for growth, have access to soil nutrients deeper within the soil, maintain greater surface residue, and intercept sunlight for greater lengths of the year.

Perenniation strategies can be particularly useful for farmers in developing countries where crop and livestock diversity tends to be higher and where on- farm resources are relatively more important than purchased inputs (Fig. 2). For example, hundreds of thousands of African farmers grow leguminous ‘fertilizer trees’ along with maize, sorghum or millet on more than 5 million hectares of cropland (8). The leguminous trees in these systems can triple maize yields while improving the soil. In doubled-up legume systems, farmers grow perennial pigeon pea along with annual legumes (7; Fig. 2). After harvesting the legumes, farmers plant maize in or beside the rows of pigeon peas and then harvest both. Nutrient- and protein-rich, pigeon peas can persist into the drier months, after maize stocks have been exhausted, and they can substantially improve families’ diets.

67 Figure 2. Three examples of perenniation systems used by farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (5).

Perennial plants can also help to manage pests and diseases. In “push–pull” systems, farmers manage stem-borer moths (Chilo partellus) and African witchweed (Striga hermonthica), devastating pests in sub- Saharan Africa (9; Fig. 2). Farmers intersperse silverleaf (Desmodium uncinatum), a perennial legu¬minous animal-feed crop, among maize plants. The silverleaf pro¬duces chemicals that repel or ‘push’ pests away, and perennial Napier grass (Pen¬nisetum purpureum) grown around the edges of the fields ‘pulls’ the pests in by providing attractive leaves for egg-laying. The reduced pest damage and extra nitrogen can more than double maize yields. Perhaps more revolutionary, a global group of plant breeders is working to develop perennial versions of the major grain crops, with a focus on important staple crops that provide a bulk of humanity’s food calories, including wheat, rice, sorghum, sunflowers, grain legumes, and oil seed crops. The development of perennial grain crops is now technically feasible due to advances in genomic breeding tools and bioinformatics that allow plant breeders to identify and select for more different traits in much shorter time periods. These perennial grain crops could greatly boost the ability of farmers around the world to take advantage of perennial plants while simultaneously producing important food grains. Perenniation systems that rely on production of annual and perennial crops in the same field present management problems to farmers due to their complexity. Perennial grain crops would provide farmers more options to more flexibly manage their natural resources while producing abundant yields.

Lessons from the LKAB Kiruna mine New technological advances in plant breeding and farm management may provide

68 farmers revolutionary tools to overcome the challenges they will face in coming decades. New ways of looking at sustainability are also needed to guide how these new tools are developed and used. For decades, those within the scholarly community interested in sustainability have looked to agriculture as a model for sustainable practices. Agriculture fundamentally relies on renewable natural resources and there are a few highly sustainable farming systems that provide useful models for other sectors of the human economy, including the industrial sector. Unfortunately, agriculture, as currently practiced, is largely unsustainable and is, in essence, a mining operation. Few of the more than 16 nutrients harvested from farm fields are replaced through sustainable fertilizer practices and extensive land degradation continues. Urbanization trends often worsen nutrient mining rates by lengthening the distance between consumers and food producers. Traditional agricultural sustainability scholars do not typically look to the industrial sector, particularly mining operations, for new insights. As agriculture increasingly resembles industrial activities, industrial perspectives on sustainability could help shape new insights into agricultural sustainability. The Kiruna Mine, and its business model for addressing sustainability issues, actually provides several important lessons and strategies for agriculture. Similar to agricultural sustainability goals, the mine’s sustainability goals include extending the life of the mine, preserving and improving the livelihoods of the human community, and maintaining landscape level ecosystem functioning. Lesson 1: Consider sustainability at manageable scales. Mining is ultimately an extractive activity and unsustainable at any given site over the long-term. The sustainability of a mining operation, however, can be improved by lengthening the mine’s life-span and mitigating its impacts on the environment and human livelihoods. Many attempts to improve agricultural sustainability stall at the stage where the concept is operationalized and on-the-ground decisions need to be made. Of- ten this is due to an overly broad consideration of sustainability at unmanageable spatial and temporal scales—perfect sustainability stands in the way of improving the relative sustainability of a specific farming system. Kiruna Mine operators operationalized sustainability by framing the concept within the manageable time scale of 50 years and by identifying global, regional, and local impacts on the natural and human environments they can influence. Strategies to deepen the mine to ensure a specific life-span and tighten resource loops have been the key to the Kiruna Mine’s sustainability program. Lesson 2: Deepen the mine. An industrial mine deepens its operations to reach new resources once a particular depth has been depleted. Interestingly, this simple strategy seldom seems to occur to agricultural scientists. Many farmed landscapes are nutrient depleted in the surface layers where annual crop roots are concen- trated. Tapping into deeper soil layers could greatly lengthen the lifespan of our

69 agricultural “mines”, improve crop yields, and provide farmers additional time to identify and adopt more sustainable practices. Plant breeders can also use this concept as a guiding principle in designing and developing improved crop varieties with deeper roots and greater ability (i.e. longer life spans) to take advantage of new resources. Lesson 3: Tighten resource loops. Kiruna Mine operators, in large part due to financial demands and government regulations, have focused heavily on ensuring that as much of the extracted ore as possible is captured and converted into a usa- ble form. This has reduced the environmental impact of their operations per unit produced and further lengthens the life of the mine. Even as they tap into deeper, resource rich layers the operators focus on how to more effectively capture and use the resources. Farms suffer unsustainable nutrient losses through soil erosion, the export of nutrients in crop harvests, leaching losses below the root zones of crops, and, in the case of nitrogen, gaseous losses from the soil surface. Farmers can operationalize the Kiruna Mine’s lessons by matching perenniation strategies with activities that return more nutrients exported in their harvests, such as through urban composting programs. Lesson 4: Preserve and improve livelihoods. As with mining, agriculture is most successful when carried out by healthy, thriving people. Kiruna Mine’s future became endangered when mine workers demanded that their children “get an education so that you don’t have to work in the mine.” Rural farming communities in many regions of the world face a similar situation of poor working conditions and limited opportunities driving you people off the farm and seriously threatening long term sustainability. For the Kiruna Mine, a committed focus on improving the working conditions in the mine and living conditions in the surrounding communities—central considerations of sustainability—has resulted in parents in surrounding mining communities now telling their children, “get an education so that you can work in the mine.” If revolutionary new agricultural technologies are to improve the environmental sustainability of agriculture, we must work with farmers to improve the working and living conditions in rural communities so that future farmers have a reason to conserve and improve farming.

70 References 1. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2009 (Progress Report, FAO, Rome 2009). 2. Godfray, H. C. J. et al., Science 327, 812 (2010). 3. Glover, J. D., et al. Science 328, 1638-1639 (2010). 4. Henoa, J. & Baanante, C. Agricultural Production and Soil Nutrient Mining in Africa: Implications for Resource Conservation and Policy Development (International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development, 2006). 5. Glover, J. D., et al. Nature 489, 359-361(2012). 6. Snapp, S. S., Blackie, M. J., Gilbert, R. A., Bezner-Kerr, R. & Kanyama-Phiri, G. Y. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 20840–20845 (2010). 7. Glover, J. D., Cox, C. M., Reganold, J. P. Sci. Am. 297, 82 (2007). 8. Garrity, D. P. et al. Food Sec. 2, 197–214 (2010). 9. Hassanali, A., Herren, H., Khan, Z. R., Pickett, J. A. & Woodcock, C. M. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. 363, 611-621 (2008).

71 72 Photo: A Karlqvist Photo: Learning to Think: Thinking to Learn Garry D. Brewer

The level of the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, has passed a long-feared milestone . . . reaching a concentration [of 400 ppm] not seen on earth for millions of years (1).

The context: A stationary climate no more The somewhat abstract idea of intergenerational equity as related to climate change, wherein the present generation is expected to consider and to take account of coming ones, is easily obscured by present-day realities, too often related to wars, conflicts, and financial threats to personal, national, and global security. The apparent truism that “It’s the economy, stupid,” captures and diverts political attentions to the near term marked with clichés of “quick fixes” and “kicking the can down the road,” rather than thinking seriously about the longer term where the next generations will live (2). Modern economies succeed by growing, but growing means consuming increasing amounts of energy. More energy consumed so far means more CO2 generated and continuing debates and denials about the consequences, especially longer term (3).

73 Different perspectives at every level of analysis from the individual to the global emphasize different aspects of the “climate change problem” and in so doing seldom yield a consistent rendition of the past and current circumstances, much less provide clarity about the future—where coming generations we trust will be able to live. Science comes into conflict with perceptions, myths, ideology and plain old “wishful thinking.” Perceptions, stemming from the basic standpoint or perspective preferred, become in effect the effective personal reality. Subjective views are un- derstandable, but they are generally unhelpful in foreseeing and planning for the future—especially futures that are mainly characterized and defined in scientific terms. George Orwell said it well: People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. . . I believe that it is possible to be more objective than most of us are, but that it involves moral effort. One cannot get away from one’s own subjective feelings, but at least one can know what they are and make allowance for them. And, Orwell elsewhere: Political language. . .is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder res- pectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind (4). Far more than “moral effort” is required. Educational improvement in the so-called STEM—Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics—subject matters in countries around the world is an obvious priority (5). More than improvement in rote learning is needed. Generally, understanding and using critical thinking skills that underpin STEM subject matter allow us to be informed consumers of science. Specifi¬cally, connecting these disciplines to shed light and improve common un- derstandings of what climate change is and means is a less obvious, but actually far more important challenge. Government agencies, private organizations, and individuals whose futures will be affected by climate change are unprepared, both conceptually and prac- tically, for meeting the challenges and opportunities it presents. Many of their usual practices and decision rules. . .assume a stationary climate. That assumption. . .is no longer valid. . . . Climate change will create a novel and dynamic decision environment. The parameters of the new climate regime cannot be envisioned from past experience. Moreover, climatic changes will be superimposed on social and economic changes that are altering the climate vulnerability of different regions and sectors of society, as well as their ability to cope. Decision makers will need new kinds of information and new ways of thinking and learning to function effectively in the changing climate (6).

74 Climate change science is seldom taught or taught very well and this holds throughout the basic educational system and process. Curricular demands, political and ideological intrusions, and the limitations of too many teachers to understand or communicate even elementary scientific matters all conspire. Given the evident and growing importance of climate change science, heightened consideration of the field is urgently needed to afford it requisite priority.

Climate change science: Adaptation and mitigation A good starting point would be to focus on the current status of climate change science, especially those aspects of it related to adaptation and mitigation. (CSAM). Taking a more localized standpoint, so as to emphasize real problems that confront different settings and locations around the world, would be helpful. The inten- tion is to make the problems and opportunities confronting school-aged children around the world meaningful. Adaptation to climate changes along the coast of the Maldives (whose mean to high elevations vary between 1.5 and 2.5 meters above sea level) does not mean the same as it does in the mountains of Nepal. To connect students to basic matters of climate change facts means matching local circumstances to general scientific principles and practices. In other words, context truly matters, but thinking rigorously at the same time matters just as much. Another good place to begin would be to take stock, much as is being done in the STEM arena, to see if and where courses, cases and perhaps even curricula exist that emphasize climate change science and knowledge. This work has already begun and continuing progress augurs well (7). Based on the findings of such assess- ments at the national level the next goal would be to create scientifically-grounded and problem-oriented CSAM curricula and guidelines. Identifying “Best Practices” in the classroom, in experiential (outdoor and hands-on) education, and in actual practice is a high priority. The all-too gloomy and usual environmentalist practices that threaten and depress must be offset by more positive and constructive ones. The hope is to inspire our children and to arm them with the tools and means to think creatively about adaptations they must undertake in the future. The science must “resonate with the public. A message that makes people feel threatened. . .simply will not be effective.” (8). The information we present in the classroom must “resonate” with our kids just as well. Best practices and actual practices should link realistic adaptation efforts and models, such as moving an entire town or dealing with extreme natural events. Barrow, Alaska and Kiruna, Sweden in the first instance and Fukushima, Japan in the second come to mind (9). The hopeful and positive lessons, sensationalism aside, exist upon which cases and lessons could be devised (10). Again, the positive affir- mative possibilities exist, but imagination and creativity are involved. Dan Kahan of Yale: “Are there ways to combine the science with meanings that would be affir-

75 ming rather than threatening to people? I think if somebody believes that there just aren’t any, I think that person just doesn’t have much imagination.” (11). Development of cases, courses, and curricula will occur in patchy and uneven ways around the world. It could hardly happen otherwise. Guiding these contextual and situational efforts, one should hope to find open-access, science based and driven lessons for students around the world. These should be internet based and free— with easy access to teachers everywhere. Guarding against the “political thinking” and “political language” that Orwell long ago warned against, I foresee an important role for national academies of science and similarly constituted scientific bodies: The initiation, guidance, and “certification” of educational materials related to climate change science and adaptation. Encouragement for collaborations and partnerships among and between the academies to promote consistency and the sharing of materials, experiences, and best educational practices must be a high order priority, too (12). The basic objective is to provide the ideas and means to future generations so that they may confront and overcome the many problems climate change will offer them. Helping them think means helping them to learn and cope. It’s the least we can do for them. References 1. Gillis, J. Heat Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears. New York Times (May 11, 2013:A-1, A-4. 2. The Effects of Growth: The Long View. The Economist –Special Report Biodiversity, vol. 408, no.8853 (September 14, 2013): 11-13. 3. Of all the world’s chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation than carbon dioxide…The incredible list of supposed horrors that increasing carbon dioxide will bring the world is pure belief disguised as science. Schmidt, Harrison H. and Happer, William. In Defense of Carbon Dioxide. Wall Stre- et Journal (May 9, 2013): A-19. 4. Orwell, George, London Letter. In: Partisan Review (Winter 1945). And Orwell, G. Politics and the English Language (1946). 5. Mervis, J. Science Standards Begin Long, Hard Road to Classroom. Science, vol. 340 (21 June 2013): 1391. 6. National Research Council. Informing Decisions in a Changing Climate (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2009):1.

76 7. Moser, S.C. and Dilling L. eds, Creating a Climate Change: Communi- cating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change (Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press. 2007): National Research Council. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information and Voluntary Measures (Washington , DC: National Academies Press, 2002) 8. According to my Yale Law School colleague, Dan Kahan as reported in Diane Toomey, Finding a Better Message on the Risks of Climate Change, Yale Environment 360. http://e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2690 Accessed 9/12/13). 9. Lynch, Amanda H. and Brunner, Ronald, D. Content and Climate Change: An Integrated Assessment for Barrow, Alaska. Climate Change, Vol. 82 (2007): 93-111. Nathe, S. Public Education for Earthquake Hazards. Natural Hazards Review, vol. 1 (2000): 191-96. 10. Moser, S. and Boykoff, M. eds. Successful Adaptation to Climate Change: Linking Science and Policy in a Rapidly Changing World (New York: Rout- ledge, 2013). 11. Kahan, D. (See reference 8). 12. Kessler, E. Communicating Science: The Role of Academies. Contribu- tions to Science, vol. 4, no. 1 (2008): 93-96.

77 The Age of the Arctic: Challenges and Opportunities in Arctic and Global Communities

Figure 1

Visual communication of the magnitude of the expected shifts in Arctic climate over the next 80 to 90 years for northern regions at 12 km resolution (derived from Xu et al., 2013). The background colour scheme shows the mean annual temperature averaged over land areas from the shown latitude to the northern coastline during the reference period 1951 to 1980. The white circle is the southern limit of a climate envelope for 1951 to 1980 that extends northwards to the Arctic coastline. The yellow circle denotes the southern limit of the warmer climate envelope that characterised the area north of the white circle between 2001 and 2010 while the purple circle is the southern limit of the climate envelope predicted for the lands north of the white circle during 2091 to 2099 (see text for details). To the right are photographs representative of the tundra of the northern part of the Arctic climate envelope for 1951 to 1980 (Yamal area) (top), and the Central Asian Kuraisky Steppes (below) which is representative of the southern edge of the future Arctic climate envelope. Note that the climate envelopes integrate over latitudes northwards to the Arctic coast and it is not suggested that Salekhard in the Yamal region (red circle) will in future experience the current climate of the Steppes. Also included is a comparison of current (blue) and new (red) Northern Sea Passage shipping routes (ACIA, 2005) and major ports in South-east Asia. (Photos courtesy of Dima Gureev (top) and Terry Callaghan (bottom).

78 Photo: Dima Gureev

Photo: Terry Callaghan

The Age of the Arctic: Challenges and Opportunities in Arctic and Global Communities Terry V. Callaghan, Ranga B. Myneni, Liang Xu and Margareta Johansson

Although much of the World’s community is still debating the reality of climate change and its consequences, those living and working in the Arctic have little doubt that climate change is accelerating there. Early concerns have led to a rigorous assessment of climate change and its consequences in the Arctic (1), initiated by the Arctic Council. Initially, some of the findings of environmental change were regarded as exaggerations, but within a decade, the opposite was recorded. A new assessment was therefore implemented (2) and each year there have been up-dates (3). Although many of the changes observed in the Arctic are dramatic, and the consequences for humanity are profound, subsequent political actions on mitigation and adaptation have not so far achieved a commensurate response. In contrast, many nations and trans-national corporations have seen potential commercial opportunities and are taking action: nations such as China, South Korea and India are increasingly active in the Arctic, for example by building scientific research stations, while planning by trans-national industry for oil and mineral extraction

79 as well as new shipping routes is accelerating. This generates a mismatch between possible mitigation measures that will benefit some, and lack of action that will lead to devastation of others. It also leads to an inequality of resource availability – wealth of natural resources including agriculture, forestry and water resources in some future northern areas, but diminishing natural resources in high population centres to the south. At worst, these inequalities of action and resources could lead to conflict, and some indications of “minor” international disagreements are already evident. Moreover, there is an emerging disconnect between the ability to predict possible futures and the ability to achieve a preferred future.

Climate and environmental change in the Arctic The observations show that the Arctic’s climate is warming twice as fast as the global average and that this rate of change will lead in 100 years’ time to mean annual temperatures approximately 3 to 6oC higher than those today. The temperatures between 2005 and 2010 have been the highest on record (2). Such dramatic climate changes are likely to be associated with profound changes in growing season length and warmth (4) that affect natural ecosystems (plants, animals and soils), possibilities for agriculture and forestry, availability of water resources and possibilities for human settlement. It is unsure if ecosystems can reorganise and relocate at the same speed as the climate is changing, particularly because of the presence of inappropriate soils required for higher productivity of vegetation in some places. Also, large trends in temperature changes are associated with variability in space and time. Of particular concern are events which are difficult to predict. These include warm events in winter when snow thaws and ice layers are formed on the ground, leading to starvation of herbivores; hyperthermal events in summer that can lead to some people dying and ecosystem damage; forest, tundra and peatland fires such as the recent lethal peatland fire near Moscow; forest insect pest outbreaks; extreme rain events that cause flooding, mountain slope detachments and infrastructure damage and storm surges leading to coastal flooding and erosion (see references in 1, 2, 5). The extent of sea ice is also decreasing with a record minimum in 2012 (6). This increases possibilities for trans-Arctic Ocean shipping but increases heat absorption by sea water that results in sea level rise. Sea ice extent decrease also reduces habitats for all levels in the food web of ice-edge mammals such as some seals and polar bears. Glacier volume is also declining as is ice on rivers and lakes that often act as transport routes (2). Permafrost is generally warming (7, 2). Where the permafrost is warm (i.e. just below 0oC) and is ice rich, thaw leads to ground subsidence which, in turn, can cause damage to housing and transport routes, oil pipelines etc. Furthermore, permafrost in deep soils has prevented “old” carbon (sequestered by photosynthesis of vegetation that existed before the permafrost formed) from being

80 released into the atmosphere. During warming, this carbon is released as carbon dioxide but where the resulting ground surface is wet, this carbon is released as methane which is about 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2 (1, 2). Some permafrost is 3 million years old and contains living microbes. No-one knows of the potential impacts if/when ancient organisms trapped in permafrost are released (8).

The global effects of Arctic climate change The Arctic is not isolated from the remainder of the world: it contributes to global processes and resources. Historically, the Arctic has reduced the energy budget of the planet by cooling it. One main mechanism is the reflection of heat energy coming from the sun because of its high albedo. Surfaces covered by snow and ice reflect far more solar thermal radiation (up to about 90%) than vegetated surfaces (about 5 to 20%) or open water (about 10%) (1). The reduced sea ice and snow cover extents together with increases in tall vegetation will lead to a positive feedback (amplification) on climate warming. The ocean circulation via the Arctic results in a redistribution of the Earth’s heat energy, although not an overall cooling: the tropical areas are cooler than they otherwise would be and the western North Atlantic is warmer. The Arctic is also a major determinant of global sea level, by its temperature effect on thermal expansion of water and contribution of fresh water from melting land ice (glaciers and ice sheets). The Arctic has teleconnections with other areas and weather conditions in the Arctic can affect weather elsewhere such as extreme weather events in China (9) and the rainfall in India during the monsoons (2). The Arctic is also interconnected with the rest of the world through biodiversity. Almost one half of European bird species migrate to the Arctic in summer and hundreds of millions of birds migrate there from around the world (1). Other migratory animals include whales and, on land, caribou that migrate from forest to tundra.

Challenges and opportunities of Arctic warming for Arctic residents and the global community The challenges and opportunities associated with Arctic changes will be unevenly distributed between various sectors of the global community (Table 1). Sometimes, the same change brings advantages to one community but harm to another. Plan- ning mitigation strategies under such contradictions is very difficult and adaptation is the optimal way forward. Reductions in the minimum extent of sea ice bring advantages to one sector of society but disadvantages to another. As the Northern Sea Route is approximately

81 only 40% of the distance between Europe and Japan (Fig. 1), a change in routing of commercial shipping could bring considerable savings to the shipping and export industries. Furthermore, as ship size is not constrained by the Suez Canal with this new route, further economic savings are evident. Already, over 80 ships have used the Northern Sea Route unescorted by ice-breakers (10) and the first cargo ship has sailed the North West Passage. The increasing use of the Northern Sea Route will bring economic advantage to ports in Japan that will become a more important shipping hub in South East Asia, but the shipping/port economies of Egypt, Sing- apore and Hong Kong could be affected. In stark contrast to the economic advantages of the new shipping routes, declining sea ice extent leads to heat absorption by water, amplified warming and sea level rise. This will most seriously affect the low lying countries with poor economies that are less able to adapt, e.g Bangladesh, and the arid regions such as North Afri- ca and Sub-Saharan Africa. About 140 million people will suffer coastal flooding with a sea level rise of 44 cm (assuming no remedial action) (11) and such a change is likely to be experienced within the next 50 years (2). States with developed economies, such as Singapore and Florida, can adapt to such changes but South Sea Island States and countries with developing economies have limited options. A particular concern is that the gradual trend of land inundation will be punctuated by extreme storm surges that will be largely unpredictable and devastating. Warming in the Arctic will open lands for agriculture, forestry and settlement (Fig. 1). Currently inhospitable, sparsely populated areas are likely to become new frontiers for settlement while some currently populated and productive areas will likely become inhospitable due to sea level rise in some areas and desertification in others. The new Arctic frontiers will attract immigrants, and particularly climate migrants (12). At its minimum, the future re-distribution of natural resources will result in changes in land use and population centres: at its worst, it could result in territorial conflicts. In addition to likely increases in the availability of renewable natural resources, reductions in snow and ice cover in the Arctic are likely to lead to an increase in the extraction and export of non-renewable resources (2). The Arctic is very rich in rare earth minerals including uranium, diamonds, gold etc. and about one quarter of the earth’s proven fossil fuels are located there. In addition, vast quantities of methane hydrates exist that might become commercially accessible in the future. Already, claims for oil drilling have been staked in the Beaufort and Baffin Seas and oil drilling by Shell off Alaska’s coast started but ended quickly under threat of rapidly moving sea ice (13). Such exercises are potentially dangerous as there is little experience of this type of drilling. Consequently, such operations are not insured by Lloyds of London (14) (Table 1). Climate warming in the Arctic is likely to reduce the biodiversity of Arctic floras

82 and faunas, particularly by reductions in those species best adapted to the current Arctic environment (15). Many of the animals expected to decline are iconic species such as polar bear, Arctic fox, walrus, snowy owl, etc. (2). Already, there has been a decline of about 33% of all wild reindeer (16). Loss of biodiversity affects the values of the global population as well as the cultural aspirations and food sources of Arc- tic Residents. Sadly, conservation methods to combat climate change are generally lacking because most conservation is achieved by regulating access by people: protected areas (which abound in the Arctic) are not protected against climate change.

Table 1: Challenges and opportunities arising from climate warming for Arctic residents and the global community

Sector Change Opportunities Challenges

Arctic Sea ice reduction Increased fisheries Reduction in traditional food Residents sources Greening of the Potential new life styles Changes in transport methods Arctic Displacement or loss of culture and potential wave of immigrants Land ownership disputes

Better access to Improved local economy Land ownership disputes off-shore oil and gas Loss of traditional food sources if there is a pollution event Increased mineral Increased wealth Loss of culture, out-migration, extraction Land ownership disputes Increased tourism Local diversification of Disturbance employment Decreased Arctic Employment through Loss of cultural aspects and biodiversity increased demands for tour traditional food guides to view rare animals Amplified global Opportunities for Arctic Potential wave of immigrants warming residents outside the Arctic is unknown Increased frequency/ Opportunities unknown Health hazards, loss of property, intensity of extreme loss of ecosystem services events

Global Sea ice reduction Economic gains of new Sea level rise, loss of life and community Greening of the Arctic shipping routes property New areas of agriculture, Potential conflicts over resources forestry and settlement and boundaries

Better access to Economic growth for oil Significant risks of off-shore off-shore oil and gas companies and their share- drilling in Arctic waters holders

Increased mineral Economic growth for Enviromental damage restoration extraction companies and their share- holders

Increased tourism Greater economy, greater Potential significant loss of life in awareness of the Arctic an accident

Decreased Arctic Increased tourism How to conserve biodiversity biodiversity against climate change?

Amplified global New land for potential Displacement from increasingly biodiversity settlement in the North arid or flooded lands

Increased frequency/ Opportunities unknown Health hazard, loss of property, intensity of extreme loss of ecosystem services, events unknown risk for investments

83 Management/mismanagement of the challenges and opportunities Although observations and research into climate change have greatly proliferated and intensified over past decades, there has been little coordinated effort by decision makers to address the challenges that are long-term and likely to affect many of the world’s poor people. In contrast, the potential generation of wealth in the short-term is driving interest in Arctic climate change by many nations and also by trans-national industries. Currently, the main players are far too polarised. The policy makers are time-limited and are bound by the expectations and tolerances of their electorate; scientists are most comfortable communicating with other scientists – even within their own disciplines, and are too often driven by a funding system and career structure that requires sensationalism; the Arctic’s residents often have priorities that are more immediate than climate change issues and have expectations of science that cannot be fulfilled. A potential danger is that geopolitical debates could turn into conflict (17) in a future with new opportunities for access to some resources such as oil and minerals, but reduced access to other essential resources such as fresh water. Current geopolitical “debates” that indicate minor irritation between countries include the planting of a Russian flag under the North Pole in 2007, a dispute between Canada and Greenland/Den- mark about the sovereignty of Hans Island in the North Baffin Sea, and a dispute over the sovereignty of the North West Passage by Canada (which claims territorial rights) and the USA (which claims the waters are international and which has not signed the Treaty for the Law of the Sea). If such conflicts already exist (17) with only the start of the expected warming, what will happen when the sparsely populated areas of the Arctic become fit for settlement, agriculture and forestry when neighbouring territories become over-populated with dwindling natural resources? Philosophically, this is the first time in the Earth’s history that there has been a species advanced sufficiently in evolution to be able to predict possible futures, but still retarded by its animal instinct of competition for resources. Will our decision-making systems and public tolerance evolve to the level of our science’s predictive capacity so we can together plan a preferred future, or will mismatches and unequal distribution of resources lead to a future of misery for hundreds of millions? The solutions to such a fundamental question are difficult to envisage and even more difficult to implement. However, it is clear that the policy makers, often highly criticised for their relative inactivity to retard climate change, are not totally at fault. The electorate must increase its tolerance of unpalatable measures and multi-national industries should operate more responsibly and redress the imbalance in global wealth and the mismatch between short term gain and the sustainability of environmental health. Also, science will be more credible when inconsistencies are discussed openly and are resolved.

84 Because of the close links between the Arctic Council and high-level policy makers, important linkages between climate change, impacts and solutions are being established. To aid this process, the leaders of most of the Arctic terrestrial research stations are cooperating within the INTERACT network (www.eu-interact.org) to build capacity for environmental research, monitoring and education in the Arctic and engagement with its residents. The network has stimulated a new generation of researchers, and together with other important players, INTERACT is contributing to providing the best evidence of Arctic change on which sound and peaceful political decisions can be made. References 1. ACIA. 2005. Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1018 pp. 2. Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme. 2011. Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA): Climate Change and the Cryosphere. Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, Oslo, Norway, xii + 538 pp. 3. Jeffries, M.O., Richter-Menge, J. and Overland, J.E. 2013. Eds. Arctic Report Card: Update for 2013. http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/ 4. Xu, L., Myneni, R. B., Chapin III, F. S., Callaghan, T. V., Pinzon, J. E., Tucker, C. J., Zhu, Z., Bi, J., Ciais, P. and Tømmervik, H. 2013. Temperature and Vegetation Seasonality Diminishment over Northern Lands Nature Climate Change. DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1836. 5. Callaghan, T.V., Jonasson, C., Thierfelder T., Zhenlin, Y., Hedenas, H., Johans- son, M., Molau, U., Van Bogaert, R., Michelsen, A., Olofsson, J., Gwynn-Jo- nes, D., Bokhorst, S., Phoenix, G., Bjerke, J.W., Tømmervik, H., Christensen, T.R., Hanna, E., Koller, E.K. and Sloan. V.L. 2013. Ecosystem change and stability over multiple decades in the Swedish subarctic: complex processes and multiple drivers. Phil Trans R Soc B. 368, 20120488. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/ rstb.2012.0488 6. Perovich, D., Meier, W., Tschudi, M., Gerland, S. and Richter-Menge, J. 2012. Sea Ice. In: Arctic Report Card: Update for 2012. (http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/ reportcard/sea_ice.html). 7. Romanovsky, V.E., Smith , S.L. and Christiansen, H.H. 2010. Permafrost thermal state in the polar northern hemisphere during the International Polar Year 2007-2009: a synthesis. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes. 21, 106-116.

85 8. Gilichinsky, D., Shatilovich, A., Spirina, E., Fazutdinova, R., Gubin, S., Rivki- na, E., Vorobyova, E. and Soina, V. 2001. How long the life might be preserved? The terrestrial model for astrobiology. Paper presented at The bridge between the Big Bang and Biology. Pp. 25-37, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche of Italy, Rome. 9. Grimsson, O. 2013. The New Global Playing Field. In: Poles Apart? Transcript of the International Conference to Bring Industry and Science in the Polar Regions Closer Together, London, 29th October 2013. www.polesapartconference.org.uk 10. Tschudi, F. 2013. Shipping. In: Poles Apart? Transcript of the International Conference to Bring Industry and Science in the Polar Regions Closer Together, London, 29th October 2013. www.polesapartconference.org.uk 11. Church, J.A. 2007. Ice and Sea-level Change. Pp. 153-180 In: UNEP/ GRID-Arendal (Eds). Global Outlook for Ice & Snow. UNEP, Nairobi, Kenya, 235 pp. 12. European Environment Agency. 2012. Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2012. EEA, Copenhagen, Denmark. 300 pp. 13. NBC News. 2013. Shell halts 2013 drilling plans in Alaska’s Arctic seas. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/28/17127904-shell-halts-2013- drilling-plans-in-alaskas-arctic-seas 14. Emmerson, C. 2012. Arctic Opening: Opportunity and Risk in the High North. Lloyd’s, London, 60pp.http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/ files/public/Research/Energy,%20Environment%20and%20Developme- nt/0412arctic.pdf 15. Meltofte H., Josefsson, A.B. and Payer, D. 2013. Arctic Biodiversity Assess- ment - Status and trends in Arctic Biodiversity. CAFF. (www.arcticbiodiversity.is). ISBN: 978-9935-431-28-8. 16. McRae, L., Zöckler, C., Gill, M., Loh, J., Latham, J., Harrison, N., Martin, J. and Collen. B. 2010. Arctic Species Trend Index 2010: Tracking Trends in Ar- ctic Wildlife. CAFFF CBMP Report No. 20, CAFF International Sectretariat, Akureyri, Iceland. 39 pp. 17. Fox, L. 2013. The Arctic: Military Risks and Potentials. In: Poles Apart? Transcript of the International Conference to Bring Industry and Science in the Polar Regions Closer Together, London, 29th October 2013. www.polesapartconference.org.uk 86 Photo: Gettyimages. Photo: Urban Transport: A Complex Issue Arne Wittlöv

On the interface between science and politics, between hard science and social science perspectives, and how to make things happen; decision making and trust in peoples, laws and institutions.

Background Urbanization is occurring at a furious pace, driven by individuals’ desire for a better life. Cities are beacons of emancipation. They provide opportunities for employment, education and healthcare as well as social and cultural activities. As the standard of living in cities improves, there is, too, a negative corollary: motorization and the local, regional and global environmental problems associated with it increase accordingly. Without effective ways of dealing with these problems, congestion inevitably escalates, resulting in a decrease in mobility and a slowdown in economic development. These development patterns have created an urgent need to address major and complex questions about how transportation systems should be organized, designed and implemented. The aim is urban transport that is environmentally

87 sustainable, safe for all users and meets the needs of the entire population of a city A key challenge is to develop systems that provide accessibility for the masses while simultaneously radically reducing transportation’s negative impacts on human health and life expectancy, as well as local and global environmental impacts. China is one of the fastest-growing countries in the world with respect to urbanization and motorization. In 2009, the fraction of people living in urban areas was approaching 50 percent and growing by one percent annually. By 2030, almost half of India’s population is expected to live in urban areas, compared with the current 30 percent. The population of Africa’s cities is expected, according to the United Nations, to grow from 210 million in 2000 to 533 million in 2025. Metropolitan Nairobi’s annual population growth rate is currently 4 percent; amongst the highest on the planet, although comparable with that of other cities in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to WHO, frenzied traffic congestion in cities like Dar es Salaam directly contributes to the sad fact that the Sub-Saharan Africa region has the most pedestrian fatalities of the world regions, averaging 24,1 deaths per 100.000 persons. The policy response to increasing traffic congestion has mainly been what is bound to be a doomed attempt to accommodate automobile dependence, with more land being given over to highway and parking-space expansion. In the western world, with the USA leading the way during the 1950s and 1960s, metropolitan growth was structured around automobile dependence, the low cost of energy and the availability of land. The so-called Four Step Model – essentially predic- ting transport needs and providing for them – became a key tool for city and regional planners. Tools of this kind often become very powerful as intellectual shortcuts through complex problems. The result was urban sprawl. It is now widely accepted that this model should not be transplanted into emerging cities or countries. On the contrary, ways to reverse the effects of the Four Step Model should be deployed in today’s developed countries. Though the urgency and seriousness of urban transport development is obvious, no alternative models seem to be at hand. Managing the development of urban transport in all its complexity has several dimensions. Not only is there structure and function to consider in relation to issues such as land-use planning and the provision of infrastructure, but the process of change is inherently complex. The lead time for developing policies, organizing politics, building institutional capabilities and raising necessary funding span several election cycles. Also, changing course is limited in each city (or region) by the restrictions imposed by the city’s own momentum and path dependency. Understanding the local context is therefore vital. Much of the existing knowledge (not to say conventional wisdom) about planning transportation systems and infrastructure is, however, based on conditions in the industrialized world.

88 Research in urban transport, hard science and social science The usual objectives of urban transport policy development are to ensure safe, afforda- ble, comfortable, reliable and sustainable access for city residents to jobs, education, healthcare and other needs within a city. The strong inter-dependency between land use and transportation, as well as institutional capabilities and administrative reforms, are recurring themes in this research. Integrated land-use and transportation planning aimed at minimizing travel distances, providing more equitable allocation of road space and encouraging greater use of public transport are other important issues. A common theme of research in urban transport planning is the development of better urban infrastructure. A great variety of stakeholders shape the overall design of urban transport systems. Understanding local history is crucial for attracting support as agents of change for urban development. Such knowledge can help the various participants in the process to shape future planning in a way that is more inclusive with respect to local people and, in the long run, help to ensure that cities are developed more sustainably. Public transport plays a crucial role in the quest for sustainable urban transport systems, and an efficient system is essential for ensuring that low-income residents can achieve acceptable living standards by providing them with mobility. The standard of public transport is often a good measure of the overall level of economic and social development in a country. In the development of public transport systems, momentum or path dependency is of fundamental importance. In Europe, and in most of the industrialized world, the current trend is to open up monopolies, increase the number of operators and encourage privatization. Most developing countries are attempting in different ways to regulate a fragmen- ted transport market with too many operators. Yet another important theme in urban transport research deals with non-motorized modes of transport, which constitute a significant portion of total transportation in many parts of the developing world. Approximately 40 percent of all urban transport in India is non-motorized. In Cape Town, 30 percent of trips are on foot. Pe- destrians are present on all roads, regardless of their type and designated function, and suffer the greatest number of traffic fatalities. Despite this, the predominant paradigm in urban transport development is to accommodate motorized transportation. The conflict between non-motorized and motorized traffic over space is obvious.

Urban freight transport In a world of rapidly increasing urbanization, urban freight transport is of increasing concern for policy makers, city planners and other practitioners as well as

89 researchers Due to their large and densely housed populations and extensive commercial activities, urban areas require the delivery and collection of large quantities of goods and the provision of a wide range of services for commercial and domestic use, resulting in considerable freight activity. Though urban freight activities result in conflicts between economic issues on the one hand and social and environmental factors on the other, freight transport matters have generally been left by policy makers to the private sector. Relatively little attention has been paid to urban freight, as opposed to passenger transport, by policy makers and researchers, until recently. In Europe, with its historic city centers and dense living areas, the nuisance created by freight traffic has long been perceived as a problem on a local level. Yet, in the EU White Paper on Transport published as recently as in 2001, little reference was made to urban freight transport. More recently, there has been increasing concern which has resulted in various initiatives and in 2003 the OECD published a report on urban freight transport “Delivering the Goods, 21st Century Challenges to Urban Goods Transport” (1). On the European level corresponding steps were taken through “EU-action 321 Urban Goods Transport” also in 2003. Since then several initiatives and projects have been initiated around the world. Freight logistics has been studied and developed by the commercial sector over a very long period. In most commercial activities logistics is considered to be of crucial importance for competitiveness. The relocation of manufacturing, outsourcing, Photo: Hapag-Lloyd Photo:

90 and increased requirements for deliveries to be on time, at the right quality and at the desired price have forced industry in all sectors to continually improve the ef- ficiency of logistics. Economies of scale have been successfully exploited, especially for the long haul transport component. Business models based on creative use of advanced logistic management have been developed and performance is measured by instant systematic data collection and processing. Although freight transport in cities constitutes a very small proportion of the total freight transport length, it generates a high proportion of the transport cost. Accor- ding to the Council of Logistics Management this “last mile” in the transport chain accounts for 28 percent of the total transport cost. Freight transport in cities tends to respond very effectively to the requirements and development of modern urban economies. At the same time, it is also a major contributor to social and environmental impacts, particularly to congestion, local air quality and noise. It is estimated that 10 – 18 percent of all city road traffic and 40 percent of air pollution and noise emissions is directly related to commercial transport in the city environment. Until recently policy makers have tended to view urban freight transport as a problem rather than as an essential part of urban development. As a consequence, policy measures implemented by urban planners have sought to restrict rather than assist goods vehicle operations. However, policy makers are now beginning to shift their view about urban freight transport for several reasons, not least its importance in supporting the urban economy and its growth and competitiveness and the role it plays in ensuring that those living and working in cities obtain the goods and services they require. Freight problems are particularly severe in cities that are major nodes in the global economy through their ports, airports, distribution centers and intermodal hubs. Despite the urgent need for multi-level and multi-modal interaction, local authorities face many challenges: Drivers of international trade flows are global and beyond the control of local actors; local authorities have limited jurisdiction to regulate or control national or international flows; freight problems typically do not respect political boundaries; the complexity and number of actors in the supply chain makes negotiations very difficult. Regional or even mega-regional interaction is necessary. In the supply chain, terminals such as regional distribution centers and cross dock terminals are spatially organized on regional or multicity bases. The consequences are increasing logistic sprawl. Logistic sprawl generates economies of scale for logistic industry but have massive impact on urban landscapes and an environmental cost.

91 Research in urban freight: Bottlenecks to overcome For efficient and long term decision making as well as the development of a theo- retical framework to support decision making, relevant data is of fundamental importance. In the development of mobility and transport of people – not least in the development of public transport - the vast data collected over a long period has been the knowledge base. Equally, because of the crucial importance of logistics for competitiveness, advanced logistic management methods have been measured, modelled and developed. In sharp contrast, quantitative information in urban freight transport is not widely available. Figures are scarce, as are methods of analyzing the interaction between goods and passenger transport in the urban situation. This creates a major problem in identifying relevant indicators and in the formulation of policies or actions. Urban freight activities result in conflicts between economic issues on the one hand and social and environmental factors on the other. Addressing such conflicts and trade-offs in urban freight transport requires change and innovation in both public and private sectors. Reference 1. OECD (2003). Delivering the Goods: 21st Century Challenges to Urban Goods Transport, OECD Publishing, Paris.

92 Photo: Ulrika Hannu, Kiruna kommun Ulrika Hannu, Photo: church city center. to the new will be moved Kiruna’s Kiruna: A City in Transformation Kristina Zakrisson and Göran Cars

Kiruna’s city transformation is a unique phenomenon. Nowhere in the world has such a large community had to be relocated because of an industrial operation. It is a project that involves difficult challenges, but so many more possibilities. It is a project that has also aroused curiosity worldwide. On 19 September 2011 it was decided that the new city center will be in the east. And now the city transformation is up and running!

City center affected from now on The iron ore mining in Kiirunavaara was first done in an open pit where the ore is mined from the surface down, but has been gone underground since the 1960’s. Today, the so-called main level lies at about 1,045 meters, which is about 800 meters below the surface. However, LKAB is going even further down into the rock. A new main level at 1,365 meters is inaugurated and will extend the underground mine’s life until about 2030. And from now on, the city’s developed areas will be gravely affected by the mining. The ore body in Kiirunavaara lies as an oblique disc in the rock, sloping downward and inward toward the community at a 60 degree angle.

93 Illustration: LKAB Illustration:

Ground and housing affected In the mining company’s (LKAB) mining method, voids occur in the rock where the iron ore is mined and transported away. These are filled with the waste rock above the ore, which simply collapses and fills the voids. The more ore that is mined, the more the rock above it sinks until it finally affects the ground at the surface. In the first stage, this is usually called ground deformation. Eventually, visible fractures and subsidence will also arise, but dwellings and premises must be abandoned several years earlier. The forecast for fractures shows that ground deformations and fractures are approaching the city at such a pace that the railway through Kiruna had to be rerouted by 2012. City Hall and some 100 housing units will be affected by 2016. A survey of the mine’s new 1,365 main level conducted by Kiruna Municipality, which is based on LKAB’s forecasts, indicates that major changes are to be expected in the future.

A new city center emerging Moving a city is an extremely complicated project. There is an almost endless series of issues to be resolved. Where and when can new housing be built so those who are forced to move have somewhere to live? How do you handle the fact that rents in newly constructed housing are much higher than those in housing that people are forced to leave? Which buildings are worth preserving, and is it technically feasible to move them? How do you build a new city center without letting the existing one fall into disrepair?

94 The transformation of Kiruna is a totally unique project – at least on such a large scale. In Germany, brown coal mining has resulted in the relocation of some 120 villages since the 1920s. But at best it involved only a few hundred inhabitants per village. About 18,000 people live in central Kiruna. Those concerned with planning the new Kiruna have no sounding boards who can share similar experiences. On the other hand, Kiruna may serve as a model for other cities around the globe. Perhaps climate change and the anticipated rise in sea levels will force cities to relocate. Kiruna’s experiences may be useful to those working with community planning in those cities. The new city center will be located east of the city. Based on the outcome of an architectural competition, work with a Development Plan for the new city-center is in progress. This work is carried out in close cooperation between the municipality, LKAB, private investors and other stakeholders.

The challenges

Building the attractive city Residents of Kiruna realize the necessity of removing the city and plans have met relatively few negative remarks and protests. At the same time it is obvious that the removal is associated with mourning and sadness. The current removal process has been preceded by various dialogues and meetings with local residents. One outspoken objective with these meeting has been to map residents’ demands and expectations concerning the new city center. When these demands and requests are being compiled important input is provided to the planning process. Thus, in planning the new city center we have taken the starting point in liste- ning to the voices of Kiruna residents. Some of the demands raised frequently are the following: Accessibility to the city (also by car) is seen as important by most residents, however at the same time residents clearly state that they don’t want to see the city dominated by cars: Streets can be narrowed down, speed reduced and parking should be located so that the negative impact on public life and urban qualities is reduced. Also in other ways strong concerns over environmental issues have been expressed. Buildings should be energy efficient and the urban fabric should be designed in such a way that it makes various attractions in city easy accessible. Transport by foot, bike and public transit should be encouraged. Another view that comes out strongly from residents is a desire to see mixed land- uses. The prevailing philosophy of Swedish post war planning, separating housing, commercial services, workplaces and green areas seems to lack support from local residents. Instead it is argued for mixed functions, e.g. by allowing retail shopping on the ground floor of residential housing estates, by mixing work-places, housing and public services in the same city block, etc. A third preference that comes out

95 is the request for public spaces of high qualities, e.g. parks, squares and streets as these play an important role for social meetings and interaction. Related to this demand is a desire to see social and creative meeting places by mixing public space with public and private facilities that supports social interaction, e.g. libraries, art galleries, cafés and restaurants. Finally – and perhaps special for Kiruna – many residents underline the significance of architectural quality. Ever since Kiruna was founded art and architecture have been a characteristic of the city. The still widely known and respected first director of LKAB, Hjalmar Lundbohm, placed emphasis on and great effort in developing Kiruna to be a role-model for urban planning. This effort included promoting art but also substantial investment in urban planning and architecture. The church is one example of this ambition. It was constructed in the early 20th century, and in a popular vote held nationally, it was nominated to be “the most beautiful building in Sweden”. To Kiruna residents it is important to move and to keep some of its proud built history, and it has e.g. been decided that the church will be taken down and reassembled in the new city center. Equally important, according to Kiruna residents, is to replace buildings of architectural value that have to be demolished, by new constructions of high architectural quality. In a nutshell the voices of Kiruna residents argue for a built environment that will convey the identity of the city and promote pride over the built environment. Illustration: Henning Illustration: Larsen Architects AS

96 Parallel to residents’ views contemporary research within urban planning and design provides an important input for planning of the new city center. A clearly visible trend concerns environmental quality and sustainability. It is commonly recognized that “business as usual” won’t lead to sustainable cities. In planning, construction and maintenance new technologies, planning ideas and methods have to be introduced. Kiruna has a potential to become a role model in this respect. Another visible trend in contemporary Sweden is urbanization and individuals’ appreciation of urban living and urban attraction. The demand for inner city living is increasing rapidly (a measure of the force of this demand is prices on condominiums, that during the last decades increased significantly in many cities). Also the use of the city for consumption (shopping, culture, eating and socializing) has undergone drastic increase. Previously ’empty’ city centers are now filled with social life and various activities. In summary, we have a very strong movement argu- ing for urban living and urban attractions in the new city center. The challenge is to meet these trends and demands.

Negotiation theory and urban planning From one perspective investments in Kiruna’s new city center is very appealing. The old center will be demolished and new housing and premises for public and private services, and workplaces are in obvious demand. However, decisions to invest in the new city center are not self-evident. If all the numerous meetings with investors were to be summed up in one sentence it could be the following: “everyone wants be there, but no one wants to go first”. In post war Sweden much of urban development came out as a result of public planning. Not only did the municipalities have strong legislative powers, often referred to as a “planning monopoly”, they also had the financial resources necessary to guarantee implementation. Today, the situation is different. The municipalities still have substantial legal powers and play a key role in urban development. Without the approval of the municipality no urban development project is possible. However, parallel in time the role of the private sector has changed. Today, a prerequisite for most urban development projects is private investment and construction. Current reality in urban planning is that public urban planning and private actors are mutually dependent of each other in order to realize urban development. This becomes evident when looking at the plans for the new city center of Kiruna. The municipality holds some of the keys to creating a new attractive city, e.g. the powers of planning public space and street-patterns. Also the municipality is the principal for buildings that are of significant importance for residents appreciation of the city, e.g. city hall, the library, the high-school, day-care facilities etc. At the same time private sector actors have the powers over other investments necessary to make the city attractive in the eyes of its residents. Thus, no single actor has power to build the attractive city. Rather attractiveness can be achieved only if public and private interests are merged into a joint development strategy. This in turns means that key actors, prior to formal

97 decision-making must meet with the ambition to develop joint agreement over development. Here negations and negotiation theory plays a vital role. This coordination could for example consist of a department-store owner conditioning investment to public investment in road accessibility and parking facilities, it could be a hotel investor being dependent on facilities such as cafés, shops and restaurants in order to make the investment. These interdependencies make urban development similar to a negotiation game in which all parties can gain value by collaborating. From the perspective of the municipality it has to be realized that public planning does not have the powers to prescribe specific solutions and detailed development projects, as these normally require the approval of other non-public actors. At the same time the municipality has an overriding responsibility to safe-guard long-term and public interests. The role of the municipality thereby has become more complex. In early stages of the planning process long-term and public interests must be identified and outlined. These must then be taken as the basis for negotiations with private actors, development agreements and formal decision-making.

What happens now? Construction of the first phase of the city-center will start in the fall of 2014, to be completed 2016. It will comprise the New City Hall, which will be placed by the new Town Square and surrounded by 150-200 dwellings, a hotel, shopping, a library/culture center and a tourist office. In the year to follow the new city center will expand parallel to the mines intrusion in the existing city center. By 2033, approximately 3.000 apartments will be affected by the mine’s expansion. The same applies to about 750 beds in hotels and hostels and nearly 200.000 square meters of retail, office, school and health care space. The general principle for the transformation is that new construction shall precede phasing out of the existing built environment.

98 Regional growth started with mining Narvik

Kiruna Svappavaara

Malmberget Porjus

Luleå

From the Horizon of Abisko Göran Bäckblom

Abisko is located in the Swedish mountain range that is part of the Caledonides, which were formed when the European and North-America continental plates collided some 400 million years ago. Today, plate tectonics is taken for granted, but in fact it was only some 50 years ago that geoscientists agreed on the concept of plate tectonics. The theory of glaciation periods has only been firmly established for about 150 years. The data on rapid climate changes are even younger – only a few decades. Around 18,000 years ago global sea levels were 120 m lower than today (1). You could walk to England, from Asia to Alaska and from Russia to Japan. During the latest de-glaciation, a cold period prevailed from 12,800 to 11,500 years before the present time. When this ended, a period of dramatically abrupt warming took place in which temperatures increased by about 10C° over a period of 40-50 years (2). Climate science of today ingeniously explores the combined impact of natural variations and man-made (anthropogenic) impact resulting from greenhouse gas emissions. The late 1970s saw the discovery of the Pärvie fault, which crosses Torneträsk approximately 40 km east of Abisko. It has been confirmed that this major fault (150 km long with scarp heights of 3-10 m) is end-glacial and was probably developed in connection with a single, large earthquake – with a possible magnitude of around 8 (3).

99 Mining as a driver of regional growth A further 90 km southeast of Abisko, lies the city of Kiruna (founded in 1900) and the Kiirunavaara Iron Ore Mine, the ore from which is some 1.9 billion years old. The ores in Kiruna, Svappavaara and Malmberget were documented in the late 17th century, but it took almost 200 years of major unrest and business failures before a sustainable mining business could be developed. One of the investors was King Carl XIV Johan of Sweden, who in 1818 acquired substantial assets in the Gällivare area. His son, King Oscar I, later sold the properties in 1855 (4). Transportation of the ore, to the ports of Narvik and Luleå was a key factor in the success of the venture. King Oscar II finally inaugurated the Iron Ore Line (Malmbanan) between Kiruna and Narvik on 14th July 1903 – and the rest is history. The opening of the mines in Kiruna and Malmberget developed the region enormously. Two new municipalities, a railway between Narvik and Luleå, and associated ports were constructed. The need for power supply to the railway and the mines resulted in a pioneering construction project – the Porjus Hydropower Station (5). Porjus was the first of many power generation facilities to be constructed along the Lule river. Today, this river generates somewhere in the region of 10% of the total Swedish electricity production. The presence of the LKAB mines led to the construction of a steel plant in Luleå. SSAB is now a leading niche producer of high-strength steel. The founding of Luleå University of Technology (LTU) in 1971 has been a tremendous success factor for the region. LTU is not only the seat of top-class research and education for the mining industry, but it has also led to advances in areas such as material science and internet and communication technology (ICT) in close asso- ciation with industry. LTU, SSAB and LKAB – with the world´s only experimental blast furnace – constitute, together with the Swerea Mefos Steel Research Institute in Luleå, a world-class steel cluster that is prepared to meet current and future challenges. The cold climate, reliable power supply and competent ICT resources were key factors behind the location in Luleå, by Facebook, of its first major server hall outside the United States. The availability of a developed infrastructure in Kiruna also led to establishment in the area of advanced space research facilities and the only European rocket launching site. The world-famous Ice Hotel, which is popular with tourists from all over the world, is a clear manifestation of the inventiveness of people in the region, which is in fact one of the foremost innovation leaders in the EU (6). But it all started with mining.

Future raw material is a grand societal challenge The world is growing, and by 2030 there will be three billion new members of the

100 middle-class (7). In this context, raw materials supply is a major challenge for societies everywhere in the world. LKAB intends to contribute to the current and future markets with smarter products, increased production volumes and by even safer, leaner and greener production processes. Long-term sustainability is thus a core issue. The overall objective is to generate prosperity by being one of the most innovative and resource-efficient mining companies in the world. Sustainability strategies are conducted within focus areas that are based on and reflect the social, economic and environmental sustainability efforts, namely “Attractive LKAB”, “Attractive communities”, “Responsible operation” and “Resource- efficient production”. Over the past ten years LKAB has donated €25 million to Luleå University of Technology (LTU) for the advancement of research and education and will continue to foster this strong partnership in the future. The company has also earmarked €9 million for the LKAB Academy in order to support professional and educational development initiatives. The provision of excellent education must be regarded as an important key to the development of an attractive region. The 2011 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Professor Dan Shechtman and his wife Professor Zipora Shechtman are directly involved with the LKAB Academy in guiding development in science, entrepreneurship, education and training. One of the more immediate challenges faced by LKAB is the urban transformation of Kiruna and Malmberget. Both the municipality of Malmberget and the city of Kiruna are situated so close to current and future mining operations that whole housing areas, buildings and infrastructure need to be relocated and redeveloped. It is hoped that the projected changes will result in positive urban planning and development, and long-term prosperity for local communities and for the region in general.

Research and innovation are the keys to continued competitiveness Today, as a result of commitment, fresh thinking, and responsible actions, LKAB has a technological leadership with efficient mining processes for use at great depth, and climate-smart, customer-oriented products in the form of iron ore pellets and world-class logistics. Inspired commitment on the part of employees and our partners has had a decisive influence on our competitiveness. The company intends to continue to provide stimulation for joint innovation strategies and renewal, in order to meet the challenges of the future.

101 LKAB was founded in 1890 and has for over 120 years made significant contributions to the development of Swedish society. During its long history, there have been frequent changes in the fundamental conditions ruling the operation of the company. Capacity for commitment, innovation and responsibility have in these situations been king pin for continued competitiveness.

The overall objective is to generate prosperity by being one of the most innovative and resource-efficient mining companies in the world. This means that LKAB will:

1: be one of the leading mining companies in terms of resource- and climate-efficient production.

2: offer the customers efficient ironmaking (Performance In Ironmaking) and climate-smart products (LKAB Green Pellets).

3: be an industry leader in research, innovation and new technologies.

4: be a desirable partner for product and technology development with customers and suppliers alike.

5: set an international example in the mining industry in terms of ethics, work environment, equality and diversity.

The operations of LKAB will also facilitate sustainable community development and generate prosperity.

Today, over 4,000 employees are currently working in 200 different professions. Through commitment, innovation and taking responsibility, the company creates the conditions necessary to attract young talented men and women who can lead LKAB into the future. Innovations – “fresh ideas that generate value” – give birth to success.

102 References 1. Lambeck, K., Esat, T.M., Potter, E-K., 2002. Links between climate and sea levels for the past three million years. Nature 419, 199–206. 2. Larasov L, Peltier WR (June 2005). ”Arctic freshwater forcing of the Young- er Dryas cold reversal”. Nature 435 (7042): 662–665. 3. Karlsson, E., Lund B., Erlendsson ,P., Juhlin C., Bödvarsson, R., Kvaer- na, T., Uski, M..2010. The Pärvie endglacial fault system, northern Sweden: A microseismicity study. Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol. 12, EGU2010- 13774, 2010, EGU 4. Ahlström, G. 1966. The dark mountains. A chronicle of the Lapland ore fields (In Swedish). Norstedt, Stockholm. 337p 5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porjus_Hydroelectric_Power_Station 6. European Commission, 2012. Regional Innovation Scoreboard. DG Enter- prise Brussels, ISBN 978-92-79-26308-8. 7. Kharas., H. 2010. The emerging middle class in developing countries. Wor- king Paper 285. OECD Development Centre. OECD, Paris

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The Editors Professor Susan Owens and Authors Department of Geography University of Cambridge Professor Elisabeth Kessler Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN United Kingdom Former Editor-in-chief Anbio Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Professor Paul Alan Cox [email protected] Institute for Ethnomedicine Box 3464 240 East Delony Avenue Professor Anders Karlqvist Jackson, Wyoming 83001 U.S.A. Former Director General Swedish Polar Research Secretariat Dr. Nina Rehnqvist MD.PhD [email protected] Chairperson: The Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care Professor John Hyman Box 3657, 103 59 Stockholm Sweden The Queen’s College, Oxford Oxford OX1 4AW Professor Björn Olsen United Kingdom Professor of infectious diseases, Department of Medical Sciences Professor Ian Goldin Uppsala University SE-751 85 Uppsala Sweden Director Oxford Martin School and Professor of Globalisation University of Oxford, Dr. Josef Järhult MD, PhD Oxford Martin School, Oxford OX1 380, United Kingdom Department of Medical Sciences Uppsala University Se-751 85 Uppsala Sweden Professor Dirk Helbing Chair of Sociology Associate professor Jonas Waldenström Clausiusstrasse 50 8092 Zurich Switzerland Medical sciences Center for Ecology in Microbial Systems Linnaeus University, Kalmar Sweden Professor Bo Rothstein Department of Political Science University of Gothenburg Box 711, 405 30 Göteborg Sweden Associate professor Charlotte Berg Professor Terry V. Callaghan Animal hygiene Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Department of Animal PO Box 50005, 104 05 Environment and Health Stockholm, Sweden Swedish University of Agricul- Department of Animal and tural Sciences, Skara Sweden Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield Sheffield S10 2TN, United Kingdom Professor Wolfang Lutz Department of Botany Wittgenstein Centre for Demography, National Research and Global Human Capital Tomsk State University (IIASA, VID/ÖAW, WU) 36 Lenin Avenue Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg Tomsk 634 050 Russia Austria Professor Ranga B. Myneni

Professor Susan F. Martin Department of Earth and Environment Boston University Donald G. Herzberg Professor of Boston, MA02215 International Migration U.S.A. Walsh School of Foreign Service Georgetown University, USA Dr Liang Xu

Professor Jerry Glover Institute of Environment and Sustainability University of California, Los Angeles Senior Sustainable Agriculture Advisor CA. 90095 U.S. Agency for International Development U.S.A. Washington, DC . USA Dr. Margareta Johansson Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Professor Garry D. Brewer PO Box 50005 SE- 104 05 Stockholm, Sweden Frederick K. Weyerhaeuser Department of Physical Geography and Professor Emeritus Ecosystem Science, Yale School of Management Lund University, New Haven , CT 06520-8200 Solveg. 12 U.S.A. SE-223 62 Lund, Sweden

Dr. Arne Wittlöv Mayor of Kiruna Kristina Zakrisson Riddargatan 43 114 57 Stockholm Stadshuset Sweden SE-981 85 Kiruna Sweden Professor Göran Car Department of Urban Planning and Kiruna Municipality Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) SE-100 44 Stockholm Sweden

Göran Bäckblom Vice President Public Affairs, Corporate Advisor Technology and Business Developmemnt Chausssée de la Hulpe B-1170, Bruxelles Belgium A Changing World: Redrawing the Map Climate, Human Migration, Food Security 11th Royal Colloquium 20 – 23 May 2013 A Changing World: Redrawing the Map Climate, Human Migration, Food Security 11th Royal Colloquium 20 – 23 May 2013 Chair: His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.

Professor Anders Karlqvist Professor Jerry Glover Professor Susan Owens Science Advisor to His Majesty Office of Agricultural Research Department of Geography E-mail: [email protected] and Policy Bureau of Food Security University of Cambridge US Agency for International Development Downing Place Professor Elisabeth Kessler Washington, DC 20523 Cambridge CB2 3EN Deputy Advisor U.S.A United Kingdom E-mail: [email protected] Telephone +1 202 712 0897 Telephone +44 122 333 3394 Mobile +1785 342 3205 Professor Garry Brewer E-mail: [email protected] Yale School of Management New Haven, CT 06520-8200 Prof. Dr. Dirk Helbing Professor Nina Rehnqvist U.S.A Chair of Sociology SBU Telephone +1 203 432 5932 ETH Scientific Assessment of E-mail: [email protected] CLU E 1 Health Technology Clausiusstrasse 50 Box 3657 Dr. Göran Bäckblom 8092 Zürich 103 59 Stockholm LKAB S.A. Switzerland Sweden Chaussée de la Hulpe Tellephone +41-44-632 88 80 E-mail: [email protected] B-1170, Bruxelles E-mail: [email protected] Belgium Professor Bo Rothstein Telephone +33 266 336 75 Professor John Hyman Department of Political Science Mobile +33 777 230 694 Department of Philosophy University of Gothenburg E-mail: [email protected] The Queen’s College Oxford Box 711 High Street 405 30 Göteborg Professor Terry V. Callaghan Oxford OX1 4AN Sweden Rosegrove Woodseats Lane Unted Kingdom Telephone +46 317 861 224 Charlesworth E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Glossop Derbyshire SK13 5DT Dr. Fredrik Lundmark Dr. Peter Sylwan United Kingdom Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Tyrebyttevägen 71 Telephone +44 777 054 2123 Box 5675 26691 Munka-Ljungby E-mail: [email protected] 114 86 Stockholm Sweden Sweden Telephone +46 431 433 125 Professor Göran Cars E-mail: [email protected] Mobile +46 705 433 125 Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) E-mail: [email protected] 100 44 Stockholm Professor Wolfgang Lutz Sweden Wittgenstein Centre for Demography Dr. Arne Wittlöv Telephone +46 8 790 7938 and Global Human Capital Riddargatan 43 E-mail: [email protected] (IIASA, VID/OAW, WU) 114 57 Stockholm Schlossplatz 1 Sweden Professor Paul A. Cox A-2361 Laxenburg Telephone +46 866 269 05 Institute of Ethnomedicine Austria Mobile: +46 705 591 008 P.O.Box 3464 Telephone +43 223 680 7280 E-mail: arne@wittlöv.com Jackson E-mail: [email protected] Wyoming, 83001 Mayor Kristina Zakrisson U.S.A Professor Susan Martin Kiruna Municipality Telephone +1 801 375 6214 Institute for the Study of International City Hall E-mail: [email protected] Migration 981 85 Kiruna Georgetown University Sweden Professor Ian Goldin 37th and O Street, N.W. Telephone +46 980 705 21 Director Oxford Martin School and Washington DC, 20057 E-mail: Kristina.Zakrisson@kommun. Professor of Globalisation U.S.A kiruna.se University of Oxford Telephone +1 202 687 0100 Oxford Martin School E-mail: [email protected] 24 Broad Street (corner of Holywell and Catte Streets) Professor Björn Olsen Oxford OX1 3BD Döbelnsgatan 30H United Kingdom 752 37 Uppsala Telephone +44 186 528 7430 Sweden All photos: Thomas Nylund, Kiruna kommun. E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Graphic design: Tangerine.se The 11th Royal Colloquium follows the tradition from earlier colloquia, which have in different ways dealt with the interaction between man and nature with emphasis on agriculture, climate, energy, water, food security and the urban world. This Colloquium will focus specifically on the interface between science and politics, between hard science and social science perspectives, and how to make things happen; decision making and trust in peoples, laws and institutions.

Programme

Monday May 20 Session I 14:00 Venue: The Bernadotte Library, Royal Palace, Stockholm Welcome by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden Presentation of participants Setting the 2013 Royal Colloquium Agenda (Anders Karlqvist) 19.30 Dinner hosted by Lars-Erik Liljelund CEO, Mistra

Tuesday May 21 09:30 Bus to Arlanda Airport 11:35 Depart SAS flight SK1042 Arlanda - Arrive Kiruna 13:05 13:45 Lunch at Arctic Eden, Kiruna Kiruna – Moving a town (Göran Bäckblom) 15:00 Bus to Abisko Scientific Research Station 16:00 Accommodation arrangements 17:15 Abisko: Research in an Extreme Environment (Christer Jonasson)

17:45 Session II Dealing with Complexity and Extreme Events First comments: Terry Callaghan, Dirk Helbing 19:30 Dinner at Abisko Research Station Wednesday May 22 07:30 - 08:30 Breakfast

09:00 Session III The Geography of Knowledge – Human settlements, Migration First comments: Wolfgang Lutz, Susan Martin, Göran Cars Discussion

11:00 Session IV Protecting the Future – Threats and possibilities First Comments: Ian Golding, Björn Olsen, Paul Cox, Jerry Glover Discussion 12:15 Lunch 13:15 Session IV continued

14:45 Session V Human ingenuity - Knowledge, Trust and Action First Comments: Garry Brewer, Bo Rothstein, Susan Owens, John Hyman Discussion

17:00 Session VI Knowing to doing General Discussion 19:30 Short walk or transportation to Mountain Lodge, Abisko Dinner hosted by the Mayor of Kiruna

Thursday May 23 07:00 - 08:00 Breakfast

08:15 Session VII Looking through the gap in the curtain First comment: Peter Sylwan Discussion 09:30 Closing of the 2013 Royal Colloquium His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden 10:00 Depart by bus to Kiruna Visit mining area and lunch at Visitor’s Centre hosted by LKAB 13:45 Bus to Kiruna Airport 14:40 Depart SAS flight SK1047 - Arrive Arlanda Airport 16:15 Bus to Stockholm

19:30 His Majesty’s dinner, Royal Palace, Stockholm

Sponsors • Marcus Wallenberg Foundation for International Science Cooperation • Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) • The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra). Chair: His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.

Initiated and Chaired by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden

1st Royal Colloquium 1992: Environment, Development and Industry: Protecting Tropical and Sub-tropical Coastal Waters – A Resource for Future Generations ISBN 91-630-1669-9

2nd Royal Colloquium 1993: Tropical and Sub-tropical Coastal Zone Management – A Question of Carbon Flow in a Sectoral Society Ambio, Vol. XXII, No. 7, November 1993 (Editor: Elisabeth Kessler) ISSN 0044-7447

3rd Royal Colloquium 1994: Tropical Coastal Zones: Political Approaches to Sustainable Development – Going from Knowing to Doing ISBN 91-630-3949-4

4th Royal Colloquium 1996: The Baltic Sea Region: Agriculture and Sustainability Ambio, Vol. XXVI, No.7, November 1997 (Editor: Elisabeth Kessler) ISSN 0044-7447

5th Royal Colloquium 1999: Employment, Environment, and Development: Keys to the Eradication of Poverty In: Ambio, Vol. XXXI, No.1, February 2000 (Editor: Elisabeth Kessler) ISSBN 0044-7447 6th Royal Colloquium 2003: Mountain Areas: A Global Resource Ambio Special Report No. 13, November 2003 (Editor: Elisabeth Kessler and Terry Callaghan)

7th Royal Colloquium 2005: Arctic Under Stress: A Thawing Tundra Ambio, Vol. XXXVI, No.4, June 2006 (Editor: Elisabeth Kessler) ISSN 0044-7447

8th Royal Colloquium 2007: Past Climate Change: Human Survival Strategies Ambio Special Report Number 14, November 2008 (Editor: Elisabeth Kessler) ISSN 0044-7447

9th Royal Colloquium 2009: Tuning in on Energy, Water and Food Security

Ambio, Vol. XXXIX, No. 3, May 2010 (Editor: Elisabeth Kessler) ISSN 0044-7447

10th Royal Colloquium 2011: The Future Urban World: Environment, Equity, Economy Video document (Available from Royal Court, Sweden)

11th Royal Colloquium 2013: A Changing World – Redrawing the Map. ISBN: 978-91-637-4831-8

A Changing World: Redrawing the Map

Climate, Human Migration, Food Security The 11th Royal Colloquium May 2013