Roles of Environmental Science in Development

December 29, 2013

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DRAFT

Environmental science employs multiple versions of the scientific method to examine the threats and larger context that surrounds economic development.

The main contributions are to provide methods or platforms that allow many people to collaborate in a transparent and rigorous manner.

These are tuned to different scales:

small scale - use traditional scientific methods to test for known problems such as toxins, biologicals, weather impacts, etc.

management scale - use likelihood approaches to detect possible problems (precautionary principle) and iterative updating of likelihood (Bayesian) to assess management progress or set objectives (Hilborn and Mangel 1997)

community scale - use "Mode 2" science to address uncertainty including the contribution from values and human volition (Gross 2010)

action - use a transdisciplinary approach to bring in actors from all sectors (science/academia, government, non-profit/philanthropic, buisness)

In addition, the broad and intentionally muplitple perspective approach would be more like to detect traps and un-intended consequences which often stem from cross-scale issues.