Environmental Realism

Cockerill, Kristan; Armstrong, Melanie; Richter, Jennifer; Okie, Jordan G.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-52824-3

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 91 publications

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“…To be clear, nothing proposed here is a panacea. There is no 'silver bullet' for designing a modeling process and no model will provide 'solutions' to any wicked problem (Cockerill et al, 2017). Completely capturing social or ecological systems in a modeling context will remain impossible because models are always simplifications of reality.…”

Section: Future Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on SES modeling: Stop me if you’ve heard this

Cockerill

2024

SESMO

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Key lessons about and limits to social-ecological systems (SES) modeling are widely available and frustratingly consistent over time. Prominent challenges include outdated perspectives about systems and models along with persistent disciplinary hegemony. The inherent complexity in SES means that an emphasis on discrete prediction is misplaced and has potentially reduced model efficacy for decision-making. Although computer models are definitely the tool to use to identify the complex relationships within SES, humans are messy and hence the ‘social’ in SES is often ignored, glossed over, or reduced to simplistic economic or demographic variables. This combination of factors has perpetuated biases in what is worth pursuing and/or publishing. In (re)visiting issues in SES modeling, including debates about model capabilities, data selection, and challenges in working across disciplinary lines, this reflection explores how the author’s experience aligns with extant literature as well as raises issues about what is absent from that body of work. The available lessons suggest that scholars and practitioners need to re-think how, why, and when to employ SES modeling in regulatory or other decision-making contexts.

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Section: Future Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on SES modeling: Stop me if you’ve heard this

Cockerill

2024

SESMO

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“…In this respect, NBT has the potential to spark discussion not only about the ideal but also about how to craft adequate institutional structures that can provide support and sustain desired changes in the long term. Approaches to city planning, management and governance as integrated systems with a clear socio-ecological perspective are needed, placing interactions with nature at their centre in ways that look beyond solutionism (Cockerill et al 2017), resist narrow technological fixes (Bina et al 2020), and the monetisation and financialisation of nature (Ouma et al 2018). This points to the challenges of integrating local knowledge into wider social as well as governance systems.…”

Section: New Modes Of Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Supporting Nature-Based Solutions via Nature-Based Thinking across European and Latin American cities

Mercado,

Wild,

Hernandez-Garcia

et al. 2023

Ambio

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Nature-Based Solutions concepts and practices are being used worldwide as part of attempts to address societal challenges but have also been criticised for not dealing with deeper transformations needed to face urgent issues including biodiversity loss, climate change and inclusion. In this paper, we explore how an inclusive, integrated and long-sighted approach, emphasising a more radical integration of nature within cities, might support the transformations needed to endure major contemporary challenges. Addressing important emerging critiques of Nature-Based Solutions, we consider the potential of a more incisive form of Nature-Based Thinking (NBT) in cities, based on more holistic perspectives. The paper draws on a reflective and iterative research process that engaged both the research and practice communities through a symposium and a series of futures workshops that together explored the potential of NBT to develop future nature-cities relations in Europe and Latin America. The results of the reflective process suggest that notions of nature with people—not for people— new organisational structures, and the intention and capacity to apply long-term perspectives, are needed when planning for NBS interventions aimed at sustainable urban development. This includes developing a cultural-structural change based on new and inclusive understandings of human–nature relations, and novel governance paradigms that allow cross-sectoral coordination and engagement of local stakeholders beyond formal organisational structures.

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Response to Comment by Walker et al. on “From Data to Decisions: Processing Information, Biases, and Beliefs for Improved Management of Natural Resources and Environments”

et al. 2018

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Our different kinds of minds and types of thinking affect the ways we decide, take action, and cooperate (or not). The comment by Walker et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017EF000750) illustrates several points made by Glynn et al. (2017, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016EF000487) and many other articles. Namely, biases and beliefs often drive scientific reasoning, and scientists, just like other humans, are intimately attached to their values and heuristics. Scientists, just like many other people, also tend to read and interpret text in ways that best match their individual perceptions of a problem or issue: in many cases paraphrasing and changing the meaning of what they read to better match their initial ideas. Walker et al. are doing interesting and important research on uncertainty. Nonetheless, they misinterpret the work, assumptions, and conclusions brought forth by Glynn et al. (2017, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016EF000487).

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Environmental Realism

Abstract: The authors offer a bracing synthesis of particular case studies of environmental 'solutionism' in action and theoretical research into the complex ways that human societies and biophysical environments have developed and interacted over time."

Cited by 7 publications

References 91 publications

Reflections on SES modeling: Stop me if you’ve heard this

Reflections on SES modeling: Stop me if you’ve heard this

Supporting Nature-Based Solutions via Nature-Based Thinking across European and Latin American cities

Response to Comment by Walker et al. on “From Data to Decisions: Processing Information, Biases, and Beliefs for Improved Management of Natural Resources and Environments”

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