With the latest round of UN climate talks underway in Durban this week, many are rightly concerned about the agreements that will be reached (if any), and whether it will be a case of too little, too late (quite probably). The challenges of achieving global public policy consensus aside, new research is highlighting a range [...]
Archive for the ‘Climate change’ Category
Climate change adaptation, resilience and complexity
Posted in Climate change, Innovation, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Resilience, Strategy on December 1, 2011 | 2 Comments »
What Does The Atlas of Economic Complexity Mean for Development?
Posted in Climate change, Economics, Evolution, Financial crisis, Innovation, Networks, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Resilience, Technology, Trade on November 3, 2011 | 9 Comments »
Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard and Cesar Hidalgo of MIT (whose work I have blogged about previously here) have just published the deeply impressive Atlas of Economic Complexity. It is built around an innovative, network-based methodology for understanding economies and their potential for growth. It represents perhaps the most systematic and in-depth application of the ideas [...]
The last refuge of the climate sceptics
Posted in Climate change on October 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Last week saw scientists at the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project publish their findings that evidence of global warming was irrefutable, and this despite being funded by some of the most noted energy conservatives in the world. It seems that there is only one refuge left for the climate sceptics:
Philippines turns to complexity science to strengthen disaster preparedness
Posted in Climate change, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Natural disasters, Networks, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Resilience, Strategy on March 15, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Following the Japanese earthquake, the Philippines government have announced plans to explore the use of complexity science in better understanding disaster vulnerability and risk. The effort is to be taken forward by the Congressional Commission on Science Technology and Engineering, in collaboration with the Philippine Disaster Science Management Center. Senator Edgardo Angara, Chair of Congressional Commission [...]
The globalisation of vulnerability
Posted in Agriculture, Climate change, Conflict and peace building, Economics, Financial crisis, Innovation, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Natural disasters, Organisations, Public Policy, Resilience on January 11, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Most analysts agree that globalisation has become more intensive and dramatic in recent decades because of advances in technology, communications, science and transportation. While it can be a catalyst for development and progress, globalisation also carries significant and increasing challenges for aid policy makers and practitioners alike. I: The new face of vulnerability? Recent years [...]
Dramatic new evidence for global warming
Posted in Climate change on November 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
H/t to Caetano Dorea
What happens when you are busy making other plans
Posted in Climate change, Institutions, Knowledge and learning, Leadership, Public Policy, Reports and Studies, Resilience, Strategy on April 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
John Lennon famously quipped that life was what happened when you were busy making other plans. A new book Dynamic Sustainabilities: Technology, Environment, Social Justice from the fantastic STEPS centre at the University of Sussex focuses on how much the same contradiction plays out in the global movements toward development, environmental sustainability and social justice. [...]
An Equation for Copenhagen: Conformity + Rapid Change = Collapse
Posted in Climate change, Public Policy, Resilience, Strategy on December 1, 2009 | 3 Comments »
American scientists using agent-based modeling techniques have linked excessive conformity to societal collapse and even mass extinction. The implications for the Copenhagen negotiations next week seem stark. The researchers at Dalhousie University and the University of California-Davis have modeled how well different learning strategies work in different learning environments, and found that under certain circumstances societies can be [...]
