Stephen,
They COULD help, but WILL they? I doubt it. I'd like to be proved wrong.
Those "disciplines" tend to write in convoluted code too, so look for those who
can truly integrate disciplines. Read their work, have some others,
representative of "the general public" or whatever audience you want targeted,
read it and see who can and can't, will and won't, finish, and become excited
about it.
Or write it yourself--say a paper of about a thousand words, more like five or
six hundred. Read "op-ed" essays; write like the best of them. Be prepared to
give those folks a lot of technical, possibly even financial, help (op-ed
writing is insanely low-paid).
Or try someone like Tom Schroder ("Fire on the Horizon").
It will be a long, lonesome road, so be prepared to endure and stick to it.
WT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Hale" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 6:42 AM
Subject: [ECOLOG-L] Engaging Social Scientists in Marine Ecosystem Research?
Operating from sampling platforms ranging from hip boots to
oceanographic research ships, natural scientists have come up with a
decent understanding of how oceans work, what is in them, how important
they are to all life on Earth, and how they are threatened. But simply
knowing these facts hasn’t been enough to sustain healthy marine
ecosystems. To mention just one thing, human-caused carbon dioxide
emissions are changing fundamental properties of the oceans such as
temperature and pH. Now people talk about ecosystem-based management, a
holistic viewpoint that recognizes humans as an integral part of ocean
ecosystems. While humans are the cause of many problems in the ocean,
they also can and must be the solution. People can be bombarded with
facts, but if these facts do not fit the people’s frame of reference,
they bounce off. Natural scientists are out of their realm in
understanding why people behave the way they do and what motivates them
to change their behavior. Time to send social scientists to sea.
Humans are everywhere on the oceans—fishing, shipping, swimming,
drilling, boating, mining, sailing, rip-rapping, surfing, dredging,
digging clams, harnessing wind, growing seafood, watching nature,
fighting wars, and building beautiful structures like the Golden Gate
bridge in San Francisco or the opera house on Sydney Harbor. Even humans
that have never seen the ocean use rivers to send their excess nutrients
and contaminants there for processing. And they use the atmosphere to
carry away their carbon dioxide, much of which winds up in the oceans.
Global warming is a good case in point. The most likely scenarios for
global climate change will result in massive changes to global societal
structures, as well as the nature and relations of states to society and
to each other. Natural scientists have determined that humans are
largely responsible for the sharpness of global warming seen in recent
decades, but society has not yet taken effective action. As seen at
Copenhagen in 2009 and Cancun in 2010, while we may understand the
natural sciences well enough to take action, we haven't succeeded in
understanding the people side. Sociologists, cultural anthropologists,
psychologists, economists, behavioral economists, political scientists,
and communication scientists could help.
Social scientists have studied fishing communities and coastal zone
management and other nearshore issues. However, according to a 2008
National Science Foundation workshop “Sociological Perspectives on
Global Climate Change,” sociologists have been slow to take up global
climate change in their research. Environmental sociology lies at the
fringes of the discipline, says Sociologist Constance Lever-Tracy, and
it has been difficult to engage mainstream sociology, which focuses on
the interactions between people, societies, and nations, and regards
nature as a stable, unchanging background.
Thoughts on how to better engage social scientists in research on marine
ecosystems? Can anyone suggest some relevant references in the social
science literature?
Stephen S. Hale
[email protected]
-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1375 / Virus Database: 1509/3659 - Release Date: 05/25/11
