Bernd Kasemir

Focus groups in integrated assessment: A micro‐cosmos for reflexive modernization

Abstract Like every society, todays global society has a body of knowledge which is taken for granted in everyday life. This knowledge, which is organized around the prospect of modernization, is currently challenged in several ways. One of these challenges concerns the risks of global environmental change. We investigate the hypothesis that the conceptual machinery of modernization is experiencing a far‐reaching transformation whose outcome may be labelled as reflexive modernization. For this purpose, we propose a new methodology based on focus groups embedded in a process of integrated environmental assessment. The methodology yields promising results which are consistent with the hypothesis. They point to further implications of the hypothesis of reflexive modernization which are both interesting for theoretically oriented research and relevant for policy‐making.

The Next Unseen Revolution Pension Fund Investment and Sustainability

Abstract Enormous resources are currently invested in U.S. and European pension funds, and a growing proportion of these assets are in the stock market. Consequently, pension fund managers, with the support of sustainability investment consultants and researchers from the sustainability science community, have a unique opportunity to encourage sustainability in business practices. What tools are they using to influence corporate policies, and what can be done to foster this promising investment trend?

Climatic risks and rational actors

Abstract The present state of research suggests that substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could be achieved only by introducing some kind of greenhouse tax at very high levels. Such measures are unlikely to be realized for both economic and political reasons. We argue that a way out of this impasse can be found if a misleading assumption is corrected. This is the assumption that a system involving a multitude of rational actors operating on interdependent markets has only one possible equilibrium. The global economic system may, in fact, be able to attain several different equilibria. This leads to a peculiar kind of uncertainty, which so far has been studied mainly in quantum mechanics. The possibility of multiple equilibria implies that large reductions of carbon emissions could be feasible without massive longrun increases of fossil fuel prices. It also implies that a decision about a target for greenhouse gas emissions cannot be taken by means of economic optimization.