Jill Jäger

Knowledge systems for sustainable development

The challenge of meeting human development needs while protecting the earths life support systems confronts scientists, technologists, policy makers, and communities from local to global levels. Many believe that science and technology (S&T) must play a more central role in sustainable development, yet little systematic scholarship exists on how to create institutions that effectively harness S&T for sustainability. This study suggests that efforts to mobilize S&T for sustainability are more likely to be effective when they manage boundaries between knowledge and action in ways that simultaneously enhance the salience, credibility, and legitimacy of the information they produce. Effective systems apply a variety of institutional mechanisms that facilitate communication, translation and mediation across boundaries.

Salience, Credibility, Legitimacy and Boundaries: Linking Research, Assessment and Decision Making

The boundary between science and policy is only one of several boundaries that hinder the linking of scientific and technical information to decision making. Managing boundaries between disciplines, across scales of geography and jurisdiction, and between different forms of knowledge is also often critical to transferring information. The research presented in this paper finds that information requires three (not mutually exclusive) attributes - salience, credibility, and legitimacy - and that what makes boundary crossing difficult is that actors on different sides of a boundary perceive and value salience, credibility, and legitimacy differently. Presenting research on water management regimes in the United States, international agricultural research systems, El Nino forecasting systems in the Pacific and southern Africa, and fisheries in the North Atlantic, this paper explores: 1) how effective boundary work involves creating salient, credible, and legitimate information simultaneously for multiple audiences; 2) the thresholds, complementarities and tradeoffs between salience, credibility, and legitimacy when crossing boundaries; and 3) propositions for institutional mechanisms in boundary organizations which effectively balance tradeoffs, take advantage on complementarities, and reach thresholds of salience, credibility, and legitimacy.

Anticipating Climatic Change

Nineteen eighty-seven marked the occasion of two important workshops on the development of policies for responding to climatic change. The first workshop, held in Villach, Austria, involved about 50 international scientists and technical experts who examined how climatic change resulting from increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases could affect various regions of the Earth during the next century. A further goal of the Villach workshop was an examination of the technical, financial, and institutional options for limiting or adapting to climatic change. The second workshop was held in Bellagio, Italy, where the 24 participants, using the technical material from the Villach workshop as background information, explored what policy steps might be considered for implementation in the near term and what institutional arrangements would be needed to achieve these steps. This article represents the authors interpretation of the discussions and conclusions of those workshops.

Climatic Change: Floating New Evidence in the Co2 Debate

At the 1985 conference on carbon dioxide in Villach, Austria, an international group of scientists called for changes in world policy to meet the impact of global warming. The compelling evidence for their concern - and the uncertainties associated with the science - are presented in this report on the work of the conference. The article discusses future carbon dioxide emissions and atmospheric concentrations, the role of other greenhouse gases, effects on climate (projections and observations thus far), changes in sea level, and effects on terrestrial ecosystems (agriculture and forests).

Books of Note

Abstract EARTHLY POLITICS: LOCAL AND GLOBAL IN ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE edited by Sheila Jasanoff and Marybeth Long Martello; MIT Press. Cambridge. MA. 2004; 376 pp.,

Citizen participation in sustainability assessments

67.00 cloth (ISBN 0-262-10103-3).

Public Participation in Sustainability Science: Citizen interaction with computer models

27.00 paper (ISBN 0-262-60059-5). URBAN SPRAWI AND PUBLIC HEALTH: DESIGNING, PLANNING, AND BUILDING FOR HEALTHY COMMUNITIES by Howard Frumkin, Lawrence Frank. and Richard Jackson; Island Press. Washington, DC. 2004; 288 pp.,

Learning to manage global environmental risks: volume 1. A comparative history of social responses to climate change, ozone depletion, and acid rain.

60.00 cloth (ISBN 1-55963-912-1).

Citizens' reports on climate strategies

30.00 paper (ISBN 1-55963-305-0).