Social Science Space

What are the three biggest challenges Australia faces in the next five to ten years? What role will the social sciences play in resolving these challenges? The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia asked these questions in a discussion paper earlier this year. The backdrop to this review is cuts to social science disciplines around the country, with teaching taking priority over research.

On May 13, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. EDT, the American Academy of Political and Social Science will host an online seminar, co-sponsored by SAGE Publishing, focused on international economic and policy approaches to environmental regulation. “A Turning Point for International Climate Policy? New Approaches to Environmental and Economic Cooperation” features this year’s recipient of the AAPSS Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize, Nobel-winning economist William Nordhaus.

It’s a great idea, in principle to work diligently toward removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Unfortunately, in practice it helps perpetuate a belief in technological salvation and diminishes the sense of urgency surrounding the need to curb emissions now.

Climate change is undermining human health globally in other profound ways. It’s a risk multiplier, exacerbating our vulnerability to a range of health threats.

With climate change disasters, as with infectious diseases, rapid response time and global coordination are of the essence. At this stage in the COVID-19 situation, there are three primary lessons for a climate-changing future: the immense challenge of global coordination during a crisis, the potential for authoritarian emergency responses, and the spiraling danger of compounding shocks.

A new analysis published in the journal Energy Research & Social Science finds that funding for social science climate-change research is not only unhealthy but downright anemic at roughly 10 percent of the total spend. Meanwhile, total spending on climate-change research in total, regardless of discipline, comes to just 5 percent of all competitive research grants funded between 1950 and 2018.

Two academics who have integrated what might have once seemed like non-economic externalities into economic models have been awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in economics. The winners are William D. Nordhaus of Yale University, cited for integrating climate change into macroeconomic analysis, and Paul M. Romer of New York University’s Stern School of Business, cited doing the same with technological innovations.

David Canter reviews results of studies on the challenges of sustaining natural resources.

[We’re pleased to welcome Denis Collins. Denis recently published an article in Organization & Environment entitled “Managing the Poverty-CO2 Reductions […]

The March 2016 issue of World Future Review is now available and can be read online for free for the next 30 days. […]

As we are often reminded, we urgently and drastically need to limit our use of one shared resource – fossil fuels – and its effect on another – the climate. But how realistic is this goal, both for national leaders and for us? Well, psychology may hold some answers.

Derek Wall praises ‘The Two Degrees Dangerous Limit for Climate Change: Public Understanding and Decision Making,’ Christopher Shaw’s exploration of environmental policymaking. The book focuses on the public circulation of 2°C as the widely cited maximum figure by which temperatures can be allowed to rise.