Aug 25, 2015 | Communication, Young Scientists
By Katherine Leitzell, IIASA Science Writer
Earlier this month, IIASA hosted an unusual guest—science journalist, blogger, and educator Andrew Revkin. Revkin is probably best-known for his work at the New York Times and the blog Dot.Earth. He also teaches at Pace University and has recently been involved in sustainability projects such as Future Earth.
At a lunchtime seminar on science communication, Revkin surprised many IIASA scientists by focusing primarily on new media, rather than on old-school models of press releases and interviews with journalists.
Old-school journalism is long gone. What’s replacing it is still developing – which brings opportunities for scientists willing to get into the game. (Photo: Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in the 1940 film His Girl Friday/ Public Domain)
The reason? The world of journalism is changing quickly. “The days of a reporter sitting down with a notebook and interviewing you for a story are over,” he said. There are fewer and fewer reporters specializing in science journalism and those who remain in the field have tighter deadlines and more to cover.
The good news is that researchers need not send out a press release and wait for a reporter to call them to share their story. Blogs, social media, and videos provide new channels for communication. Revkin argued that these channels may even form a better platform for communicating complicated, sticky subjects—like much IIASA research—than traditional news stories, which have a tendency to oversimplify information. A blog, in contrast to a news story, can examine a topic from multiple angles over a longer period of time, giving a “prismatic” view of a multifaceted problem.
Yet blogging and engaging on social media take time. How can a researcher fit communication in on top of already substantial workloads?
The answer is that you don’t have to. Not every scientist needs to engage the public all the time, but every institution should have channels and content to do so, and be able to help scientists to tell their stories.
Revkin, left, chats with participants in IIASA’s Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) (Photo: K. Leitzell, IIASA)
Why bother? Some benefits of communication are clear: Research has shown that scholarly articles shared on twitter end up with more citations, and some journals are even using social media sharing, for example using altmetrics, as a new measure of study impact.
Taking control of communication using new media can also circuitously lead to coverage in traditional media. Journalists around the world use Twitter to research stories and find sources. Revkin explained that when researching his blog posts, he searches for posts by scientists that provide background and explanation. Then he links to these sources. In fact, today Revkin defines his role as more a curator of information than a journalist.
At the same time, by learning to write and communicate in an understandable way for the general public, and practicing this skill, researchers also hone important communication skills that can help them effectively engage with policymakers.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Sep 23, 2014 | Demography
By: Wolfgang Lutz, Bill Butz, Samir KC, Warren Sanderson, and Sergei Scherbov: IIASA World Population Program
Demographers from the United Nations Population Division and several universities published a paper in Science last week that argues the world population is unlikely to stop growing this century. They calculate that there is an 80% probability that world population, now 7.2 billion, will increase to between 9.6 and 12.3 billion in 2100, with the median at 10.9 billion.
Different projections for future fertility rates in countries such as China and Nigeria are one major reason for the difference in projections between IIASA and the UN. Photo Credit: Evgeni Zotov via Flickr
Next month, we will announce the results of our newest assessment at the launch of a new book entitled: “World Population and Global Human Capital in the 21st Century” (Lutz, Butz and KC, Oxford University Press 2014). Contrary to the UN projections, the IIASA medium (most likely) scenario indicates that world population will increase to 9.2 billion by 2050, peak at 9.4 billion around 2070 and start a slow decline to 9.0 billion by the end of the century.
The new UN paper uses a probabilistic approach to global population projections providing quantitative uncertainty ranges. Such an approach was first developed at IIASA. In a 1997 Nature article, IIASA used probabilistic methods to indicate that the doubling of world population was unlikely. And in a 2001 Nature article, IIASA demographers projected that there was an 85% chance that the world’s population would stop growing this century.
The UN and IIASA population projections use very different approaches for defining the assumptions underlying future fertility and mortality trajectories. The new IIASA projections are based on the substantive input of more than 550 experts worldwide who were invited to evaluate in a peer review manner a set of alternative scientific arguments bearing directly on the future demographic trajectories. This was done through an online survey as well as a series of meetings on five continents. The resulting state of our knowledge and substantive reasoning is documented in over 500 pages in the OUP book.
Alternatively, the UN population projections have recently moved away from their earlier expert-based assumptions to the other extreme: Their new probabilistic population projections reflect expert judgment only in the design of a specific statistical model which then is applied to national time series of 60 years (1950-2010) to extrapolate 90 years (2010-2100) into the future. There is no room for country-specific expert knowledge or for substantive considerations.
IIASA population projections explicitly include education, which is one factor that leads to lower fertility rates and lower projections by IIASA compared to the UN. Source: Wittgenstein Centre Data Explorer
There are two other factors explaining the difference: One is that IIASA now systematically adds a differentiation by level of education in addition to the conventional age and sex to its population projections, as education significantly influences fertility rates (Policy Brief: Rethinking population policies). Once this important source of population heterogeneity is explicitly taken into account the future looks different. In the example of Nigeria, the UN projects an increase from 160 million in 2010 to 914 million in 2100 while IIASA projects only 576 million. The IIASA projections do consider the fact that recently Nigeria has made significant progress in girls education, such that today half of the women aged 20-24 already have secondary education, while among women aged 40-44 the percentage is only 25 percent. And since more educated women consistently have lower fertility, future fertility is likely to decline as the more educated girls enter reproductive age. Disregarding this important structural change leads to higher projections of future fertility.
Another difference lies in the reading of the current fertility levels in Africa as well as in China. The UN assumes that fertility in Nigeria has been stagnant at 6 children per woman for the past decade and for this reason their purely statistical model results in very slow future decline. However, the most recent Demographic and Health Survey (DHS 2013) for Nigeria shows that fertility has already declined to 5.5—a level the UN assumes would only be reached by 2020-25.
The same is true for other African countries such as Mali where the DHS shows fertility has already fallen to 6.1 a value that according to the UN projections would only be reached in 2025-30. For China, currently still the world’s biggest country, the UN assumes that fertility stands at 1.66 and will not decline further but rather increase in the future. Based on expert reasoning the IIASA projections assume that fertility in 2010 was around 1.5 and will decline to 1.4 in the coming decades, following the patterns of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong which are currently in the 1.0 – 1.4 range.
Population pyramids for Nigeria show IIASA’s projected population and education levels for 2010 and 2050. Source: Wittgenstein Centre Data Explorer
References:
Lutz W, Butz W, and KC S, eds. 2014 World Population and Global Human Capital in the 21st Century, Oxford University Press 2014.
Patrick Gerland, Adrian E. Raftery, Hana Ševčíková, Nan Li, Danan Gu, Thomas Spoorenberg, Leontine Alkema, Bailey K. Fosdick, Jennifer Chunn, Nevena Lalic, Guiomar Bay, Thomas Buettner, Gerhard K. Heilig, and John Wilmoth. 2014. World population stabilization unlikely this century. Science 1257469 [DOI:10.1126/science.1257469]
Lutz W, Sanderson WC, Scherbov S. 1997. Doubling of world population unlikely. Nature, 387(6635):803-805 (19 June 1997) www.nature.com/nature/journal/v387/n6635/full/387803a0.html
Lutz W, Sanderson WC, Scherbov S. 2001. The end of world population growth. Nature, 412(6846):543-545 (2 August 2001) http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/35087589
Wolfgang Lutz. 2014. A Population Policy Rationale for the Twenty-First Century. Population and Development Review. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2014.00696.x
May 19, 2014 | Energy & Climate, IIASA Network
John Schellnhuber
Scientists who have worked for many years in the field of climate change sometimes grow cynical about the possibility that the world will address the problem. After over 40 years of research on the subject, there is still no global agreement on climate change, and greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase. This despite growing evidence of the severity of the problem.
But John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) since its founding in 1992, remains hopeful.
“The odds are against us, but they are not zero,” he told an audience of IIASA researchers on 13 May. In a wide-ranging lecture for IIASA staff, Schellnhuber highlighted some of the most recent findings on climate change from PIK researchers, but also shared his thoughts on the potential for the world to take action to mitigate the emissions that are leading to climate warming.
The human race has blossomed on this planet only in the last 11,000 years, a period of very stable climate known as the Holocene. Without this stability, Schellnhuber pointed out, humans would not have been able to develop agriculture, let alone the technological advances of the industrial revolution or the population explosions that followed from these developments. Destabilizing this climate that has led to such success could be dangerous—and evidence suggests that it will be most dangerous to people in developing countries, who did the least to cause the problem.
Some of the more worrisome research to come out of PIK and other climate research centers in recent years focuses on possible tipping points or “non-linearity” in the climate system. For example, changes in the jet stream, related to declining Arctic sea ice cover and warming in the Arctic, are already proving to have major effects on weather, possibly contributing to recent heat waves like the 2010 heat wave in Russia, as well as floods in more southern regions—such extreme weather events are likely to become more frequent, said Schellnhuber, in a world with greater warming.
A new study from PIK researchers shows that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet may also be in danger of melt that would raise sea levels. (Image courtesy NASA Goddard)
At the same time, a new study from PIK scientists suggests that the glaciers which serve as the outlet for the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet might melt, effectively unplugging the passages that hold the ice sheet in place. Schellnhuber said, “If global warming removes that plug, there could be an unstoppable flow of ice into the ocean.”
New research from NASA announced this week suggests that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may already have been so destabilized. Schellnhuber points out that the countries that will experience the greatest impacts of sea level rise—primarily in the tropics—contributed the least to the problem.
A moral issue
Many researchers at both IIASA and PIK work closely with policymakers to help define the costs and benefits of climate action. But Schellnhuber argued that only a social movement will provide the push that policymakers need in order to support strong action. When he talks to heads of government, he said, they listen to what he has to say. But without broad support, they cannot or will not act.
“I think it is a moral issue in the end. People have to decide whether they want to do something,” he said. “The older I get and the more I learn about the challenges, the more I think this is the only way.”
References
Tang, Q, Zhang X, Francis JA. (2014). Extreme summer weather in northern mid-latitudes linked to a vanishing cryosphere. Nature Climate Change 4, 45–50 (2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2065
Levermann, A., Bamber, J., Drijfhout, S., Ganopolski, A., Haeberli, W., Harris, N.R.P., Huss, M., Krüger, K., Lenton, T., Lindsay, R.W., Notz, D., Wadhams, P., Weber, S. (2012): Potential climatic transitions with profound impact on Europe – Review of the current state of six ‘tipping elements of the climate system’. Climatic Change 110 (2012), 845-878, [DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0126-5]
Joughin, I, Smith BE, Medley B. (2014) Marine Ice Sheet Collapse Potentially Underway for the Thwaites Glacier Basin, West Antarctica. Science. 10.1126/science.1249055
Rignot E, Mouginot J, Morlighem M, Seroussi H, and Scheuchl B. (2014) Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith and Kohler glaciers, West Antarctica from 1992 to 2011. Geophysical Research Letters. DOI: 10.1002/2014GL060140
Apr 15, 2014 | Energy & Climate, Science and Policy
By Jessica Jewell, Research Scholar, IIASA Energy Program
How would action to mitigate climate change affect energy security for countries around the world? In two recent studies that I worked on with colleagues in IIASA’s Energy Program and three other European research centers, we explored this question under a range of different policy scenarios. We found that in the long term – 40 to 90 years from now – climate policies would actually benefit energy security. Our studies showed that policies to limit climate change would lead to lower oil and gas trade. Since both of these fuels are supplied by only a few countries, shifting to other fuels could alleviate concerns for countries which import these energy sources. Our research also shows that a climate-friendly energy system would be more resilient to energy supply and price shocks as well as economic and fossil resource uncertainty.
An oil rig off the coast of California. New research shows that transitioning away from fossil fuels would be good for long-term energy security. Credit: Arby Reed via Flickr: Creative Commons License
Taking action to slow climate change requires a massive change in how our society supplies and uses energy. But achieving a low-carbon energy system – one which releases less greenhouse gases – will only be possible if it doesn’t compromise national energy priorities. One of the main energy priorities for decision-makers is ensuring energy security – that is, the stability and resilience of energy supply and infrastructures.
In our studies, published in Energy Policy and Climatic Change we aimed to figure out whether phasing out fossil fuels would alleviate energy dependence concerns or if decarbonization would simply replace existing vulnerabilities with new ones. Intuitively, addressing climate change would mean increasing renewables and would clearly lead to lower energy dependence. After all, Putin doesn’t own the wind. But would climate policies lead to some unintended consequences? Would oil be phased out only to be replaced with biofuels and Brazil as the new fuel-exporting superpower? And what would happen without climate policies? Would energy trade naturally decline as oil and gas reserves are used up or would it continue to increase?
In our research we used a number of energy scenarios which depict:
- a world with an energy system which continues to develop in the same way it has developed over the last 50 years (i.e. business as usual)
- a world which implements ambitious policies to mitigate climate change and stabilize the climate at 2°C above pre-industrial levels (i.e. climate scenarios).
We looked at each type of world under a range of different policy choices: for example, phasing out nuclear energy or limiting the penetration of solar and wind energy, and including uncertainties such as different growth rates and fossil fuel availability over the long term.
We found that under a business as usual scenario global trade in oil, gas, and coal quadruples. Under a range of different climate-friendly scenarios, trade stabilizes at between half and twice the current level by 2030 and then falls throughout the rest of the century.
Falling trade would have significant implications for the interconnectedness of different world regions. In a business as usual scenario, the energy systems of all world regions remain interconnected, and becomes even more so. But under climate policies, regional energy systems diverge as each region gravitates to its own energy mix. This could decrease states’ investment in existing energy institutions and lead to a massive upheaval in the global energy governance landscape – thus rendering existing institutions obsolete.
Climate policies would affect not only the volume of energy trade but also how and where energy is exported and imported. Today, oil accounts for over 90% of transport demand and there are no real substitutes for fuel cars, trains and planes. Half of all countries in the world import more than 75% of their oil from only a few number of countries. That makes oil the most problematic fuel for energy security (for more on this see the Global Energy Assessment). Under the business-as-usual scenarios, these dynamics get worse over the next few decades.. However, under de-carbonization oil is phased out and no other fuel takes on similarly problematic dynamics.
It’s important to note though that over the short-term, climate policies could make oil even more of a problem: as cheap unconventional resources rise in price due to their carbon intensity, the geographical concentration of oil production would actually rise.
However, over the medium and long-term (three to four decades), climate action would make the energy system much more resilient compared to the business-as-usual case. Resilience, or the capacity for energy systems to respond to disruptions is just as important as avoiding risks such as decreasing energy dependence. Under climate scenarios, the diversity of energy options rises which means all our “energy eggs” would be distributed between different baskets. In addition, the energy system would become less sensitive to fluctuations in GDP, fossil resource assumptions, and energy intensity. This means that a low-carbon energy system would be less exposed to both price and supply shocks.
Reference
Jessica Jewell, Aleh Cherp, Keywan Riahi. (2014). Energy security under de-carbonization scenarios: An assessment framework and evaluation under different technology and policy choices. Energy Policy. Volume 65, February 2014, Pages 743–760 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513010744
Aleh Cherp, Jessica Jewell, Vadim Vinichenko, Nico Bauer, Enrica De Cian. (2013). Global energy security under different climate policies, GDP growth rates and fossil resource availabilities. Climatic Change. November 2013. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-013-0950-x
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Feb 27, 2014 | Demography, Science and Policy
By Erich Striessnig, IIASA World Population Program
Is replacement level fertility really the best for society? Maybe not, say IIASA researchers. Photo Credit: Héctor Gómez Herrero via Flickr (Creative Commons License)
When asked what a desirable fertility level for populations might be, most politicians, journalists, and even social scientists would say it is around two children per woman, as this would – on the long run – prevent a population from either exploding or dying out. Other reasons for championing replacement level fertility include maintaining the size of the labor force and stabilizing the dependency ratio. But what is the evidence for this rule of thumb?
My colleague Wolfgang Lutz and I aimed to answer this question in a new study published in the journal Demographic Research. We found, not surprisingly, that the optimal fertility level strongly depends on what you mean by optimal.
The criteria for optimal fertility have often been motivated by nationalistic desires for larger and thus more powerful nations. Today our concerns run more towards the dangers of overpopulation for the environment, the climate, and the limited resources on Earth, dampening the enthusiasm for high fertility rates. But as fertility rates fall in many countries around the world, there is a growing concern about aging populations and an increasing number of elderly depending on an ever smaller number of people actively participating in the labor force.
While all of these fears relate to the same problem – an unbalanced population age-structure – the resulting assessments of what level of fertility would be desirable completely ignore the heterogeneity of the population with regard to important demographic characteristics, especially the population’s education structure.
In our study, we wanted to account for the fact that more education not only has higher economic costs, including later entry to the labor market and higher life expectancy, which can hardly been seen as a negative effect. But education also leads to higher productivity, less unemployment, and a healthier workforce that would on average retire later. To include these factors in our assessment, we ran thousands of simulations using varying constant rates of fertility.
What we found is that when we factor in education, the level of fertility that on the long run would lead to the lowest level of dependency is well below the supposedly magical level of two children per woman.
We also tried to link the effects of different fertility rates to the resulting environmental burden by factoring in expected carbon emissions. Not surprisingly, higher rates of fertility lead to faster population growth and more emissions. That suggests that an environmentally aware society should aim for even lower fertility levels.
While our research is not intended to prescribe fertility levels for individuals and countries, the conclusions drawn from this thought experiment suggest that the widespread popular notions that current fertility levels–for example in France or the US are just right because they are around replacement level, whereas they are too low in countries like Germany or Austria–may be wrong. According to our new study, the opposite is true.
Reference
Striessnig, E, Lutz W. (2014) How does education change the relationship between fertility and age-dependency under environmental constraints? A long-term simulation exercise Demographic Research, 30(16):465-492 http://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol30/16/
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
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