Sustainability Science

Below is an extended excerpt copied from the Forum on Science and Technology for Sustainability, one of the world's most significant global networks and forums dedicated to sustainability science: http://sustsci.harvard.edu/

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The Forum on Science and Technology for Sustainability seeks to facilitate information exchange and discussion among the growing and diverse group of individuals, institutions, and networks engaged in the field of science and technology for sustainability. It seeks to provide access to emerging ideas, relevant activities, key documents and web sites. The Forum on Science and Technology for Sustainability seeks to facilitate information exchange and discussion among the growing and diverse group of individuals, institutions, and networks engaged in the field of science and technology for sustainability. It seeks to provide access to emerging ideas, relevant activities, key documents and web sites. The Editors welcome contributions and suggestions for posting to the Forum. The Forum will cover evolving discussions over the core questions and challenges for knowledge and action of science and technology for sustainability, documents that chart the field's aims and progress, events of special interest to the community, and programs and institutions that are playing a special role in the evolution of the field. It also includes relevant commentary on posted documents and core questions.

The concept of this web site grew out of discussions at the Friibergh Workshop on Sustainability Science, held in Sweden on 10-14 October 2000. It was initially envisioned as a means of providing access to the Workshop documents, deliberations, and conclusions, and for the subsequent regional consultations to be held in 2001. However, upon further reflection the organizing committee for the workshop began to envision a broader role that such a site might play. Information on sustainable development per se can be found on existing web sites, most of them accessible through the Sustainable Development Gateway. But it has been more difficult to find a central location for information relating to the role of science in sustainable development. We hope that the Forum will serve this function.

The Forum was founded in the belief that there is much more going on than meets most eyes involving the application of science and technology to sustainability issues. In this spirit, the Network for Science and Technology for Sustainability is an effort to help build a community linking disparate scholars, managers, and decision makers, and to promote the sharing of knowledge, ideas, and goals among a community working on science and technology for sustainability. Individuals interested in these issues may join the Network as a means of telling others about their work and interests, and learning from others about related activities in the conduct or application of science and technology in support of the joint goals of a sustainability transition.

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The Forum is an activity of the international Initiative on Science and Technology for Sustainability (ISTS).

Public Participation in Sustainability Science

Bernd Kasemir, Jill Jäger, Carlo C. Jaeger, Matthew T. Gardner (eds.). (2003) Public Participation in Sustainability Science: A Handbook. Foreword by William C. Clark and Alexander Wokaun. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Publishers description: This book discusses how citizens can participate more effectively in sustainability science and environmental policy debates. It discusses designs for participatory procedures, and experiences of their application to issues of global change. While the focus is on citizen participation, the involvement of specific stakeholders - including water managers and venture capitalists - is also addressed. The book describes how focus group methods were combined with the interactive use of computer models into new forms of participation, tested with six hundred citizens. The results are discussed in relation to other important topics, including greenhouse gas and water management. By combining this with an examination of issues of interactive governance and developing country participation, the book provides state-of-the-art, practical insights for students, researchers and policy makers alike.
http://titles.cambridge.org/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521818184