1. Sustainability Science
Student Discussion: Princeton University
Week 3 September 27, 2010
Sara Avila, Christina Nolfo, Molly O’Connor

2. Transitions to Sustainability (Chapter 1.2, page 22)
Overview
How do scale and choice of indicators affect the way we frame questions and solve them?
What are the consequences of how indicators are aggregated?
Application: How do asymmetric interactions between geographic units affect trajectories of sustainability in the North versus South?

3. Topic 1: How do scale and choice of indicators affect the way we frame questions and solve them?
An example is looking at population on these 4 graphs
Choice of scale changes the conclusion and in the choice of indicators, different sustainability outlooks are made
(Ausubel, 1994)
4 population Graphs

4. Topic 2: What are the consequences of how indicators are aggregated?
Index Sensitivity Analysis
Choice and Aggregation of Indicators as seen in Parris and Kates, 2003
Example: EF versus ESI
Rationale behind indicators and how aggregated
Inverse relationship between the two measurement systems
Aggregation is the same as scale where you can change the picture being drawn
community constructed versus government constructed
Examples of Indicators:
(Parris & Kates 2003)
Environmental Systems – Air Quality
Reducing Human Vulnerability
-Vulnerability is about values. Looking at the vulnerability of a large area is problematic because of variation of values among the population. Authors advocate instead for a smaller, place-based approach.*
-Problems in selecting indicators-->certain indicators may be more significant in some units/countries. Also, aggregation of indicator scores into a single index often means looking at linear and non-linear processes on the same scale.
-Cross-scale processes. Important forces and drivers might not be acting at the unit at which we are assessing vulnerability.
-"So, in that it treats countries as discrete units, the EVI ignores the ways a country's activities can create vulnerability in another."**
(And maybe this last point could start to tie us into topic three as well as back to the chapter. This article includes a case study of an environmental vulnerability index, and one thing the authors point out is that way the index is constructed, developing countries are going to get lower scores due to economic development processes with social value-see pg In my head, this relates to issues with the chapter because a global trends approach averages out inequalities and I think obscures the asymmetric relationships Sara and Lizzie mentioned.
* The value-based nature of SD has led some to argue for bottom-up, rather than (or in concert with) top-down formulations of SD indicators. (Reed et al 2006, Fraser et al 2006).
** A corollary is that SD indicators that use multiple variables rarely consider the interactions between those component variables (analyzed by Graymore et 2008). This can lead to confusing results. For instance, Ewer & Smith (2007) explored the relationship between corruption and sustainable development, and found that 2 indicators, Ecol. Footprint and Env. Sust. Index, were themselves negatively correlated!
(Ewers and Smith, 2007)
Figure 1: EF versus ESI

5. Topic 2 Example: Vulnerability Analysis
Shows how scale and non linear process are brought together in the VA for sustainability science
VA attempts to bring spatiotemporal scales together
(Turner et al, 2003 Figure 3)

6. Topic 3 Transition Slide (Sara Talking, Not a slide)
Our Supplementary readings discussed analytical tools and methodologies.
This comes back to the chapter where the author asks can the pace of demographic, social, and economic and environmental change continue or are we living in the middle of unique transitions?
We can use the concept of scale and aggregate indicators to address this question
We begin this discussion with looking at interactions between the North and South.

7. “The rich countries have already completed these transitions and other countries are expected to catch up with the leaders overtime.”(Chapter 1.2 Bongaarts, Turner, Kates, 2010)

8. Topic 3: Application Giljum and Eisenmenger, 2004 Figure 2
How do asymmetric interactions between geographic units affect trajectories of sustainability in the North versus South?  
Asymmetric interactions between geographic units: how do they affect trajectories of human development in the developed vs. developing world (for example: North vs South)?
Can the South really be expected to follow the same development trajectory that the North took, just with a time lag, as suggested in chapter 1.2? Dietz et al (2009) showed that African countries are less efficient at generating well-being per unit environmental cost. Is that changing? Trajectories of developing well being while sustaining ecosystems may not be coupled in the same way they have been for the North…
Giljum and Eisenmenger, 2004 Figure 2

9. Conclusion
Interaction between units and indicators determine what conclusions and policies are made
For example, averaging makes the data gets lost in translation.
…..
As seen in the application of North versus South, we have to look at this dilemma in multiple spatial and temporal scales to that debts and … between geographical scales so that particular characteristics are accounted for.