Responses to Environmental and Societal Challenges for our Unstable Earth (RESCUE)

Bernard Avril, Thibaut Lery

Research output: Book/ReportBookpeer-review

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Abstract

Humankind is facing unprecedented and accelerating global environmental change. So strong is the human influence on the Earth system that many scientists consider that the planet has entered a new geological age called the ‘Anthropocene’ (the recent age of humans). Our understanding of the environmental aspects of global change has expanded markedly in recent years, but the societal and human aspects of the change have still to be fully explored. There is a need to re-frame global environmental change issues fundamentally as social and human challenges, rather than just environmental issues. While recognising that there are already moves in the right direction, the RESCUE foresight initiative provides recommendations on how to establish and support a stronger common foundation across natural, social and human disciplines, and how to link global environmental change research more strongly with policy and the wider society. The recommendations are intended for research and education policy makers, funders and researchers. If enacted, they should lead to the development of more integrated, holistic knowledge of global environmental change – knowledge and the related practices that can fully support transitions towards
sustainability.

The “Responses to Environmental and Societal Challenges for our Unstable Earth” (RESCUE) foresight initiative is a joint ‘Frontiers of Science’ initiative of the European Science Foundation (ESF) and the intergovernmental initiative for European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST). The work of RESCUE focused on the following themes:
• Contributions from social sciences and humanities
in developing responses to challenges of the
Anthropocene (RESCUE Social-Human);
• Collaboration between the natural, social and
human sciences in global environmental change
studies (RESCUE Collaboration);
• Requirements for research methodologies and
data (RESCUE Requirements);
• Education and capacity building - towards a ‘revolution’
(RESCUE Revolution);
• The interface between science and policy, communication
and outreach (RESCUE Interface).
Original languageEnglish (US)
PublisherEuropean Science Foundation
Commissioning bodyEuropean Science Foundation
StatePublished - Jan 15 2012
Externally publishedYes

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