Institutions, Science, and Technology in the Transition to Sustainability

This chapter explores the implications for a transition to sustainability of understanding the Earth as a complex, interdependent system in which human perturbations produce effects (with corresponding feedbacks to humans) that occur at multiple temporal and spatial timescales. Such an approach poses obstacles but also offers opportunities to better understand how human perturbations influence the Earth system and how to govern those perturbations and our human responses to the corresponding feedbacks. This chapter examines how existing human institutions, and globalization, contribute to environmental impacts on the Earth system and also evaluates efforts of alternative institutions to incorporate science and technology into the policy process in ways that will facilitate a transition to sustainability. Major institutional reforms will be needed for existing institutions to use science and technology effectively in the service of sustainability. They will need, in particular, to improve the integration of science into the policy-making process and the integration of policy concerns into scientific research in ways that help science provide more policy-relevant knowledge to those making economic and policy decisions without undercutting its scientific validity. These are complex tasks that will require many institutions to make dramatic changes in how they operate. Experiences with existing institutions that have been relatively successful at making such changes are used to illustrate the argument.