IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijsusd/v1y1998i1p99-107.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Challenges in the use of science for sustainable development

Author

Listed:
  • Silvio Funtowicz
  • Jerome Ravetz
  • Martin O'Connor

Abstract

This paper summarises some of the challenges to science that are posed by the search for sustainability. These challenges are not only technical ones, such as more affordable or reliable equipment for health care, water quality control and refrigeration. There are also fundamental empirical and methodological challenges, such as complexity, irreversibility and uncertainty over the long term, that must be faced for achieving better understanding of our environment and the planet's life-support systems. Finally, there are moral and procedural challenges for defining the roles of science-based knowledge and innovations for poverty reduction, for governance of technological and environmental risks, for sustainable ecosystems management, and for effective communication of scientific information to achieve these goals.

Suggested Citation

  • Silvio Funtowicz & Jerome Ravetz & Martin O'Connor, 1998. "Challenges in the use of science for sustainable development," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 1(1), pages 99-107.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijsusd:v:1:y:1998:i:1:p:99-107
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=4206
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hirsch Hadorn, Gertrude & Bradley, David & Pohl, Christian & Rist, Stephan & Wiesmann, Urs, 2006. "Implications of transdisciplinarity for sustainability research," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 119-128, November.
    2. Maestre Andrés, Sara & Calvet Mir, Laura & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M. & Ring, Irene & Verburg, Peter H., 2012. "Ineffective biodiversity policy due to five rebound effects," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 101-110.
    3. Frame, Bob & Brown, Judy, 2008. "Developing post-normal technologies for sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 225-241, April.
    4. James Meadowcroft, 2009. "What about the politics? Sustainable development, transition management, and long term energy transitions," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 42(4), pages 323-340, November.
    5. E. Slobbe & H. Vriend & S. Aarninkhof & K. Lulofs & M. Vries & P. Dircke, 2013. "Building with Nature: in search of resilient storm surge protection strategies," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 66(3), pages 1461-1480, April.
    6. Mayumi, Kozo & Giampietro, Mario, 2006. "The epistemological challenge of self-modifying systems: Governance and sustainability in the post-normal science era," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 382-399, May.
    7. E. Slobbe & H. Vriend & S. Aarninkhof & K. Lulofs & M. Vries & P. Dircke, 2013. "Building with Nature: in search of resilient storm surge protection strategies," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 65(1), pages 947-966, January.
    8. Scott Bremer, 2010. "Mobilising High‐Quality Knowledge Through Dialogic Environmental Governance," Working Papers hal-00879681, HAL.
    9. Watzold, Frank, 2000. "Efficiency and applicability of economic concepts dealing with environmental risk and ignorance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 299-311, May.
    10. Muller, Adrian, 2003. "A flower in full blossom?: Ecological economics at the crossroads between normal and post-normal science," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 19-27, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijsusd:v:1:y:1998:i:1:p:99-107. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=25 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.