Science & Citizens meet Challenges of Sustainability, Summer Semester 2012

PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES ORGANIZED AS PART OF THE UNIVERSITY CROSS-FACULTY COURSE (Campus Limpertsberg) :

Social and technological transformations for sustainable development often involve trade-offs, value conflicts and hard choices, which we are confronted with as individuals or groups.  Tough decisions have to be made on complex issues fraught with uncertainties and uncomfortable knowledge.  This set of seven public lectures is designed to equip for better understanding and acting in the face of complexity and interdependencies of the natural and social world.  All lectures are organised to speak to three key dimensions of sustainability challenges:

• How do we know what are the relevant facts and why should we accept their advice?
• Who are the various ‘we’, and how can we take account of divergent interests and expertise?
• How can we better manage complexities emerging from interconnection of the social and material phenomena, local and global interconnectedness, interdependencies and inequalities and reconcile tensions and contradictions?

The first three lectures address in turn the topics of water quality and equity; the requisites of sustainable farm systems, and sustainable energy production and use.  The subsequent four lectures explore models to conceptualise socio-technological transitions for sustainable development, tools to handle value conflicts and reveal values underlying diverse claims on science, approaches to legitimating knowledge that might become subject to controversy, and the changing role of science in society – or scientists and citizens having to take a stance on competing claims to science.The development of science, technology and social norms, rules and laws, are increasingly conceived as linked or ‘co-produced’.  Awareness of and the possibility to act in the face of uncertainties from complex intertwinement of science, technology, politics and social practices are desirable, for scientists and citizens alike.  In this new and challenging situation, it is desirable that every scientist engaged on sustainability apart from being a citizen makes their special knowledge available for public debate; but also a special responsibility not to pretend to more certainty and objectivity than is justified.  On their part, citizens must evaluate the scientific bases behind competing claims and policies.  For this awareness of their own commitments, perspectives and prejudices is helpful.

PUBLIC LECTURES

Each lecture is self-contained, but also made cross references to other lectures in this series. Description:

Friday 16.3.2012, 16.30-18.00,   Room BS 0.03,  Towards more sustainable use of water: a critical reflection on merits and limitations of the water footprint assessment  

Henry Michel Cauchie, responsible for the « Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecosystem » Research Unit at the Centre de Recherche Public Gabriel Lippmann.        « The world is facing water scarcity! » Which realities lie beyond this sensationalism? Can we measure how much water we need? Can we act collectively to change key practices determining our water consumption? What can we do individually? Is it necessary? Everywhere? Assessment of the “water footprint” of consumables or individuals can be a useful tool to try answering these questions. But what makes such an assessment meaningful?  The aim of this lecture is to detail the components of the water footprint, to discuss local and global variations of it and to initiate a reflection on our responsibility and action capacities in reducing our water footprint, where necessary.

Friday  30.3.2012, 16.30 - 18.00, Room BS 0.03,    Future challenges to global food production  

Klaus Hahlbrock, Former Director of Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, and Vice President of the Max Planck Gesellschaft .   This lecture provides an overview on global challenges relating to food production and natural resource management in different world areas with a growing world population and falling water tables.  How are questions on food security interconnected across continents?  What are requisites to future sustainable agricultural production methods?  Can new agricultural production technologies measure up to these requisites? This lecture provides a science-based overview on food production, natural resources, and alternative agro-production systems.  Examples feature deforestation of the Amazonas for soy bean culture to produce animal feed stock, which provides the basis for our mass-breeding live stock industry. Focusing on complex linkages and networks of the global agro-food chain, diverse approaches to water use are also described to link up with the above thematic unit.  Water transport for vegetable farming in jugs in Mali, the importance of waterholes for camel and goat keeping, terrace farming of rice and maize in Nepal and Peru, drip irrigation in Jordan…..  This also illustrates again how consumption choices here in Western Europe can impact sustainable development in other world regions, positively or negatively.

Hahlbrock K., (2010) “Feeding the  planet”, The sustainability project (198-243, Basic prerequisite for Securing Human Nourishment)

Tuesday  17.4.2012, 17.30 - 19.00 , Room BS 3.03   The Greening of Industry and its scientific evaluation  

Christian Schulz, Prof. Head of Research Unit ‘Identities, Politics, Society, Spaces’ University of Luxembourg.    The lecture explores the various recent trends of ecological modernization within the manufacturing and services sector. Proactive firm strategies, adaptation and mimicry processes as well as indirect effects (e.g. through the governance of supply chains) are presented from an international and integrative perspective. Current shortcomings, constraints and barriers as well as potential development trends will be discussed.    

  Geels, Frank. W., and Johan Schot. (2007) "Typology of Sociotechnical Transition Pathways ,"Research Policy. No. 36: 399‐417.

Friday  20.4.2012, 16.30 - 18.00, Room BS 0.03   Solar cells: Possibilities and requirements  

Susanne Siebentritt, TDK Europe Prof.  & Head of Laboratory for Photovoltaics , University of Luxembourg.     Solar cells convert light directly into electricity. The lecture will give a short overview of the technological possibilities. It will also discuss the possibilities of solar cells to contribute significantly to future energy supply and the technical, political and social conditions that must be met to allow solar cells to provide a significant part of our energy needs.

G. Boyle, B. Everett, J. Ramage  (2003) “Energy Systems and Sustainability” Oxford University Press, (chapter 1-4 )

Thursday  3.5.2012, 17.30 - 19.00, Room BS 2.01     Linking Sustainable Development to needs, well-being and capabilities  

Ines Omann, Scientific Team Leader ,  Sustainable Europe Research Institute, Vienna .   This talk summarises establishes links between sustainable development, needs, well-being, and the capabilities approach that is central to human development and human flourishing.   Its conceptual aim is to propose and critically discuss these links from different disciplinary backgrounds (economics, philosophy, sociology, and psychology). Its political aim is to re-stimulate the discussion about sustainable development.   By challenging the role of people in sustainability policy, the talk refocuses sustainable development on needs and makes it easier for people to relate positively to its core values. Dealing with needs entails dealing with deeper layers of consciousness, revealing emotions and questioning habits and values.   The talk will in its second part focus on the issue of (1) intra-individual, (2) intra-societal, and (3) intergenerational value conflicts that emerge when one wants to live sustainably and a possible method to deal with such conflicts.    

Omann, I., Rauschmayer, F., and Frühmann J., (2011) “Sustainable Development. Capabilities, needs, and well-being”, Routledge Ed. (Chapt. 8)

Friday  11.5. 2012, 16.30 - 18.00, room BS 0.03   Statistics, indicators challenges in the transition from GDP to well-being     

Walter Radermacher, Director General, EUROSTAT .    Sustainable development is by definition a cross-border/inter-generational concept. This lecture starts from the viewpoint that societies (as part of a globalised interaction or political community) have to find their way towards sustainability. As this is a major change affecting the sphere of production as well as the behaviour of consumers, it is a kind of manoeuvre involving iterative phases and steps, with learning systems and evolutionary procedures as typical features. Where all these manoeuvres will lead to, is unpredictable (e.g. the climate change debate). Nevertheless, it is possible to prepare the next political choice/decision in the best way possible and with the best information available. And it should also be ensured that decision making itself is rooted in democratic culture and respects the basic rules of communication to and participation of citizens. Toward this goal it makes sense to rethink what we choose to measure and compare over time. Indicators such as GDP that are rooted in economic growth as main goal need to be complemented with indicators attempting to reflect sustainable production, consumption, and other measures of ‘improving quality of life’. We will discuss the status quo of the corresponding debate by Stiglitz, Sen et al. GDP & Beyond, and the European Commission’s ‘Europe 2020’ paper. What are the concepts, where are we right now in terms of conceptual development and realisation?

Radermacher W., (2005), " The Reduction of Complexity by Means of Indicators: Case Studies in the Environmental Domain" . In Statistics, Knowledge and Policy: Key Indicators to Inform Decision Making, pp. 163-175. OECD, 2005"

Friday  18.5.2012, 16.30 - 18.00 ,  Room BS 0.03    Living laboratories and the role of social learning processes in socio-technical transitions for sustainable development

Ariane König, Head of Sustainable Development, University of Luxembourg & Sebastian Manhart, Jr Prof. Learning Sciences ,  University of Trier.      Mind the gap between environmental governance based on global and national (CO2-reduction) targets and local agency and implementation.   Universities are asked to assume a new role in societal transformation for more sustainable development taking account of the co-production of technologies and social norms, beyond the more traditional role of developing critical thinkers, technological fixes and social critique.  The interactive lecture will explore the significance of living laboratories and social leanring processes as adaptive community self-governance mechanisms for developing more sustainable life-styles, societal resilience, and adaptation capacity in the face of global change. The focus will be on a project for improving energy-efficiency of building operations by engaging inhabitants of the building to develop vision and new approaches for energy-saving in an iterative social learning cycle together with researchers and building owners over several years.  Other examples of living laboratories in cities and on campuses from the International Sustainable Campus Network, and our own campus will be described.  Some challenges to research drawing on diverse disciplines to address societal problems are highlighted.

Evans, J. and A. Karvonen (2011) Living laboratories for sustainability: exploring the politics and epistemology of urban adaptation.
In H. Bulkeley, V. Castán Broto, M. Hodson, and S. Marvin (eds)Cities and Low Carbon Transitions, Routledge, London.

Supported by:

To attend, to one or several public lectures, please send an email to: sustainability@uni.lu