{"id":1246,"date":"2012-04-02T11:18:04","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T11:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/lec\/sites\/catchmentchange\/?p=1246"},"modified":"2018-12-16T18:00:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-16T18:00:36","slug":"of-kings-and-princes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/lec\/sites\/catchmentchange\/news\/of-kings-and-princes\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Kings and Princes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another opportunity to discuss future change at the Royal Palace in Stockholm last Thursday where the King had organised a meeting of the 14 guest professors in environmental research who had been supported in visiting Swedish universities by his 50th<\/sup> Birthday fund.\u00a0\u00a0 The day was called Faith in the Future.\u00a0 The King took great interest in the proceedings,\u00a0 including hosting a dinner in the evening.<\/p>\n

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This was the first time that all the Guest Professors had met, and the range of expertise represented was very interesting \u2013 from palaeoecology to desertification, from environmental economics to cyanobacteria and health, from desertification to governance, and one hydrologist.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There were talks and panel discussions moderated by Swedish environmental journalists, with a few invited questions from the floor including from the Chief Executive of Erikson (who spoke of smart companies accepting the fact of climate change and\u00a0 wanting to be ahead of the curve in environmental concerns); the Swedish Minister of the Environment (who talked of how 95% of lobbyists were pushing \u201cold\u201d technologies while scientists were mostly silent on new possibilities); \u00a0and one of the largest farmers in southern Sweden (who spoke of farmers\u2019 interest in land management for future generations).\u00a0\u00a0 Interestingly Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall had also arrived in Stockholm and were staying at the Palace.\u00a0 Prince Charles had been invited to the day, but apparently had other commitments\u2026..<\/p>\n

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One of the main discussion points of the day (unsurprisingly, perhaps) was concerned with how to reform society and transform behaviour into more sustainable (and equitable) modes.\u00a0\u00a0 The need to move politics and science into the same domains of discourse, to create new modes of economic thought that were not hooked on growth and on carbon consumptions, and to move governance into synch with the socio-ecological coupling to deal with future change, were all raised as issues.\u00a0\u00a0 It was suggested that adaptive, reflective modes of governance that allowed for the uncertainties in future projections of change is necessary but is not evident in most policy making at national and international scales, although there are some good local examples.<\/p>\n

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Given the title of the day, there was some requirement not to be too pessimistic!\u00a0 But in fact we cannot afford to be pessimistic \u2013 the need to deal with change in climate and population, particularly projected urban population, is too pressing.\u00a0 In recognising that future projections might be uncertain, it is often forgotten that this implies that rates of change might be underestimated rather than overestimated.\u00a0\u00a0 Thus to do nothing is to be risk accepting, perhaps to an irresponsible degree.\u00a0\u00a0 The question then is how to convey this to governments with generally shorter attention spans\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

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