"Ecological economics is an attempt to integrate social sciences and natural sciences in order to provide the information necessary to formulate policy dealing with global climate change," said Karl-Göran Maler, director of the Beijer International Institute for Ecological Economics, a research institute of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden. "In order to do that, we have to construct an understanding of the processes which join the social systems to the natural systems."
Maler spoke to about 30 scientists who gathered for the Global Ecological Economic Modeling Conference in March at the Beckman Institute. NCSA co-sponsored the conference with the Beijer Institute. Robert Costanza, president of the International Society for Ecological Economics and a research affiliate of the Beijer Institute, coordinated the conference.
The conference focused on constructing a new global model of the Earth by joining techniques from social science and natural science. It is widely thought that such a model could clarify humankind's impact on Earth's ecosystems and climate [see access, July-September 1992].
Attendees gathered to form research alliances for the future and to collaborate on a preproposal for funding global modeling R&D. After a day of presentations that introduced each other's research and modeling processes, conferees divided into small working groups to discuss and hone issues that were then formulated into a formal document.
The conferees were seeking a new modular approach to model building that could evolve over time through adaptations and improvements. According to Costanza, they did not want to "build it once, get the answer, and quit." This was to be the first step in an ongoing endeavor.
She and her colleagues use a model developed by the Nobelist Wassily Leontief. Duchin directs the Institute for Economic Analysis founded by Leontief.
Duchin felt the conference broke new ground: "At a conceptual level none of us are yet asking the most strategic global questions because each of us is only asking the questions that appear to be globally strategic in our own area."
We are in "the infant stage of the modeling process," Hannon acknowledged. "Both data and the modeling process need to be addressed.... Although many of the ecological modelers are using STELLA, there was talk of needing [more complex] software to integrate the federation that goes into producing a large global model. NCSA has a software development initiative to address this."
As a participant in this initiative, Hannon is a visiting professor at NCSA, where he has been enhancing modeling techniques and running code on the CM-5 [see access, October-December 1992]. Albert Cheng, NCSA Software Development Group (SDG) programmer, is working with Hannon on this effort, which was demonstrated. Duchin showed a software program she developed with SDG Programmer Jason Ng.
Costanza joined in: "People at the conference are working on stand-alone parts of the global model.... What we want to view is the whole. This is conceived of as a 5-year project," he continued. "The model structure itself will be evolving."
The group dealt with seemingly astounding datasets in terms of variables, but their vision is equally challenging. Because the "endgame" of their efforts could have broad, worthwhile consequences, the group gathered at the conference were dedicated to the long term.
According to Duchin, this ingathering of researchers showed that "science can be used to solve real world problems.... The issue here," she said, "is that the way we are living on this planet is causing repercussions that are bound to feed back on us.... Our conviction is that [humankind is] probably going to have to make more significant changes in how we live than most people have allowed their imaginations to consider."
