ABSTRACT

Managing Complexity: Earth Systems and Strategies for the Future introduces and explores systems and complexity in relation to near-synchronous world and environmental problems. These relate to but are not limited to water, biological diversity, worldwide climate change, trade and conflict, global migration and the quest for sustainable development. Complemented by discussion of the new era of the Anthropocene, its many manifestations, and Earth system properties such as planetary boundaries and tipping points this book offers practical suggestions for how a sustainable future for humanity can be realised.

Specifically discussed in Managing Complexity: Earth Systems and Strategies for the Future are innovation, education and capacity building, application of the natural and social sciences and new paths towards sustainability based on industrial development and engineering, as well as in diplomacy and foreign aid. The book’s conclusions discuss the ambitious yet vital reforms the authors propose as routes to a sustainable existence. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainability, sustainable development and complexity theory.

chapter 1|14 pages

Introduction

Setting the scene

chapter 2|13 pages

The Anthropocene and planetary boundaries

Conditioners of sustainable development

chapter 3|13 pages

Foresight and innovation

Searching for the right future

chapter 4|16 pages

Education

Towards universal understanding

chapter 5|16 pages

Science

The complexity of searching the truth

chapter 6|15 pages

Industry, engineering, further complexity

Steam engines and more

chapter 7|15 pages

Philosophia moralis

Systems stretched to the breaking point

chapter 8|15 pages

Water

Simple matter of special complexity

chapter 9|15 pages

Biological diversity

Bountiful Mother Nature

chapter 10|27 pages

Global climate change

Humanity’s supreme challenge

chapter 11|20 pages

Diplomacy and foreign trade

Weaving the web of international intercourse

chapter 12|15 pages

The military

Risk management-plus, not perversity

chapter 13|15 pages

Migration

When exit becomes exodus

chapter 14|19 pages

Sustainable development

Homo sapiens’ Holy Grail

chapter 15|13 pages

Risks, new departures, global solutions

Challenges of a complex frontier