7
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
2 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      The technosphere in Earth system analysis: a coevolutionary perspective

      Preprint

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Earth system analysis is the study of the joint dynamics of biogeophysical, social and technological processes on our planet. To advance our understanding of possible future development pathways and identify management options for navigating to safe operating spaces while avoiding undesirable domains, computer models of the Earth system are developed and applied. These models hardly represent dynamical properties of technological processes despite their great planetary-scale influence on the biogeophysical components of the Earth system and the associated risks for human societies posed, e.g., by climatic change or novel entities. In this contribution, we reflect on the technosphere from the perspective of Earth system analysis with a threefold focus on agency, networks and complex coevolutionary dynamics. First, we argue that Haff's conception of the technosphere takes an extreme position in implying a strongly constrained human agency in the Earth system. Assuming that the technosphere develops according to dynamics largely independently of human intentions, Haff's perspective appears incompatible with a humanistic view that underlies the sustainability discourse at large and, more specifically, current frameworks such as UN sustainable development goals and the safe and just operating space for humanity. Second, as an alternative to Haff's static three-stratum picture, we propose complex adaptive networks as a concept for describing the interplay of social agents and technospheric entities and their emergent dynamics for Earth system analysis. Third, we argue that following a coevolutionary approach in conceptualising and modelling technospheric dynamics, also including the socio-cultural and biophysical spheres of the Earth system, could resolve the apparent conflict between the discourses on sustainability and the technosphere.

          Related collections

          Most cited references8

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          ECONOMICS LANGUAGE AND ASSUMPTIONS: HOW THEORIES CAN BECOME SELF-FULFILLING.

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: not found
            • Article: not found

            The economy needs agent-based modelling.

              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: found
              Is Open Access

              Adaptive Coevolutionary Networks: A Review

              Adaptive networks appear in many biological applications. They combine topological evolution of the network with dynamics in the network nodes. Recently, the dynamics of adaptive networks has been investigated in a number of parallel studies from different fields, ranging from genomics to game theory. Here we review these recent developments and show that they can be viewed from a unique angle. We demonstrate that all these studies are characterized by common themes, most prominently: complex dynamics and robust topological self-organization based on simple local rules.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                2017-04-21
                Article
                10.1177/2053019616676608
                1704.06476
                8edbaab9-81e3-48cb-9298-53c31d5d526f

                http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

                History
                Custom metadata
                The Anthropocene Review 4(1), 23-33, 2017
                16 pages, 2 figures
                physics.soc-ph nlin.AO

                General physics,Nonlinear & Complex systems
                General physics, Nonlinear & Complex systems

                Comments

                Comment on this article