Bridging the disciplinary gap: Roles for individuals, professional societies, and social movements

Background/Question/Methods

During the 20^th century ecology developed in multiple dimensions to explore a wide range of interactions among organisms and between organisms and their physical environment. This inquiry convincingly demonstrated that people are inextricably embedded in this web of life, through both their effects on ecological processes and their dependence upon them. Impacts of people on nature have intensified enormously with increases in human population and technology, substantially altering the chemistry and biology of the planet and increasingly threatening the resilience of ecosystems and the well-being of society. In the 21^st century ecology must play a new and more proactive role, in collaboration with other disciplines and with practitioners, in shaping social-ecological change to foster a more sustainable trajectory for our planet. In this talk we present a strategy and provide examples of ways to move toward sustainability. We suggest how this effort can be partitioned (and linked) among individuals, professional societies, and social movements.

Results/Conclusions

(1) Individual scientists, including students, can foster sustainability through scientific discovery; collaborations within and across disciplines; and dialogue with other scientists, students, practitioners, and the public. These efforts will help us to better understand knowledge needs and how to meet them. (2) Scientific and professional societies have responsibilities to inspire and facilitate these types of activities of their members and to create new platforms for collaboration across disciplines and practices to broaden the context for knowledge and its application to societal problems. (3) Ultimately, society must create and respond to opportunities to enhance ecological sustainability and human well-being, by charting appropriate steps and fostering the personal and political will to take these steps. Progress towards sustainability requires more effective linkages across these three levels of organization: Individual ecologists can use their knowledge to foster ecosystem resilience and human well-being in ways consistent with their skills, interests, and passion, including solution-focused research, active participation and leadership in scientific societies, and/or engagement in societal issues. Scientific societies should play a leadership role in renewing the social contract between science and society by providing venues that foster interdisciplinary synthesis, knowledge application, and the communication of information needed by social movements for responsible political action. Social groups and movements have the responsibility to engage individual scientists and scientific and professional societies to recognize the potential consequences and feedbacks of the changes they advocate.