Myanna Lahsen is a Danish-American Senior Associate Researcher in the Earth System Science Center of the Brazilian Institute for Space Research, based in Brazil. She is recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a U.S. EPA ”STAR” fellowship and three postdoctoral fellowships, one at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and two at Harvard University. She was also Lecturer for a course on Environmental Politics in Harvard University’s undergraduate Environmental Science and Public Policy program. A Cultural Anthropologist and STS scholar by training, she studies knowledge politics and socio-cultural dynamics related to science, development, global environmental change, and environmental sustainability. She has served on review panels at the U.S. National Science Foundation and as adviser to the United Nations on the science-policy interface around global sustainability issues. She is Executive Editor of both Environment Magazine: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and the Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge subdomain of Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIREs): Climate Change, and adviser to Nature Climate Change on social sciences. Selected for her promise as a leader in global environmental change research, she participated in the 2009-2011 Visioning Process that resulted in the redefinition of the international science agenda now represented by Future Earth. In 2014, she convened Future Earth’s Early Career Scientists Conference on Integrated Science in Vigoni Italy, responsible for defining its 5-day scientific program on Ecosystem Health, Human Wellbeing and a Green Economy for 40 participating early career scientists selected from around the world. She was PI on grant proposal selected for seed funds under the International Social Science Council/Future Earth's Transformation to Sustainability Program (2014-2015). Supervisors: George E. Marcus; James Faubion; Michael MJ Fischer; Sharon Traweek; Sheila Jasanoff
After decades of inadequate responses to scientists' warnings about global environmental threats,... more After decades of inadequate responses to scientists' warnings about global environmental threats, leading analysts of the science-policy interface are seeking an important shift of research focus. This switch is from continued modeling and diagnoses of biogeochemical conditions in favor of enhanced efforts to understand the many socio-political obstacles to achieving just transformations towards sustainability, and how to overcome them. We discuss why this shift continues to prove elusive. We argue that rarely analyzed mutually reinforcing power structures, interests, needs, and norms within the institutions of global environmental change science obstruct rethinking and reform. The blockage created by these countervailing forces are shielded from scrutiny and change through retreats behind shields of neutrality and objectivity, stoked and legitimated by fears of losing scientific authority. These responses are maladaptive, however, since transparency and reflexivity are essential for rethinking and reform, even in contexts marked by anti-environmentalism. We therefore urge greater openness, self-critique, and power-sharing across research communities, to create spaces and support for conversations, diverse knowledges, and decisions conducive to sustainability transformations.
Solar radiation management (SRM) technologies would reflect a small amount of incoming solar radi... more Solar radiation management (SRM) technologies would reflect a small amount of incoming solar radiation back into space before the radiation can warm the planet. Although SRM may emerge as a useful component of a global response to climate change, there is also good reason for caution. In June 2017, the Academic Working Group on Climate Engineering Governance released a policy report, "Governing Solar Radiation Management", which developed a set of objectives to govern SRM in the near-term future: (1) keep mitigation and adaptation first; (2) thoroughly and transparently evaluate risks, burdens, and benefits; (3) enable responsible knowledge creation; and (4) ensure robust governance before any consideration of deployment. To advance the governance objectives identified above, the working group developed twelve recommendations, grouped into three clusters: (1) create politically legitimate deliberative bodies; (2) leverage existing institutions; and (3) make research transparent and accountable. This communication discusses the rationale behind each cluster and elaborates on a subset of the recommendations from each cluster.
In a context of international scrutiny, important efforts are being made to preserve Brazil’s tro... more In a context of international scrutiny, important efforts are being made to preserve Brazil’s tropical forests. Meanwhile, the destruction of its Cerrado biome advances with increasing leaps but little controversy. Yet the damaging changes threaten life-supporting natural resources and ecosystem services that are vital for the majority of Brazilians, as well as for the continued viability of agriculture. This ancient region of considerable geological and cultural significance encapsulates all of the major environmental challenges to sustainability, and begs new responses from science and society. Fresh policies are needed to promote and integrate the importance of this biome for the nation. These include implementing systematic monitoring systems and improving the management of established ones, minimizing new clearing. Degraded areas must be restored to comply with existing Brazilian environmental laws and international commitments related to climate change, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development. Addressing the threats to this critically important yet neglected biome requires attention to structural governance problems, including improved education and involvement of stakeholders in key decision making about the region, as well as historically informed reexamination of the country’s economic development path.
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 2009
... S53.08 Media coverage of climate change in the US and Brazil: understanding convergences and ... more ... S53.08 Media coverage of climate change in the US and Brazil: understanding convergences and divergences in light of socio-political contexts and identifying policy implications MyannaLahsen Regional Office of the IGBP, National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Brazil ...
This month AN focuses on climate change research and policy, particularly how anthropologists con... more This month AN focuses on climate change research and policy, particularly how anthropologists contribute and might further contribute to them as they become increasingly visible in public discourse. Myanna Lahsen, the guest editor of this In Focus series, discusses what an ...
Ulrich Beck and other theorists of reflexive modernization are allies in the general pro-ject to ... more Ulrich Beck and other theorists of reflexive modernization are allies in the general pro-ject to reduce technocracy and elitism by rendering decision making more democratic and robust. However, this study of US climate politics reveals complexities and obsta-cles to the sort ...
In Brazil, Human Rights to Adequate Food was institutionalized in January 2010, incorporating ade... more In Brazil, Human Rights to Adequate Food was institutionalized in January 2010, incorporating adequate feed within the Citizens Social Rights as part of Brazilian Federal Constitution. Access to adequate food that guarantees and promotes such rights has been limited due to socioeconomic issues and environmental local and global changes. Expansion of cities in size and number, as well as population growth concentrated in urban areas might directly affect land availability for agriculture, reducing viable spaces near cities to produce fresh food in order to respond to the rise on demand for food by urban consumers. Vegetables are vital for a healthy human diet, and long market chains represent a damaging step between production and consumption, resulting in great losses due to high perishability, raising prices and difficulting access to food. Thus, the identification of near consumers areas suitable for vegetables´ production, can subsidize public policies and be part of adaptation m...
Contemporary societies are being transformed by growing preoccupation with global environmental r... more Contemporary societies are being transformed by growing preoccupation with global environmental risks.\\\[1\\\],\\\[2\\\] The scientific basis for worries about human-induced climate change has consolidated, but many dimensions and implications remain uncertain and imprecise. In this area of what has been called post-normal science, facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent.\\\[3\\\] Plurality is its essence, and meaning-making fills gaps left by uncertainties. Actors - scientists, decision-makers, industry representatives, and members of environmental groups and the general public - variously clash and converge in their attempts to shape how societies understand the threat and what should be done about it. Among those favoring preventive action, some downplay or deny the uncertainties. Others - often with important leadership and financing by vested interests - exaggerate the uncertainties, or define them and the sociopolitical and economic implicati...
Based on findings from ethnographic analysis of U.S. climate scientists, this article identifies ... more Based on findings from ethnographic analysis of U.S. climate scientists, this article identifies largely unrecognized sociocultural dimensions underpinning differences in scientists’ perceptions of anthropogenic climate change. It argues that culturally laden tensions among scientists have influenced some to engage with the antienvironmental movement and, as such, influence U.S. climate science politics. The tensions are rooted in broad-based and ongoing changes within U.S. science and society since the 1960s and propelled by specific scientific subgroups’ negative experiences of the rise of environmentalism and of climate modeling, in particular. Attending to these and other experience-based cultural dynamics can help refine cultural theory and enhance understanding of the deeper battles of meaning that propel climate science politics.
After decades of inadequate responses to scientists' warnings about global environmental threats,... more After decades of inadequate responses to scientists' warnings about global environmental threats, leading analysts of the science-policy interface are seeking an important shift of research focus. This switch is from continued modeling and diagnoses of biogeochemical conditions in favor of enhanced efforts to understand the many socio-political obstacles to achieving just transformations towards sustainability, and how to overcome them. We discuss why this shift continues to prove elusive. We argue that rarely analyzed mutually reinforcing power structures, interests, needs, and norms within the institutions of global environmental change science obstruct rethinking and reform. The blockage created by these countervailing forces are shielded from scrutiny and change through retreats behind shields of neutrality and objectivity, stoked and legitimated by fears of losing scientific authority. These responses are maladaptive, however, since transparency and reflexivity are essential for rethinking and reform, even in contexts marked by anti-environmentalism. We therefore urge greater openness, self-critique, and power-sharing across research communities, to create spaces and support for conversations, diverse knowledges, and decisions conducive to sustainability transformations.
Solar radiation management (SRM) technologies would reflect a small amount of incoming solar radi... more Solar radiation management (SRM) technologies would reflect a small amount of incoming solar radiation back into space before the radiation can warm the planet. Although SRM may emerge as a useful component of a global response to climate change, there is also good reason for caution. In June 2017, the Academic Working Group on Climate Engineering Governance released a policy report, "Governing Solar Radiation Management", which developed a set of objectives to govern SRM in the near-term future: (1) keep mitigation and adaptation first; (2) thoroughly and transparently evaluate risks, burdens, and benefits; (3) enable responsible knowledge creation; and (4) ensure robust governance before any consideration of deployment. To advance the governance objectives identified above, the working group developed twelve recommendations, grouped into three clusters: (1) create politically legitimate deliberative bodies; (2) leverage existing institutions; and (3) make research transparent and accountable. This communication discusses the rationale behind each cluster and elaborates on a subset of the recommendations from each cluster.
In a context of international scrutiny, important efforts are being made to preserve Brazil’s tro... more In a context of international scrutiny, important efforts are being made to preserve Brazil’s tropical forests. Meanwhile, the destruction of its Cerrado biome advances with increasing leaps but little controversy. Yet the damaging changes threaten life-supporting natural resources and ecosystem services that are vital for the majority of Brazilians, as well as for the continued viability of agriculture. This ancient region of considerable geological and cultural significance encapsulates all of the major environmental challenges to sustainability, and begs new responses from science and society. Fresh policies are needed to promote and integrate the importance of this biome for the nation. These include implementing systematic monitoring systems and improving the management of established ones, minimizing new clearing. Degraded areas must be restored to comply with existing Brazilian environmental laws and international commitments related to climate change, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development. Addressing the threats to this critically important yet neglected biome requires attention to structural governance problems, including improved education and involvement of stakeholders in key decision making about the region, as well as historically informed reexamination of the country’s economic development path.
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 2009
... S53.08 Media coverage of climate change in the US and Brazil: understanding convergences and ... more ... S53.08 Media coverage of climate change in the US and Brazil: understanding convergences and divergences in light of socio-political contexts and identifying policy implications MyannaLahsen Regional Office of the IGBP, National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Brazil ...
This month AN focuses on climate change research and policy, particularly how anthropologists con... more This month AN focuses on climate change research and policy, particularly how anthropologists contribute and might further contribute to them as they become increasingly visible in public discourse. Myanna Lahsen, the guest editor of this In Focus series, discusses what an ...
Ulrich Beck and other theorists of reflexive modernization are allies in the general pro-ject to ... more Ulrich Beck and other theorists of reflexive modernization are allies in the general pro-ject to reduce technocracy and elitism by rendering decision making more democratic and robust. However, this study of US climate politics reveals complexities and obsta-cles to the sort ...
In Brazil, Human Rights to Adequate Food was institutionalized in January 2010, incorporating ade... more In Brazil, Human Rights to Adequate Food was institutionalized in January 2010, incorporating adequate feed within the Citizens Social Rights as part of Brazilian Federal Constitution. Access to adequate food that guarantees and promotes such rights has been limited due to socioeconomic issues and environmental local and global changes. Expansion of cities in size and number, as well as population growth concentrated in urban areas might directly affect land availability for agriculture, reducing viable spaces near cities to produce fresh food in order to respond to the rise on demand for food by urban consumers. Vegetables are vital for a healthy human diet, and long market chains represent a damaging step between production and consumption, resulting in great losses due to high perishability, raising prices and difficulting access to food. Thus, the identification of near consumers areas suitable for vegetables´ production, can subsidize public policies and be part of adaptation m...
Contemporary societies are being transformed by growing preoccupation with global environmental r... more Contemporary societies are being transformed by growing preoccupation with global environmental risks.\\\[1\\\],\\\[2\\\] The scientific basis for worries about human-induced climate change has consolidated, but many dimensions and implications remain uncertain and imprecise. In this area of what has been called post-normal science, facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent.\\\[3\\\] Plurality is its essence, and meaning-making fills gaps left by uncertainties. Actors - scientists, decision-makers, industry representatives, and members of environmental groups and the general public - variously clash and converge in their attempts to shape how societies understand the threat and what should be done about it. Among those favoring preventive action, some downplay or deny the uncertainties. Others - often with important leadership and financing by vested interests - exaggerate the uncertainties, or define them and the sociopolitical and economic implicati...
Based on findings from ethnographic analysis of U.S. climate scientists, this article identifies ... more Based on findings from ethnographic analysis of U.S. climate scientists, this article identifies largely unrecognized sociocultural dimensions underpinning differences in scientists’ perceptions of anthropogenic climate change. It argues that culturally laden tensions among scientists have influenced some to engage with the antienvironmental movement and, as such, influence U.S. climate science politics. The tensions are rooted in broad-based and ongoing changes within U.S. science and society since the 1960s and propelled by specific scientific subgroups’ negative experiences of the rise of environmentalism and of climate modeling, in particular. Attending to these and other experience-based cultural dynamics can help refine cultural theory and enhance understanding of the deeper battles of meaning that propel climate science politics.
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