Narratives of the past for Future Earth: The historiography of global environmental change research

Science on the shoulders of giants

History is frequently used to legitimise new endeavours in societies (Jardine, 2000), and this undeniably holds true for environmental science and policy. For example, declarations from large environmental summits, such as the UN Conference on Sustainable Development of 2012 (Rio 2012+), underscore their political significance by situating themselves in a historical context of other important events (Linnér and Selin, 2013).

History is also used to promote and defend scientific organisations and practices by appealing to norms, interests, practicalities, epistemologies or success stories. Future Earth (2013: 5), the new international research platform on global environmental change, was launched at Rio 2012+ and highlights its background in ‘decades of research and collaboration’ and ‘important contribution[s]’ made by the World Climate Research Programme, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, Diversitas and the International Human Dimension Programme on Global Environmental Change. The historiography of these scientific programmes has received scant attention; yet, when we examine them more closely, they describe the ways in which the legitimisation of environmental change research has shifted over time, how it has influenced the organisation of research, and what implications this may have for environmental governance.

Scientific studies of global environmental change have grown immensely in scope and volume during recent decades (Figure 1), and more than 35% of the literature published in Scopus dates from 2010 or later. Historical analysis has covered much of the long-term trends in environmental science (Bowler, 1992), ecology (Worster, 1994), climate research (Weart, 2003) and Earth sciences (Oldroyd, 2006).

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Figure 1.

A growing literature related to global environmental change based on publications in Scopus, 1979–2013.

Parallel to this historiography constructed by environmental science historians, there is a history written by participating global environmental change researchers. This paper adds to previous analyses by looking at the historical narratives of participating scientists’ personal accounts and the official programme documents. Narratives are here understood to be the written or spoken accounts that connect events, actors and objects to meaningful trajectories though time (Jameson, 1986). These histories resonate the identities of the broad network of researchers, and motivate reorganisations of research for its members as well as funders and policy-makers.

The aim of this paper is to study the auto-historiography of global environmental change research; i.e. how researchers rationalise their research strategies through historical accounts of the background and development of their field. In this paper, the study of auto-historiography is a methodological approach with which to analyse meta-historical reflections and how processes, events and actors are made sense of in the internal context (Passerini and Geppert, 2001). Hence, we analyse these historical narratives through three research questions: (1) What processes and events are highlighted in the historical accounts of programmes and participating researchers? (2) What problems or opportunities were these processes and events in response to, according to this history writing? (3) What conclusions for research practice and organisation are drawn?

Biographies of scientists have been an important component in social studies of science as a means of discerning how the past is rationalised to legitimise current states of affairs and courses of action (Lindskov Hansen, 2007). They have primarily focused on the ‘strategic dimension’ of history writing. Interest in auto-historiography has grown in recent decades to also encapsulate the sense-making function of writing one’s own history. It recognises the contribution to understanding historical developments by also looking at the historical recollections of people who were a part of its processes. We argue that the study of auto-historiographies is a means of contextualising historical accounts and understanding their sense-making function. In the words of the famous historian Edward H Carr (2001: 40): ‘Before you study the history, study the historian’. Studying history writing of societal or institutional changes is an important part of analysing historical processes.

Consequently, we distinguish between two interacting objectives of studying auto-historiography: (1) their strategic function; (2) their sense-making function. Together they provide context from within, in contrast to secondary literature and other sources used to externally contextualise the history of science. Our paper acknowledges but doesn’t aspire to separate the sense-making and strategy functions but instead focuses on the context from within as an important component in understanding decisions in the design of research. We examine the change model of the texts; what problems are identified and what goals are sought, what is brought in, and whom by? What key events are brought into the history? Further, we study the action model, i.e. how the past is operationalised. What leverages set processes in motion, what key interventions have been made in the scientific processes; i.e. what was needed in terms of understanding, decisions, organisation and actions to influence the leverage? (Chen, 2005; Linnér et al., 2012).

The core empirical material in this study consists of accounts of the history of global change research related to the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and Future Earth between 1983 and 2013. The analysed auto-historiographies are delimited to the historical self-reflections found in programme publications, primarily project presentations and individual accounts published in scientific journals. The personal accounts are primarily used to further substantiate or nuance the narratives in programmatic publications.

Three publications have been particularly important for our study: the symposium report Global Change, edited by Thomas Malone and Juan Roederer (1985); Global Change and the Earth System – A Planet Under Pressure, edited by the IGBP’s executive director Will Steffen and ten other leading scientists of the IGBP, IHDP and WCRP (2004); the flagship report Future Earth Initial Design (Future Earth, 2013), which synthesises the first decade of internationally coordinated Earth System research.

Global environmental change research as history of science

To provide a relief to the auto-historiographies, this section presents major narratives in the development global environmental change research as outlined by historians of environmental science. The broader literature serves not as a benchmark for evaluating, but rather as a point of comparison to the participants’ narratives. Four strands in the literature on post-war science are presented as particularly important for the development of the Earth System concept: global natural resource management, technological innovation, big science and multidisciplinarity. All of these are interconnected and were influenced by strategies to support research for geopolitical strategies.

The auto-historiography of science organisation

In the first half of our studied time period (1983–2000), a narrative arranged around earlier successful scientific work dominated discussions regarding how to take the next step in research on global environmental change. The ICSU symposium on global change in 1984 played an important role in bringing diverse scientific disciplines together. In the 500-page report Global Change, 52 leading natural scientists discussed the viability of the prospective IGBP. In the preface, Thomas Malone, one of the initiators, condensed the background histories in the report (e.g. Friedman, 1985; Roederer, 1985) into four reasons for launching a major international endeavour for interdisciplinary cooperation; all four explicitly drew on developments in the recent history of science.

First, Malone argued that earlier successful approaches, such as the International Geophysical Year and the International Biological Program, had reached the limits of their effectiveness. Recent results had made it clear that further understanding required more in-depth studies of feedback mechanisms in other disciplines (Malone, 1985). The other three reasons correspond to what had been highlighted by big research programmes since the 1950s: (1) human impacts on the global environment; (2) the lack of food security for a rapidly growing world population and a need for concerted research action; (3) the opportunities provided by new technology to ‘complete the triad of theory, observation and data management’ (Malone, 1985: xv). Two years later, these four reasons guided the programme accepted for the IGBP (1986).

In the science history narrative of Earth System historiography, agency is placed in the hands of visionary and bold scientists, able to organise big scientific cooperation. Clothed in the language of exploration, the IGBP was presented as an opportunity for science and scientists to take the next step. With a rhetorically driven reference to Isaac Newton, Malone (1985: xix) situated his audience ‘on the shoulders of our predecessors – on the threshold of a revolution of historic proportions on human understanding’; in another statement, however, he implied a more fundamental break with previous scientific understanding: ‘We are apparently on the threshold of developing a new paradigm’ (Malone, 1985: xiii).

Similar references to the history of science narratives marked the keynote address at a human dimensions symposium in 1990. Here, Roberta Balstad Miller (1991) envisioned ‘rapid changes’ in the international coordination of social science. Social and scientific problems were described as integrated, and therefore new methods for interdisciplinary cooperation as needed. The narrative suggested the growing capabilities of computers as a leverage to foster global perspectives as well as firmer research cooperation. This forward-looking argument was combined with reflections on the century-old tradition of successfully studying environmental change (Price, 1991; see also, Price, 1990). Social scientists argued that their lack of coordinated inquiry, compared with the natural scientists, was a severe obstacle which could now be overcome using computers (HDP, 1990). Thus, the auto-historiographical narratives of both the IGBP and the HDP positioned potential global change scholars as the continuation of a lineage envisaged by decades of bold, trail-breaking researchers. This tradition was connected to the prospect of a lead role in the shaping of a better future due to improved organisational skills and the mastery of advanced technologies.

In this first period, auto-historical accounts of global change science also trace its origins far further back than recent decades. The history of research on human environmental impact is traced back to the American diplomat George Perkins Marsh and his efforts to quantify environmental degradation in the late-19th century (Price, 1990). The integration of Earth System science was argued to be the culmination of a conceptual way of thinking about the biosphere, initiated by the geologist Suess in 1875 (Malone, 1985: xiii; Steffen et al., 2011a). The longer history of science narrative also display an account of changes and agents, organised around a few far-sighted individuals.

The auto-histories supporting global change research convey an idealistic story of international science collaboration, devoid of political interest, with science bridging the geopolitical divisions of the Cold War (Fleagle, 1992). This can be contrasted with the professional historians of science who find close relations between geopolitical-strategy and Cold War rivalry to be an essential conditions for the development of these programmes (e.g. Doel, 2003; Linnér, 2003), Described as a way to leverage in the scientific success story, the ability to make use of new and advanced technology is presented as a key strength, particularly with regard to artefacts such as computers, satellites and data storage.

The design of the IGBP (1986: 9) outlines how the view from space was to be handled in computer simulation models in a way that would create a common lexicon for Earth System science and thus bring the research community together. The viability of this goal was underpinned by examples of the constant improvements of these technologies and their successful utilisation in global change research. The view from space was thus suggested as a means of facilitating a ‘quantum leap’ forward in human understanding of the environment (IGBP, 1986; see also HDP, 1990). Examples drawn from the past point to what could be achieved if new research programmes build on the technological pathways opened by the International Geophysical Year and its scientific descendants. In the early attempts to bring together a Human Dimensions Programme, which later added International to its title, this function of technology appears as a source of great but untapped potential. Harold Jacobson (1987) argued that this explained the marginal role of the social science community, as it did not yet know how to utilise successfully the tools used by the natural sciences.

When brought into the narrative, these events establish the importance of ‘big science’ when organised through international scientific cooperation. As a part of the planning process of the IGBP, Earth System science was posited as the logical continuation of earlier research programmes which, due to technological restrictions, could not provide the integration thought to be essential to an understanding of global change (IGBP, 1986: v). Here, huge international projects such as the International Geophysical Year and the International Biological Program provide important landmarks in the scientific landscape. ¹ Many key persons in the early IGBP had taken leading roles in some of these cooperative scientific ventures (Bolin, 2007). The quantity of results from the predecessors to the programmes, as well as their organisational quality, motivated and rationalised the beginning of a new and holistic project. The International Geophysical Year is hailed as a role model for scientific cooperation in many accounts, but is also considered to have required significant experience in order to carry out successfully; this is generally attributed to the ICSU (Friedman, 1985: 52; see also, Bolin, 2007; Greenaway, 1996).

The science history narrative found in the auto-histories at this time moved away from the organisation of science and towards conceptual thinking. The synthesis report Global Change and the Earth System, from the large global change conference held in Amsterdam in 2001, argues for current global change research as a critical step in the evolution of systems thinking, ecosystems in the 1930s, global biogeochemistry in the 1940s and general systems thinking in the 1970s (Steffen et al., 2004: 2). As later pointed out by Dahan (2010), Earth System science at this time also embraced systems complexity and non-linearity, which were state of the art in the 1990s. The synthesis strongly argued that ‘classical analytical science’, valuable as it might be, was not enough to solve contemporary problems in the global environment (Steffen et al., 2004: 2). In addition, this narrative builds on earlier scientific work in a more abstract way, primarily referring to better technology and the view from space. Here, only a few ‘founding fathers’ remained as a backdrop, while new technology was promoted as a leverage to explaining the shift towards an Earth System perspective.

Many documents studied from this period are joint publications of ecologists, geologists, social scientists (primarily geographers) and physicists (e.g. Steffen et al., 2004). Their problematisation of classical analytical science underpinned arguments that studies of the Earth as a system had to develop new modes of science in order to study an object described empirically as a complex, non-linear system, in which both biology and humanity had to be fully integrated (Moore et al., 2002; Steffen et al., 2004).

The Earth System history fosters integration and solutions

Around the year 2000 a new lead narrative emerged which we call Earth System history. At this time, the auto-histories become a narrative organised around the history, characteristics and possible futures of the global environment itself, rather than successful scientific work about it. An Earth System threatened by human activities became increasingly central to the discussions about how to develop global change research (Moore, 2000). The goal of providing knowledge for policy-making, expressed since the early 1980s, became all the more central to the Earth System field. Among other things, the four global environmental change programmes jointly established the Earth System Science Partnership to produce integrated decision support (Ignaciuk et al., 2012).

Discussions about the history of the Earth System and the global environment were not a novel idea in the year 2000, but how this history was talked about changed. The planning of the IGBP and the Human Dimensions Program acknowledged that the planet had to be understood as a system, and gave examples from past environmental events (Friedman, 1985; International Federation of Institutes for Advanced Study (IFIAS), 1987). In addition, long time series showing past global changes were important enough to motivate a core project in the IGBP (1986). However, the environment’s history was not at that time evoked as an important reason for moving into new scientific territories.

Human societies and their relation to a benign life-support system sets the scene in the opening of the report Global Change and the Earth System – A Planet Under Pressure. Here, Steffen et al. (2004: 1) state that ‘The interactions between environmental change and human societies have a long and complex history spanning many millennia’. In this narrative, humans were no longer an external stressor, but instead an internal component of the environment, as a global force equalling natural dynamics. This history starts with the Vostok ice-cores, which show the ‘natural’ co-variation of concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases. The characteristics of a non-linear Earth System, visible in the history of the global human–environment system, then supported arguments for suggested reforms of global change research. ‘Science is at the threshold of a potentially profound shift in the perception of the human–environment relationship, operating across humanity as a whole and at the scale of the Earth as a single system’ (Steffen et al., 2004: 3). The contrasts with Malone’s (1985: xix) statement, that we stand ‘on the shoulders of our predecessors – on the threshold of a revolution of historic proportions on human understanding’, which here exemplifies a shift; from science history to Earth System history.

The embedding of global environmental change research in this Earth System history is connected to three claims for the future development of global change research. First, our planet behaves as an integrated, complex system. In a popularised presentation, a condensed narrative of the long co-variation of carbon, methane and temperature found in the Vostok ice-cores provides the core logic behind a focus on a complex, integrated, Earth System. The authors state that ‘the understanding of the natural dynamics of the Earth System has advanced greatly’ due to a ‘significant increase in the ability to unravel the past’ (Steffen et al., 2001: 22). Even if references are still made to science history, this merely provides a context, and the organisation of this research or how it was performed plays no role. Instead, narratives about the Earth System’s history are utilised to motivate new modes of research. The complex behaviour of the human–environment system supports the claim that the simple equilibrium models, where humans impact on a pristine environment, cannot be expected to provide the knowledge needed to govern global change and thereby secure human wellbeing (Steffen et al., 2001). This increasingly historical description of the Earth System also motivated biophysicists in the IGBP and social scientists in the IHDP to initiate a new research project on the Integrated History and Future of People on Earth (Robin and Steffen, 2007).

Second, the Earth System narrative outlined above points to the necessity of studying interacting dynamics. Third, the growing body of knowledge derived from palaeo-sciences and archaeology makes it possible to calibrate and verify the results of simulation models, central to the decision-support systems which are envisaged as an outcome of the research (Steffen et al., 2001). A few years later, the history of a human–environment system plays an important role in motivating the new research design of the IGBP (2006) and the related socio-ecological systems of the IHDP (2007). Historicising and localising the Earth System allowed social scientists to assume a role in Earth System research through analyses of economy, technology and culture, which contributed by furthering understanding of how societal development interacts with global environmental changes (Global Land Project (GLP), 2005; IHDP, 2007).

An Anthropocene history toward co-production

From 2001 onwards, a greater emphasis was placed on utilising an Earth System perspective in the governance of water, food, carbon and health (ICSU and IGFA, 2008; Ingram et al., 2007). Strengthening this interdisciplinary and policy-oriented cooperation, the period 2008–2013 marked a third phase of reorganisation in the global environmental change research community. A purpose of the transition to the Future Earth programme was to go from understanding to producing science-based solutions (ICSU, 2010). The Anthropocene, geology of mankind as a proposed epoch with humans as a dominant geological force, provided the theme for these discussions (Steffen et al., 2011a).

In Future Earth’s (2013) Initial Design report, the history of the global environmental change programmes are related to a growing need for further integration so as to achieve and implement solutions to the issue of global sustainability. The report presents its three main research themes, ‘Dynamic Planet’, ‘Global Development’ and ‘Transitions Towards Sustainability’, and discusses the need for co-production and co-design in improving our understanding of how the planet works as an integrated system. These are argued to be ‘a key innovative aspect of Future Earth’ (p. 49) in bridging the gap between research, policy and practice by engaging with competent and representative stakeholders in a new social contract (p. 21). The auto-history of the transition team for Future Earth is arranged around narratives of mismanaged human–environmental systems and the increasing ability of social and natural scientists to cooperate for humanity to become an active steward of the global environment. In broader Anthropocene narratives, so central to Future Earth, Steffen et al. (2011a, 2011b) present conclusions drawn by earlier researchers but scientific events and process behind the results, previously so important, is absent.

The character of the Earth System’s history as full of surprises calls for quick responses and ‘active adaptive management’ as a governance ideal in order to secure and develop human wellbeing (Steffen et al., 2011a: 857). Scientific discussions about the interacting human–environment also show a growing interest in the history of collapsing societies (see, Costanza et al., 2007; Turner and Sabloff, 2012). A key argument which supports closer integration of researchers and policy-makers makes use of historical examples of disastrous results when human–environment systems are not managed based on proper scientific understanding. These scientific discussions of more recent Anthropocene history thus include a component of historical science–policy interaction, characterised by decision-makers being unable to comprehend and act on signals of changes in the human–environment system.

Mooney et al. (2013; see also, Ignaciuk et al., 2012) contextualise the cooperation between social and natural science communities which is required on the part of Future Earth. They describe the troubled start where IGBP was forced to exclude the social sciences so as to secure the integration of physics and biology. Increasingly, with IPCC assessments as leverage, the effects on human wellbeing forced cooperation to bridge this divide. Over time, social and natural scientists developed modes of cooperation and co-design. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is proposed as a showcase of this learning process, with its analytical framework developed as a joint effort by natural and social scientists (p. 8). However, as pointed out by the well-known participating ecological economist Richard Norgaard (2008), this analytical framework is far from a neat fit across ecology and social sciences. Social processes are discussed, but social science analysis is barely visible. The history of science narrative found in Future Earth documents tells a story of challenging but well-intended cooperation, seeking, if not always succeeding, to include new participants on equal terms. Here, then, the emphasis has been on cooperation between global change scientists and policy-makers. The auto-history of Future Earth points to the engagement since 1996 with new forms of co-production and co-design. The augmented attention on addressing policy-relevant questions requires integration of the natural and social sciences as well as policy-makers (Future Earth, 2013: 23).

Discussion and conclusions for a reflexive auto-history

As can be expected of narratives on research programmes, the overarching goal was to produce ever-improved knowledge to support the management of global environmental change. The narrative’s conclusion of what was necessary to advance knowledge production signifies the raison d’être of the programmes: integration of scientific disciplines and practices. The main problem description has been essentially stable, positing humans as a destructive agent changing the Earth’s fundamental functions. However, the narratives have changed in terms of problems, leverage to overcome them and what interventions have been necessary. Initially the primary leverage was sought in the prospects of technological development and possibilities for augmented natural science multidisciplinary collaboration through for example big science. Focus shifted toward the potential benefits of a system dynamics understanding of human impact, and, later, to a human development perspective enhancing the combined analysis and management of global environmental change. As such, it reflects the move towards human development in the UN’s sustainable development agenda, reflected in the Millennium Development Goals as an inspiration for the sustainable development goals, which is a result of the Rio+20 summit process (Linnér and Selin, 2013).

In the early period of global environmental change research, discussions on how to organise the research programmes were underpinned by history of science. The IGBP and HDP emerged as interventions to support the logical next step in a narrative where large and successful research projects had reached the limits of understanding within respective disciplines. Here, ‘big science’ utilising advanced technology was forwarded as the leverage for enhancing both the analysis of huge amounts of data and the integration of disciplines into predictive Earth System models. The strength of natural scientific disciplines made the IGBP the logical next step. In turn, this view reinforced disciplinary research as the basis on which the Earth System could emerge as a synthesis. Thus the history of science narrative supported an increased integration within, but not between, the natural and social science communities.

Around the turn of the millennium, discussions began on how to organise global environmental change research for the decade to come. The earlier history of science was downplayed in favour of an Earth System history approach, providing the primary motivation for further integration of social and natural science. This historical account enforced a new research design, where the strongly interacting biophysical and socio-economic components placed the ‘coupled human–environment system [as] the fundamental unit of study’ (IGBP, 2006: 14). Historical support for the new approach drew on concrete examples of past global change, displaying the characteristics of a non-linear system with abrupt changes and unexpected results. Hence, while the historical narrative of the 1980s underpinned research programmes based on existing scientific disciplines, the Earth System historical narrative opened for a reorganisation based on a systems perspective.

In the work towards a new, more integrated, research programme – Future Earth – a new Anthropocene history narrative emerges with two key enunciations. The first honed in on the evolution of cooperation between social and natural scientists. Thanks to scientific assessments such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the previously tense relationship gradually turned into a productive cooperation on more equal terms (Mooney et al., 2013). The second emphasised historical examples of mismanaged human–environmental systems to motivate research outlining and facilitating implementation of transformations toward sustainable societies. Drawing on these examples, it is not enough to understand the Earth System dynamics and planetary boundaries, the safeguarding of human wellbeing requires scientific knowledge about how to steer and implement paths to a sustainable future. The histories of mismanagement also show that the implementation of locally practicable and legitimate solutions requires a fostering of transparent co-designed and co-produced transdisciplinary research.

Science history written by Earth System and global environmental change researchers is rarely used as an object for critical reflection, but rather as a means of contextualising or legitimising a research endeavour. This limitation is visible in two missing elements in the narratives. First, the auto-attribution of agency; which groups in society are afforded the capacity to act, and in what ways? The historical narrative has placed scientists as having the ability to initiate and direct the work leading to sustainable development. This has changed with the co-production twist of the Anthropocene narrative where scientists, policy-makers and other stakeholders are seen as important actors in the pursuit of sustainable transitions.

In agreement with the present lack of progress in current environmental politics, most notably climate change, some researchers propose overhauling the current democratic world system based on sovereign countries (e.g. Biermann et al., 2012; Schellnhuber, 2013), even a moratorium on democracy in favour of an expert crisis management, guided by integrated scientific knowledge (e.g. Hickman, 2010). A historical account aiming to support an analysis of Earth System governance might also have looked at the earlier attempts of science-based governing of large-scale systems, such as the well-intended but failed scientific/bureaucratic management of fishing around Newfoundland up until the collapse in 1992 (Bavington, 2010).

Second, science policies, practices and funding are embedded in cultural values and power struggles. The close connections between scientific knowledge production and other social and political processes is a central topic in historical analysis, but seldom appears in the auto-histories. For instance, scientific practices have been involved in and fostered by colonialism (Agrawal, 2005), the Cold War (Doel, 2003), and the construction of global institutions (Linnér, 2003).

As Future Earth now opens to also include critical analysis from social science, reflexive analytical perspectives may be included in future auto-historical narratives of environmental change research. We believe that this would be a welcome contribution to the ambition of making environmental change research relevant and useful for democratic decision-making.