George Kling's Page
Email: gwk@umich.edu
Link to: Notes from Meeting with George Kling, Ben and Lesley
Hi Lesley and Ben (et al.) -- thanks for sending the notes of our meeting on the GC textbook. The meeting was useful for me, and I just want to emphasize one thing that we talked a little about. We discussed the "organizational diagram" or "conceptual diagram" or "guiding diagram" that had the scientific drivers, the societal choices, and the state of the world as the three main components. I understand why, as natural scientists, we are preoccupied with science as a powerful "driver" of what happens in the world and of how nature operates. However, I think that we need to shift away from this common bias if we are to really "make a difference" with this textbook in terms of bringing science back into the discussion of everyday life. There are two facts that we can probably all agree on -- first, humans have the ability to affect or alter all aspects of nature except for the most energetic processes occurring over short time scales (e.g., earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes), and second, humans commonly make decisions or choices that affect all aspects of society and nature without any regard to science (e.g., the current U.S. administration). In other words, humans have become the dominant drivers of global change, not science or scientific principles, and our guiding conceptual diagram needs to reflect that fact.
In terms of my contribution to the textbook, I will be happy to write the module on "Ecosystems and Element Cycles" (or whatever it needs to be called). This section would follow along closely with the lectures that I give in class, starting with (a) some basic concepts and terms needed to understand ecosystems, and followed by sections on (b) microbes as controllers and modifiers of element cycles, and (c) the global cycles of (i) water - perhaps illustrated with a case study worked out with Dave Allan and the water lectures he gives in GC2, (ii) nitrogen - illustrated with the case study of acid rain, and (iii) carbon - illustrated by focusing on recent changes in Earth's carbon cycle relating to greenhouse gases, and relating back to Tim's sections on paleo climate, etc. If anyone wants more detail on these sections, the outlines are provided and the text already written in my lecture notes on the web -- I will follow those notes for GC1 fairly closely.
In addition to the "ecosystems" section, I will need to work with Dave Allan on how we handle the "ecology" sections of the book. Right now I talk about energy flow through the food web (2 lectures), which fits well with Dave's lectures on organization of and ecological interactions in (like competition and predation) food webs.
Finally, I believe that my lecture on climate change in the Great Lakes Region could be included in the textbook as a case study. This lecture presents first the science and the predictions of future climate, second the impacts on ecosystems and ecosystem services, and third the responses and mitigation that are ongoing in the region or have the potential to be important in how society deals with our changing climate. Because this lecture is based on a report sponsored in part by the Union of Concerned Scientists, that organization has been very helpful in providing all kinds of supplementary information and we can probably use this information and their continued support of climate issues in the Great Lakes area to our advantage in the textbook and in the associated lab exercises. Now, because this case study deals with the full range of natural and social science as well as management, business, and societal response issues, it is unclear to me right now how this would fit with the other topics covered in the book. Perhaps, the way to think of this is that each of the authors can write their chapters making sure to include the principles involved in their topic or specialty, and then this Great Lakes case study can refer to those principles while describing how they are being applied (or not...) in our region. Well, just a thought, but it is clear that the inclusion and organization of topics in the book will be an iterative process.
George