Christoph Görg

BOKU University | boku · Institute of Social Ecology Vienna

The bioeconomy seeks to replace fossil fuels with biomass in various products and industrial sectors. The dominant political bioeconomy project focuses on economic growth and aims to increase biomass demand in the EU. This can exacerbate global land use competition and pressures on ecosystems. However, this project does not consider reducing resour...

Die Klimakrise betrifft uns alle - Doch wie kann ein klimafreundliches Leben für alle erreicht werden? Zahlreiche wissenschaftliche Sachstandsberichte bestätigen schon lange den umfassenden Handlungsbedarf, um die Klimaziele zu erreichen. Dieser betrifft alle Lebensbereiche: von Arbeit und Pflege über Wohnen bis zu Mobilität, Ernährung und Freizei...

Zusammenfassung Die Einleitung gibt zuerst das Verständnis der zentralen Begriffe wieder (klimafreundliches Leben, Strukturen sowie Gestalten von Strukturen). Diese fungieren als Vermittler zwischen verschiedenen Milieus, Diskursen, Werthaltungen und Disziplinen. Weiters gibt die Einleitung einen Überblick über die Rolle unterschiedlicher gesellsch...

Zusammenfassung The technical summary is aimed at a professional audience and summarizes the most important findings of the report, but without going into all the details. Each chapter is summarized on approximately two pages. For the relevant statements, an evaluation with regard to agreement and literature basis is given. In contrast to the summa...

Zusammenfassung Die Gesellschaft-Natur-Perspektive beschäftigt sich mit historisch entstandenen, tiefenwirksamen Treibern der Klimakrise. Ihr Fokus liegt auf klimaschädlichen Merkmalen von Natur-Mensch-Beziehungen, die für die westliche Moderne typisch und auch in Österreich wirksam sind. Dazu zählen Wachstumszwang, Kapitalakkumulation, dualistisch...

Zusammenfassung The Summary for Policy Makers presents the main results in condensed form. The summary is the result of an internal coordination process and is therefore supported by all coordinating lead authors. For each statement, the relevant chapters and the correspondence and scope of the literature are indicated. Details on the statements ca...

Zusammenfassung Ziel des Teils ist die umfassende Diskussion von Strukturen in Österreich, die ein klimafreundliches Leben fördern oder behindern bzw. für den Aufbau klimafreundlicher Strukturen als relevant erachtet werden. Strukturen, die beispielsweise im Recht, im politischen System, in der Wirtschaft oder der Raumordnung verankert sind, wirken...

Zusammenfassung Die Zusammenfassung für Entscheidungstragende gibt die wesentlichen Ergebnisse in verdichteter Form wieder. Die Zusammenfassung ist das Ergebnis eines internen Abstimmungsprozess und wird daher von allen koordinierenden Leitautor_innen mitgetragen. Bei jeder Aussage sind die relevanten Kapiteln und die Übereinstimmung und der Umfang...

Zusammenfassung Die technische Zusammenfassung richtet sich an das Fachpublikum und fasst die wichtigsten Ergebnisse des Berichtes zusammen, ohne aber alle Details auszuführen. Jedes Kapitel wird auf ungefähr zwei Seiten zusammengefasst. Hierbei wird bei den relevanten Aussagen eine Bewertung mit Hinblick auf Übereinstimmung und Literaturbasis ange...

The notion of societal boundaries aims to enhance the debate on planetary boundaries. The focus is on capitalist societies as a heuristic for discussing the expansionary dynamics, power relations, and lock-ins of modern societies that impel highly unsustainable societal relations with nature. While formulating societal boundaries implies a controve...

The planetary boundaries concept has profoundly changed the vocabulary and representation of global environmental issues. The article starts by highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of planetary boundaries from a social science perspective. It is argued that the growth imperative of capitalist economies, as well as other particular characterist...

Widerstreitende Vorstellungen über die Bewältigungs- strategien der Klimakrise führen immer wieder zu Kontroversen. Fridays For Future verweist hörbar auf die Defizite klimapolitischen Handelns angesichts der gesetzten Klimaziele. Hinzu kommt eine das Zusammenleben strapazie- rende und polarisierende Pandemie, die aber gleichzeitig den vorstellbare...

Zusammenfassung Kapitel 24 ist die Einleitung zu Teil 5, der die Hintergrundbewertungen für Kapitel 2 liefert. Teil 5 nimmt eine detaillierte Bestandsaufnahme von Theorien vor, die in einem weiten Sinne Wandel untersuchen. In den darauffolgenden Kapiteln werden die Marktperspektive (Kapitel 25), die Innovationsperspektive (Kapitel 26), die Bereitst...

Zusammenfassung Kapitel 2 systematisiert entlang von vier Perspektiven in den Sozialwissenschaften weit verbreitete Theorien zur Analyse und Gestaltung von Strukturen klimafreundlichen Lebens. Das Kapitel möchte Leser_innen des Berichts bewusst machen, mit wie grundlegend unterschiedlichen Zugängen Forscher_innen Strukturen klimafreundlichen Lebens...

Die Zusammenfassung für Entscheidungstragende gibt die wesentlichen Ergebnisse in verdichteter Form wieder. Die Zusammenfassung ist das Ergebnis eines internen Abstimmungsprozess und wird daher von allen koordinierenden Leitautor_innen mitgetragen. Bei jeder Aussage sind die relevanten Kapiteln und die Übereinstimmung und der Umfang der Literatur a...

In der vorliegenden technischen Zusammenfassung werden die wesentlichen Aussagen der Kapitel des APCC SR Strukturen für ein klimafreundliches Leben zusammengefasst. Der Bericht bewertet auf Basis wissenschaftlicher Literatur unterschiedliche Ansätze zur Transformation von Strukturen, damit klimafreundliches Leben in Österreich dauerhaft möglich und...

Thus far, living in a climate-friendly way in Austria is difficult. In most areas of life, from work and housing to nutrition, mobility and leisure activities, existing structures promote climate-harmful behaviour and make climate-friendly living difficult (high agreement, strong literature base). {chap 3-9} The present report confirms the relevanc...

This technical summary provides an overview of the main statements of the APCC SR Structures for Climate-Friendly Living chapters. Based on scientific literature, the report assesses different approaches for transforming structures in order to make climate-friendly living in Austria possible and make it permanently and quickly the new status quo.

Physical components of societies like infrastructures need biophysical resources for their construction, maintenance and use. These components, analyzed as societies' material stocks, predefine energy and raw materials and provide societal services, necessary for their functioning and for social welfare. The nexus between stocks, the resource flows...

The planetary boundaries concept has profoundly changed the vocabulary and representation of global environmental issues. We bring a critical social science perspective to this framework through the notion of societal boundaries and aim to provide a more nuanced understanding of the social nature of thresholds. We start by highlighting the strength...

Climate policy integration (CPI) is regarded in the literature as key to combatting climate change. It has been critically discussed to what extent climate policy is integrated in different policy fields at the European and the national level. In this paper, we analyze the expectations toward CPI from the perspective of stakeholders focusing on two...

Despite considerable advancements over the last couple of years, research on the Anthropocene still faces at least two challenges: (1) integrating different approaches from natural, social and cultural sciences, and (2) clarifying the political relevance of this concept. To address these challenges, we propose an interdisciplinary approach from Soc...

Dieser Policy Brief wurde vom Forschungsprojekt „Reflexive Governance in a Changing Climate: How to Address Uncertainties in Transformation Strategies?“ (RefGovCC.AT) erstellt. Gefördert vom Österreichischen Klima- und Energiefonds.

The ecological crisis has intensified in many respects. Prominent proposals to deal with the crisis are discussed under the header ‘sustainability transformations’ or even ‘Great Transformation’. We argue that most contributions suffer from a narrow analytical approach to transformation ignoring the largely unsustainable dynamics of global capitali...

The concept of energy services is used in different contexts and scientific fields mainly to emphasize that it is the services provided by energy rather than energy carriers that people demand and that generate well-being. While the value of the concept is widely acknowledged, there are remarkable differences in how energy services are conceptualiz...

Scenario-based approaches provide decision makers with accessible storylines of potential future changes. The parameterisation of such storylines as input variables for integrated assessment models allows using models as a test bed for assessing the effects of alternative land use policy options in different scenarios. However, the potential of thi...

Progress towards the SDGs requires far-reaching changes in societies’ use of biophysical resources such as materials, energy or land. Current socio-metabolic research (SMR) traces flows of energy, materials or substances to capture resource use. SMR is also useful to analyze interdependencies (synergies or tradeoffs) between attempts at reaching sp...

Open access at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Martin_Schaedler/publication/330772906_Rice_Ecosystem_Services_in_South-East_Asia_The_LEGATO_Project_Its_Approaches_and_Main_Results_with_a_Focus_on_Biocontrol_Services/links/5c5befc445851582c3d45b99/Rice-Ecosystem-Services-in-South-East-Asia-The-LEGATO-Project-Its-Approaches-and-Main-Results-with...

The complex relationship between democracy and the ecological crisis in capitalist societies and the associated challenges for social-ecological transformations is addressed. Based on a review that differentiates four strands of literature dealing with the role of the environment and democratic politics, it is argued that, despite their differences...

In a cross-disciplinary project (LEGATO) combining inter- and transdisciplinary methods, we quantify the dependency of rice-dominated socio-ecological systems on ecosystem functions (ESF) and the ecosystem services (ESS) the integrated system provides. In the collaboration of a large team including geo- and bioscientists, economists, political and...

Editorial

In 1990 Austria has committed to the Kyoto-protocol and later to the Paris Agreement. Since then, it has de- veloped two climate strategies, has passed its first climate protection act, has adopted a strategy for adaptation to climate change and has implemented many new institutions, programmes and local to provincial climate change mitigation (CCM...

Download for free at: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/HFF4RwyR653QrzXs4p9c/full The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between scale and power in the context of scientific assessments. Scientific advisory boards and assessment processes strongly influence how the spatial dimensions of environmental problems are defined and thus how...

The concept of ecosystem services is widely used in the scientific literature and increasingly also in policy and practice. Nevertheless, operationalising the concept, i.e. putting it into practice, is still a challenge. We describe the approach of the EU-project OpenNESS (Operationalisation of Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital), which was cre...

Understanding uncertainties and risks can be considered to be the main motivation behind environmental scenario studies to assess potential economic, environmental, social or technical developments and their expected consequences for society and environment. The scenario study presented in this paper was designed to contribute to the question of ho...

Ecosystem services (ES) are defined as the interdependencies between society and nature. Despite several years of conceptual discussions, some challenges of the ES concept are far from being resolved. In particular, the usefulness of the concept for nature protection is questioned, and a strong critique is expressed concerning its contribution towa...

Transformation has become a major topic of sustainability research. This opens up new perspectives, but at the same time, runs the danger to convert into a new critical orthodoxy which narrows down analytical perspectives. Most research is committed towards a political-strategic approach towards transformation. This focus, however, clashes with ong...

Fundamental changes in the societal use of biophysical resources are required for a sustainability transformation. Current socioeconomic metabolism research traces flows of energy, materials or substances to capture resource use: input of raw materials or energy, their fate in production and consumption, and the discharge of wastes and emissions. T...

Human impacts on the Earth system mark the dawn of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. This claim has triggered a debate in science, media, and politics in which ‘humanity’ as a whole is commonly identified as the driving force of epochal environmental change. The historically and geographically specific expansion of capitalist society-nature...

The aim of this paper is to identify the role of conceptual frameworks in operationalising and mainstreaming the idea of ecosystem services. It builds on some initial discussions from IPBES, which suggested that conceptual frameworks could be used to: ‘simplify thinking’, ‘structure work’, ‘clarify issues’, and ‘provide a common reference point’. T...

We present options for a National Ecosystem Assessment in Germany (NEA-DE) that could inform decision-makers on the state and trends of ecosystems and ecosystem services. Characterizing a NEA-DE, we argue that its cross-sectoral, integrative approach would have the advantages of increased scientific understanding, addressing specific policy questio...

From a scientific perspective, in particular following the Working Group on the Anthropocene of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (WGA-ISC), the major challenge for determining the Anthropocene and its start is the search for a "golden spike". The WGA-ISC agreed on nuclear fallout from disasters. For a full understanding of the Anthropoc...

Science–policy-interfaces (SPIs) are expected to go beyond the linear model of scientific policy advice through creating spaces for exchange and dialogue between ‘policy’ and ‘knowledge’. Given that most environmental issues require inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, SPIs must take into account a variety of knowledge types, views and interest...

The absence of a good interface between scientific and other knowledge holders and decision-makers in the area of biodiversity and ecosystem services has been recognised for a long time. Despite recent advancements, e.g. with the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), challenges remain, particularly concerning th...

Mainstreaming the ecosystem services (ES) concept in EU policy-making, i.e., introducing it in a variety of policy fields, comes along with great expectations from practitioners, policy-makers, and scientists to improve environmental policy and halt the loss of biodiversity. While most environmental policies in- corporate ES-related governance tool...

For place-based approaches to sustainable land ecological and social context is addressed properly, the co-production of knowledge is a must, but not easy to achieve. It demands reconciling well-the implicit or explicit criteria of societal relevance. and represents a major challenge to project management. This paper presents some lessons learned f...

The management of biodiversity represents a research topic that needs to involve not only several (sub-) disciplines from the natural sciences but, in particular, also the social sciences and humanities. Furthermore, over the last couple of years, the need for the integration of other kinds of knowledge (experience based or indigenous knowledge) is...

This paper presents an analysis of a research project conducted by a network of environmental research institutes called Partnership for European Environmental Research (PEER). Our analysis constitutes a reflection on this research project based on a proposed ideal-typical transdisciplinary research process developed by Lang eta), (2012). The aim o...

This paper summarises discussions in a workshop entitled “exploring uncertainties in biodiversity science, policy and management”. It draws together experiences gained by scientists and scholars when encountering and coping with different types of uncertainty in their work in the field of biodiversity protection. The discussion covers all main phas...

The role and design of global expert organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) needs rethinking. Acknowledging that a one-size-fits-all model does not exist, we suggest a reflexive turn that implies treating the governance of expertise...

The role and design of global expert organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) or the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) needs rethinking. Acknowledging that a one-size-fits-all model does not exist, we suggest a reflexive turn that implies treating the governance of expertise...

Ecosystem services (ESS) are frequently described as nature’s free gift to humankind. However, the first step of ESS and benefit generation is recognising the usability of structures, processes and outputs of ecosystems. This use-value attribution transforms the ecosystem functions (ESF) into ecosystem service potentials (ESP). By investing physica...

Der Wert von Ökosystemen und ihr Beitrag zum menschlichen Wohlergehen werden weit über den Bereich des Umweltschutzes hinaus zunehmend diskutiert. Trotz einer wachsenden Zahl wissenschaftlicher Arbeiten liegt bisher jedoch kein umfassendes und integriertes Wissen zum Zustand und der Entwicklung von Ökosystemleistungen in Deutschland vor. Ziel der S...

Die Sondierungsstudie für ein Nationales Assessment von Ökosystemen und ihren Leistungen in für Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft in Deutschland (NEA-DE) untersucht, wie ein Assessment derart konzipiert und implementiert werden könnte, dass es möglichst effektiv und im Interesse seiner potenziellen Nutzer in Politik, Verwaltung, Wirtschaft und Gesellscha...

Bridges is the free, online magazine of the OSTA published by Office of Science & Technology Austria, located in Washington D.C.

The management of biodiversity represents a research topic that needs to involve not only several (sub-) disciplines from the natural sciences but, in particular, also the social sciences and humanities. Furthermore, over the last couple of years, the need for the integration of other kinds of knowledge (experience based or indigenous knowledge) is...

LEGATO stands for 'Land-use intensity and Ecological Engineering - Assessment Tools for risks and Opportunities in irrigated rice based production systems' and aims to advance long-term sustainable development of irrigated rice landscapes, against risks arising from multiple aspects of global change. The overall objective is the elaboration and tes...

Spatial planning is often affected by conflicting sectoral interests. Frequently, this results in unsustainable management practices. Integrating the concept of ecosystem services into planning and decision-making can facilitate communication among decision-makers from sectors like landscape and urban planning, agriculture or water management. The...

Scholarly debates on the relative (in-)effectiveness of global environmental governance increasingly focus on problems of cooperation across regime boundaries and on the missing knowledge base for such interlinkages. Global environmental change and related politics are increasingly seen as taking place in a complex field in which several ecological...

The concept of ecosystem services (ES) – broadly described as the contributions of ecosystems to human well-being – is increasingly integrated into current policy making. One example is the new EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020. However, results from an empirical study on the regional level in Saxony (Germany), Satakunta (Finland) and Silesia (Polan...

The concept of ecosystem services (ES) - broadly described as the contributions of ecosystems to human well-being - is increasingly being integrated into current policy-making. However, the results of a survey conducted among experts at regional level in Saxony (Germany), Satakunta (Finland) and Silesia (Poland) show that this integration faces som...

In den letzten Jahren ist eine erstaunliche (Re-)Politisierung des Klimawandels zu beobachten, die inzwischen auch die institutionellen Formen seiner politischen Bearbeitung erfasst hat. Spätestens seit den Auseinandersetzungen um die UN-Klimakonferenz 2009 in Kopenhagen und dem anschließenden mühsamen Verhandlungsprozess der UNFCCC ist eine „Krise...

Maps of ecosystem services are repeatedly mentioned in the ‘‘EU biodiversity strategy to 2020’’ as being necessary to achieve the goals of this strategy. On regional and landscape levels too, maps are more and more often suggested to be essential for proper management of ecosystems and their services. This paper presents results drawn from intervie...

Für Fragen des Umgangs mit der Natur oder zur Lösung spezifischer Umweltprobleme wird die Soziologie immer wichtiger. Da Umweltprobleme aus den Wechselwirkung zwischen Natur und Gesellschaft resultieren, können sie auch nur unter Berücksichtigung gesellschaftlicher Strukturen und kulturell verankerter Denk- und Verhaltensweisen verstanden und bearb...

The concept of ecosystem services (ES) is increasingly being used in environmental policy and decision making. We report here on the empirical results which emerged from stakeholder discussions within the PRESS (PEER Research on EcoSystem Services) project on certain unresolved challenges related to the use of the ES concept in decision making. The...

This Editorial presents the focus, scope and policies of the inaugural issue of Nature Conservation, a new open access, peer-reviewed journal bridging natural sciences, social sciences and hands-on applications in conservation management. The journal covers all aspects of nature conservation and aims particularly at facilitating better interaction...

IN THEIR POLICY FORUM “THE BIODIVERsity and ecosystem services science-policy interface” (4 March, p. 1139), C. Perrings et al. frame the new Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as a body responsible primarily for assessment. They consistently base their elaboration of the work of IPBES on the experiences of pa...

Der anthropogene Klimawandel ist ein gesellschaftliches Problem, das allein mit natur- und ingenieurwissenschaftlichen Modellen und Methoden nur unzureichend analysierbar ist. Um die Folgen des Klimawandels zu verstehen sowie wirksame und sozial gerechte Klimaschutz- und Anpassungsmaßnahmen entwickeln zu können, ist die sozialwissenschaftliche Fors...

  This article develops an understanding of the internationalization of the state which draws on materialist state theory, regulation theory and the scale debate in radical geography. It introduces the concept of “second-order condensations of societal relationships of forces” which aims at advancing Poulantzas’ state theoretical approach and apply...

After several years of consultations and negotiations, in the evening of June, 12th 2010 an international conference agreed on a new scientific advisory body for international biodiversity policy. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which shall be formally established by the UN General Assem...

In recognition of our inability to halt damaging ecosystem change (1–4), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was asked in December 2010 to convene a meeting “to determine modalities and institutional arrangements” of a new assessment body, akin to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to track causes and consequences of...

Climate change has become a highly politicised issue over the last couple of years. In particular adaptation to climate change raises fundamental conceptual challenges concerning the interplay of societal and biophysical processes. The paper discusses some of these challenges and introduces a theoretical concept able to improve our understanding of...

At first glance, the debate on the re-regulation of the world economy has little to do with ecological problems. At most, the cooperative forms of dealing with the ecological crisis serve as a source of hope for the development of new forms of regulation. It is hoped that what is effective in the "soft" conflict field of international environmental...

Adaptation to climate change raises fundamental challenges concerning the development of integrated adaptation strategies. In the presentation, four overarching challenges and how to respond to them will be elaborated in more detail: the integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation measures; the need to address the adaptation requirement...

Der kurze Frühling der Klimapolitik scheint sich schon wieder dem Ende zuzuneigen. Waren zunächst alle Beobachter davon überrascht worden, wie schnell das Thema Klimawandel nach der Publikation des „Stern-Reports“ (Stern 2007) sowie des letzten Sachstandsberichts des „Weltklimarates“ (IPCC 2007) die politische Agenda erreicht hatte,1 wird es nur we...

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