The meeting “Gap in dealing with wicked legacies” is a follow up of the June workshop “Eternity Costs and Wicked Legacies”, organized by Verena Winiwarter. The meeting takes place at room E05 at the Hub.
The goal of the workshop is to bring complexity science expertise into the ongoing research question on how to deal with wicked environmental legacies in regard to multiple questions, such as:
- How to model the problem so that the effects of legacies and counter measures can be simulated? (For instance, through models that describe the complex interactions between a toxic substance and an ecosystem; or a model that describes, which kind of effects forms of human intervention would have on legacies in a given environmental and political situation).
- How to communicate the severity and scale of the problem? (For instance, which types of models would serve the purpose of reaching [and moving] an intended audience?)
In both cases, the science of environmental history, in particular on wicked legacies, lies at the foundation of the problem, and the efficient and effective communication of the topic, in particular through visualization, is the top layer / the interface / to the public or policy makers.
We see complexity science as the missing link between the foundation and the communication interface. As such, the goal of the workshop is to close the gap between these two factors.