The focus of the Expertise for the Future project is the development of environmental prediction, and the reception of predictions optimistic and pessimistic since the sixteenth century, ranging from personal observation to interpretation of longitudinal data trends (prices, demographic data, and meteorological records) and the increased importance of statistical modelling. This project is coordinated by Libby Robin, Paul Warde (UK) and Sverker Sörlin (Sweden). See: http://www-histecon.kings.cam.ac.uk/ees/expertise_future.html

The Future of Nature: Documents of Global Change

Libby Robin, Sverker Sörlin, and Paul Warde, eds. (Yale University Press, Paper ISBN: 978-0-300-18461-7, October 2013) This anthology provides a comprehensive overview of the science behind environmental prediction and how, as predictions about environmental change have been taken more seriously and widely, they have affected politics, policy, and public perception. Through an array of texts and commentaries that examine the themes of progress, population, environment, biodiversity, and sustainability from a fully global perspective, it shows how twenty-first century predictors think about what forecasting the future means. Providing access and reference points to the origins and development of key disciplines and methods, it will encourage policy makers, professionals, and students to reflect on the roots of their own theories and practices. Future of Nature order form

Review

Read a review of The Future of Nature in H-Net by Fredrik Albritton-Jonsson (University of Chicago).   Researchers: Libby Robin, Paul Warde (UK) and Sverker Sörlin (Sweden).

Workshop 4, Stockholm

The fourth and final Workshop in the series was held at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden on 1 December 2010. Read the meeting minutes (PDF).