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Appendix D Fundamental Research Priorities to Improve the Understanding of Human Dimensions of Climate Change Paul C. Stern, National Research Council Thomas J. Wilbanks, Oak Ridge National Laboratory Note: The committee commissioned the following discussion paper from the staff and chair of the National Research Council Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change. Their views, as expressed below, may not always reflect the views of their committee, the Committee on Stra- tegic Advice on the U.S. Climate Change Research Program, or vice versa. INTRODUCTION The Assignment At the request of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), the National Research Council (NRC) has established a Committee on Strategic Advice on the U.S. Climate Change Sci- ence Program, charged with two tasks. Task 1 was to evaluate progress of the CCSP, and that report was completed in 2007 (NRC, 2007a). Task 2 is to provide advice to CCSP on future re- 167

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168 APPENDIX D search priorities, and the key step in this process will be a national workshop on “discovery science” in March 2008. One of the key findings of the Task 1 preliminary assessment was that “our understanding of the impact of climate changes on human well-being and vulnerabilities … is much less developed than our understanding of the natural climate system,” a conclu- sion that echoed findings of the earlier NRC review of the CCSP Draft Strategic Plan (NRC, 2004). For the March workshop, the Committee on Strategic Advice on the U.S. Climate Change Sci- ence Program commissioned two discussion papers on research priorities for climate change science. At least partly reflecting the finding from its first report, one of the papers is focused on underly- ing research priorities for human systems science, including the social sciences. The other is an equivalent summary of priorities related to the natural sciences. As initially articulated by Strategic Advice committee member Charles Kolstad, the assignment was to prepare a “paper on social science priorities” as an input to the workshop, identifying up to 10 top priorities and considering ways to increase the engagement of core disciplines as well as multidisciplinary researchers. Thus de- fined, the priorities were to be focused on relatively basic research rather than applied research. For the assignment, the Committee on Strategic Advice to the U.S. Climate Change Science Program enlisted the assistance of members of the NRC Committee on Hu- man Dimensions of Global Change (CHDGC), who discussed the assignment in detail at the November 2007 CHDGC meeting. The result was a draft paper—an informal communication from the staff director of CHDGC. The draft was discussed at the January meeting of the Strategic Advice committee, which asked that its scope be expanded to add an additional set of research priorities lying closer to the interests of mission agencies in the CCSP and comments on some imple- mentation issues. This paper is the result.

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APPENDIX D 169 The Terminology Following the usual practice of CHDGC reports, this paper uses the terms fundamental research and human dimensions rather than basic research and social science: Fundamental Research In conventional usage, basic research is motivated by intellec- tual curiosity and undertaken for the “pure” pursuit of knowledge, not for social aims. Most of the basic research in the social and be- havioral sciences is not motivated by climate concerns, and much of it has no obvious climate applications. Much the same may be true of basic research in chemistry or physics. A different kind of dis- covery science, equally concerned with advancing knowledge, derives its priorities from social needs and related programs (i.e., “purposive basic research”) and has been termed “fundamental” re- search (Shapley and Roy, 1985). The two kinds of research are virtually identical in how they proceed; where they differ is how research questions are developed. We believe that research advice to CCSP is more appropriately considered the latter. Human Dimensions Research Throughout its 19-year history, in its attention to climate change as a special case of global environmental change, the CHDGC has been concerned with human systems drivers of cli- mate change, human systems impacts of climate change, and human systems responses to concerns about or observed effects of climate change. These topics are grounded in the social, economic, and behavioral sciences but are not limited to these sciences. For example, driving forces include technologies, and so understanding them requires engineering expertise. Impacts include effects on hu- man health, food, and energy systems, and understanding the processes producing such impacts requires knowledge and exper- tise beyond the social sciences alone. From the inception of the CHDGC (see NRC, 1992), its reports, which reflect the views of many human dimensions researchers, have identified research pri-

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170 APPENDIX D orities for human dimensions of climate change and other kinds of global environmental change in terms of the ends of knowledge— what it is that requires understanding—rather than in terms of an arbitrarily constrained set of academic or disciplinary means for reaching the ends. In this paper, we have adopted an integrative ap- proach rather than a disciplinary approach, as in past NRC reports. Human Dimensions as a Distinct Interdisciplinary Field Many scientists who conduct fundamental research on human– environment interactions conceive of the area as a distinct interdis- ciplinary field or even a distinct discipline. Various names have been proposed for this field, including human ecology, human– environment science (Stern, 1993), and more recently sustainability science (NRC, 1999d) and coupled human and natural systems (e.g., Liu et al., 2007a, b). The pathbreaking NRC report, Our Common Journey (NRC, 1999d), has led to such significant steps as the estab- lishment of a new membership section in the National Academy of Sciences and the creation of a new section in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The editors of PNAS are actively promoting research in sustainability science and refer to it in the journal as a discipline. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has recently established a multidirectorate program on The Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems to support “quantitative, in- terdisciplinary analyses of relevant human and natural system processes and complex interactions among human and natural sys- tems at diverse scales.”1 A “Road Map” to This Paper The paper is in four parts. It first considers the broader histori- cal context within which priorities have been identified in the past and are identified here. Second, it identifies five substantive priori- ties for fundamental research and three crosscutting fundamental research issues, discusses criteria used to identify the priorities, and identifies the benefits that can result from the research. Third, 1 http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2006/nsf06587/nsf06587.htm.

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APPENDIX D 171 it identifies climate change research priorities focused on human dimensions that are somewhat less fundamental or more action oriented, and shows some of the linkages between fundamental research and these priorities. Fourth, it identifies critical con- straints on progress with these research topics, including but not limited to issues in relating to core disciplines, and offers some possible implementation strategies for overcoming these constraints. THE CONTEXT FOR PRIORITY SETTING There is a relatively rich history of efforts to set priorities for research on the human dimensions of climate change. These efforts provide a strong basis for identifying priorities, and this paper builds on that work. However, the history of responses to past pri- ority-setting exercises shows that careful priority setting alone has made little difference, either in the behavior of agencies that might fund the recommended research or in attracting increased interest from several of the core disciplines in the behavioral and social sciences. These observations suggest that getting research sup- ported and done requires more than identifying priorities. This issue is discussed below under “Critical Constraints.” History of Priority-Related Discussions For almost two decades, committees and panels of the NRC have considered priorities for research on the human dimensions of global environmental change and/or global sustainability. Multiple major studies have helped to provide intellectual foundations for the field, and many others identify research priorities for all or part of the field. Each of these studies involved the participation of large numbers of professionals and stakeholders and produced re- ports that were extensively reviewed by peers. Many of them also included workshops to engage a larger community than the com- mittee membership alone. The research recommendations from these studies provide a valuable base for this paper. An incomplete listing of these studies follows.

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172 APPENDIX D Publications primarily developing the intellectual basis for progress include: • The Drama of the Commons (NRC, 2002c) summarized knowl- edge on major questions about the design and operation of institutions for managing common-pool resources band set research directions for the future. • New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, In- formation, and Voluntary Measures (NRC, 2002b) summarized available knowledge and examined the potential for these measures as supplements to regulatory and economic policy instruments. • Making Climate Forecasts Matter (NRC, 1999b) developed a conceptual base and identified key scientific questions for analyzing the human consequences of seasonal-to-interannual climate variations (e.g., El Niño) and learning how make improved climate forecasting skill more useful. • Our Common Journey: A Transition Toward Sustainability (NRC, 1999d) drew on nearly 375 earlier NRC reports and many other sources to develop a conceptual framework and a set of re- search priorities for sustainability science. • People and Pixels: Linking Remote Sensing and Social Science (NRC, 1998) identified and discussed opportunities for using remotely sensed data in research on human–environment interactions and in social science, presented examples, and devel- oped a Web-based guide to information resources. • Environmentally Significant Consumption: Research Direc- tions (NRC, 1997) conceptualized the link between consumption and environment and identified and illustrated promising research possibili- ties on the causes of environmentally significant consumption. Publications primarily identifying research directions include: • Decision Making for the Environment (NRC, 2005a) iden- tified five areas of high-priority research that can contribute to improved decisions affecting environmental quality. • Population, Land Use, and Environment: Research Directions (NRC, 2005b) reviewed knowledge on interactions between demo-

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APPENDIX D 173 graphic and environmental changes mediated by land use and recom- mended research directions in this area. • Implementing Climate and Global Change Research (NRC, 2004) reviewed the strategic plan of the CCSP and identified areas needing additional research investment, including human dimensions, economics, adaptation, and mitigation. • Human Interactions with the Carbon Cycle: Summary of a Workshop (NRC, 2002a) reported on discussions of promising re- search issues linking social science and natural science analyses of the carbon cycle. • Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences (NRC, 2001) identified eight major scientific challenges, three of which promi- nently featured human systems. • Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change: Re- search Pathways for the Next Decade (NRC, 1999a) presented a state-of-the-field review and set of research imperatives. • Research Needs and Modes of Support for the Human Di- mensions of Global Change (NRC, 1994a) recommended that NSF support a collection of centers and research teams. • Science Priorities for the Human Dimensions of Global Change (NRC, 1994b) advised NSF on the creation of a policy science program to deal with global change issues. • Global Environmental Change: Understanding the Human Dimensions (NRC, 1992) helped define human dimensions research as a coherent intellectual enterprise and recommended a plan for na- tional research in the area. Since the publication of Our Common Journey (NRC, 1999d), further statements of the fundamental research needs and priorities in sustainability science have continued to appear (e.g., Kates et al., 2001; Clark and Dickson, 2003). Members of the NRC Round- table on Science and Technology for Sustainability and the Forum on Science and Innovation for Sustainable Development2 have been among the sources of research priorities (see also Swart et al., 2002, on critical challenges for sustainability science, and a special issue of PNAS, July 8, 2003, on science in support of sustainability). 2 http://sustainabilityscience.org.

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174 APPENDIX D History of Connections with Core Social Science Disciplines Challenges in connecting human–environmental research with core disciplines in the behavioral and social sciences have been an ongoing issue for CHDGC throughout its history, reflected in both committee member appointments and in meeting agendas. For in- stance, most recently in cooperation with the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate of the NSF, the CHDGC held a half- day symposium on April 25, 2007, on linking environmental research and the behavioral and social sciences. The initial question posed to symposium participants was: What are the core theoretical issues that would motivate social, behavioral, and economic research on environ- mental topics, resulting in improved understanding of environmental phenomena as well as contributions to the core social science fields? The symposium included committee members and staff, par- ticipants from federal agencies, and speakers with ties to six different social and behavioral science disciplines who spoke about developments in those disciplines: political science, sociology, econom- ics, psychology, anthropology, and geography. An underlying question from NSF was why so few social scientists submit proposals to cross- disciplinary programs related to human aspects of environmental issues. Particular problems are perceived in several social and be- havioral science disciplines in which academic reward systems emphasize contributions to established core subfields or theoretical debates rather than to fundamental understanding of societal problems. Disciplinary contributors noted significant obstacles in sociology, psychology, and political science and a split between “ecological” and “environmental” economics; environment is closer to the disciplinary core in anthropology and geography. In general, the discussion sug- gested that involvement by disciplinary social and behavioral scientists can be affected by the agendas and review practices of agencies such as NSF that provide major research support, especially to early-career scientists for whom an NSF grant can be an important career building block. NSF funding criteria and practices, includ- ing the composition of panels that review proposals, can help turn early-career scientists toward a focus either on established “core” disciplinary questions or on fundamental cross-disciplinary questions.

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APPENDIX D 175 History of Interest Among CCSP Mission Agencies Historically, except for NSF and a few other isolated programs (e.g., in the health sciences), CCSP agencies have not considered investments in fundamental human systems/human dimensions re- search to be a part of their mission. NSF has supported such research, though usually within broader programs (e.g., decision making under uncertainty and human and social dynamics) in which climate-related research competes with other research that is not motivated by the problems of climate change. In the other CCSP agencies, research that draws on the social sciences is mainly ad- dressed to fairly narrow applications of science to problem solving in such mission-defined fields as environmental regulation, coastal and water resource management, agricultural and forest resource management, and energy supply and use. These programs make use of human dimensions research knowledge and tools, such as envi- ronmental economics, but they seldom invest in improving the fundamental knowledge on which such applications stand. In fact, in most cases, the more fundamental a human dimensions research question sounds, the less likely it has been to attract interest from a CCSP agency other than NSF. In the federal environmental and energy mission agencies, none has more than limited expertise in a few fields of social sci- ence. Consequently, even if such agencies were to decide to support fundamental research on the human dimensions of issues within their purview, it would take them time to develop the staff expertise to set priorities, solicit research, set up review panels, and make full use of research results. This situation raises questions about the likelihood that the fundamental research priorities identified below will be considered relevant to CCSP agencies and program managers or, if they are considered relevant, whether they would be developed effectively. This issue is discussed in greater detail in the last section of this paper.

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176 APPENDIX D FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN DIMENSIONS RESEARCH PRIORITIES This section identifies five top substantive research priorities for fundamental research on human dimensions of climate change and three critical crosscutting research priorities. It then discusses how they were arrived at and likely benefits of investments in re- search on them. Substantive Research Priorities 1. Improving the understanding of environmentally significant consumption. For a decade or more, the human dimensions/sustainability science communities have been saying that the single biggest weak- ness in the knowledge base underlying responses to climate change is a lack of understanding about human consumption linked to re- source use (e.g., NRC, 1997, 1999a, 2005a; Kates, 2000). Research on environmental consumption aims to illuminate a fundamental human driver of climate change and to build understanding needed for effective mitigation responses. Part of the research agenda con- cerns understanding individual- and household-level behavior (e.g., what motivates consumption; links among economic con- sumption, resource consumption, and human well-being, including the potential to satisfy basic needs and other demands with signifi- cantly less resource consumption; and the responsiveness of consumption behavior to efforts to change it through information, persuasion, incentives, and regulations). Another part of the re- search agenda concerns decisions in business organizations that affect environmental resource consumption, whether by the or- ganizations themselves, by marketing to ultimate consumers, or through the structure of product and service chains. 2. Improving fundamental understanding of risk-related judgment and decision making under uncertainty. Human re- sponse to climate change depends fundamentally on judgment and decision making under uncertainty, and improved fundamental understanding of these processes continues to be central to the hu- man dimensions research agenda (e.g., NRC, 1992, 1999a, 2005a). Anticipating or guiding human systems responses to both per-

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APPENDIX D 177 ceived risks and opportunities related to climate change and its experienced and expected impacts requires a sophisticated under- standing of how people and organizations comprehend incomplete and uncertain scientific information and incorporate, ignore, or reinterpret it in decision making. The argument recently offered that advances in climate science are inherently incapable of doing much to improve the predictability of the probability of large tem- perature changes (Roe and Baker, 2007) helps to underline the need for increased scientific attention to understanding and im- proving human capacity to make wise decisions under significant and continuing uncertainty. The research agenda includes both at- tention to individual cognition and to risk judgments and decision making in groups, organizations, and social institutions. 3. Improving the understanding of how social institutions affect resource use. This topic was identified as one of eight grand challenges in environmental science (NRC, 2001) and has been repeatedly identified as a top-priority area of human dimensions research (e.g., NRC, 1999a; 2005a). The challenge is to understand how human use of natural resources is shaped by “markets, gov- ernments, international treaties, and formal and informal sets of institutions that are established to govern resource extraction, waste disposal, and other environmentally important activities” (NRC, 2001:4). Institutions create contexts and rules that shape the human activities that drive climate change and that shape the real- istic possibilities for mitigation and adaptation. The research agenda includes documenting the institutions shaping these activi- ties from local to global levels, understanding the conditions under which the institutions can effectively advance mitigation and adap- tation goals, and improving the understanding of conditions for institutional innovation and change. This area has a long history in human dimensions research (see NRC, 2002c), and a relatively good scientific infrastructure, but the research questions still re- quire considerably expanded efforts. For example, as noted in a recent special section of PNAS (Ostrom et al., 2007), many policy analysts still believe, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, that global environmental problems can be solved by a single gov- ernance system such as privatization, government control, or community control. Fundamental research on resource institutions

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TABLE D.1 Relationship Between Fundamental Research Priorities and Focused Research Needs 192 APPENDIX D

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APPENDIX D 193 Given increasing demand in recent years for human dimen- sions knowledge to inform responses to climate change, we believe that a level of support beyond 5 percent of the total program could be justified today. Determining how much of an increase can be effectively absorbed by the research community, and how fast, will require more careful analysis of capabilities than is possible with available information. Because of the longstanding underfunding of human dimen- sions research, we do not think that expanded development of the above priority areas can be achieved by reallocating funds from other areas of human dimensions research that are already well developed. If funding for climate change research continues to be flat, we think these priorities can only be developed by reallocating funds from well-developed areas of natural systems research. The needed reallocation may be small, however, because human sys- tems research is typically far less expensive than natural systems research. 2. Data needs and limitations. As mentioned previously, the shortage of human systems data in forms useful for analysis of human dimensions issues has been discussed in a number of NRC reports (e.g., NRC, 1992, 1999a, 2005a). There is a particular need for time-series data regarding human pressures on the global envi- ronment, such as data on land cover and land use, extraction of natural resources from ecosystems, energy consumption and pol- lutant emissions from various sources and sectors, human attitudes, valuations, and responses. There is a similar need for data on hu- man consequences of and responses to global environmental change, such as morbidity and mortality data related to air and wa- ter quality and vulnerabilities to climate-related extreme events. A major constraint on progress in modeling and understanding hu- man–climate interactions is the lack of reliable, linked databases tracking human activities and the natural systems they change and that in turn affect them. The NRC recommended in 1992 that the first steps include efforts to identify major data needs, inventory available datasets from public and private sources, and assess what would be needed to (a) link existing human and environmental datasets and (b) fill critical gaps in existing data bases. At that time, it recommended that an extra $2 million to $4 million per

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194 APPENDIX D year be devoted to data acquisition and dissemination. Subsequent NRC reports (NRC, 1999c, 2005a) have expanded on these rec- ommendations to identify types of indicators that should be developed to improve understanding of human interactions with the global environment. The most recent NRC review of the CCSP (NRC, 2007a:79) noted an institutional difficulty related to the data needs: “[T]he need to collect social, economic, and health data to address the human dimensions aspects of the program adds an additional level of complexity because these data are outside the purview of agencies traditionally associated with climate meas- urements.” We do not think it is an exaggeration to say that in most of the CCSP agencies, the concept of observations does not include observations of human activities or human conditions. A comprehensive approach to addressing the data constraint would be a major effort to develop linked data on social and environ- mental phenomena in time series, across space, and at multiple analytical levels. A human dimensions observational system would complement the natural science observational systems that are so central to the CCSP. Such an effort, in addition to its value for re- search, could provide new opportunities for social science research that would attract early-career and established researchers from the disciplines into global change research and thus expand the pool of strong researchers in the area. This approach also could help en- courage agencies to support fundamental human dimensions research by demonstrating the mission relevance of research using social science concepts and variables. 3. Connections with the basic social and behavioral sciences. As already noted, fundamental human dimensions research pursues questions driven by concerns with problems of climate change rather than issues arising from the social science disciplines. There are connections between the two, but they are not always obvious to researchers in the disciplines. Moreover, the relevance of discipli- nary concepts to climate problems does not always seem the same from a disciplinary standpoint as from a climate problem perspec- tive. For example, household energy consumption is an important contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, but understanding it requires concepts from multiple disciplines. Efforts to explain it only in terms of environmental attitudes (psychology), social position

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APPENDIX D 195 (sociology), or household income (economics) are likely to seem naïve or seriously incomplete to scientists who take a broader view of the climate problem. The problem of linking the disciplines to climate questions is in part one of developing theory and method. Issues such as environmental consumption, land-use change, and valuation of environmental resources, among others, do not yield easily to discipline-specific concepts, theories, or methods. Argua- bly, multidisciplinary approaches are more likely to yield useful tools for answering questions about human–climate interactions. The roles of disciplinary tools must be worked out over time in re- search teams and the wider community. Without sufficient support for such teams to work together over time, progress will be restrained. The problem is also one of human resource development. Sci- entists with a strong social science disciplinary background have a learning curve to traverse before they can make serious contribu- tions to understanding the climate problem. In our view, so far the CCSP as a program has not made efforts to speed this learning, for example, by supporting interdisciplinary graduate training pro- grams in climate science that encourage social scientists to apply. More could be done to draw social scientists to climate change research, particularly at the predoctoral and early career stages, as noted in past NRC reviews. The 1992 NRC review devoted a chap- ter to human resource and organization issues and offered several recommendations for addressing the problem, including the crea- tion of a transportable 5-year package of dissertation, postdoctoral, and research support. This idea was echoed in a proposal voiced at the CHDGC’s 2007 workshop on linking environmental research and the social and behavioral sciences. The idea would be to facili- tate career advancement for social scientists working in a field outside the core of their disciplines, which could help build the community of researchers and might strengthen interdisciplinary institutions working on climate change. As the most recent NRC (2007a:92) review noted, “The natural sciences may offer a suc- cessful model for building human dimensions capacity, especially programs to move young investigators into the arena and to sup- port postdocs.” 4. Organizational barriers in the federal government. The 1992 NRC review concluded that there was “an almost complete

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196 APPENDIX D mismatch between the roster of agencies that support research on global change and the roster of agencies with strong capabilities in social science” (NRC, 1992:10). As already noted, NSF is essen- tially the only CCSP agency in which fundamental research in the human systems sciences is considered part of the agency’s mission. Climate change, however, is not central to the NSF mission. CCSP agencies with climate missions seem ready to recognize fundamen- tal natural systems research related to climate change as falling within their missions, but much less ready to accord the same recog- nition to human systems research. Some of these agencies support human dimensions research in particular applied areas, some of it quite valuable to the CCSP, but in our view these efforts have done little to build the kinds of fundamental knowledge prioritized earlier in this paper. The CCSP and its agencies could show leadership in addressing this challenge by supporting fundamental research on the human-system components of climate change. The 1992 study proposed that federal agencies that support ba- sic natural science research on global change, but only applied social science, expand their support to include fundamental social science research related to specific global change topics of interest to them. This is one approach to overcoming organizational barri- ers in the agencies. Subsequent NRC reports have noted the lack of a programwide office with significant budgetary authority. Organ- izational barriers might be addressed in part by endowing the program office with sufficient authority and staffing to develop the human interactions program element centrally. These constraints have all been present for a long time, and the research community has been aware of them for a long time. All of them were identified in the first NRC (1992) review of human di- mensions in the U.S. Global Research Program. Not since that review has any NRC group attempted to define in any detail im- plementation strategies for overcoming them. The 1992 review, particularly Chapter 6 on data needs, Chapter 7 on human re- sources and organizational structures, and Chapter 8 on the structure of a national research program, still offers the most com- prehensive analysis available for developing recommendations for implementing an effective human dimensions element in the CCSP. However, it requires updating to take into account progress

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APPENDIX D 197 since then in supplying human dimensions knowledge and a major increase in demand for it, occasioned by greatly increased accep- tance of the need for science to understand the human consequences of climate change and to inform decisions on how to respond to the associated risks and opportunities. Responding to these constraints also requires attention to the history of the program’s responses since 1990 to NRC recom- mendations to expand human dimensions research. This history suggests to us that some of the organizational barriers in the CCSP and its participating agencies are strongly entrenched. We there- fore suggest that the Strategic Advice Committee give serious attention to ways to overcome organizational barriers, so that its priorities for human systems research will stand a better chance of implementation than the recommendations of past NRC study committees. We suggest that the committee consider such recom- mendations as (a) reconsidering the purposes of the program at a time when the national concern has broadened from documenting and attributing climate change to informing responses to it, (b) un- dertaking new commitments at the program level, (c) making organizational changes in the climate programs of CCSP mission agencies, and (d) hiring staff in the program office and some of the agencies with the expertise and authority required to organize the needed research. SUMMARY Reviews of the CCSP and the previous Global Change Re- search Program have repeatedly found significant underinvestment in research on the human systems and their interactions with cli- mate. Drawing on these reviews and recent discussions at meetings of the NRC Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change, this paper identifies five substantive research priorities for developing the human systems side of climate science: research on environmentally significant consumption, judgment and decision making under uncertainty, institutions and climate change, tech- nological change, and valuation of climate change and human responses. Three crosscutting science priorities are also critical:

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198 APPENDIX D developing human systems observations, indicators, and metrics and linking them to natural systems data; understanding nonlin- earities and complexities in system response; and understanding scale dependencies and interactions. The paper also identifies six priorities for research that is more action-oriented in the near term than the fundamental research that is suggested. For any of these priorities to be implemented, four critical constraints on scientific progress require attention: limited levels of support, data gaps, lim- ited capability for multidisciplinary environmental research among researchers with social and behavioral science expertise, and per- haps most critical, organizational barriers to human dimensions research in federal agencies responsible for climate change sci- ence. The paper briefly discusses implementation issues related to overcoming these constraints. REFERENCES Adger, W.N., S. Agrawala, M.M.Q. Mirza, C. Conde, K. O’Brien, J. Pulhin, R. Pulwarty, B. Smit, and K. Takahashi, 2007, As- sessment of adaptation practices, options, constraints and capacity, in Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, M.L. Parry, O.F. Canziani, J.P. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden, and C.E. Hanson, eds., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 717–743. Blasing, T.J., C.T. Broniak, and G. Marland, 2004, Estimates of annual fossil-fuel CO2 emitted for each state in the U.S.A. and the District of Columbia for each year from 1960 through 2001, in Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge Na- tional Laboratory, available at http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/ trends/emis_mon/stateemis/emis_state.htm. Brooks, N., and W.N. Adger, 2005, Assessing and enhancing adap- tive capacity, in Adaptation Policy Frameworks for Climate Change, B. Lim, E. Spanger-Siegfried, I. Burton, E.L. Malone, and S. Huq, eds., Cambridge University Press, New York, pp. 165–182.

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200 APPENDIX D NRC, 1990, Research Strategies for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 294 pp. NRC, 1992, Global Environmental Change: Understanding the Hu- man Dimensions, P.C. Stern, O.R. Young, and D. Druckman, eds., National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 320 pp. NRC, 1994a, Research Needs and Modes of Support for the Hu- man Dimensions of Global Change, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. NRC, 1994b, Science Priorities for the Human Dimensions of Global Change, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 44 pp. NRC, 1996, Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a De- mocratic Society, P.C. Stern and H.V. Fineberg, eds., National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 264 pp. NRC, 1997, Environmentally Significant Consumption: Research Directions, P.C. Stern, T. Dietz, V.W. Ruttan, R.H. Socolow, and J.L. Sweeney, eds., National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 152 pp. NRC, 1998, People and Pixels: Linking Remote Sensing and Social Science, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 256 pp. NRC, 1999a, Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 100 pp. NRC, 1999b, Making Climate Forecasts Matter, P.C. Stern and W.E. Easterling, eds., National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 192 pp. NRC, 1999c, Nature’s Numbers: Expanding the National Economic Accounts to Include the Environment, W.D. Nordhaus and E.C. Kokkelenberg, eds., National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 262 pp. NRC, 1999d, Our Common Journey: A Transition Toward Sustain- ability, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 384 pp. NRC, 2001, Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 106 pp. NRC, 2002a, Human Interactions with the Carbon Cycle: Summary of a Workshop, P.C. Stern, ed., National Academy Press, Wash- ington, D.C., 50 pp.

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