Director INSIGHTS: A Message from Elena Irwin

Director INSIGHTS: A Message from Elena Irwin

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March 31, 2020

Cloistered in my upstairs office at home and feeling incredibly lucky to be able to work and live a relatively normal existence, I have been wondering what a post-COVID-19 outbreak world will look like. I’m sure you have been, too. We are living in the midst of a colossal disruption that not only is one of the largest public health threats we’ve faced as a nation but also is wreaking economic havoc, upending daily lives and transforming social norms. To what extent will we be able to “bounce back” and resume our normal lives? What will have to change as we adapt to the new realities of this world? What will the “new normal” be?  

As sustainability scientists and scholars, we are uniquely positioned to use our knowledge, modeling frameworks and interdisciplinary collaborations to contribute to a greater understanding of not just what might be the new normal but what should be the new normal as we seek to foster a more sustainable, resilient and equitable future.

In research-speak, we are witnessing a massive natural experiment with abrupt and largely unanticipated changes in public health, policies, individual behaviors, social interactions, economic activities, environmental impacts and more. No doubt many future dissertations and research articles will share keen insights about our vulnerabilities and resilience, how we responded and adapted to such changes, and the resulting health, social, economic, political and environmental impacts. 

But the questions before us now are more normative and fundamental in nature: How should we adapt now and in the future? What is the best approach for recovering from such a large economic and social disruption? What are the new ways of working and socializing to which we should aspire? How did we fail to protect the more vulnerable among us, and how can we do better by using this as an opportunity to create more just and equitable communities? What are the safeguards needed to protect against the next massive disruption — whether that’s another fast-moving global pandemic or the slow-moving devastation of climate change, with potentially even greater impacts? What are the hard choices we must make now to buttress ourselves for future unknown calamities?

These questions require a systems science to account for the many interdependencies of human and natural systems and a normative science to assess risks and trade-offs and guide policy decisions in a highly uncertain world.

This is well-known territory for those of us steeped in sustainability and resilience research. Questions of how we will “bounce back” strike a familiar refrain for resilience modelers examining factors that determine how fast a community recovers from an unexpected flood, forest fire or other natural disaster. Tracing the origin and spread of viruses is the focus of infectious disease scientists, ecologists, geographers and others who study the interactions among people, animals, plants and our environment. The understanding from social and behavioral scientists of how individual beliefs, perceptions and interactions influence our decision-making and judgment is critical. Projections of future scenarios that help assess policy options require the expertise of those who do predictive modeling and integrated assessment, including data scientists, physical and environmental scientists, and economists. Challenges of disease treatment, management and testing require technological innovations, for example by biomedical engineers and material scientists. Historians and sociologists can tell us how social divides and inequities exacerbate the consequences for all. Ethicists and policy scientists frame normative questions of human well-being and social choice. 

This system of systems problem requires the types of interdisciplinary frameworks, data analysis and modeling, and policy assessment that we collectively use in our research and teaching every day. Let’s see this not as a problem but as an opportunity and an obligation — an opening in our cloistered presence through which we reach out, join forces and help change our trajectory toward a more sustainable world.
The Sustainability Institute is looking for ideas. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me to share your thoughts about the research, teaching, and partnerships we can pursue to help define and shape a “new normal.” 

Elena Irwin, faculty director
Sustainability Institute
irwin.78@osu.edu
Twitter: @SustainablElena
 

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