Collective decision-making under uncertainty: Globalization, financial crisis, and the black swan

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Globalization, financial crisis, and the black swan

A post from Resilience Science by Don Ludwig.

"...it (globalization) creates interlocking fragility, while reducing volatility and giving the appearance of stability. In other words, it creates devastating Black Swans [events that are extremely rare and important]." As a result, "we will have fewer but more severe crises".

Invasive species break-outs are just one of many problems of this "interlocking fragility".

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My name is Shuang Liu and I work for CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences as a research scientist. Three key words that summarize my background are: problem-solving, the science-policy interface, and interdiciplinarity.

Trained as an ecological economist as a PhD student (Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Vermont), I take solving real-world problems as the ultimate goal of my research (and yes, they did tell me publication is also important). So I have been working at the science-policy interface (so far mostly in the areas of ecosystem services and biological invasions) with my knowledge and training in biology, ecology, economics, public participation, and group facilitation.

Looking into the future, what intrigues me most is how we make collective decisions under uncertainty. Just think about our experience so far with GMOs, biological invasions, and of course climate change... This blog records the journal of my research in this direction.