３４１：「世界観」という視点

環境経済学という分野があって日本では確か早稲田大学に有名な中堅研究者がおられる。沖大幹さんのような方だ。

国際的にはエコロジー経済学の論文集もあり下記の論文要旨もその最新号である。世界観という言葉が目新しい。

価値、知識、世界観、そして開発シナリオを結び付ける評価理論だそうだ。それによって持続的開発を概念化するらしい。トンカチ土木屋には難しい。

臨機応変な水資源管理の方が分かりやすいが、その目標となる持続的な開発が分からないと方向性を失いかねない。

下記論文を早速読んでみた（基本的には有料だが、あるサイトからは無料でゲットできる）が簡単には理解できない。まだまだ修行が足りないね。

'Worldviews' provide basis for sustainable development

A recent study describes a multi-disciplinary approach to identify the best policy options for sustainable development, based on individual and collective 'worldviews'. The method can produce sustainability assessments of any social or ecological system or country.

Hundreds of definitions of 'sustainable development' have been given; this study focuses on the concept of 'quality of life' for humans both here and elsewhere, now and in the future, i.e. continuing and developing a desirable quality of life. Originally, sustainable development was conceived of in physical terms, by setting an ecological or environmental target. However, economic and social dimensions have now also been brought to the forefront.

Sustainability science thus brings great challenges in linking social sciences with natural sciences (such as biology or chemistry), which need to be brought together in a meaningful way to understand the relationship between natural, physical resources and people's behaviour and experience of well-being. The study describes a methodology for this developed by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), which uses analytical and participatory tools to construct models of sustainable development.

Since groups of people hold different values and beliefs about the best way society can sustain quality of life, the first step is to analyse their value orientations and their interpretation of sustainability problems, i.e. their beliefs. This study finds different tendencies, for example, preferences for progress over conservatism, freedom versus order, individual versus collective behaviour or market forces over government legislation. The idea of quality of life is strongly linked to such values and interpretations.

These worldviews are then used to create sustainable development scenarios. The outcomes of these scenarios can be investigated in terms of risks and opportunities and positive and negative impacts. This allows policy options to be identified which are robust under several worldviews.

However, the relationship between individual worldviews and a population's individual and collective behaviour is complex. Although values are not a predictor of behaviour, they do offer insights into motivations for choices, such as mode of transport.

In the Netherlands, the method was used as part of the 'First Sustainability Outlook' to explore policy options for transport, energy and food. In the case of transport, it led to the conclusion that a mix of market-based and regulatory instruments are needed to reduce congestion and environmental problems. In the case of food, the method highlighted large tensions, for example, between global concerns surrounding poverty and biodiversity, and more local concerns about water and soil pollution.

The researchers believe that identifying worldviews provides a more cohesive approach to sustainable development and increases the effectiveness and legitimacy of policies in three ways: by supporting strategic decision making or identifying tensions; by enabling the pros and cons of a chosen scenario to be worked out; and by assessing the ease of implementation of agreed goals such as the EU's targets for climate change.

Source: de Vries, B.J.M. and Petersen, A.C. (2009). Conceptualizing sustainable development: An assessment methodology connecting values, knowledge, worldviews and scenarios. Ecological Economics. 68 (4): 1006-1019.

興味のある方は読んでみてください。有料か無料かは検索の腕次第です。別の例だが、執筆者にメールしてPDFで送ってもらう方法もあります。兎に角手に入れる執念と熱意が必要です。