Effective strategies for multi-sectoral research using large-scale models

A talk given at the 2021 meeting of the International Symposium for Sustainble Systems and Technology.

Abstract

Large-scale integrated assessment models (IAMs) have become critical knowledge objects and tools for global-scope simulation of energy, economic, engineering, and environmental systems. IAMs are widely used in assessment of climate change mitigation (for instance, within the IPCC) and other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In order to sharpen the relevance of insights from large-scale modeling, researchers often link them into multi-model frameworks together with detailed sectoral (sub- …

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China to ban the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs)—Bloomberg

Bloomberg reports:

Xin Guobin, the vice minister of industry and information technology [MIIT], said the government is working with other regulators on a timetable to end production and sales [of fossil-fuel powered vehicles]. The move will have a profound impact on the environment and growth of China’s auto industry, Xin said at an auto forum in Tianjin on Saturday.

This is, no doubt, a major announcement. China is the world's largest market for light-duty vehicles (LDVs; cars and light trucks), so the impact will be greater than that of earlier statements from governments in the UK and France. On …

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The Colour of Television

A bright video screen shows images of blue sky on Tiananmen Square during a time of dangerous levels of air pollution, on January 23, 2013 in Beijing. (Feng Li/Getty Images) Source: Feng Li/Getty Images, via The Atlantic)

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

Neuromancer, opening lines.

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The air beyond the window touches each source of light with a faint hepatic corona, a tint of jaundice edging imperceptibly into brownish translucence. Fine dry flakes of fecal snow, billowing in from the sewage flats, have lodged in the lens of night.

Virtual Light, p.1.

William Gibson, one of my favourite authors and Canadian by choice to (a)boot, is sometimes referred to as a "noir prophet" for his work in the …

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