On the Edge of Climate Change: In a Search of an Adequate Agent-Based Methodology to Model Environmental Dynamics

Author(s):  
Mariya Gubareva ◽  
Orlando Gomes
Keyword(s):  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5411
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Bloder ◽  
Georg Jäger

Traffic and transportation are main contributors to the global CO2 emissions and resulting climate change. Especially in urban areas, traffic flow is not optimal and thus offers possibilities to reduce emissions. The concept of a Green Wave, i.e., the coordinated switching of traffic lights in order to favor a single direction and reduce congestion, is often discussed as a simple mechanism to avoid breaking and accelerating, thereby reducing fuel consumption. On the other hand, making car use more attractive might also increase emissions. In this study, we use an agent-based model to investigate the benefit of a Green Wave in order to find out whether it can outweigh the effects of increased car use. We find that although the Green Wave has the potential to reduce emissions, there is also a high risk of heaving a net increase in emissions, depending on the specifics of the traffic system.


Author(s):  
Francesco Lamperti ◽  
Giovanni Dosi ◽  
Mauro Napoletano ◽  
Andrea Roventini ◽  
Alessandro Sapio

2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADAM DOUGLAS HENRY ◽  
ANDREAS EGELUND CHRISTENSEN ◽  
REBECCA HOFMANN ◽  
IVO STEIMANIS ◽  
BJÖRN VOLLAN

SUMMARYTime discounting – the degree to which individuals value current more than future resources – is an important component of natural resource conservation. As a response to climate change impacts in island communities, such as sea level rise, discounting the future can be a rational response due to increased stress on natural resources and uncertainty about whether future generations will have the same access to the same resources. By incorporating systematic responses of discount rates into models of resource conservation, realistic expectations of future human responses to climate change and associated resource stress may be developed. This paper illustrates the importance of time discounting through a theoretical agent-based model of resource use in island communities. A discount rate change can dramatically change projections about future migration and community-based conservation efforts. Our simulation results show that an increase in discount rates due to a credible information shock about future climate change impacts is likely to speed resource depletion. The negative impacts of climate change are therefore likely to be underestimated if changes in discount rates and emerging migration patterns are not taken into account.


2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Balbi ◽  
Carlo Giupponi

The integrated—environmental, economic and social—analysis of climate change calls for a paradigm shift as it is fundamentally a problem of complex, bottom-up and multi-agent human behaviour. There is a growing awareness that global environmental change dynamics and the related socio-economic implications involve a degree of complexity that requires an innovative modelling of combined social and ecological systems. Climate change policy can no longer be addressed separately from a broader context of adaptation and sustainability strategies. Past research on artificial intelligence and social simulation has developed a promising methodology. Literature on agent-based modelling (ABM) shows it’s potential to couple social and environmental models and incorporate the influence of micro-level decision making in the system dynamics and to study the emergence of collective responses to policies. However, there are few studies that concretely apply this methodology to the study of climate change related issues. The analysis in this paper supports the idea that today ABM is a consolidated interdisciplinary approach for the bottom-up exploration of climate policies, especially because it can take into account adaptive behaviour and heterogeneity of the system’s components.


2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 1071-1096 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Hovi ◽  
Detlef F. Sprinz ◽  
Håkon Sælen ◽  
Arild Underdal

Although the Paris Agreement arguably made some progress, interest in supplementary approaches to climate change co-operation persist. This article examines the conditions under which a climate club might emerge and grow. Using agent-based simulations, it shows that even with less than a handful of major actors as initial members, a club can eventually reduce global emissions effectively. To succeed, a club must be initiated by the ‘right’ constellation of enthusiastic actors, offer sufficiently large incentives for reluctant countries and be reasonably unconstrained by conflicts between members over issues beyond climate change. A climate club is particularly likely to persist and grow if initiated by the United States and the European Union. The combination of club-good benefits and conditional commitments can produce broad participation under many conditions.


2020 ◽  

Research on security-related aspects of climate change is an important element of climate change impact assessments. Hamburg has become a globally recognized center of pertinent analysis of the climate-conflict-nexus. The essays in this collection present a sample of the research conducted from 2009 to 2018 within an interdisciplinary cooperation of experts from Universität Hamburg and other institutions in Hamburg related to the research group “Climate Change and Security” (CLISEC). This collection of critical assessments covers a broad understanding of security, ranging from the question of climate change as a cause of violent conflict to conditions of human security in the Anthropocene. The in-depth analyses utilize a wide array of methodological approaches, from agent-based modeling to discourse analysis.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan-Philipp Fränken ◽  
Toby Pilditch

Investigating how echo chambers emerge in social networks is increasingly crucial, given their role in facilitating the retention of misinformation, inducing intolerance towards opposing views, and misleading public and political discourse (e.g., disbelief in climate change). Previously, the emergence of echo chambers has been attributed to psychological biases and inter-individual differences, requiring repeated interactions among network-users. In the present work we show that two core components of social networks—users self-select their networks, and information is shared laterally (i.e. peer-to-peer)—are causally sufficient to produce echo chambers. Crucially, we show that this requires neither special psychological explanation (e.g., bias or individual differences), nor repeated interactions—though these may be exacerbating factors. In fact, this effect is made increasingly worse the more generations of peer-to-peer transmissions it takes for information to permeate a network. This raises important questions for social network architects, if truly opposed to the increasing prevalence of deleterious societal trends that stem from echo chamber formation.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document