The Six Critical Determinants That May Act as Human Sustainability Boundaries on Climate Change Action

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript examines the critical determinants that can act as human sustainability boundaries, with a particular reference to climate change.

The manuscript provides a thought provoking line of reasoning and is generally well written, although it is rather long. A key issue demanding some further attention is the placement of the work to its landscape of peer literature in the introduction, and the establishment of contribution to that literature in the concluding section.

The manuscript does discuss sustainability literature in broad terms but it should more explicitly outline the comparable attempts that form its peer literature in the introduction, so that we have a benchmark for what is being suggested here.

Similarly, the concluding section will need to reflect on what has been achieved to progress the peer literature / what are the  key take home lessons and what the work entails for future research agenda.

 

Author Response

Referee 1

 

Thank you for the comments and suggestions. To complement the text of the paper as regards a review of the sustainability literature and the identification of what is new in the proposed approach we added new paragraphs in the Introduction and in the Conclusions. The main contribution presented in the paper is a methodology to address the role of inner life and inner transformations in sustainability science.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a rich, multifaceted, fascinating and ambitious article, which I strongly endorse for publication once some minor shortcomings and a few major conceptual/literature omissions are addressed.

The notion of "softening", as opposed to "hardening ", offers a useful conceptual tool to envisage new pathways to human survival.  I find the idea of "boundary hardness" to be innovative and inspiring across disciplines.

Likewise, the neurology-derived concept of "dopaminergic reward system" (DRS)  brings new lenses to an interdisciplinary understanding of the challenges at stake. All this seems to be pretty ambitious, but, I think fully worth pursuing.

One could eventually add that the very notion of "sustainability "as expressed, applied and envisioned in the 17 SDGs (sustainability development, goals) has itself been under serious scrutiny (see  'Environmental destruction not avoided with the Sustainable Development Goals', 2020) --  the 169 UN SDG should perhaps be clarified earlier . The very notion of "sustainability" is therefore becoming less and less realistic and not viable in a durable form.

One major critical point: I find Ripoll and others' idea that specific traits in human neurology or sociability prevent humans from achieving sustainable lifestyles to be, at least, debatable and, at worst, wrong. If the authors considers the rich variety of anthropological studies pointing to the existence of entirely sustainable lifestyles, the whole sentence should be rewritten.  

In other words, the most important missing point here is that there exist communities already living and acting within sustainable boundaries and that therefore do not contribute to the global devastation by transgressing vital planetary boundaries. These have been identified as "exemplary ethical communities" with a proven record of sustainability across generations, sometime dating back centuries or even millennia (see the article with the same title published in Sustainability 2021). EECs stand at the core of the very notion of the pluriverse as opposed to universe. This is particularly important considering the assertion that "incremental changes to “business as usual” are currently far from successful" (page 3).  How then are EECs related to human sustainability boundaries (HSBs) ?

Table 1. It is not clear, at least to me: how climate action relates strongly to time discounting, self interest and geostrategic relations?

Section 3.1 on the "dopaminergic reward system" is fascinating and brings a new dimension to the study of climate action.

Section 3.2 needs to flesh out out some clearer explanation of the concept of "time discounting "(TD).

I find the final part perhaps excessively ambitious: when introducing the notion of "international geopolitical and geostrategic relations (IGGR)" one should discuss the persisting relevance, importance, pervasiveness, and ubiquity of nationalism, whether in its open, aggressive forms, or in its more subliminal, hidden forms…- often as an unexpected consequence of the global spread of neoliberal globalisation (see "The ultimate challenge "Nationalities papers", 2020). Without a mention of the relationship between nationalism and climate change, I find this section underdeveloped and utterly simplified.  

More specific comments:
633  when you say: "the effectiveness of these agreements and protocols is limited partly because geopolitical and geostrategic national interests prevail over the need to reach agreed objectives".  By "national interests", do you mean governments and organisations moved and legitimated by nationalism? I think this should be the appropriate term in this context (see U.C. article above 2020)

635-639 As for the failure of the UNFCCC, “the accords that were reached have been poorly implemented, due to lack of adequate oversight mechanisms and penalties in cases of noncompliance".
This is a good observation, and could be implemented by including what precisely lies at the other end of the spectrum. Actually, if 'national interests' prevail over the need to reach agreed objectives, that is a clear indication that nationalism also prevails.    

647-9 "… using surveys from 26 countries,… most people have unconditional policy preferences and insist that their national policies should not depend on the climate policies of other countries". Again, as above, the authors conclude that “cooperation is unlikely to arise from the kinds of intrinsic trigger strategies that have received so much attention in the international relations literature”.  It wasn't only international relations that paid attention to this, but an entire current of studies developed since 2020 in the wake of the above indicated article. For instance, for an International studies perspective, see "From the Twenty Years’ Crisis to the climate crisis: Reconsidering Carr’s thoughts on nationalism and global reform"
https://doi.org/10.1177/17550882231168906. Check also the important concept of "survival cosmopolitanism "  

665 "It is argued that the implementation of SRM has the potential to reduce the climate injustice associated with the differentiated impacts of anthropogenic GHG emissions"
How? And what about trans-generational injustice?

 667 "Some of those that advocate the deployment of solar geoengineering… "
What is solar geoengineering in this context? Good literature review on geoengineering.

669 "Paris Agreement's temperature goal is unlikely to be met, given current trends and policies",
Again, it looks like nationalism is the main obstacle here and should therefore be mentioned straightforwardly (take notice of the above post-2020 works, more can be supplied).

In conclusion, this is a powerful article, rightly very ambitious in its goals, and is especially meaningful for those new streams of research (which I also indicated) that try to launch trans-disciplinary bridges to enrich human knowledge and transversal scholarly cooperation.

This article has probably gone through various rounds of revision and it is now mature enough to be published with the minor, but very important, revisions as I suggested.

Author Response

Referee 2

 

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. Regarding the comment that “The very notion of "sustainability" is therefore becoming less and less realistic and not viable in a durable form” we did not focus in the paper on the shortcomings of the sustainability concept. We assumed as a starting point the relevance of the SDG Agenda and their practical and operational importance in the world. We preferred to state that using the metrics of the SDGs unfortunately we are still far from achieving sustainability.

We have clarified our position regarding the point of view of Ripoll and others by introducing a few new paragraphs. We do not follow the argument that humans are prevented from reaching forms of sustainability.

We refer to the interesting concept of “exemplary ethical communities”, which were very likely examples where the HSBs were softened.

Regarding time discounting (TD) we note that the high human time discount rate means that we tend to value more the short term than the medium and long-term. This concept has been extensively analysed in previously published material as for instance Santos, 2021 and Santos et al., 2022. However, a new sentence was added in section 3.2 to better explain the concept in the context of climate change.

References to nationalism were added since this is an important manifestation of collective (national) self-interest (SIU) with a close connection with IGGR. In this context a specific reference to the work of Karkour was made, namely: “Geopolitics and nationalism have been leading most countries with large fossil fuel resources to satisfy economic self-interests in the short-term from their exploration instead of contributing to the global energy transition (Karkour, 2023). Moreover, fossil fuels still are an important geostrategic economic commodity.” We believe that these two sentences clarify why TD, SIU and IGGR are strong impediments for climate action. TD because of the large human time discount range, SIU because exploring and selling fossil fuels has a large utility and IGGR because fossil fuels play an important role in geopolitics and geostrategy.

We refer to solar geoengineering when presenting the IGGR HCD because the international governance of SRM is recognized as a critical aspect regarding its deployment. In particular, Biermann et al., 2022 expressed the opinion that “solar geoengineering at planetary scale is not governable in a globally inclusive and just manner within the current international political system”.

Regarding the question, “How? And what about trans-generational injustice?” we note that SRM has the potential to moderate considerably global warming so in this respect it addresses inter-generational injustice. The problem is that we are far from understanding in detail the side effects of SRM and their geographical distribution. In any case we are quoting the sentence:

"It is argued that the implementation of SRM has the potential to reduce the climate injustice associated with the differentiated impacts of anthropogenic GHG emissions"

that is published in reference 127 (Svoboda, T.; Irvine, P. J.; Callies, D.; Sugiyama, M. The Potential for Climate Engineering with Stratospheric Sulfate Aerosol Injections to Reduce Climate Injustice. J. Global Ethics 2019. doi: 10.1080/17449626.2018.1552180.) to emphasize the different opinions in this field at the present time.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The submitted manuscript is an indepth analysis of sustainability phenomenon. The authors develop a new evolutionary approach and methodology to explain the reasons why sustainability continues to be a difficult challenge for contemporary societies to adopt. The paper consists of four sections. The structure is fine for this type of paper. However, it were really good to add a very brief literature review that at least explains the next section because there the authors also refer to the pertinent literature. To this end, refer to works that elaborate on the taxonomy of sustainability. The authors must embed the analytical study into the literature. Otherwise, it is not clear whether the authors contribute to the extension of the frontiers of the state of the art. For the taxonomy of sustainability refer to  Confetto & Covucci (2021). Refer also to works that make use of game theory for the modeling of issues related to the sustainability of resource use and distribition. Especially, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41287-019-00221-7

 

Furthermore, I strongly recommend that the authors underline the contribution of the paper to the state of the art. In addition, shorten the Abstract and eliminate the general issues there (the first two sentences). The paper is full of typographical mistakes that have to be fixed prior to publication. Please elaborate on this grave issue prior to publication.

Author Response

Referee 3

 

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. The focus of the paper is on the inner world aspects that hinder the pursuit of sustainability. We think that the important questions regarding the sustainability of resource use and distribution could not be also addressed here.

Regarding the recommendation to “underline the contribution of the paper to the state of the art” we have further underlined our contribution by adding three new paragraphs in the Conclusions.

The abstract does not exceed the required number of words and we believe that we should start by mentioning the progress that has been made since 1972 in multilateral negotiations for sustainable development, especially in the context of the SDG of the UN 2030 Agenda and also the much greater global awareness of the need for action towards sustainability

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper introduces and explains six major factors (determinants) that are evlolutionary based. These six determinants are expected to act as sustainability boundaries in human commitment/action towards the environment and climate change.

Strengths:

- The paper is easy to read and well written.

- The figures and tables are complementary to the explanations provided.

Things to improve:

- The methodology is very weak. We did an in-depth analysis is not a methodology.

- What was the scope of the analysis? What sources were referred? What are actual research tools and techniques used in the methodology. The paper does say that a Delphi technique may have been followed but is out of the scope of the current study.

- Without any background and support for the six determinants on how they came about the rest of the paper falls flat.

Author Response

Referee 4

 

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. Regarding the point about the methodology we added new text that clarifies our line of reasoning to arrive at the six HCD that may act as HSB.

Science has successfully unravelled significant facets of the biological and social evolution of the Homo genus over the past 2.6 million years, leading to modern humans. Anthropology, has comprehensively investigated aspects of Homo sapiens, encompassing biology, evolutionary history, societal features, and cultural dynamics from ancient times to the present day. Thus we believe that a scientific methodology can also be constructed to address the human inner world aspects of sustainability.

The methodology used in the paper follows an inductive evolutionary approach based on in-depth analysis through biological, anthropological, sociological, psychological, economic, and political data sources and seeks to identify the smallest set of interacting and interdependent HCDs. This parsimony is defined by the condition that the HCD set is the minimum set capable of providing a complete and coherent explanation of why sustainability is currently proving to be an elusive objective.

The methodology used involved human evolution interpretation and self-knowledge and is based on the assumption that human self-knowledge develops and strengthens the inner resources needed to address sustainability challenges. Solving them requires transformations that are not only technological and political but also operate at the inner personal level.

When we mention that delphi approach involving a survey is outside the scope of this work we are not referring to the methodology used to identify and select the HCD. We are referring to an evaluation of the relative hardness of the HSB.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

N/A

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

N/A