M Giampietro
Biographic Data
| ID | 2852 |
|---|---|
| NAME | M Giampietro |
| GIVEN NAMES | M |
| FAMILY NAME | Giampietro |
| SIGNATURE | GIAMPIETRO M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5569-7023 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 50 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 311 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 50 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
MuSiasem nexus analysis in post-industrial societies: Import dependence in Andorra
Thou shalt not take the name of bioeconomy in vain
In this paper, we show that the characteristics of complex adaptive systems support the original interpretation of the bioeconomy of Georgescu-Roegen: the current use of natural resources by industrialized societies is incompatible with the regeneration processes of ecological systems. Elaborating the concept of societal identity, using a biosemiotics reading of the social theory of Luhmann, we show that the current social identity is sustained b…
From input–output analysis to the quantification of metabolic patterns: David Pimentel’s contribution to the analysis of complex environmental problems
This paper revisits David Pimentel’s work on input–output analysis of agricultural production systems with the objective of demonstrating its (continued) relevance for the analysis of complex environmental issues. It is shown that his unique accounting procedure is grounded in complexity theory and that it effectively links expected relations over primary inputs and outputs exchanged with the ecosphere and secondary inputs and outputs exchanged w…
Uncomfortable knowledge in sustainability science: Essays in honor of David Pimentel (1925–2019)
Combining biosemiotics and post-normal science to study the formation and adaptation of the identity of modern society
This paper draws on biosemiotics to reflect on the role that scientific inquiry plays in generating (useful) inputs to the process of decision making. In particular, the social theory of Luhmann is used to postulate that the formation of society’s identity requires the effective integration of two interrelated processes: (1) self-organization, a biophysical process that requires guided interactions based on effective rules (physical or tangible p…
Advancing the understanding of forest conservation dynamics through livelihood and landscape change scenarios: A case study in Chiapas, Mexico
Forest conversion and conservation in rural settings are linked to both social and biophysical drivers. However, the joint analysis of these drivers presents methodological challenges. To address this problem, we propose a novel methodology to explore the relationship between livelihood heterogeneity and land use change at the community level. It combines the concept of archetype with the accounting scheme of MUlti-Scale Integrated Analysis of So…
Reflections on the popularity of the circular bioeconomy concept: The ontological crisis of sustainability science
I argue that the popularity of the circular bioeconomy concept in policy-making is symptomatic of a profound crisis in sustainability science, which is generated by the adoption of an obsolete scientific paradigm, i.e., obsolete ontologies used to describe our interaction with the external world. The result is a systemic lack of quality control on the science–policy interface. The growing awareness of a pending collapse of our life support system…
Implementing post-normal science with or for EU policy actors: Using quantitative story-telling
There is increasing recognition of the wicked nature of the intertwined climate, biodiversity and economic crises, and the need for adaptive, multi-scale approaches to understanding the complexity of both the problems and potential responses. Most science underpinning policy responses to sustainability issues, however, remains overtly apolitical and focussed on technical innovation; at odds with a critical body of literatures insisting on the rec…
Post-normal science in practice: Reflections from scientific experts working on the European agri-food policy nexus
Post-Normal Science (PNS) emphasises the need for scientists and policy-makers to iteratively co-analyse and learn together, as part of an extended peer community. However, the roles and implications for scientific experts when interacting with policy-makers are not well understood. Informed by insights from science and technology studies (STS) on modalities of interaction and the multiple potential roles of experts, we reflect on our experiences…
Knowledge claims in European Union energy policies: Unknown knowns and uncomfortable awareness
Despite the concerted efforts of the scientific community and politicians to contain greenhouse gas emissions, the CO2 level in the atmosphere continues to increase monotonically. This raises the question whether the scientific representations and related knowledge claims used to inform energy policy have been incomplete or incorrect. Are there alternative relevant knowledge claims that have been overlooked or ignored in the discussion of energy …
Why should the EU implement electric vehicles? Viewing the relationship between evidence and dominant policy solutions through the lens of complexity
The profile of time allocation in the metabolic pattern of society: An internal biophysical limit to economic growth
Why does the European Union produce biofuels? Examining consistency and plausibility in prevailing narratives with quantitative storytelling
This paper seeks to clarify the confusion created by the simultaneous use of non-equivalent policy discourses about biofuels within the EU and addresses the inconsistency between long-term goals and short-term targets. To this purpose, a novel approach, quantitative storytelling, is employed to examine the plausibility of current policy narratives. It confronts quantitative data on the production and use of biofuels at member-state (the Netherlan…
The technique is never neutral. How methodological choices condition the generation of narratives for sustainability
How to tackle uncertainties and ensure quality in integrated assessment for sustainability? To what extent does the choice of the methodology condition the narrative produced by the analysis? The present work argues that the two questions are tightly coupled. The technique is never neutral. If we are the tools of our tools, as suggested by Thoreau, then it can also be said that language is not only a vehicle for communication, it is the driver as…
From elite folk science to the policy legend of the circular economy
This paper explores the implications of the widespread success of the term circular economy in the institutional and public debate. The concept of circular economy in itself implies a logical contradiction: on the one hand, the concept acknowledges the dependence of the economy on biophysical flows; on the other hand, the proposed solution—a business model guaranteeing a full decoupling of the economy from natural resources—seemingly ignores that…
The international division of labor and embodied working time in trade for the US, the EU and China
Socio-technical discourses of European electricity decarbonization: Contesting narrative credibility and legitimacy with quantitative story-telling
This paper presents an innovative approach to the responsible use of quantitative analysis when dealing with the governance of sustainability. Rather than using complicated models which try to predict and control the future evolution of complex adaptive systems, quantitative story-telling is proposed to check, first of all, the plausibility of proposed policies. As a case study, we check the plausibility of ‘a radical decarbonization of the Europ…
The Hijacking of the Bioeconomy
On the Circular Bioeconomy and Decoupling: Implications for Sustainable Growth
What is wrong with evidence based policy, and how can it be improved
The present crisis of science’s governance, affecting science’s reproducibility, scientific peer review and science’s integrity, offers a chance to reconsider evidence based policy as it is being practiced at present. Current evidence based policy exercises entail forms of quantification – often in the form of risk analysis or cost benefit analyses – which aim to optimize one among a set of policy options corresponding to a generally single frami…
Understanding slums: Analysis of the metabolic pattern of the Vidigal favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Probing uncertainty levels of electrification in informal urban settlements: A case from South Africa
The Water Metabolism of Socio‐Ecological Systems: Reflections and a Conceptual Framework
Water accounting is an unresolved issue in metabolism studies. Through epistemological analysis, we show that the problem resides in the conceptualization of social metabolism. Social metabolism has its origins in the analysis of societal energetics, which has led to an exclusive focus on society and a representation based on linear throughputs at a single scale. Whereas fossil energy resources constitute a mere stock flow for society, water cons…
Land poverty and emerging ruralities in Cambodia: Insights from Kampot province
An assessment of the metabolic profile implied by agricultural change in two rural communities in the North of Argentina
What is wrong with evidence based policy, and how can it be improved
The present crisis of science’s governance, affecting science’s reproducibility, scientific peer review and science’s integrity, offers a chance to reconsider evidence based policy as it is being practiced at present. Current evidence based policy exercises entail forms of quantification – often in the form of risk analysis or cost benefit analyses – which aim to optimize one among a set of policy options corresponding to a generally single frami…
On the Circular Bioeconomy and Decoupling: Implications for Sustainable Growth
The Hijacking of the Bioeconomy
The technique is never neutral. How methodological choices condition the generation of narratives for sustainability
How to tackle uncertainties and ensure quality in integrated assessment for sustainability? To what extent does the choice of the methodology condition the narrative produced by the analysis? The present work argues that the two questions are tightly coupled. The technique is never neutral. If we are the tools of our tools, as suggested by Thoreau, then it can also be said that language is not only a vehicle for communication, it is the driver as…
From elite folk science to the policy legend of the circular economy
This paper explores the implications of the widespread success of the term circular economy in the institutional and public debate. The concept of circular economy in itself implies a logical contradiction: on the one hand, the concept acknowledges the dependence of the economy on biophysical flows; on the other hand, the proposed solution—a business model guaranteeing a full decoupling of the economy from natural resources—seemingly ignores that…
Using hierarchy theory to explore the concept of sustainable development
Self-sufficiency or surplus: Conflicting local and national rural development goals in Cambodia
The international division of labor and embodied working time in trade for the US, the EU and China
Why should the EU implement electric vehicles? Viewing the relationship between evidence and dominant policy solutions through the lens of complexity
Probing uncertainty levels of electrification in informal urban settlements: A case from South Africa
Why does the European Union produce biofuels? Examining consistency and plausibility in prevailing narratives with quantitative storytelling
This paper seeks to clarify the confusion created by the simultaneous use of non-equivalent policy discourses about biofuels within the EU and addresses the inconsistency between long-term goals and short-term targets. To this purpose, a novel approach, quantitative storytelling, is employed to examine the plausibility of current policy narratives. It confronts quantitative data on the production and use of biofuels at member-state (the Netherlan…
On China's exosomatic energy metabolism: An application of multi-scale integrated analysis of societal metabolism (MSIASM)
Multiple-Scale Integrated Assessment of Societal Metabolism: Introducing the Approach
An Optimum Population for North and Latin America
Reflections on the popularity of the circular bioeconomy concept: The ontological crisis of sustainability science
I argue that the popularity of the circular bioeconomy concept in policy-making is symptomatic of a profound crisis in sustainability science, which is generated by the adoption of an obsolete scientific paradigm, i.e., obsolete ontologies used to describe our interaction with the external world. The result is a systemic lack of quality control on the science–policy interface. The growing awareness of a pending collapse of our life support system…
Multiple-Scale Integrated Analysis of Farming Systems: The Thuong Lo Commune (Vietnamese Uplands) Case Study
Multiple-Scale Integrated Assessments of Societal Metabolism: Integrating Biophysical and Economic Representations Across Scales
The profile of time allocation in the metabolic pattern of society: An internal biophysical limit to economic growth
Socio-technical discourses of European electricity decarbonization: Contesting narrative credibility and legitimacy with quantitative story-telling
This paper presents an innovative approach to the responsible use of quantitative analysis when dealing with the governance of sustainability. Rather than using complicated models which try to predict and control the future evolution of complex adaptive systems, quantitative story-telling is proposed to check, first of all, the plausibility of proposed policies. As a case study, we check the plausibility of ‘a radical decarbonization of the Europ…
Sustainability, the New Challenge of Governance, and Post-Normal Science
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Another View of Development, Ecological Degradation, and North-South Trade
Based on N. Georgescu-Roegen's bioeconomic paradigm, this paper reconsiders the neoclassical economic paradigm which endorses continuous global economic growth through stimulated trade. We suggest that, in view of sustainability, it is fundamental to acknowledge: (1) the importance of preserving the identity and integrity of economic systems in different regions of the world through enlarging as much as possible self-sufficiency and equity assess…
Sustainable development: Scientific and ethical assessments
Limits to population size: Three scenarios of energy interaction between human society and ecosystem
Implementing post-normal science with or for EU policy actors: Using quantitative story-telling
There is increasing recognition of the wicked nature of the intertwined climate, biodiversity and economic crises, and the need for adaptive, multi-scale approaches to understanding the complexity of both the problems and potential responses. Most science underpinning policy responses to sustainability issues, however, remains overtly apolitical and focussed on technical innovation; at odds with a critical body of literatures insisting on the rec…
Knowledge claims in European Union energy policies: Unknown knowns and uncomfortable awareness
Despite the concerted efforts of the scientific community and politicians to contain greenhouse gas emissions, the CO2 level in the atmosphere continues to increase monotonically. This raises the question whether the scientific representations and related knowledge claims used to inform energy policy have been incomplete or incorrect. Are there alternative relevant knowledge claims that have been overlooked or ignored in the discussion of energy …
Energy efficiency: Assessing the interaction between humans and their environment
Energy efficiency and nutrition in societies based on human labor
Improving the conditions of poor traditional societies is a standard goal of development policies. The definition of ‘improvement’ requires a previous definition of values, that is to say, ‘better’ or ‘worse’ can change according to the parameters used to optimize the system. Different scientific disciplines generally focus on different levels of analysis: the individual, the socio‐economic, or the environmental level. Consequently, optimization …
Sustainable development: Scientific and ethical assessments
Limits to population size: Three scenarios of energy interaction between human society and ecosystem
Labor productivity: A biophysical definition and assessment
Using hierarchy theory to explore the concept of sustainable development
Georgescu-Roegen/Daly versus Solow/Stiglitz Revisited
An Optimum Population for North and Latin America
Another View of Development, Ecological Degradation, and North-South Trade
Based on N. Georgescu-Roegen's bioeconomic paradigm, this paper reconsiders the neoclassical economic paradigm which endorses continuous global economic growth through stimulated trade. We suggest that, in view of sustainability, it is fundamental to acknowledge: (1) the importance of preserving the identity and integrity of economic systems in different regions of the world through enlarging as much as possible self-sufficiency and equity assess…
Sustainability, the New Challenge of Governance, and Post-Normal Science
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Multiple-Scale Integrated Assessments of Societal Metabolism: Integrating Biophysical and Economic Representations Across Scales
Introduction to the Special Issues on Societal Metabolism: Blending New Insights from Complex System Thinking with Old Insights from Biophysical Analyses of the Economic Process
Multiple-Scale Integrated Assessment of Societal Metabolism: Introducing the Approach
Societal Metabolism and Multiple-Scale Integrated Assessment: Empirical Validation and Examples of Application
Multiple-Scale Integrated Assessment of Societal Metabolism: An Analytical Tool to Study Development and Sustainability
Multiple-Scale Integrated Analysis of Farming Systems: The Thuong Lo Commune (Vietnamese Uplands) Case Study
The Precautionary Principle and Ecological Hazards of Genetically Modified Organisms
This paper makes three points relevant to the application of the precautionary principle to the regulation of GMOs. i) The unavoidable arbitrariness in the application of the precautionary principle reflects a deeper epistemological problem affecting scientific analyses of sustainability. This requires understanding the difference between the concepts of “risk”, “uncertainty” and “ignorance”. ii) When dealing with evolutionary processes it is imp…
The Precautionary Principle and Ecological Hazards of Genetically Modified Organisms
This paper makes three points relevant to the application of the precautionary principle to the regulation of GMOs. i) The unavoidable arbitrariness in the application of the precautionary principle reflects a deeper epistemological problem affecting scientific analyses of sustainability. This requires understanding the difference between the concepts of "risk", "uncertainty" and "ignorance". ii) When dealing with evolutionary processes it is imp…
The epistemological challenge of self-modifying systems: Governance and sustainability in the post-normal science era
On China's exosomatic energy metabolism: An application of multi-scale integrated analysis of societal metabolism (MSIASM)
Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism (MuSiasem): Theoretical concepts and basic rationale
Dimensions and logarithmic function in economics: A short critical analysis
Response to “dimensions and logarithmic function in economics: A comment”
Self-sufficiency or surplus: Conflicting local and national rural development goals in Cambodia
Land poverty and emerging ruralities in Cambodia: Insights from Kampot province
Economics (38 works) · Political science (25 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Sustainability and Ecological Systems Analysis (20 works) · Ecology (18 works) · Geography (18 works) · Computer Science (17 works) · Sustainability (16 works) · Biology (15 works) · Global Energy and Sustainability Research (13 works)