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Summarization: Sustainable decision-making involves political decisions at the local, regional, or national levels, which aim at a balanced development of socio–environmental systems. A fundamental question in sustainable decision-making is that of defining and measuring sustainable development. Many methods have been proposed to assess sustainability. Recently, a model has been developed, called Sustainability Assessment by Fuzzy Evaluation (SAFE), which uses fuzzy logic reasoning and basic indicators of environmental integrity, economic efficiency, and social welfare, and derives measures of human (HUMS), ecological (ECOS), and overall sustainability (OSUS). In this article, we perform sensitivity analysis of the SAFE model to identify the most important factors contributing to sustainable development. About 80 different indicators are tested and classified as promoting, impeding, or having no effect on the progress toward sustainable development. The proposed method is applied to the Greek and American economies. The conclusion is that there is no unique sustainable path and, accordingly, policy makers should choose different criteria and strategies to make efficient sustainable decisions for each country. ; Παρουσιάστηκε στο: Ecological Economics

Summarization: This paper proposes a framework towards a universal definition of recyclability of materials using fuzzy logic. Recyclability is defined from a global perspective by aggregating the technology and economics of the recycling processes, legislative support for recycling, quality of recycled materials, and environmental impact of waste. These principal factors have indicators of their own and are computed via fuzzy logic. Recyclability is assessed qualitatively using linguistic "if-then" rules and quantitatively on a 0 to 1 scale for a number of materials of high economic and industrial importance. A sensitivity analysis with respect to indicators reveals the most important factors that affect recycling of a given material. Resource economists could set priorities for critical indicators to increase the recyclability of materials according to the sensitivity analysis ; Παρουσιάστηκε στο: 14th IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems

Summarization: Sustainable development is a process associated with social, economic, and environmental decisions. First one has to define and assess sustainable development and then devise decision-making mechanisms. We have a model called SAFE (Sustainability Assessment by Fuzzy Evaluation) which uses data about environmental integrity, economic efficiency and social welfare, and then processes them via fuzzy logic to derive measures of human, ecological, and overall sustainability. A sensitivity analysis identifies the factors affecting sustainability. About eighty indicators are thus tested and classified according to sensitivity as promoting, impeding, or having no effect on sustainability. The method could become a useful tool to politicians and decision makers as they strive towards sustainability. The model is applied to the Greek and American economies. ; Παρουσιάστηκε στο: IEEE International Conference On Systems, Man and Cybernetics

Summarization: Climate change is one of the most urgent problems facing the earth. Its facets are multiple: environmental, economic, and social, and its consequences could become dire if drastic and concerted action is not taken immediately. This paper uses existing economic and physical models to devise CO2 emission trajectories for the whole world that optimize a neo-classical welfare function as well as an alternative function inspired by research on subjective well-being, while keeping temperature rise at 2 °C above preindustrial levels. These trajectories are then linked with certain behavioral traits that are strongly connected with the attitudes that would realize such policies. It is demonstrated that the 2 °C target is still feasible but the corresponding behavioral changes are quite demanding. Difficult as the problem might be, it is encouraging that humanity can still resolve it if no time is wasted and political action is taken immediately. ; Presented on: Environmental Development

Summarization: Climate change has repercussions on national security. Yet, no widely accepted definition of climate security exists to date. In this paper, we present a mathematical model that defines and assesses climate security as a function of 37 indicators of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. The model combines the indicators using statistical methods and fuzzy logic which encapsulates the subjective part of the assessment, to derive an overall climate security score from 0 to 1, and then rank 187 countries. A sensitivity analysis points to those indicators with the highest potential to improve climate security and indicates regional priorities for action. It turns out that globally the highest priorities are the economy which is necessary for climate adaptation, population growth which should be contained, political rights, renewable energy use, and sea level rise. Although several results such as the high ranks of Scandinavian countries are intuitive, the model uncovers unexpected facts such as the higher rank of Uruguay than Denmark and Japan or the higher rank of Costa Rica than Italy. However, a closer look at the intermediate results reveals that Uruguay and Costa Rica are far superior to Denmark, Japan, and Italy in the areas of water and energy. ; Παρουσιάστηκε στο: Climatic Change

Summarization: Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the main greenhouse gas (GHG) in the atmo- sphere responsible for long-term global warming, and scientific evidence indicates that the current CO2 concentration is proba- bly the highest in the last 15 million years (World Bank 2012)—more than 391 parts per million (ppm), com- pared to the preindustrial level of 278 ppm. CO2 emis- sions grew 1.1 percent per year from 1990 to 1999 but since 2000 they have been growing by more than 3 per- cent per year (Gowdy 2010). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported a reading of CO2 at Mauna Loa of 400.03 ppm on May 9, 2013, crossing for the first time the 400 ppm mark.1 Global warming due to past anthropogenic CO2 emis- sions is irreversible for at least 1,000 years, and current and future CO2 emissions will result in additional warm- ing (Matthews and Solomon 2013). The international community has set the goal of stabilizing global warm- ing at no more than 2°C above preindustrial levels by 2100, while the Small Island Developing States (SIDS; www.sidsnet.org) have set it at 1.5°C. But given cur- rent emission levels and minimal international action to mitigate climate change, "there is roughly a 20 per- cent likelihood of exceeding 4°C by 2100" (World Bank 2012, p. 1). It is still possible, however, to keep global warming within tolerable limits through the use of appropriate technologies to replace fossil fuel consumption with other energy sources and the application of interna- tional political will to change course and control cli- mate change. Any delay of such action will commit the planet to higher and higher temperatures that will become irreversible in the foreseeable future. The likely consequences will be dire. ; Παρουσιάστηκε στο: The Bridge