Human development: a common challenge for earth and social sciences (Invited Presentation)

Hardin’s tragedy of the commons, originated mostly in the separation between scientific and social disciplines, finds a good empirical substantiation in the elaboration of approaches to climate change responses in general and, specifically, to the need for incorporating natural hazards prevention strategies in public policies for sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Recent dramatic experiences in this region caused by the effects of both El Niño/La Niña and of hurricanes George and Mitch, demonstrated the gap between two worlds: that of the predictive sector and the related efforts on the meteorological, climatological and oceanographic sciences and that of the socio-economic sectors which are struck by the impacts of natural hazards and which often understand prevention as a shy "learning by the experience" , without real involvement with the climate inputs.

In turn, frequently owing to pressing scientific, academic or training demands- or to the fact that it is not consulted or asked the proper questions - the scientific community does not plenty assume the relevance of its work for the social and economic areas and the support that information of a more accessible nature could provide them.

The paper will go through the main constrains present in Latin America and the Caribbean for solving that breach and to the gradual positive processes in some countries and sub-regions to revert this situation and which have proved as effective tools for mitigating otherwise even worse effects of some recent natural hazards.

Finally a proposal around the concept of sustainable/human development and its various legal instruments such as Agenda 21 and international environmental conventions will be made in order to provide a framework of action for a fluent and mutually reinforcing effort among relevant disciplines and sectors.

It seems that the global recognition of the relevance of sustainable development and the integrated nature of this notion will finally lead to the merging of the various efforts if the concerns for climate conditions are really founded (and they certainly are) on the need to secure human well-being for the present and future generations.