The ALARM scenarios

The current sustainable development debate in Europe follows different trajectories in different countries. Some recent shocks (H5N1 or H1N1 diseases, economic crisis, etc.) emphasises collective responsibility and the need for political action. This requires not neglecting the decisive role of government within governance processes, and thus sustainability strategy development, implementation and monitoring.

The complexity of the situation requires an approach of adequate complexity as a basis for deriving effective sustainability strategies, recognising natural and social systems as co-evolving. Developing scenarios of similar levels of complexity is one key tool in this process, calling for semi-quantitative scenario story lines, combined with selective modelling to illustrate certain aspects, and with qualitative 'wild cards" to explore the non-incremental development trajectories of the systems. Although scenarios are neither predictions nor is there one 'true model" how to derive them, using many possible scenarios can help identifying policy approaches that are 'truly sustainable strategies" in the sense of being sustainable under a wide variety of possible futures explored by scenario exercises.

The 'ALARM scenarios' pathway aims to

• Discover ALARM scenarios using a questionnaire
• Access to detailed presentation of ALARM scenarios and shocks
• Compare each of them from different points of view using maps and assessment tools
• Assess the quality of scenarios

See also: http://keralarm.kerbabel.net/node/6/6?q=node/34/15