Unsustainability at the crossroads of climate change and air pollution sciences: implications for sustainable development and the scholarship of sustainability
Release of carbonaceous aerosols - comprising black carbon (BC) and organic carbon (OC) - from biomass burning into the atmosphere is dependent on the burning conditions as to the resultant relative abundances of the emitted BC and OC. This provides a way of managing biomass burning in terms of manipulating the types of emitted aerosol. The carbonaceous aerosols are concerned in different ways in different scientific fields. The BC and OC exert complex implications for (a) radiative forcing in climate change science but (b) public health concern in air pollution science. Referring to these complex implications, a case of sustainability is constructed, which is being unsustainably dealt with at the crossroads of the sciences. This reveals an inadequacy of the reductionist mode of enquiry, necessitating a new mode with unique epistemological orientation for the scholarship of sustainability. The necessity of integration of perspectives that are currently segregated for this sustainability issue and the implications for sustainable development are elucidated. Copyright (c) 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment
