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Advances in the science and observation of climate change are providing a clearer understanding of the inherent variability of Earth’s climate system and its likely response to human and natural influences. The implications of climate change for the environment and society will depend not only on the response of the Earth system to changes in radiative forcings, but also on how humankind responds through changes in technology, economies, lifestyle and policy. Extensive uncertainties exist in future forcings of and responses to climate change, necessitating the use of scenarios of the future to explore the potential consequences of different response options. To date, such scenarios have not adequately examined crucial possibilities, such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, and have relied on research processes that slowed the exchange of information among physical, biological and social scientists. Here we describe a new process for creating plausible scenarios to investigate some of the most challenging and important questions about climate change confronting the global community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor in response to the article "Measures for measures,"published in "Nature" in the issue 444, of 2006.

This article attempts to consider social sciences as the science of the twenty-first century. The interactions of large number of heterogenous entities, the behaviors of which unfold over time and manifest themselves on multiple scales, are involved in social phenomena. Sociologists, for the past five decades or so, have thought deeply about the importance of interactions between people, institutions and markets in finding out collective social behavior.