Towards a Science of Sustainability: Conference to be held Fall 2009 at Warrenton, VA

实现人类可持续未来的挑战是当今社会面临的最关键挑战之一。要了解人类和环境系统之间复杂而动态的相互联系，并动员这些知识为有效的管理和政策制定提供信息，将需要越来越强大的定量工具，在现有的气候系统、生态系统和社会经济系统建模、预测和分析方法的基础上，但要大幅扩展这些方法。为了应对这些挑战，组织者将在2009年冬季举办一个研讨会，汇集来自广泛学科的科学家和实践者，以确定关键的开放性研究问题，其解决方案将在量子水平上推进该领域。我们希望这次研讨会的成果将有助于指导可持续性研究的资助优先事项。

The challenges of achieving a sustainable future for humanity are among the most crucial facing society today. To understand the complex and dynamic interconnections among human and environmental systems, and to mobilize that knowledge to inform effective management and policy making, will require increasingly powerful quantitative tools, building upon but expanding dramatically the approaches available for modeling, prediction and analysis of climate systems, ecosystems and socio-economic systems. To address these challenges, the organizers will hold a workshop in Winter 2009 to bring together scientists and practitioners from across a broad spectrum of disciplines, to identify crucial open research questions whose solution would advance the field by quantum levels. Our hope is that the products of this workshop will help guide priorities for funding of research on sustainability.