A quantum model of climate change? Insights from community-based natural resource management in Namibia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Quantum approaches to International Relations (IR) offer theoretically rich explanatory frameworks attuned to the complexity and uncertainty of the social world. Recognizing that the payoff of quantum approaches to IR may be clarified through their application to empirical cases, we approach the radically complex and uncertain case of climate change's impacts on Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) in Namibia from a quantum perspective. Established to protect the vibrant flora and fauna of Namibia while also promoting community and economic development aims, CBNRM conservancies face complex challenges from climate change. Inspired by Karen O’Brien's call for ‘quantum social change’ in our response to climate change, we draw on the quantum social theory to unpack how desertification, extreme weather patterns, and drought conditions radically reshape the possibilities available to conservancies, communities, farmers, and the state itself. By conceptualizing futures as wavefunctions encompassing the spectrum of potential future states, we demonstrate how a quantum imaginary can help to develop novel explanatory frameworks for the complexity of the world around us.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".