The purpose of cyberseminars is to provide a forum for scientists from the social and natural sciences to debate and discuss cutting edge population-environment research topics. Past topics include population and deforestation, international migration and the environment, population-consumption-environment linkages, and urban spatial expansion.
The Population-Environment Research Network (PERN) and the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE) will carry out an online seminar to examine the theoretical and methodological aspects of research into the population-environment nexus.
The starting point in this seminar is an interdisciplinary, social-ecological perspective on population dynamics which allows structuring the nexus of population, environment and society in theoretically and methodologically novel ways. It focuses on the interactions among demographic changes and supply systems such as water, food, and energy. In this perspective, interactions are reconstructed in the context of social-ecological systems dynamics. The approach seeks to be applicable to different population dynamics (e.g. migration, population growth and decline, urbanization, household structures), as well as to different socio-economic and cultural contexts.
Through the cyberseminar the applicability of the social-ecological approach shall be discussed by framing it to other interdisciplinary approaches such as sustainable livelihoods, carrying capacity, IPAT, ecological footprint, and political ecology. Issues to be addressed in this seminar include: 1) State of the art on conceptual frameworks; 2) Methodological issues related to theory (scale, integrated analysis, normativity, inter and trandisciplinarity); and 3) Combinations of different approaches.
How to participate in (or leave) a cyberseminar:
PERN Cyberseminars are conducted using a standard email discussion list. There are two main ways to join (or leave) the PERN Cyberseminars discussion list: Via the web-based interface, or Via email commands sent to the listserv software.
1) Via the Web Interface: The web address for PERN Cyberseminars (PERNSEMINARS) list is http://listserver.ciesin.columbia.edu/. The first step is to create an account on the listserv server. To do this you select the "Get a LISTSERV password for this server" link on the main listserv page, under the "Assistance" category. Using the "Subscriber's Corner" follow the instructions to subscribe and unsubscribe to the list called PERNSEMINARS.
2) Via E-mail: You can send commands to subscribe and unsubscribe to the listserv@listserver.ciesin.columbia.edu. If you would like to participate in a cyberseminar please send an email message with the body text "SUBscribe PERNSEMINARS". You may leave the list at any time by sending a "SIGNOFF PERNSEMINARS" command.
Once you are subscribed, you may wish to change subscription settings so that you receive a daily digest of postings (all postings attached to one email message) instead of individual postings. To do this you can either use the web interface to change your settings or send a message to the LISTSERV email address (in #2 above) with the text “SET PERNSEMINARS DIGEST”
Contributions sent to this list are automatically archived. You can get a list of the available archive files by sending an "INDEX PERNSEMINARS" command. You may also visit http://listserver.ciesin.columbia.edu/pernseminars.html.
Further commands that can be sent to the LISTSERV email address can be found in this LISTSERV Reference Library (16KB PDF).
Standards of Conduct
All who are interested in cyberseminar topics are invited to participate and subscription is free. Please adhere to the following standards of conduct when participating.
To ensure that the cyberseminar is successful and that we have a lively intellectual discussion, we would like to ask all the participants to be mindful of a few standards of conduct similar to those you might find in a face-to-face meeting. Please remember :
Respectful disagreement is fine; impoliteness is not accepted.
Opinions are welcome; advocacy is not - this is an intellectual debate, please refrain from using this forum for any advocacy purposes.
Respect other's email space: do not repeat something you have already said and limit yourself to a reasonable number of postings.
With these standards in mind, we look forward to your active participation in the seminar.
PERN is a project of The International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), and the International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) on Global Environmental Change.
Technical support for
PERN is provided by the NASA-funded
Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC)
at the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)
of Columbia University.
PERN Cyberseminars are conducted using a standard email discussion list. There are two main ways to join (or leave) the PERN Cyberseminars discussion list: Via the web-based interface, or Via email commands sent to the listserv software. 
