Archive for the ‘environment’ Tag
“Stuff” Happens
Filed under: complexity, holism | Tags: environment, systems thinking
Leave a Comment If you’re looking for a clue as to why we have so many problems in today’s world, one place you might look is how we actually look at problems.
Our traditional way of dealing with a problem is to break it down into pieces, examine those pieces for flaws, fix whatever flaws we find, and then patch everything back together and congratulate ourselves on a job well done.
Basically, we approach problems in life the way we approach problems with our car. Unfortunately, while this approach may be successful in fixing our car, it’s much less likely to be successful in fixing our problems in life.
While this “break into pieces” approach may come naturally to us today, it’s actually a product of the traditional scientific method. As David S. Walonick, Ph.D. explains,
Since Descartes, the “scientific method” had progressed under two related assumptions. A system could be broken down into its individual components so that each component could be analyzed as an independent entity, and the components could be added in a linear fashion to describe the totality of the system.
Unfortunately, this approach often doesn’t work in complex systems like the economy, society or the environment. Over the course of the 20th Century, people started to realize that it’s impossible to break such systems down in any meaningful way. Instead, they realized you have to look at the system as a whole.
Over time, this realization led to the development of a new approach to dealing with problems in complex systems: systems thinking. To quote Wikipedia, systems thinking is:
…a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation.
Because we’re in the habit of breaking things into pieces, understanding the basics of systems thinking can seem a little complicated. But sometimes someone creates a presentation describing a system in crisis that gives us a deeper understanding of the problems confronting us.
The New York Times recently ran an article about an increasingly popular video called “The Story of Stuff,” which explores the relationship between our consumer society and the earth’s environment. As the Times notes, the video “shows students how their own behavior is linked to what is happening across the globe.”
I agree that it’s an excellent video that gives us a deeper understanding of our role in contributing to today’s environmental problems. But beyond that, it also serves as an excellent example of systems thinking.
Maybe, if we gain a better understanding of systems thinking, we’ll be able to respond to complex problems with more than just a hollow excuse that “Stuff happens.”
A Whole Earth Approach to Economic Growth
Happy Earth Day!
Actually, I suspect this isn’t such a happy day in some quarters. It is taken as a given by some businessmen, politicians and pundits that environmental concerns exist in a zero-sum relationship with economic growth. Their thinking appears to be that anything that will be good for the environment will be bad for business.
But that is not necessarily so. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently had a column about the novel approach Costa Rica has taken in balancing economic and environmental concerns. He notes:
More than any nation I’ve ever visited, Costa Rica is insisting that economic growth and environmentalism work together. It has created a holistic strategy to think about growth, one that demands that everything gets counted. So if a chemical factory sells tons of fertilizer but pollutes a river — or a farm sells bananas but destroys a carbon-absorbing and species-preserving forest — this is not honest growth. You have to pay for using nature. It is called “payment for environmental services” — nobody gets to treat climate, water, coral, fish and forests as free anymore.
Friedman observes that much of Costa Rica’s economy is based on tourism and agriculture, so preserving its environment is integral to its economic health. So in the 90s they addressed this issue organizationally:
“In Costa Rica, the minister of environment sets the policy for energy, mines, water and natural resources,” explained Carlos M. Rodríguez, who served in that post from 2002 to 2006. In most countries, he noted, “ministers of environment are marginalized.” They are viewed as people who try to lock things away, not as people who create value. Their job is to fight energy ministers who just want to drill for cheap oil.
But when Costa Rica put one minister in charge of energy and environment, “it created a very different way of thinking about how to solve problems,” said Rodríguez, now a regional vice president for Conservation International. “The environment sector was able to influence the energy choices by saying: ‘Look, if you want cheap energy, the cheapest energy in the long-run is renewable energy. So let’s not think just about the next six months; let’s think out 25 years.’ ”
Beyond that, Friedman reports that the Costa Ricans factor in the value of a healthy environment for the long-term health of local businesses, and so have a carbon tax that helps support communities that protect the forests around them.
