Higgins Economic Growth and Sustainability

Systems Thinking for a Complex World
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-0-12-803108-7
Verlag: Elsevier Science & Techn.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 228 Seiten

How to sustain our world for future generations has perplexed us for centuries. We have reached a crossroads: we may choose the rocky path of responsibility or continue on the paved road of excess that promises hardship for our progeny. Independent efforts to resolve isolated issues are inadequate. Different from these efforts and from other books on the topic, this book uses systems thinking to understand the dominant forces that are shaping our hope for sustainability. It first describes a mental model - the bubble that holds our beliefs - that emerges from preponderant world views and explains current global trends. The model emphasizes economic growth and drives behavior toward short-term and self-motivated outcomes that thwart sustainability. The book then weaves statistical trends into a system diagram and shows how the economic, environmental, and societal contributors of sustainability interact. From this holistic perspective, it finds leverage points where actions can be most effective and combines eight areas of intervention into an integrated plan. By emphasizing both individual and collective actions, it addresses the conundrum of how to blend human nature with sustainability. Finally, it identifies primary three lessons we can learn by applying systems thinking to sustainability. Its metaphor-rich and accessible style makes the complex topic approachable and allows the reader to appreciate the intricate balance required to sustain life on Earth. - Highlights the application of system thinking in economics - Identifies systemic leveraging actions for achieving sustainability - Outlines a comprehensive and integrated plan for achieving sustainable stewardship in the future

Dr. Karen Higgins has a B.S. in Mathematics, M.S. in Electrical Engineering, and an MBA and PhD in Executive Management. She has extensive experience in executive leadership and in leading research and engineering teams. Throughout her 32-year career with the Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division at China Lake and Pt. Mugu, California she held technical, functional, project and executive management positions for efforts that integrate state-of-the-art and commonly-used weapons systems onto some of the newest jet fighter aircraft. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, she was one of the most senior civilians within the U.S. Department of Defense. In her Executive Director and Director for Research and Engineering roles, she had responsibility for a $1B budget and over 5,000 employees. She has received the highest civilian awards for her services to the Navy and the Department of Defense. As President of ÉLAN Leadership Concepts, Dr. Higgins serves as a leadership consultant for government and industry. She is an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University, where she teaches Project Management, Systems Thinking, and Morality & Leadership. She enjoys her grandchildren, practices yoga, does research, and writes. Her recent book, Financial Whirlpools (2013), analyzes the financial crisis of 2008-2009 using a systems perspective. Her second book, Economic Growth and Sustainability (in print, 2014), investigates the relationship among Economy, Environment and Society also using a systems perspective. On a personal note, she enjoys ballroom dancing and 'loves, loves, loves' the LA Clippers! Affiliations: Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, USA (Adjunct Professor) ÉLAN Leadership Concepts, Ridgecrest, CA, USA (President) Effective Edge, Austin TX, USA (Performance Catalyst) Personal website: http://www.systems-sense.com Expertise Executive leadership, project management, systems thinking, sustainability, ethics, interpersonal communication, culture shaping

Autoren/Hrsg.

Higgins, Karen L.

Leseproben

Introduction – the Looming Challenge of Sustainability

Failures to manage the environment and to sustain development threaten to overwhelm all countries. …These problems cannot be treated separately by fragmented institutions and policies. They are linked in a complex system of cause and effect.

World Commission on Environment and Development, 1991

Humankind is a miraculous paradox. On one hand, we are compassionate, worry about the future of our children, and reach beyond our earthly bounds to explore outer space. On the other hand, we are selfish, focus on the here and now, and argue about the neighbor’s garbage that litters our gutters. We can dispassionately hear about remote events that are concerning, but that do not concern us; hurricanes, fires, power outages, drought, blizzards, heat waves, smog, civil uprisings, wars, and even global warming are others’ problems unless we are in their midst. We know that many of our actions, such as eating too much fat or spending money that we do not have on things that we do not need, are not good in the long run, but somehow we cannot help ourselves.

So, we wonder, with all these inconsistencies: What will our society look like in a hundred years? Is it possible for our dual-natured species to meet today’s needs without affecting the ability of future generations to meet their own needs?1 Can the present that we know and feel and see compete with a future that we will never witness? In other words, is the sustainability of our current way of life on the planet possible?

While these questions may be the fanciful grist of science fiction writers, they should be a serious matter for citizens of the world. Yet, they lurk in the underbrush of our awareness, often disregarded in favor of superficial and immediate concerns about what to have for dinner or when to buy gas. We must therefore force the issue of sustainability into the sunlight. How else can we look into the innocent faces of our children and grandchildren? So, let us make it personal. Say the names of children you know and think of the children they may have. What are you doing to secure their future on Earth?

Today’s society faces unprecedented challenges that will become millstones around the necks of our progeny unless we take serious and rapid action. Philosophically it is curious that we do not take better care of our planet. Why are there bold words, but only a few actions around the fringes of the problem? My conclusion is twofold.

First, I believe it is difficult to view the whole of sustainability in a way that allows us to internalize it. It is not easy to see how global trends that affect society, economy, and environment (the three pillars of sustainability) are part of the same picture. We must ask many questions to merge these trends in our minds. For example: How do pollution and carbon dioxide relate to the economy or affect happiness? How does our addiction to material goods relate to the environment? What role does population growth play in the economy?

It is even trickier to envision exactly how individuals fit into this picture. Although our brains have a capacity greater than other creatures on Earth, they still function within limits. Old but familiar research places our short-term mental capacity for remembering lists at seven plus or minus two items – not enough to wrap our minds around the many issues of sustainability at the same time (Miller, 1956). Regardless of whether this number is exact, it causes us to acknowledge that as individuals, we cannot readily grasp highly complicated subjects; we tend to look at complex problems either a piece at a time or tied to something familiar.

Second, we have a mental protective mechanism that causes us to strive for self-preservation. Whether humans are by nature egoistic to ensure their survival or altruistic to flourish within collectives has been debated for centuries. Short-term egoism, as well-known psychologist B.F. Skinner argues, is “exactly the psychological trait that makes modern humans prone to environmental tragedies of the commons” (Gardner and Stern, 1996). In other words, when it comes to making immediate sacrifices to preserve a future we will never see, particularly when these sacrifices involve common resources such as energy, clean air, or water, our actions favor short-term personal gratification and neglect long-term consequences to the well-being of society. No doubt most of us exhibit a mix of both, depending on our circumstances; but a balance between present and future matters when it comes to sustainability.

By tackling sustainability in an unconventional way, this book deviates from the surfeit of books, articles, reports, and research on the topic. It addresses the two reasons that make it difficult to understand sustainability: (1) the limits of our processing power; and (2) our predisposition toward short-term thinking. Like many other books and articles on the subject, this book presents statistics for major world trends and discusses their significance. More importantly, however, rather than dealing with these trends one by one, it integrates them into a system of interdependencies. To overcome our struggle with complexity, it uses the visual language of systems thinking first to define the preponderant mental model2 that guides day-to-day behaviors and shapes world trends, and then to create an integrated system diagram that portrays the fundamentals of how the world actually works, particularly with regard to sustainability.

Viewing sustainability from this holistic perspective allows us to grasp the profound predicament we face when sustainability and limited resources butt heads with a way of life that promotes abundance and short-term thinking. By comparing our mental model with the integrated system diagram, we find that current lifestyles, with their focus on the present and their disproportionate emphasis on the economy, have disrupted our ability to achieve sustainability. Existing only within the confines of our narrow perceptions – the bubble that constricts our actions – can bring unintended and harmful consequences in the future.

A caveat to this system approach is in order here. If we were to incorporate every possible issue that could contribute to a good life in the future, we would be mired in the mud of too much complexity. Thus, as with any system of interest, we have defined the boundaries of the sustainability system and have incorporated its most basic concerns such as environmental damage, population dynamics, availability of food and water, and dependence on economic growth. Other factors, such as biodiversity, urbanization, and infectious disease (which are well-described by Brown in Beyond Malthus) (Brown et al., 2000), and societal elements such as discrimination, religion, and politics are not explicitly discussed. However, their interaction can be placed in the context of the system described in this book.

Finally, the book weaves in the human element, noting how the dualistic nature of humans, who must reconcile present with future and self with community, may be at odds with sustainability’s goals. Rather than abandoning all hope, it then proposes a comprehensive set of actions to recalibrate our mental model, burst our myopic bubble, and aid our pursuit of sustainability. It encourages us to see beyond our own backyards and our own lifetimes.

By the book’s end, we will realize that sustainability is the ultimate state of dynamic balance in which competing concerns are blended in a harmonious dance of flow and change. Thus, achieving sustainability requires a balance among society, economy, and environment, between self and others, and between present and future. We will understand that the system we are a part of has such massive inertia that it will take decades – perhaps even a century – to change, but that change is both possible and imperative. Such change requires courage and lifestyles that embrace stewardship; it requires collaboration among groups and profound alteration of individual behaviors.

References

Brown L, Gardner G, Halweil B. Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge. London: Earthscan; 2000.

Gardner G, Stern P. Environmental Problems and Human Behavior. Boston: Allyn and Bacon; 1996.

Miller G. The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychol Rev....