{"id":35901,"date":"2018-07-11T09:07:25","date_gmt":"2018-07-11T14:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=35901"},"modified":"2018-07-11T09:07:35","modified_gmt":"2018-07-11T14:07:35","slug":"systems-thinking-and-how-it-can-help-build-a-sustainable-world-a-beginning-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=35901","title":{"rendered":"Systems Thinking and How It Can Help Build a Sustainable World: A Beginning Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Systems Thinking and How It Can Help Build a Sustainable World: A Beginning Conversation<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
\n
\n
\n

\"Systems<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
In Brief<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Humanity stands at a precipice.\u00a0 Overpopulation, resource scarcities, degraded ecosystem functioning from pollution and biodiversity loss, and anthropogenic climate change are damaging the life-supporting capacity of the planet.\u00a0 Diminishing returns on fossil fuel energy investments, combined with their dwindling availability and environmental harm, threaten industrial civilization.\u00a0 Many people recognize the need to transition to sustainable, resilient ways of living, but the prospect of such a transition is daunting, not only from a logistical perspective, but also because it requires new ways of thinking about and addressing complex problems.\u00a0 Widespread adoption of systems thinking represents one of society\u2019s best bets for making real progress towards this daunting transition, but few actually understand what it is.\u00a0 This article is intended to introduce systems thinking into our common lexicon \u2013 to explain what it is at a basic level, how it can be used, and why it may very well be the key to humanity\u2019s survival over the long run.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cFor some, the development of systems thinking is crucial for the survival of humanity.\u201d<\/i> \u2013 John Sterman<\/div>\n
\u201cThe light begins to twinkle from the rocks:
\nThe long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
\nMoans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
\n\u2019Tis not too late to seek a newer world.\u201d<\/i>
\n\u2013 Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses<\/div>\n

Let\u2019s start at the very beginning. What is a system?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A system is a set of things interacting in a way that produces something greater than the sum of its parts. Systems can range in complexity. Compare, for instance, a car, which is relatively easy to understand and even diagnose when something goes wrong, to a tropical rainforest, which contains so many living and nonliving components that we\u2019re only just beginning to understand how they work.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Systems Thinking and How It Can Help Build a Sustainable World: A Beginning Conversation In Brief Humanity stands at a precipice.\u00a0 Overpopulation, resource scarcities, degraded ecosystem functioning from pollution and biodiversity loss, and anthropogenic climate change are damaging the life-supporting capacity of the planet.\u00a0 Diminishing returns on fossil fuel energy investments, combined with their dwindling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[154,20862,13988,769,770,3721,778],"class_list":["post-35901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survival-2","tag-complexity","tag-megan-seibert","tag-solutions-journal","tag-sustainability","tag-sustainable-world","tag-systems","tag-systems-thinking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35901"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35903,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35901\/revisions\/35903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}