I'm Right and You're an Idiot-- by James Hoggan

Author:James Hoggan
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781771423038
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Published: 2019-03-10T16:00:00+00:00

16

No Fish? No Fish Sticks

with Peter Senge

Every single problem is a subset

of this mega problem of not being able

to understand the complexity that we have created.

Peter Senge

PETER SENGE1 is a world leader in systems thinking, and when helping students understand what he means by systems, Senge asks if they have ever seen how members of families sometimes produce unintentional consequences through their actions or feelings. This helps students step outside the world of theoretical jargon and into the reality that we all live in webs of interdependence. It’s also a view of systems thinking that helps everyone gain a perspective on the “vexing, difficult and intransigent” problems we deal with, not to mention “some leverage and insight as to what we might do differently.”2

I wanted to know why we are ignoring the alarm bells that scientists are ringing about environmental crises, and why we are bogged down by acrid debate. Senge is skeptical about debates in general and said universities are great places for people to argue round and round a topic, but these exercises usually achieve little. Senge explained a key reason why debate falls short in global warming discussions is that scientists are excellent at forming new questions and discovering new areas of uncertainty, but not particularly good at producing consensus around complex issues. Climate change is an iconic example of this failing, and “the climate science community has done a poor job of helping the public understand even the most basic ideas about which there is a very broad consensus.”

For example, a simple basic of climate science is that greenhouse gas emissions accumulate in the atmosphere and that, consequently, reducing emissions will not reduce GHG concentration until emissions are reduced to below the rate at which GHG are removed from the atmosphere (e.g., via natural sequestration). Not understanding this rudimentary climate bathtub concept leads many laypeople to never intuitively understand why massive reductions (80 percent or more) in emissions will be needed — and that consequently we inevitably face long delays in solving this problem. Widespread misunderstanding of this basic concept also makes the “wait until we are all certain” strategy exactly the wrong strategy.

Science is basically organized around communities of enquiry that investigate smaller questions within much larger fields. Scientists typically produce deep knowledge about pieces, elements or aspects of a complex system such as climate change, but not Earth’s climate system itself. So, when dealing with truly interdependent issues, mainstream science is often dysfunctional. Also, asking scientists what they all agree on is a waste of time because science never does, nor should, produce unanimity. Scientists are naturally focused on challenging existing ideas and sharpening debates that can illuminate future questions.

Society is faced with a twofold problem: Not only do scientists have difficulty communicating intuitively and effectively, but also the environmental community is “addicted to a fear-based strategy, hammering away at how awful everything is, so not surprisingly this leads a lot of people to just tune out.”

We need to put the puzzle pieces together

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