Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
specifically to the politics of nature. We often have a choice. We can think. We can
act. We can say 'no'.
The philosopher Kate Soper, taking a complementary approach, articulates the
political imbrications of GM, and by extension sustainable development, in this way:
History is a transitory affair from which there is no going back, and in and
through which the fate of first nature is always at any moment being decided.
New technical developments, such as GM, are always arresting because of the
way in which we discern in them the irreversibility of our economic and political
decisions and practices. To commit to GM, for example, is to know that the
pre-GM moment will not come again, and that in that sense it will create a
certain fatedness, becoming part of 'second nature'. But we also know there is
nothing fated about the commitment itself.
(2005: 133-4)
Systems thinking and complexity
Many phenomena do not easily lend themselves to a linear, reductionist or classically
scientific method of analysis and explanation. Climate change, population, global
ecology, the economy and organizational management offer so many variables, uncer-
tainties and possibilities that confident predictions of future trends and tendencies are
not always easy, or even possible, to make. Many promoters of sustainable develop-
ment have been influenced by the study of ecology, recognizing systems thinking as
being particularly relevant to their ongoing work. Indeed, systems thinking is not
confined to the work of ecologists, as its influence is felt throughout the social, human
and natural sciences. Sterling (2004) applies systems thinking to his work on sustainable
education and Capra (1996, 2002) has carefully rearticulated systems thinking and
complexity theory to produce a 'new scientific understanding of living systems' and
a new 'science for sustainable living'. Complex adaptive systems identify problems
and possibilities that are simultaneously multidimensional, dynamic and evolving.
A systems approach involves examining the connections and relationships between
objects and events as much as the objects and events themselves. Changes in one
component of the system will lead to changes in another, which in turn may lead
to changes elsewhere. Interactions occur between system components that may cause
both themselves and the system itself to change. Systems theorists write of negative
and positive feedback loops, emergent properties, dynamic equilibrium, hierarchy,
communication, evolution, system adaptation, and system breakdown. In general,
the more complex a system and the more interlocking its feedback loops, the more
robust and better able they are to resist change. Emergence is a key concept in
systems thinking equally applicable to the natural and social sciences. Mihata (1997)
notes that it is frequently used when referring to the process by which global-level
structures or patterns evolve from local-level interactions and from relatively simple
rules. These 'complex adaptive systems' are 'characterized not only by a high degree
of interaction among component parts, but also by the way that the particular nature
of this interaction - the way the system is organized - generates outcomes not
linearly related to initial conditions' (Mihata, 1997: 31-2).
Whereas linear organization is said to be in large part predictable, emergence is
a property of non-linear systems whose mode of organization makes for non-obvious,
