Environment – Climate Interactive

Systems Thinking and Business Solutions in a Complex World

Photo by MIT Sloan Sustainability Management

In the latest entry in the Network for Business Sustainability blog, Climate Interactive Member and MIT Professor John Sterman outlines how we can use systems thinking – the analytical approach that underlies Climate Interactive’s models — to solve some of the world’s most complex problems.

Although his suggestions focus on businesses, these strategies can be used by government organizations, NGOs and individuals as well. Here’s what he had to say:

From climate change and deforestation to collapsing fisheries, species extinction and poisons in our food and water, our society is unsustainable and it is getting worse fast. Many advocate that overcoming these problems requires the development of systems thinking. We’ve long known that we live on a finite “spaceship Earth” in which “there is no away” and “everything is connected to everything else.” The challenge lies in moving from slogans about systems to meaningful methods to understand complexity, facilitate individual and organizational learning, and catalyze the changes we need to create a sustainable society in which all can thrive.

Here, I’ll describe how the world operates as a system — and how businesses can respond effectively to the challenges we face. Continue reading →

December 3, 2013December 19, 2013 by davidpedigo Categories: Analysis, Insights, Media coverage, Team and communityTags: climate change, Climate Interactive, Environment, john sterman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, Network for Business Sustainability, systems thinking, United States Leave a comment

Climate Interactive Simulation Opens Minds of 200 International Fellows

A group of 185 Hubert H. Humphrey Fellows from across the world got a crash course in climate change policy from Climate Interactive Co-Director Drew Jones at this year’s Global Leadership Forum in Washington, D.C.

The World Energy and World Climate simulations helped these leaders, who represented 93 countries, gain insights into the complexity of international climate negotiations and what we need to do in order to address climate change.

Kristina Jenkins, the senior program officer at the Humphrey Fellowship Program, said the exercise helped establish a sense of solidarity among participants. Continue reading →

November 4, 2013November 4, 2013 by davidpedigo Categories: Policy exercises and serious games, Presentation, Resources, Team and community, ToolsTags: Activism, Andrew Jones, C-ROADS, Climate, climate change, Climate Interactive, Drew Jones, energy, Environment, Hubert Humphrey Fellows, John Kerry, system dynamics, systems thinking, Washington DC, World Climate Leave a comment

Beth Sawin at UMass Lowell: Climate Change Solutions for the Future We Need

Creating workable solutions to climate change isn’t easy, but human beings have a history of overcoming obstacles in difficult times (as we’ve said before, ending the slave trade was once similarly thought of as impossible).

In her speech at a teach-in at UMass Lowell, Climate Interactive Co-Director Beth Sawin reminded us that enormous progress on climate change is possible, as long as we’re ready to make some serious changes. For inspiration, she said, she likes to look to her family history.

Here’s an excerpt from her speech:

In 1943 my grandparents built a house. They were barely out of their teens, already married, with two young children. As far as I know, they had never done anything as huge as building a house

But times were hard, money was tight and they kept getting evicted from whatever rundown housing they could find. Continue reading →

October 24, 2013October 25, 2013 by davidpedigo Categories: Analysis, Insights, Presentation, Team and communityTags: Activism, Boston, climate change, Climate Interactive, Environment, Massachusetts, UMass Lowell, university of massachusetts lowell 1 Comment

John Sterman and the Dalai Lama: Investigating Growth with a Piece of Paper

Here’s a fun game you can play to get acquainted with systems thinking:

His Holiness the Dalai Lama having fun with systems thinking

Take a sheet of paper and fold it in half. Now fold it in half again. Keep going until you’ve folded it six times. At this point, you’ve already managed one more fold than the Dalai Lama when Climate Interactive team member Prof. John Sterman challenged His Holiness to do this at MIT’s Global Systems 2.0 Forum.

You might notice that each fold has a bigger effect on the paper’s thickness than the last one, and after six, it may be difficult to fold it again. At this point it should be about one centimeter thick, and while that might not seem like much, the relative change is significant, considering that the thickness was negligible when you started.

Now, with this in mind, guess how thick it would be if it were folded 33 times.

The correct answer may seem a bit counterintuitive: if the paper were folded 33 times, it would be about 3,400 miles thick—equivalent to the distance from Boston, MA to Frankfurt, Germany.

Continue reading →

August 27, 2013August 27, 2013 by davidpedigo Categories: Policy exercises and serious games, The Climate LeaderTags: Boston, climate change, Climate Interactive, Dalai Lama, Environment, Frankfurt, john sterman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2 Comments

Innovate Podcast Features Climate Interactive, Impact of Systems Thinking

“Not only are problems interconnected, but often solutions are interconnected as well.”

-Beth Sawin

In the latest edition of the bi-monthly Innovate Podcast, which features interviews with influential social entrepreneurs and transformative thinkers, host David Castro sat down with Climate Interactive co-director Beth Sawin to talk climate change and sustainability.

Tackling climate change can be intimidating. The broad range of actors contributing to the phenomenon makes it hard to view the issue on anything than a global scale. For this same reason, highly focused solutions tend to fall short.

“As we come to the edges of the Earth’s carrying capacity for human beings … people who are trying to make a dent in those problems are pretty quickly brought up against the old ways of approaching things,” Sawin says.

That’s where systems thinking—the analytical approach that underlies Climate Interactive’s simulation models—comes in. By focusing on the interconnections within a system, it enables us to see the big picture and anticipate unwanted side effects.

“Systems thinking tends to be more productive because it gets you away from thinking about defective, shortsighted, greedy people and thinking instead about good people trying to do their best within systems that aren’t set up necessarily for the common good or the long-term wellbeing of the whole,” Sawin says in the podcast.

Making the necessary changes to these systems isn’t easy, but with the help of Climate Interactive’s simulation models, understanding them can be. In a world overflowing with statistics on climate change, these models invite users to take a step back and see the big picture for themselves.

This is now easier than ever before, thanks to Climate Interactive’s upcoming initiative—the Climate Leader—which will offer free online courses for those who want to use Climate Interactive’s methods to make an impact on climate change. Fall enrollment is still open and the course is available globally.

Listen to the full podcast here.

August 7, 2013August 22, 2013 by davidpedigo Categories: Media coverage, The Climate LeaderTags: Beth Sawin, climate change, Climate Interactive, David Castro, e-learning, Environment, Social entrepreneurship, systems thinking Leave a comment