Systems Thinking and Sustainability Flashcards
What is Systems Thinking?
Ways of thinking that gives us the freedom to identify the root causes of a problem and find new opportunities, Intereletationips, understanding of perspectives, boundaries. If we consider them we can improve
How things impact each other
Basically, systems thinking is a way of helping a person to view systems from abroad perspective that includes seeing overall structures, patterns and cycles insystems, rather than seeing only specific events in the system. This broad view can help you to quickly identify the real causes of issues in organisations and know just where to work to address them.
Systems thinking has produced a variety of principles and tools for analysing and changing systems. By focusing on the entire system, consultants can attempt to identify solutions that address as many problems as possible in the system.
The positive effect of those solutions leverages improvement throughout the system. Thus, they are called “leverage points’ ‘ in the system. This priority on the entire system and its leverage points is called whole systems thinking(Google).
Systems thinking will help us manage, adapt, and see the wide range of choices we have before us. It is a way of thinking that gives us the freedom to identify root causes of problems and see new opportunities.
What are
- Systems
- Complex System
- Complex Adaptive Systems
- System: collection of independent things that are interacting with each other, produce their own behaviour
Consists of elements and they have to serve a purpose
A system isn’t just any old collection of things.
A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organised in a way that achieves something.
If you look at that definition closely for a minute, you can see that a system must consist of three kinds of things:
elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose. - Complex Systems: tools that seek to understand phenomenon with the study of simple rules
Consist of many elements that all interact with each other - Complex Adaptive Systems: different properties, highly interconnected and unpredictable
Always evolving, relations between different parts of the systems
Highly contagious
Some parts of the unit better connected than other parts
a system that is complex in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behaviour of the ensemble may not be predictable according to the behaviour of the components. It is adaptive in that the individual and collective behaviour mutate and self-organise corresponding to the change-initiative micro-event or collection of events.
It is a “complex macroscopic collection” of relatively “similar and partially connected micro-structures” formed in order to adapt to the changing environment and increase their survivability as a macro-structure.The Complex Adaptive Systems approach builds on replicator dynamics.
What is Resilience?
How well can you resist something, the capacity of persisting in its current state of a system while facing disturbances, adapting for the future
Resilience has many definitions, depending on the branch of engineering, ecology, system science doing the defining. For our purposes, the normal dictionary meaning will do:
“the ability to bounce or spring back into shape, position, etc., after being pressed or stretched. Elasticity.
the ability to recover strength, spirits, good humour, orany other aspect quickly.”
Resilience is a measure of a system’s ability to survive and persist within a variable environment. The opposite of resilience is brittleness or rigidity. Resilience arises from a rich structure of many feedback loops that can work in different ways to restore a system even after a large perturbation. A single balancing loop brings a system stock back to its desired state. Resilience is provided by several such loops, operating through different mechanisms, at different timescales, and with redundancy—one kicking in if another one fails.
What is Exponential Growth?
Happens when a stock has the capacity to reproduce itself
Increases the population growth rate
a process that increases quantity over time. It occurs when the instantaneous rate of change (that is, the derivative) of a quantity with respect to time is proportional to the quantity itself.
What is Anthropocene?
New area of geological history of earth
Defined by human activity and how it changed the earth (environment, land, atmosphere)
The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change.
The extent to which human activities are influencing or even dominating many aspects of Earth’s environment and its functioning has led to suggestions that another geological epoch, the Anthropocene Era
How can we manage uncertainties in the face of a Complex Crisis!
Scenario driven approach
Integrated assessment technique
Systems thinking
How is COVID-19 a systemic crisis?
In modern history, there has arguably been no greater systemic crisis than COVID-19, as it affects an entire system and has an impact not only on human health but also on economy, politics, travel, tourism, nutrition, social and work life etc.
The impacts of the pandemic on the consumption and trade of goods and services have been immediate and profound. Commodity prices have dropped, with oil prices falling to their lowest levels in 20 years.
This has had an immediate impact on the government budgets of countries highly dependent on oil revenues, and oil companies have already reduced their investment plans
Flights have been grounded, and international tourism has come to a virtual standstill. Unemployment has rapidly increased in many parts of the globe, with the United States seeing record monthly unemployment filings. Many supply chains have shut down,
In the media, COVID-19 has been referred to as “giving nature a break”. There is already considerable literature documenting evidence that air quality has improved while countries were in “lockdown”. In the press there have been reports of increased wildlife sightings in higher-income countries as people stay inside during lockdown. However, Environmental agencies have already reported an increase in deforestation during lockdowns.
Across Africa, the COVID-19 pandemic may push people out of stable jobs, into poverty, and back to rural areas. Even though COVID-19 seems only like a crisis regarding help, there have been complex interactions between macroeconomic shocks, urban food choices, rural livelihoods, and wildlife use.
Describe the Meikirich Health Model?
It puts the individual in the centre (with biologically given potential and personally acquired potential), then the society and then the environment as the last level; all levels are interconnected
Health is a complex adaptive system
5 components of health
Demands of Life (psychological, biological and environmental) everyone must fulfil the needs life puts on you
Resources needed to respond
Biological given potential (initially responsibility of parents but then individuals’, decreases within the course of life)
Personality required potential (every human’s responsibility to evolve and assume his action)
Social determinants of health
Environmental determinants of health
Responds to the need to develop a definition of health but it doesn’t really measure potential
Describe the One Health Model?
Has been developed in the recognition of inter-domain system in which the 3 main domains are:
Antibiotic Resistance (r with human health)
Animal agriculture
The Environment
EU participation in One Health:
It regulates the livestock coming/produced in eu
Food strictly regulated in EU
Antibiotics reduced only to therapeutic use or banned in general
Domestic waste water regulated by laws in EU
Describe the Planetary Health
Focuses to understand human health’s implications of out rapid transformation and disruption of our planet’s natural systems
Attitude towards life and philosophy of living
Emphasises people, not diseases and equity
Its aim is to minimise differences in human health according to wealth, education and gender, and place
Addresses challenges how to protect human health
Describe the Positive Health Model
States that health is broader than the absence of disease or symptoms
It includes 6 dimensions to help people’s ability to deal with challenges
Body functions
Daily functions
Participation
Quality of life
Meaningfulness
Mental well-being
It connects domains of care, prevention, social work and housing
Used as a framework to critically reflect or program efforts within organisations
Used as a blueprint or script for working integrally that applies to the worlds of research, education etc
Describe the Syndemics Model
Syndemics: the aggregation of 2 or more diseases or other conditions in a population in which there is some level of deleterious biological behaviour interface
Focuses on social complex, that includes the iterating diseases and the social/environmental factors that enhance the negative effects of disease interaction
Examines why disease cluster, multiple diseases affecting multiple people and how they interact and their vulnerability
How are health models implemented in EU?
Meikricih: Individual point of view: improve mental health
will reduce costs of health care Bircher & Kuruvilla (2014)
OneHealth: At a policy level, all countries were asked to formulate a national action plan to combat AMR appropriate for their country (WHO, 2017). Many have done so, but the challenge is now to effectively implement and monitor these plans and to validate the efficacy of practices intended to reduce the development and spread of AMR.(J. M. TIEDJE et al )
Planetary: The potential to capitalise on the SDGs, and opportunities to integrate health and sustainability are emphasised
Taxes for pollution/subsidies for protecting the environment
Positive: It connects domains of care, prevention, social work and housing
Used as a framework to critically reflect or program efforts within organisations
Used as a blueprint or script for working integrally that applies to the worlds of research, education etc
using it as inspiration for policy making so that the burden on the healthcare system could be reduced (less need for diagnosis at the first symptom of disease and avoiding over-medicalization)
Syndemics: A syndemic approach provides a very different orientation to clinical medicine and public health by showing how an integrated approach to understanding and treating diseases can be far more successful than simply controlling epidemic disease or treating individual patients.
The syndemic perspective necessitates movement past narrowly conceived efforts towards the development of a big-picture awareness of diseases, disease clustering, and disease interactions in biological, ecological, and social contexts and ultimately towards correspondingly broad-based public health policy initiatives.
Health definitions
Criticism on WHO
Criticism on Huber
” health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely just the absence of disease or infirmity”
Criticism WHO:
The word complete is absolute and different to measure, formulated in such a way that is unachievable
According to the definition most people would be unhealthy, even people with minor long-term alignments, such as glasses wearers or pregnant women
The word state denotes that health is static when actually health is dynamic
Definition made up after WW2, thus it was a bugger focus on physical health
Leads to over-medicalization of the population
does not mention resilience, need for healthy environment, ability to cope with stressors
should be seen as a resource not a goal
” the ability to adapt and self manage in the face of mental, emotional and socal challanges”
Criticism Huber:
Confuses health with behaviour, 2 concepts that are not the same
To narrow a basis, not applicable in practice, especially in health care systems
Focuses more on the individual than on the society
What is Sustainability?
What is Sustainable Development?
Criticism on SD definition.
Sustainability
staying within the planetary boundaries.
initially defined by the Brundtland Commission as
meeting the needs of the present without compromising those of the future generations (was later extended to include the ideas of economic sustainability and social equity, in addition to planetary boundaries, social boundaries should also not be crossed)
the ability of humans to continue to live within environmental constraints (Robinson)
Brundtland’s definition used for the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)
Sustainable Development
·Development that meets the needs of the current generations without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs, introduced in the Brundtland Report in 1987 by the UN
States that we need to look out for our people, resources in environment to maintain sustainability so we can hand out our planet to our future generations so that they can also live in sustainability
Criticism:
Assumes that poverty is the main cause of environmental degradation and wealth solves it, which is not the case
Propagates the problematic growth paradigm
Its vague and ambiguous as it promotes consensus and bau
Greenwashing private interests through private-public partnerships
