DGC2003: Systems Thinking for Global Problems

Note:

• Course Seminars are scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm. (There will be 12 seminars in total).
• We start on Tuesday May 7, 2013, and end on Thursday June 20, 2013. Note: There will be no seminars in the week of May 21st (the week of Victoria Day).
• Location: Sid Smith Hall, SS2111, 100 St George Street, Toronto.
• Instructor: Prof Steve Easterbrook, Dept of Computer Science.
• To register on ROSI, use course code: DGC2003H Session Code: 20135F Section Code: F.

About the Course

The dynamics of global change are complex, and demand new ways of conceptualizing and analyzing the inter-relationships between multiple global systems. In this course, we will explore the role of systems thinking as a conceptual toolkit for studying the relationships between problems such as globalization, climate change, energy, health & wellbeing, and food security. Throughout the course, we will use global climate change as a central case study, and use systems thinking to study how climate change interacts with many other pressing global challenges.

The course will cover:

• The origins of systems thinking. In particular:
  • General Systems Theory (Bertalanffy) for understanding biological systems;
  • Cybernetics (Wiener) for exploring feedback and control in living organisms, machines, and organizations;
  • Systems Dynamics Models (Forrester) for analyzing non-linear behaviour in complex systems.
• Computational modelling of non-linear feedbacks in complex adaptive systems.
• Philosophical roots of systems thinking as a counterpoint to the reductionism used widely across the natural sciences.
• Application of systems thinking to study the dynamics of & interactions between current global challenges.
• Emergent concepts from systems thinking, such as limits to growth, planetary boundaries, tipping points, system resilience, and chaos theory.
• Use of systems thinking to explore competing perspectives, trans-disciplinary synthesis, and modeling of global dynamics.

Course Requirements:

• Class participation: Show up, do stuff, get credit.
• Oral presentation: Research and present a 5 minute talk on a prominent systems thinker. Bonus marks if you do it as a Pecha Kucha. See resource selection below for ideas for people to research. You must negotiate you choice beforehand, so we don't have duplicates!
• Term paper: Topic is negotiable. Suggestion: A case study applying ideas from the course to your own research work - preferably something that could be published. (Due by the end of the summer; length & style should be typical for the journal you would publish it in).

Some similar courses at other Universities exist, and may have useful material relevant to this course:

• Martin Bunch's course ENV4523 Systems Thinking in Environmental Studies at York U;
• David Ing & colleagues' course CS0004 Systemic Thinking of Sustainable Communities at Aalto U
• James Kay's old course The Epistemology of Systems Thinking at U Waterloo
• Tibbs et al course on Systems Thinking in a Complex World at Schumacher College

Note: This is the second time I've taught this course. The previous course web page, from 2012, is still available. Note that the course was shorter in 2012.

Course Outline

Useful Material

Books

Meadows DH. Thinking in systems: A primer. Chelsea Green Publishing; 2008.

Meadows is the main text we'll use for the first half of the course. Its a book I thorooughly recommend buying (as you'll want to re-read it every few years). It's a very readable introduction to the basics of systems dynamics.

Weinberg GM. An Introduction to General Systems Theory. Dorset House; 2001.

Weinberg is an interesting alternative to Meadows, especially appropriate for those with a background in the physical sciences, because he spends a lot of time contrasting systems thinking with the traditional reductionism used in science. For a review of Weinberg's book, see here

Jackson MC. Systems Approaches to Management. Springer; 2000.

A very detailed account of the history and philosophical roots of different strands of systems thinking. It's comprehensive, but that makes it a little heavy going to read.

Ramage M, Shipp K. Systems Thinkers. Springer; 2009.

This book is about 30 of the most prominent people in the development of the field. For each person, it provides a brief biography, and an excerpt from their writings (so they speak in their own words). This will be very useful as a source book for your presentations.

Walker BH, Salt D. Resilience thinking: sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world. Island Press; 2006.

Applies systems thinking to explore how to make socio-ecological systems more resilient to future shocks. Resilience is an important systems concept - it refers to the ability of a system to withstand sudden changes. The book includes five major case studies, interleaved with the conceptual chapters. Excellent reading!

Garvey J. The ethics of climate change: right and wrong in a warming world. Continuum International Publishing; 2008.

Excellent book on the overall idea of what an ethical response to the challenge of climate change even means. It's not specifically about systems thinking, but Garvey is certainly a systems thinker. He demonstrates that climate change is unusual as an ethical problem,because the causes and consequences are smeared out across time and space. He then frames the central question as how we divide up a shared limited resource: the atmosphere as a carbon sink. I reviewed the book here.

Booth Sweeney L. The systems thinking playbook: Exercises to Stretch and Build Learning and Systems Thinking Capabilities. Chelsea Green Publishing; 2010.

This is the book from which most of the activities on the course are taken. I suggest *not* reading this until after the end of the course - the exercises will work better if you experience them before reading about them.

Downey AB. Think Complexity. Green Tea Press; 2011.

For anyone who likes programming (in Python), this book covers many of the key ideas on complexity science, chaos, and self-organising systems, with a whole series of programming examples so you can build your own simulations models. And the book is free online - just click the link!

Gundersson L, Holling CS. Panarchy: Understanding Transformations In Human And Natural Systems. Island Press; 2002.

This book extends some of the ideas of systems dynamics to talk about why systems change and why collapse occurs.

Media

• The Movie Mindwalk, based on the work of Fritjof Capra
• A series of videos of Russell Ackoff at U Penn, and in particular, watch this one on an exercise at Bell Labs on reinventing the telephone system.
• A Collection of visualizations of multiple scales
• The Impossible Hamster - a cautionary tale about limits to exponential growth
• ...and on the topic of exponential growth, here's a classic lecture by Al Bartlett on exponentials
• The Model Library at the Systems Wiki - contains many examples of causal loop diagrams, stock and flow models, etc.
• If Russ Ackoff had given a TED Talk... - YouTube Uses systems thinking to explain why Quality Management programs have not been successful (but the style is rather dry).
• RSA Animate: The Power of Networks
• RSA Animate: Crisis of Capitalism Explores how capitalism fails to solve its problems. Introduces systemic risk, and the need for new ways of thinking.
• 300 Years of FOSSIL FUELS in 300 Seconds - YouTube Talks about how the industrial society has been driven by cheap oil. Introduces the idea of resilience (but doesn't really explain how to get it).
• David Keith's unusual climate change idea | Video on TED.com. Mainly about geoengineering, and why we need to consider it.
• Elizabeth Pisani: Sex, drugs and HIV -- let's get rational | Video on TED.com. Systems thinking applied to HIV and policy.
• Johan Rockstrom: Let the environment guide our development | Video on TED.com. Planetary boundaries.
• Alex Steffen sees a sustainable future | Video on TED.com Quick defn of sustainability.
• Dave Snowden's keynote talk at XP2012 on Complexity Thinking (as compared to Systems Thinking and Design Thinking)

Papers

Introductory Papers

• Richardson KA, Midgley G. Systems Theory and Complexity: part 4 The evolution of systems thinking. Emergence: Complexity & Organization. 2007;9(1-2):163-180.
• Sterman JD. All models are wrong: reflections on becoming a systems scientist. System Dynamics Review. 2002;18(4):501-531.
• Ackoff RL, Gharajedaghi J. Reflections on systems and their models. Systems Research. 1996;13(1):13-23.
• Beer S. What is cybernetics? Kybernetes. 2002;31(2):209-219.
• Ackoff RL. Towards a System of Systems Concepts. Management Science. 1971;17(11):661-671.
• Warfield JN, Perino Jr GH. The Problematique: Evolution of an Idea. Systems Research and Behavioral Science. 1999;16:221-226.
• Davoudi S. Resilience: A Bridging Concept or a Dead End? Planning Theory & Practice. 2012;(May):299-333.
• Randers J. Global collapse - Fact or fiction? Futures. 2008;40(10):853-864.
• Bausch K. The Global Problematique and the Club of Rome. Transformation Dialogues, Jan 2011.

Modeling

• Kim DH. Guidelines for Drawing Causal Loop Diagrams. The Systems Thinker. 1992;3.
• Richardson, G. P. (1986). Problems with causal-loop diagrams. System Dynamics Review, 2(2), 158–170.
• Warren, K. (2004). Why has feedback systems thinking struggled to influence strategy and policy formulation? Suggestive evidence, explanations and solutions. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 21(4), 331–347.

Applications

The Global Problematique

• Rittel HWJ, Webber MM. Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences. 1973;4:155-169.
• Ackoff R. Systems, messes and interactive planning. In: Ackoff RL, ed. Redesigning the Future. John Wiley & Sons Inc; 1974.
• Steffen W, Sanderson A, Tyson PD, et al. Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure. Springer-Verlag; 2004.
• Rockstrom J, Steffen W, Noone K, et al. A Safe Operating Space for Humanity. Nature. 2009;461(7263):472-475.
(see also, a response by Rockstrom to critiques of the Planetary Boundaries Concept)
• Dai L, Vorselen D, Korolev KS, Gore J. Generic Indicators for Loss of Resilience Before a Tipping Point Leading to Population Collapse. Science. 2012;336(6085):1175-1177.
• Barnosky AD, Hadly E a., Bascompte J, et al. Approaching a state shift in Earth's biosphere. Nature. 2012;486(7401):52-58.

Climate Change

• Kartha S, Siebert CK, Mathur R, et al. A Copenhagen Prognosis: Towards a Safe Climate Future. 2009.
• Sterman JD, Sweeney LB. Cloudy skies: assessing public understanding of global warming. System Dynamics Review. 2002;18(2):207-240.
• Cronin M, Gonzalez C, Sterman JD. Why don't well-educated adults understand accumulation? A challenge to researchers, educators, and citizens. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 2009;108(1):116-130.
• Sterman JD. Communicating climate change risks in a skeptical world. Climatic Change. 2011;108(4):811-826.
• Lenton TM, Held H, Kriegler E, et al. Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2008;105(6):1786-93.
• Jamieson D. The Moral and Political Challenges of Climate Change. In: Moser SC, Dilling L, eds. Creating A Climate for Change. Cambridge University Press; 2006:475-482.

Peak Oil

• de Castro C, Miguel LJ, Mediavilla M. The role of non conventional oil in the attenuation of peak oil. Energy Policy. 2009;37(5):1825-1833.
• Bardi U. The mineral economy: a model for the shape of oil production curves. Energy Policy. 2005;33(1):53-61.
• Hall C a. S, Klitgaard K a. Peak Oil, Market Crash and the Quest for Sustainability: Economic Consequences of Declining EROI. In: Energy. New York, NY: Springer New York; 2012:369-384.

Agriculture

• Foley J, Ramankutty N, Brauman K a., et al. Solutions for a cultivated planet. Nature. 2011;478:337-342.

Advanced Topics

• Manson SM. Simplifying complexity: a review of complexity theory. Geoforum. 2001;32(3):405-414.
• Flood RL. Liberating Systems Theory: Toward Critical Systems Thinking. Human Relations. 1990;43(1):49-75.
• Midgely G, Munlo I, Brown M. The theory and practice of boundary critique: developing housing services for older people. The Journal of the Operational Research Society. 1998;49(5):467-478.
• Holling CS. Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems. Ecosystems. 2001;4(5):390-405.
• Biggs R, Westley FR, Carpenter SR. Navigating the Back Loop: Fostering Social Innovation and Transformation in Ecosystem Management. Ecology And Society. 2010;15(2):9.
• Westley FR, Antadze N. Making a difference: strategies for scaling social innovation for greater impact. The Public Sector Innovation Journal. 2010;15(2).
• Tsoukas H, Hatch MJ. Complex Thinking, Complex Practice: The Case for a Narrative Approach to Organizational Complexity. Human Relations. 2001;54(8):979-1013.

On Teaching Systems Thinking

• Ing D. Systems Thinking Courses In The Masters Programme On Creative Sustainability At Aalto University: Reflections On Design And Delivery Of The 2010-2011 Sessions. In: Proceedings of the 55th Annual Meeting of the ISSS.; 2011:1-26.
• Kay JJ, Foster JA. About Teaching Systems Thinking. In: Savage G, Roe P, eds. Proceedings of the HKK conference.; 1999:165-172.
• Sterman, J. D. (2010). Does formal system dynamics training improve people’s understanding of accumulation? System Dynamics Review, 26(4), 316–334.

Other Sources

• Robert Horn's Mural on the History of Systems Thinking Ideas
• American Society for Cybernetics' Timeline for the history of Cybernetics
• The International Society for Systems Sciences' Primer on Systems Theory
• David Ing's readings on philosophical aspects of systems thinking
• List of System Archetypes at Wikipedia
• What is Systems Thinking? at Pegasus Communications