Description of Challenge
Humans have two deepseated limitations in our makeup: we have difficulty in seeing the effects
of our actions on people or places outside of our immediate vicinity, and we struggle to realise that
delays may cause the effects of our actions to appear in the future, not right away.
“In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act”. George Orwell
Solution
The first problem is exacerbated because problems like atmospheric pollution are increasingly
cause by millions of small, incremental damaging contributions to the biosphere (eg aerosols, car
exhausts) rather than large scale, more obvious ones (like oil spills, factories). It is a death from a
million tiny cuts. We see the parts but not the hole: out of sight is out of mind. This is spatial
blindness
The second issue, temporal systems blindness, is caused because problems are often only
noticed once an invisible, unknown biotoxic threshold has been crossed and natural systems
begin to break down. We have limited time horizons and often forget lessons from the past and
also through the use of forecasting as a planning methodology in complex systems, take problems
with us into the future, growing as we go. By the time we see the problem, the damage has been
done.
Change is possible if we are aware of the traps and our shortcomings and try to avoid them in our
planning. Many of the changes we need to adopt are integral parts of systemsbased thinking,
circular economics, and Natural Capitalism and permaculture approaches.
References:
● Short intro to systems thinking. Retrieved March 2015
http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/bees/
● Ellen MacArthur Foundation
http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circulareconomy/circulareconomy
● Brain Tricks This is how our brains work (video)
Submitted by Iain
Developed in collaboration with
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