Epistemological Error Jody J. Boehnert
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Epistemological Error and Converging Crises
- A WHOLE SYSTEMS VIEW OF THE
ECONOMIC CRISIS
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Jody Joanna Boehnert - MPhil - School of Architecture and Design - University of Brighton
Why? Context
Epistemic Learning for Ecological Literacy Learning Levels 1-2-3
Humanity’s ecological footprint presently exceeds its regenerative capacity by 30%. This global overshoot is growing and ecosystems are being damaged as wastes (including greenhouse gases) accumulate in the air, land, and water. Climate change, resource depletion, pollution, loss of biodiversity, and other systemic environmental problems threaten to destroy the natural support systems on which we depend.
1st: Education ABOUT Sustainability Content and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodated into existing system. Learning ABOUT change. ACCOMMODATIVE RESPONSE - maintenance.
What? Epistemological Error
2nd: Education FOR Sustainability
Gregory Bateson said that we are ‘governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong’ back in 1972. In the same book Bateson wrote: 'the organism that destroys its environment destroys itself.’ The roots of the economic crisis are based in this epistemic error. We will continue to suffer from converging economic, social and ecological crises until we adopt and put into practice a more systemic, ecological and durable epistemological position.
Additional values emphasis. Greening of institutions. Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice. Learning FOR change. REFORMATIVE RESPONSE - adaptive.
3rd: SUSTAINABLE Education Capacity building and action emphasis. Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities. Learning AS change. TRANSFORMATIVE RESPONSE - enactment.
How? Complexity, Limits and Practice Problems cannot be understood in isolation but must be seen as interconnected and interdependent. We must learn to engage with complexity and think in terms of systems to address current ecological, social and economic problems. We must start to define economic prosperity in qualitative terms and create ways of living within the carrying capacity of the ecological system. Epistemic learning for ecological literacy is necessary in response to converging economic, social and ecological crises.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
ECOLOGICAL
Crisis provides an opportunity for intervention and possibility for renewal.
ECONOMIC
SOCIAL
Complexity, Limits, Practice A: COMPLEXITY (Perception ) An understanding of complexity and expanded ethical sensibility
B: LIMITS (Conception ) A critical understanding of pattern, consequence and connectivity
The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-socialpsychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent, intractable, global problems arise directly from this mismatch. Donella Meadows, 1982
C: PRACTICE (Acti on) References Bateson, G., Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1972 Meadows, D., Wright, D. ed., Thinking in Systems. London: Earthscan. 2008 Sterling. S. Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm Change in Education. University of Bath. 2003
The ability to design and act relationally, integratively and wisely Adapted from Stephen Sterling, 2009
With thanks to Angela Morelli for the use of the scale graphic. j.j.boehnert@brighton.ac.uk | jody@eco-labs.org This poster can be downloaded on this website:
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This paper will suggest that the roots of the economic crisis are epistemological.
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Gregory Bateson: ‘we are governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong’ Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 1972
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ECOLOGICAL
ECONOMIC
SOCIAL
‘the organism that destroys its environment destroys itself’ Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 1972
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Epistemology defines how we know what we know.
123 The notion that the dominant epistemological position is a poor reflection of reality has been described in detail by cultural commentators in multiple fields.
123 Bertalanffry 1969, Bateson 1972, Orr 1992, Capra 1997, Reason 2001, Sterling 2001, Meadows 2008, etc.
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We are now faced with an epistemological tradition that works for building clocks and cars, but not for understanding or managing complex systems.
u 123 This reductive worldview conflicts with the highly complex ecological systems on which we depend.
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ECOLOGICAL
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ECONOMIC
whole systems thinking 123 ecological literacy
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While this position has been rehashed over the past few decades in progressive circles, whole systems thinking is still marginal.
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Consequently, the economic system and business practices do not reflect philosophical or geophysical imperatives. 123 The reductive position prevents appropriate responses to maintain ecological homeostasis while also damaging economic stability in the shorter term. www.eco-labs.org
To correct this error, ecological literacy will become increasing important in the practice of business management and other disciplines. 123 Ecological stability is necessary for material well-being and economic stability, but current management and business practices do not reflect what we know about complex systems or environmental science.
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Business models follow abstract economic theory based on mechanistic thought but ignore ecology the basis on which wealth is created. 123 The current trajectory of economic growth create strains on the ecological system, which in turn weakens our capacity to create economic and social security.
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These stresses can only lead to deepening crises within economic and ecological systems, and while economic collapse is painful ecological collapse is terminal.
Feedback from the economic system will be significantly faster than feedback from the ecological system, which has evolved over a period of millions of years and has significant inbuilt buffers.
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Complexity, Limits, Practice A: COMPLEXITY (Perception ) An understanding of complexity and expanded ethical sensibility
B: LIMITS (Co n c e p t i o n) A critical understanding of pattern, consequence and connectivity
C: PRACTICE (Ac t ion) The ability to design and act relationally, integratively and wisely Adapted from Stephen Sterling, 2009
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1 Complexity
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1. Complexity
Problems cannot be understood in isolation but must be seen as interconnected and interdependent. We must learn to engage with complexity and think in terms of systems to address current ecological, social and economic problems. We must start to define economic prosperity in qualitative terms and create ways of living within the carrying capacity of the ecological system. Epistemic learning for ecological literacy is necessary in response to converging economic, social and ecological crises.
The economic system and the ecosystem cannot be entirely understood through reductive analysis.
ECOLOGICAL
ECONOMIC
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Comple
A: C
An u
B
A cr c
C References Bateson, G., Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1972 Meadows, D., Wright, D. ed., Thinking in Systems. London: Earthscan. 2008 Sterling. S. Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm Change in Education. University of Bath. 2003
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1. Complexity Instead we must recognize the dynamics, hierarchy and interdependence at work between these two systems.
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1. Complexity Ecological economist Herman Daly has been describing this relationship for over four decades.
r
It is evident that the ecosystem existed for millions of years before humankind invented the modern economic system and will exist in some form whatever becomes of our civilization.
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1. Complexity The economic system needs to be understood as a subsystem of the ecological system.
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dama s glob resen ged a tly ex al ove the air s was ceed rshoo , land t s its r e t is gr s , (inclu and w lo s s egen owing ding g ater. C o f b io erativ a n r d eco e li d e e m ive r s n threa a h t o syste e u chang it y, a s ten to e g ms ar ases) nd ot e, res destr e a her s oy the ys t e m ource deple ccumulate natur in t ic ion, p al sup What e nv ir ollutio port s onme ? Epi n, ystem nt al p Grego s s temo r o b le on wh r y Ba m ic s t l h e ogic son s we de we kn aid th a pend. ow to l E a t r b we ar ror e wro 'the o e ‘gov ng’ ba rganis erned ck in m tha of th 1 by ep t 9 destr e eco 72. In istem oys it nomi the sa contin ologie s c e me b n c vironm risis ue to s that o ok Ba are b suffer ent d crise teson ased e from s s unt t r o wrote i y n c s onver i l we this e itself.’ ecolo : ging e adop piste The r gical t c m o oots a ic n nd pu and d omic, e r r or. W t into urabl socia e will l and e epis pract ecolo ice a temo Ho w ? gical lo m g o ic r C a e l posit omp s ys t e Pr o b le ion. mic, lexit ms c y anno , in t e r c L t i m b e und onne its a cted ersto comp nd P a n d in o d in l ex i t y racti t is e o la t io r depe and t ecolo ce n but nden hink gical, t m . W i ust b n s ocial e mu term econ e see and e s s omic t le o n as f s ys arn to conom prosp w it h in tems enga ic pro erit y to ad ge w the c in qu blems it h d a alit at ress learnin r r y in g . We ive te curre must g for capac r m s n e t t s c it a econ ologic rt to d y of t and c omic al lite he ec efine reate , socia racy is o w lo ays o g ic a l l and neces f livin s ys t e ecolo sar y in g m. Ep gical r e is t e m crises spons ic e to c . onver ging
1. Complexity
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C Refer ences Bates on, G ., Steps Mea d to o
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1. Complexity Our failure to recognize that economic prosperity depends on ecological wellbeing has developed from a reductive habit of mind that is unable to understand the relationships between complex systems.
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1. Complexity This has led to a state where we are quickly destroying the possibility of long-term prosperity.
Edward Burtynsky Alberta Oil Sands #9 Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, 2007
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Epistemic Learning for Ecological Literacy Learning Levels 1-2-3
1. Complexity
1st: Education ABOUT Sustainability Content and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodated into existing system. Learning ABOUT change. ACCOMMODATIVE RESPONSE - maintenance.
2nd: Education FOR Sustainability
Herman Daly describes the economic crisis as a result of the overgrowth of financial assets relative 3rd: SUSTAINABLE Education to growth of real wealth. Additional values emphasis. Greening of institutions. Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice. Learning FOR change. REFORMATIVE RESPONSE - adaptive.
Capacity building and action emphasis. Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities. Learning AS change. TRANSFORMATIVE RESPONSE - enactment. Stephen Sterling, 2009
Crisis provides an opportunity for intervention and possibility for renewal.
imits, Practice
TY (Perception ) of complexity and ical sensibility
Co n c eption )
The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-socialpsychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as
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1. Complexity Referring to Noble Prize winner Frederick Soddy’s 1926 book; Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt, Daly explained; Soddy pointed out the fundamental difference between real wealth – buildings, machinery, oil, pigs – and virtual wealth, in the form of money and debt. Soddy wrote that real wealth was subject to the inescapable entropy law of thermodynamics and would rot, rust, or wear out with age, while money and debt – as accounting devices invented by humans – were subject only to the laws of mathematics. Rather than decaying, virtual wealth, in the form of debt, compounding at the rate of interest, actually grows without bounds.
Daly describes how financial assets have become so disconnected from real assets, leading to the absurd pyramiding of wealth that created the economic crisis. www.eco-labs.org
1. Complexity We have created a global financial system focused on profit and especially increasing GNP. Robert Kennedy described the lunacy of the system obsessed with GNP in back in 1968: Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that gross national product – if we judge the United States of America by that – counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armoured cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities and the television programs that glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. www.eco-labs.org
1. Complexity Forty-two years later GNP is still the dominant economic indicator. Professor Roderick Smith of Imperial College describes the consequences of world GDP growth; Relatively modest annual percentage growth rates lead to surprisingly short doubling times. Thus, a 3% growth rate, which is typical of the rate of a developed economy, leads to a doubling time of just over 23 years. The 10% rates of rapidly developing economies double the size of the economy in just under 7 years. These figures come as a surprise to many people, but the real surprise is that each successive doubling period consumes as much resource as all the previous doubling periods combined. This little appreciated fact lies at the heart of why our current economic model is unsustainable.
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1. Complexity
Fritjof Capra and Hasel Henderson explain that GNP was not created to be used in such an simplistic and dangerous fashion; the creator of GDP national accounts, Simon Kuznets, warned in 1934 that such a limited, one-dimensional metric should not be used as an index of overall social progress.
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1. Complexity Our framework focuses narrowly on economic indicators and this is how the system is designed to establish value.
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An economic system that placed value on ecological stability, resilience, equity, wellbeing or happiness would be designed and managed in a very different manner.
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1. Complexity A narrow focus on profit excludes a holistic appraisal of values and encourages short-term thinking and waste of ecological and human ‘resources’.
123 Even our language becomes distorted around the narrow focus of profit, as we know that neither nature nor people are inherently ‘resources’ but have value in their own right outside of their function as a source of profit.
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1. Complexity The nature of the economic system is to grow and consume everything to suit it needs; our language, our values, our ideas about what can and cannot be an economic transaction.
123 The emphasis on profit in an international capitalist system based on infinite growth is that transnational capital will continue to grow and swallow up everything in its wake until there is nothing left to use.
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1. Complexity Evidence will take the form of lost species, destroyed rainforests and a stable climate system – complex ecological systems that have evolved over millions of years that are being destroyed in a manner of a few decades.
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2 Limits
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stemo
- A WHO
2. Limits
Why?
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n t ex t Human it y’s ec ologica capacit l footp y by 30 rint pre %. This being d sently global amage exc e e d oversh d s its re a s oot is g the air, w a s genera te rowing s (inclu land, a tive nd wate ding gre and ec lo s s o osyste r. Clima enhous f b io d iv m te s e are g c ases) a e r s it y, hange, threate ccumu and ot resourc n to de la her sy e te d stroy th in e pletion s t e m ic e natura , polluti e nv ir o l suppo o n n , m ent al p rt syste What? r o b le m ms on Episte s which Gregor we dep m ologic y Bates end. o a n l Erro said th we kno at we a w to be r re ‘gov wrong’ 'the org erned b b a ck in 19 anism y epistem that de 72. In th of the ologies stroys e same econo that it s e book B m n vironm ic c r is continu ateson is a r e ent des e to su wrote: b tr a o s ff y e e s d r from itself.’ c r is e s in t h is converg The roo u n t il w epistem ing eco ts e adop ic erro e c o lo g n o t m r. We w a nd put ic, socia ic a l a n ill d dura in l a t n o d p ecolog r a c t ic e b le ep ical istemo a more logical s ys t e m Ho w ? p o s it ic , ion. Comp lexity Pr o b le ms can , Limi not be in t e r c o ts and unders nnecte t o o d in Practi d a n d in t c o m p le is o la t io n ce erdepe x it y a n but mu n d e d n ecolog t h in k s t . t W b e e seen a in t e r m m u s t le ical, so s cial and arn to s of s econom ys t e m engag econom ic pros e w it h s ic t o problem perit y a d w it h in d r ess cu in quali s. We m the ca rrent t ative ust st a r r y in g learnin terms rt to de c a p a c it g for e a n d fine y of th c re c o a lo te gical lite e e c o lo econom ways o racy is g ic a l s f living ic, soc necess ys t e m ial and . E p is t ar y in re ecolog e m ic ical cri sponse ses. to conv erging
We are quickly shrinking the available
bio-capacity on which we depend faster than nature can regenerate what we consume and reabsorb our waste.
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The UK’s footprint = 3.4 planets like Earth. ECOLO G
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2. Limits
Daly describes the need for a system that permits qualitative development but not quantitative growth.
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2. Limits
Growth’s first, literal dictionary definition is ‘to spring up and develop to maturity’. The very notion of growth includes some concept of maturity or sufficiency, beyond which point physical accumulation gives way to physical maintenance.
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At maturity growth must give way to ‘a state of dynamic equilibrium.’
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2. Limits Growth is ‘always unstable ecologically. It has now proven itself to be unstable economically.’ Tim Jackson
Prosperity without Growth Ex- UK Sustainable Development Commission
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2. Limits Fritjof Capra and Hazel Henderson’s recent report ‘Qualitative Growth’ for The Institute of Chartered Accountants uses explicit ecological metaphors. As living systems mature, their growth processes shift from
QUANTITATIVE 123
to
Qualitative growth
.
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2. Limits
“Instead of assessing the state of the economy in terms of the crude quantitative measure of GDP, we need to distinguish between ‘good’ growth and ‘bad’ growth and then increase the former at the expense of the latter… From the ecological point of view, the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ economic growth is obvious...”
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2. Limits “...Bad growth is growth of production processes and services which externalise social and environmental costs, that are based on fossil fuels, involve toxic substances, deplete our natural resources, and degrade the Earth’s ecosystems. Good growth is growth of more efficient production processes and services which fully internalise costs that involve renewable energies, zero emissions, continual recycling of natural resources, and restoration of the Earth’s ecosystems.”
Fritjof Capra & Hazel Henderson Qualitative Growth
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3 Practice
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Ecological Literacy “All education is environmental education. By what is included or excluded, emphasized or ignored, students learn that they are part of or apart from the natural world. Through education we inculcate the ideas of careful stewardship or carelessness” (Orr 1992, 90). “An understanding of the ‘principles of organization’ of ecological systems” (Capra 2003, 201). “Critical eco-literacy is linked to cultural literacy for a more robust analysis of the connections between social and ecological systems” (Kahn 2010, 66). A awareness of the interdependence between human, economic and ecological systems must become an educational stable. Ecological literacy implies that each discipline transform its theory and practice to make sustainability a reality. www.eco-labs.org
3. Practice
In States of Denial Stanley Cohen claims that a capacity to deny disturbing facts is the normal state of affairs for people in an information saturated society.
123 There is evidence that increasing information may actually intensify denial strategies.
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3. Practice
In the complex fields of ecological sciences and sustainability, we are locked into collective patterns of behaviour and have adapted strategies to avoid accepting the implications of climate change and other environmental threats.
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value / action
Even when we understand the problems and possible solutions, it does not mean we put this knowledge into practice
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3. Practice Our society has witnessed radical social change in the past when we evolved new moral codes and changed power dynamics, laws and institutions accordingly.
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Actions Ideas / Theories Norms / Assumptions Beliefs / Values Paradigm / Worldview Metaphysics / Cosmology
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, Skills A: SEEING (Perc eption ) An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
B: KNOWING (Conception) A critical understanding of pattern, consequence and connectivity
C: DOING (Actio n) The ability to design and act relationally, integratively and wisely. Stephen Sterling, 2009 www.eco-labs.org
3. Practice
Learning Levels 0 - No change (no learning: ignorance, denial, tokenism) 1 - Accommodation (1st order - adaptation and maintenance) 2 - Reformation (2nd order learning - critically reflective adaptation) 3 - Transformation (3rd order learning - creative re-visioning) Stephen Sterling
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Learning & Communication Levels 1st: Education about Sustainability Content and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodated into existing system. Learning ABOUT change. Accommodative response - maintenance.
2nd: Education for Sustainability Additional values emphasis. Greening of institutions. Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice. Learning for change. Reformative response - adaptive.
3rd: Sustainable Education Capacity building and action emphasis. Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities. Learning AS change. Transformative response - enactment. Orginally Gregory Bateson, adapted by Stephen Sterling
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3. Practice
Educator Stephen Sterling information alone does not necessarily lead to change; ‘not only does it not work, but too much environmental information (particularly relating to the various global crises) can be disempowering, without a deeper and broader learning processes taking place’.
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3. Practice
In an attempt to move from theory to practice, our institutions, organizations and businesses must be managed from an ecologically literate perspective. Educator David Orr: education now requires a ‘fundamental transformation of our concept of learning relative to the health of the biosphere’.
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We have continued to plunder global environmental systems despite the fact that we knew that we were destroying our resource base for well over five decades. Collapse of historical civilizations is well documented (Tainter 1988, Diamond 2005, Homer-Dixon 2007).
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Within popular culture, collapse has even developed into a perverse voyeurism meme, now a theme used to sell designer clothes and a new genre of disaster movies.
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Stephen Sterling, 2009
Crisis provides an opportunity for intervention and possibility for renewal.
tice
The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-socialpsychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent, intractable, global problems arise directly from this mismatch.
The economic crisis opened new political space and has provided an opportunity for evaluation and intervention into assumptions that maintain the status quo. Donella Meadows, 1982
With thanks to Angela Morelli for the use of the scale graphic. j.j.boehnert@brighton.ac.uk | jody@eco-labs.org This poster can be downloaded on this website:
www.eco-labs.org
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A transformation depends our capacity to reconfigure systems capable of sustaining economic, social and ecological systems over the longer term.
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‘When seismic events can trigger mass physic breaks: moments when status quo stories no longer hold true, and a critical mass of people can’t deny that what is happening in the world is out of alignment with their values.’ Smartmeme - Communications consultancy
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The 2007-2009 crisis will be the first of many if we are unable to address basic epistemological error.
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EcoLabs www.eco-labs.org Jody@eco-labs.org Full paper available on-line
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