The consequences of not recognizing that the climate change problem is complex

I argue that climate change is not only about the inability of the stakeholders to understand the complexity in handling environmental crises problematized as climate change, but it is also the international dilemma of dealing with the global climate system due to a lack of systems approach that has created the problem. The problem context, the inherent complexity in climate change issue, and the consequences the world is facing as a result of not recognizing the complexity are discussed.

The problem context

The problem of climate change has eluded many scholars due to unexpected, sudden, and unpredictable events that have been taking place in the world largely driven by anthropogenic activities. The complexity involved in handling the problem is multifold. Refer to Fig 1 to understand the problem context which is nothing but the effects of climate change on our life and environment. 

Why dealing with climate change is complex

The table below shows stakeholder groups for climate change according to their primary perspectives and actions/aims/agenda.

First, as society progressed and industrialization started in Europe, the unequal distribution of natural resources gave rise to imperialism, colonialism, and then globalization. The erstwhile government, a major stakeholder, largely overlooked the environment. Countries didn’t share the burden equally.

Second, populist political parties lure their citizens by promising employment, growth, and development, and security without which they cannot come to power and form a government (eg Brazil’s president has denounced protecting the Amazon rainforest to support local agribusiness).

Third, what non-governmental organizations, civil society groups, citizen-led environmental movements, vulnerable and advocacy groups have been pushing for environmental protection is not easy to do so for governments. If jobs and trade opportunities are not created, the same people may bring down the government or a country under turmoil (eg France, India).

Fourth, the media and education industry are proponents of environmental protection, but at the same time are at the forefront of paper use. Fifth, businesses and corporations run on profits. The trade-offs between supply and demand, the rise of consumer technologies, and materialist lifestyles have accelerated the race among big corporations to explore new markets and exploit new sites at the expense of climate change. Sixth, intergovernmental organizations such as the UN are funded by big powers backed by big corporations to steer their agenda and implement policies.

In sum, “coevolution of problem and solution through incremental advances in scientific understanding, coupled to political responses and changes of behavior” has resulted in persistent consequences for the world (Stephen 2010). This is why climate change is a complex issue to resolve. 

The consequences of not recognizing that the problem is complex

While evaluating the argument with the help of identified stakeholders; concepts such as systems theory, axioms, propositions, and methodologies are discussed. System theory is “the unified group of propositions, linked to achieving an understanding of systems” (Adams et al 2012). This definition can be applied to the global climate system as it exhibits propositions such as emergence, self-organization, holism, feedback, requisite saliency, multifinality, and redundancy, grouped into seven axioms – centrality, contextual, goal, operational, viability, design, and information (Figure 2).

As we saw that there are several reasons why the climate change problem is complex, it is also true that the consequences of climate change haven’t been dealt with due to poor coordination of stakeholders. In this paragraph, I will state the consequences.

First, the constituents of global climate system are interconnected and their interactions given rise to behaviour which represents system as a whole (Jackson 2003; Merali & Allen 2011). There is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Second, constituents such as living organisms and non-living things have equal role to play (requisite saliency) in these interactions creating “positive (or self-reinforcing) and negative (or self-correcting) feedback loops” (Sterman 2001). For example, decades of natural resource exploitation, population surge, free-market economic principles, socio-political forces, etc resonated across the world has brought an unprecedented complexity in the global climate system.

Third, these feedbacks have a bearing on “people, organizations and knowledge systems” to adapt to the emergence (Dougherty & Dunne 2011) of events like global warming.

Fourth, the climate as an environmental phenomenon has been self-organizing in which patterns emerge from this feedbacks (Levin 2005). For instance, late arrival of Monsoon in the Indian Subcontinent, shifting of crop patterns, prolonged winter and summer than usual, flash floods, bushfires, change in migration of birds, etc. This happens as a result of nature’s redundancy – “superfluous or spare capacity to accommodate increasing demand or extreme pressures” (Silva, Kernaghan & Luque 2012).

Finally, the impacts of anthropocene activities have different pathways to offer for global climate system to achieve under the goal axiom and mutlifinality proposition as illustrated in Figure 3. The world will experience climate change based-on amount of CO2 emissions present in the atmosphere as per three pathways identified by scientists. 

The dilemma among stakeholders, their inability to understand the complex nature of the global climate system, and consequences discussed above according to system behavior that the world is facing needs a systems approach that will aid in understanding the complexities involved. This will not only help to counter the adverse effects of climate change but will also ensure the “human development, environmental quality, and resource efficiency” on our planet (Ingwesen et al 2013).

The solution to solve the climate change problem

I argue that both soft-systems and hard-systems methodologies are useful to tackle climate change due to their complementary nature. Scientists have gathered vast climate information and data regarding temperature, pressure, acidity, emissions, and so on.

The hard-systems methodologies can be used to find out descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive patterns by climate modeling, data analytics, and quantitative analysis tools for the physical aspects of the global climate system. Whereas, those aspects of the global climate system where active human interference plays an important role, SSM can be used that focuses on the system as a whole and examines the emergent properties that represent the overall characteristics of it (Mehregan, Hosseinzadeha & Kazemi 2012).

The soft-system methodologies can be also used to improve human interaction in nature through gradual improvements, for example, making human living more resilient (Platt & Warwick 1995). In sum, both methodologies “complement and supplement each other” and can be useful tools for climate change (Khisty 1995). 

References

Stephen CC & Ferris, TLJ 2007, ‘Re‐evaluating systems engineering as a framework for tackling systems issues’, Systems Research and Behavioral Science, vol. 24, no. 2, pp.169-181.

Rahman, MI, 2013, ‘Climate Change: A Theoretical Review, Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems, Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 350-350.

Stephen, P 2010, ‘Policymaking as Design in Complex Systems-The International Climate Change Regime’, Emergence: Complexity and Organization, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 15-22.

Adams, KM, Hester, PT, Bradley, JM, Meyers, TJ, & Keating, CB, 2012, ‘Systems Theory as the Foundation for Understanding Systems’, Systems Engineering, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 112-123.

Jackson, MC 2003, ‘Creative Holism: A Critical Systems Approach to Complex Problem Situations ’, Systems Research and Behavioral Science, vol. 23, pp. 647-657.

Merali, Y & Allen, P 2011, ‘Complexity and systems thinking’, in Allen, P, Maguire, S & McKelvey, B, (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Complexity and Management, SAGE, Los Angeles, pp. 31-52.

Sterman, JD 2001, ‘System dynamics modeling: tools for learning in a complex World’, California Management Review, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 8-25.

Dougherty, D & Dunne, DD 2011, ‘Organizing Ecologies of Complex Innovation’, New Perspectives in Organization Science, vol. 22, no. 5, pp. 1214-1223.

Levin, SA 2005, ‘Self-organization and the Emergence of Complexity in Ecological Systems’, BioScience, 2005, vol. 55, no. 12, pp.1075-1079.

Silva, JD, Kernaghan, S & Luque, A 2012, ‘A systems approach to meeting the challenges of urban climate change’, International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 125-145.

Agnew, CT 1984, ‘Checkland's Soft Systems Approach: A Methodology for Geographers?’, The Royal Geographical Society, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 167-174.

Mehregan, MR, Hosseinzadeha, M, Kazemi, A 2012, ‘An application of Soft System Methodology ’, Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 41, pp. 426-433.

Platt, A & Warwick, S 1995, ‘Review of soft systems methodology’, Industrial Management & Data Systems, vol. 95 no. 4, pp. 19-21

Khisty, CJ 1995, ‘Soft-Systems Methodology as Learning and Management Tool’, Journal of Urban Planning and Development, vol. 121, no. 3, pp 91-108.