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Introduction

The Open University — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:15 GMT

This unit explores conceptual tools for assisting our thinking and deliberation on what matters. In Section 1, a reading by Ronald Moore introduces the notion of 'framing' nature, raising the perceived paradox of inevitably devaluing an aesthetically pleasing unframed entity. Three further readings, two from Fritjof Capra and one from Werner Ulrick (all of which are quite short and markedly reduced from their original courses), provide an understanding of systems thinking for explicitly framing issues of environmental responsibility. The development of systems literacy (referred to by Capra in terms of ecoliteracy and by Ulrich in terms of critical systems thinking) is explored to counter the sometimes debilitating dualistic positioning on environmental matters alluded to by writers such as Talbott, Light and Higgs amongst many others.

Section 2 focuses more on how conceptual tools can help to inform better policy and action regarding environmental matters. Here, a reading by Robyn Eckersley critically explores the importance and limitations of environmental pragmatism for informing policy. Finally, ideas of cognitive justice are explored in a reading by Shiv Visvanathan, who suggests a need for continually developing constructive space between scientific experts and lay experts in order to inform policy and action on what matters that reflects a wider constituency, and that is more specific to eco-cultural circumstances.

This unit is an adapted extract from the Open University course Environmental responsibility: ethics, policy and action (TD866).

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Learning outcomes

The Open University — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:15 GMT

By the end of this unit you should be able to:

understand why systems thinking might be useful and know something about how it can be applied in the context of environmental responsibility;
describe the significance of environmental pragmatism and cognitive justice as tools for supporting environmental policy and action.

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1.1 Framing nature using language tools

The Open University — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:15 GMT

By framing, I mean the structures and pre-assumptions that we consciously or unconsciously apply to a situation in order to make sense of it. So are there any differences between the way in which we frame nature in caring for environment and the way in which we frame it to provide accountability? What significance might this have, and what tools might be used to bridge the responsibilities of caring and accountability?

Caring for environment makes manifest the informal aspects of obligations (developing values regarding human and non-human nature) and entitlements (nurturing appropriate relationships amongst humans and between human and non-human nature). Providing accountability for environmental harm focuses on the more formal issues of duties (as codified sets of obligations) and rights (as codified sets of entitlements).

A question prompted by these divides is how we might better frame what matters with respect to environmental responsibility in a more integral manner. Higgs suggests nurturing practitioners in the field of environmental management who are conversant with the languages of both arts and science. Indeed, the language we use provides a useful device for framing what matters. Consider the metaphor of conversation as a language tool for drawing out what matters in environmental responsibility. Metaphor is a conceptual device without any real-world existence, the value of which might be measured by the purpose it serves – in other words, it has instrumental rather than intrinsic value. Metaphors can be used in prose, as demonstrated by Talbott, but also in other art forms. For example, consider the poem ‘O sweet spontaneous’, which is given in Box 1. This was written in the early part of the twentieth century by the US poet E.E. Cummings (1894–1962). Cummings also uses metaphor, which in its own way can remind us of ‘nature matters’.

Box 1 'O sweet spontaneous'

O sweet spontaneous

earth how often have

the

doting

fingers of

prurient philosophers pinched

and

poked

thee

,has the naughty thumb

of science prodded

thy

beauty .how

often have religions taken

thee upon their scraggy knees

squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive

gods

(but

true

to the incomparable

couch of death thy

rhythmic

lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

(Source: Cummings, 1923)

This poem brings out for me the perennial conflict between significant human endeavours to engage with nature in a caring, co-respondent kind of way, and the humility required in attempts to appreciate, understand, predict, be accountable to or even have control over nature.

Activity 1 Poetic ideas on climate change

Read through the poem by E.E. Cummings again and describe any points of significance with respect to contemporary issues of climate change. Select the link below to compare your answer with mine below.

Discussion

Cummings adopts an externalist view that nature (or ‘earth’) is something quite separate from humans. This is perhaps not too surprising, coming from a white male citizen of the USA in the early twentieth century. Yet Cummings also portrays an optimism regarding the overall power of nature as something that ultimately will flourish despite human activity. One wonders if he would still hold this view now, given the recent dire predictions regarding the effects of human activities on planet Earth. What language might frame his ideas nowadays?

Poetry is an art form. As with any other art that addresses questions of environmental responsibility – including the performance arts of music, dance, comedy and theatre, as well as painting, cartoons and other forms of drawing, and writing – it provides particular ways in which environmental issues may be framed. ‘O sweet spontaneous’ resonates with contemporary matters of significance – for example, issues of climate change continue to raise philosophical questions about what we ought to do, scientific questions around the full extent of the impact of human activity on the environment, and some profound and quasi-religious ideas regarding our relationship with the survival of planet Earth. It frames a tension between the human desire to fully appreciate and use nature, and nature's resilience to such desires.

Poetry uses language as a framing device – a particular way of perceiving the world that makes sense of other symbols and concepts within it and provides meaning to the person using the framing device. The study of the use of words as symbolic representations is known as semiotics, while the way in which words and language ascribe meaning to the objects being represented is the focus of study in semantics. Box 2 gives a brief description of these traditions.

Box 2 Framing reality and the study of semiotics

Framing belongs to a tradition of semiotics, semantics and the meaning of words. In the late nineteenth century, Charles Peirce's semiotics and theory of representation made the distinction between objects being represented and the representation itself. Later, in the tradition of semantics, it was argued that concepts have no meaning outside a specific context and content. A concept is not merely its content – a symbolic name such as ‘nature’ or ‘pollution’ – but is a function of the context it is in. Alfred Korzybski (1933) famously captured this idea in his phrase, ‘the map is not the territory’. Just like a road map, a conceptual map is a way of representing the world rather than a reality in itself.

Maps are perhaps the most common type of framing, with a clear instrumental value attached. They are a framing tool for making sense of the real-world territory and communicating with others about features of that territory. They can also provide a means of enhancing accountability for harm done to the territory – a point of reference for any change to the territory. Yet a map remains a conceptual device, composed from particular perspectives associated with particular purposes – for example, either principally providing an understanding of the relative spatial dimensions, area or positioning of a place (an atlas), or guiding a route to somewhere (an A – Z map), or providing an aesthetic piece of artwork (for hanging on a wall or as a global bedside lampshade)!

The study of semiotics and semantics, and later philosophical pragmatism, provided an important departure from ideas in mainstream science, challenging the notion that our framing devices are direct representations of reality. In contrast to the supposition that reality can be represented in a value-free way, semiotics suggests that all languages and associated tools for representing reality come with values built in by the users of those language and conceptual tools. Framing devices should be considered more as tools towards enabling an understanding of reality, helping to generate meaning and purpose in order that we may engage more responsibly with the real world. Framing devices of language enable us to make meaningful sense of what matters in the natural world. A framework is an example of a framing device: a device that works for a particular (pragmatic) purpose, using (symbolic) features – words, diagrams, icons, etc. – arranged in a meaningful (semantic) manner. The actual use of any framing device or framework, however, is always dependent on the values of the user in a particular context of use.

But is there not something intrinsic in nature that matters separately from human perception through framing informed by human values? This question is addressed by Ronald Moore in terms of a framing paradox, which is the subject of the next subsection.

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1.2 A framing paradox: experiencing nature with cognitive tools

The Open University — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:15 GMT

Whilst language tools are helpful in conveying meaning in conversation amongst humans, establishing what matters in ‘conversation’ between human and non-human nature, or amongst non-human living entities, requires different cognitive tools. Cognition refers to the way in which external information from the environment is processed. As sentient beings, humans and some other animals are able to experience wellbeing and suffering. In the next reading, Ronald Moore examines how we engage with, and bring to the foreground, matters of interest regarding nature in terms of aesthetic experiences, perhaps the most highly developed constituent of sentience.

The paradox referred to in the title of the reading is fairly straightforward: ‘On the one hand, frames seem to be an indispensable condition for the aesthetic experience of anything whatsoever, and on the other hand the aesthetic appreciation of natural environments seems to require the dissolving or penetrating of boundaries of all sorts’ (Moore, 2006, p. 249). Aesthetic values are clearly human-centred; that is, they are subjective rather than objective. Moore suggests that the apparent paradox has generated a schism amongst philosophers, with many claiming that any attempt at framing the environment devalues it because its aesthetic value relates to its essentially frameless quality.

Activity 2 The framing paradox

Read ‘The framing paradox’ by Ronald Moore (2006).

View document

‘The framing paradox’ and the poem ‘O sweet spontaneous’ both hint at the variety of ways in which we engage with environmental responsibility, and the purposes of our engagement. They also invoke a tension between the desire to fully appreciate nature and the desire to make best use of it.

A key point in Moore's argument rests on the idea that every aesthetic experience of nature is actually framed (2006, p. 263):

Whether one is standing outside the cabin looking at the vast panorama or standing within it looking through the window, one is looking at what is necessarily only a selection from the great inventory of natural phenomena. It obviously follows that nature as a whole cannot be appreciated aesthetically, and that we are therefore stuck with finding beauty, sublimity, etc., in parts of nature rather than in a limitless and therefore insensible whole. To this plain fact of limitation, we may add the fact that our limited capacities of attention and comprehension, let alone culturally inculcated limitations on what we may become aware of, inevitably circumscribe our ability to experience natural phenomena.

Framing might be considered as the means by which we as humans converse with nature. In conversation, we attend to someone. Moore suggests that framing has an aesthetic value through focusing our attention on selected experiences. However, the attention that we give to nature through framing is not just an aesthetic experience; it might also be considered as an important language through which to enact responsibility – to perpetuate a conversation. Framing as an aesthetic device contributes to the quality of conversation. The aesthetic value generated could be seen as fulfilling a purpose, one that might loosely be described in terms of providing attention, and therefore respect, to nature (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Paying attention to nature: members of the public look at exhibits in a natural history museum

Long description

In constructing ‘nature’ from Nature, what we select as constituting what matters is determined by both biological and cultural factors. Two examples of this are given in Boxes 3 and 4. Box 3 briefly describes framing as a biological function, while Box 4 explains it as a more cultural and political function. Each explanation in its own way signals the importance of understanding the frameworks used in raising issues of what matters.

Box 3 Framing as a biological cognitive device

The Santiago theory of cognition (Maturana and Varela, 1987) defines cognition as the structural coupling between a perceiving agent and its environment. As Niels Röling describes it, the starting point is perception – but perception driven by some notion of a purposeful activity, as demonstrated by Maturana and Varela's example of a frog looking at a fly (Röling, 2003, p. 82):

There is no way that the fly can be ‘objectively ’ projected. But the presence of a fly can trigger change in the central nervous system of the frog. The frog does not bring forth the fly, but a fly … [but not just] any fly (as pure relativists would have us believe). It brings forth a fly the frog can catch and eat.

The frog brings forth a fly for the purpose of nutrition. Cognition appears to be driven by internal devices of ‘purpose’. Purpose provides the shaping device that determines what we attend to. Framing in this basic biological sense is not just a human endeavour, but one shared by all sentient beings.

John Dewey, the US educationalist, philosopher of aesthetics and exponent of the philosophical school of pragmatism who is referred to by Ronald Moore in the final paragraph of the reading in Activity 2, makes a similar claim regarding attentiveness in relation to human perceptions. Dewey makes the distinction between simple recognition and perception. David Granger (2006, p. 122) describes Dewey's distinction in terms of an artistic act:

In moving beyond the point of simple recognition, [perception] requires that we attend … It cannot happen without a creative act of reconstructive doing such that past relations and meanings are to some degree remade – an activity that is greatly facilitated by a mindful, feeling intellect.

Ideological constructs provide a further level of purpose in framing, moving from being aesthetically attentive towards being more intentional (Box 4).

Box 4 Framing as an ideological device

Ecologism, as understood by Mark Smith (1998), is a mode of thinking underpinning a sense of ecological citizenship. It provides two distinctive features of ecological thought: the obligation to future generations, and the relationship between humans and animals. The following quotations from Dobson and Humphrey discuss the idea of ecologism as an ideology.

I have claimed that ecologism is a new political ideology, worthy of attention in the new millennium alongside other more familiar ones such as liberalism, conservatism and socialism.
(Dobson, 2000, p. 163)

For Michael Freeden [1996], whilst it makes sense to treat Green political thought as an ideology, it is a ‘thin’ ideology – a constellation of ideas clustered around just a few core concepts, which lacks the ideational complexity of a ‘full’ ideology.
…
On Freeden's morphological understanding all political thinking takes place in the form of structured arrangements of political concepts, and these structures are what constitute ‘ideology ’.
Neither Freeden's nor Dobson's conception of ideology presumes ideological thinking is exceptionally dogmatic, nor do their approaches probe the epistemological questions of truth and falsehood addressed in the Marxist tradition. Instead they seek to map and explain particular ideological constellations of conceptual structures. … [T]he most important facet of ideological morphology: the absence of absolute boundaries which separate the features of ideological systems.
(Humphrey, 2001, pp. 3, 6)

Ilan Kapoor (2005) looks at frameworks as ideological constructs. According to Kapoor, ‘participatory development’ as an official guide to development intervention might be considered as an ideology that masks real-world problems. Drawing particularly on the psychoanalytical work of Slavoj Žižek, and citing the definition of ideology as a ‘lie which pretends to be taken seriously’ (p. 1207), Kapoor distinguishes between reality and the Real (p. 1205):

Reality is what we (mistakenly) take to be wholeness or harmony, while the Real denotes the impossibility of wholeness … For Žižek, from the moment we enter into the world of language, reality is where we escape to avoid the Real … [Ideology] is a framework that forecloses the Real in order to make reality smooth and consistent.

This distinction between reality and the Real mirrors that between ‘nature’ and Nature. For example, we may construct nature as a source of environmental services or goods for fulfilling our perceived economic needs. Or we can (re)construct nature as a device for justifying survival (or selection) of the fittest. ‘Participatory development’ and other ideological constructs can be helpful as well as distracting in terms of supporting environmental responsibility (Reynolds, 2008a).

The notion of framing as a proactive exercise relates also to the development of ideologies, and particularly to the understanding and practice around green ideology. In Box 4, I introduced a discussion regarding whether ‘ecologism’ might be respected as a fully edged ideology. My reason for introducing this question here is not to discuss the merits of Dobson or Freeden, but rather simply to signal their shared idea that ideological frameworks are themselves conceptual constructs – that is, human devices used for making sense of and acting in complex situations. The two framings of ecological ideas suggested by Dobson and Freeden, though suggesting different levels of ideological maturity, both serve to generate an enhancement of conversation, policy and action around environmental responsibility.

However, the Humphrey quotation given in Box 4 also touches on the idea of dogmatism. The extent to which ideologies might be conceived as being dogmatic (i.e. invoking unquestionable principles) relates to the quality of conversation generated through such frames of reference. Highly dogmatic ideologies, such as various expressions of fundamentalism – whether spiritual, scientific or political – have the ability to shut down rather than open conversation.

Activity 3 Dogmatism

Think of an example where you have experienced someone's argument on an environmental issue – either personally or more indirectly through the media – as being dogmatic. List some of the experiences that you had when subject to these seemingly intransigent framing devices.

Make notes in your learning journal or note book.

Here, I want to emphasise the point that ideology can be a constructive as well as a destructive means of facilitating environmental responsibility. Being ideological is not necessarily bad. In fact, as Ronald Moore suggests with framing in general, being ideological might be an unavoidable trait of human and cultural activity. Perhaps the real challenge is to mobilise techniques of framing to improve support for environmental responsibility. These more practical dimensions of framing are the subject of the next two subsections.

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1.3 Framing nature matters as systems

The Open University — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:15 GMT

Much of what is considered Nature is often codified as ‘systems’ – natural systems, ecosystems, ecological systems and/or environmental systems. Systems thinking is an active cognitive endeavour to conceptually frame reality. A key feature of framing Nature in terms of systems is the appreciation given to the multiple interrelationships and interdependencies that exist in the natural world.

The Thing – that is, the repercussions of the eighteenth-century European industrial revolution – and Nature both occupy the realm of the ‘unknowable’, a force that appears to have a life of its own; the difference being that Nature is a little less predictable than the Thing. One significant difference between the Thing of industrial revolution (and its aftermath) and Nature is the level of human complicity involved. The industrial revolution is clearly much less of a naturally ordained event, but rather something very much driven by human purpose. Although Nature does have human involvement, and events such as climate change are driven by human purpose and activity (though the actual level of drive might be contested), the Thing is more knowable and predictable than Nature. We can explain the Thing in terms of systems: economic systems, the capitalist system, financial incentive systems, labour systems, etc. These systems matter because we can appreciate the underpinning human purposes behind them. But what of Nature? What capacity do we have for understanding the interrelationships between component entities of natural systems – and does it matter for environmental responsibility if we cannot assign purpose?

One of the first and most famous formal expressions of thinking about the natural world in terms of systems with interdependent parts was through the work of systems dynamics, as pioneered by Jay Forrester. In 1968, an elite group of industrialists and academics formed the Club of Rome, a global think tank whose remit was to elaborate on what they termed ‘the predicament of mankind’. On his way back from a meeting of the Club in 1970, Forrester drafted a systems dynamics model of the problems associated with the world – a model later referred to as ‘World1’. He went on to publish a revised version of this model, ‘World2’, in his 1971 book World Dynamics. Meanwhile, under the influence of Forrester, a team of systems modellers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who had been commissioned by the Club of Rome published their report The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al., 1972), which caused considerable controversy. The authors used what they saw as key variables – resources, population, industrial output, food supply and pollution – to make predictions about the future of industrial society. Their findings predicted that, assuming constant growth of the global economy in circumstances of limited resource availability and limited capacity for the ecosphere to assimilate pollution, industrial society would collapse within a hundred years. The authors stated that the key way to avoid this doomsday scenario was to reduce global consumption levels. Until the early 1990s, discussion of this solution was dominated by debate on population control.

Although the book was widely read and discussed, most readers found the prescriptive ideas in The Limits to Growth hard to swallow. Economists were generally still of the opinion that ecological resources were not a limiting or constraining factor on economic development. Not surprisingly, it was the economists who were quick to pick up on the shortcomings in the modelling scenarios (shortcomings that the authors had acknowledged anyway). Amongst the aggregates of variables feeding into the computer simulations, for example, no attention was paid to economic variables such as the differential price value of natural resources, or to the potential of future technological developments.

The problems of forecasting change were later embraced by the authors of The Limits to Growth. Twenty years after their original publication, three of the authors revised their scenarios in a new book, Beyond the Limits (Meadows et al., 1992), refining Forrester's ‘World2’ model to produce the ‘World3/91’ model. (A further refinement was made in 2000 by the Institute for Policy and Social Science Research, who generated a ‘World3/2000’ model.) In giving greater acknowledgement to the potential of human technological inventiveness, Meadows et al. celebrated initiatives concerning the efficiency of resource use and provided a more optimistic note with regard to future technological innovations. However, their main argument – suggesting natural limits to economic growth – remained unchanged.

Another significant development in the twentieth century that provided a framing of interdependencies in the tradition of thinking about systems was chaos theory and complexity science. Edward Lorenz (1917–2008) was a pioneer in this field and the originator of the term ‘butterfly effect ’ – his 1972 ‘butterfly talk’ at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is now a celebrated work. Like the authors of The Limits to Growth, Lorenz worked at MIT. Box 5 provides extracts from one of his many obituaries.

Box 5 Chaos theory and interdependencies

Edward N. Lorenz, the MIT meteorologist whose efforts to use computers to increase the precision of weather forecasts inadvertently led to the discovery of chaos theory and demonstrated that precise long-range forecasts are impossible, died of cancer [on] Wednesday at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 90.

Lorenz was perhaps best known for the title of a 1972 paper,‘Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly 's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?’ The memorable title pithily summarised the essence of chaos theory – that very small changes in a system can have very large and unexpected consequences.

Although the chaos theory was initially applied to weather forecasting, it subsequently found its way into a wide variety of scientific and nonscientific applications, including the geometry of snowflakes and the predictability of which movies will become blockbusters.

His work ‘profoundly influenced a wide range of basic sciences and brought about one of the most dramatic changes in mankind's view of nature since Sir Isaac Newton,’ wrote the committee that awarded him the 1991 Kyoto Prize for basic sciences in the field of earth and planetary sciences.

By showing that there are limits to the predictability of many systems, Lorenz ‘put the last nail in the coffin of the Cartesian universe and fomented what some have called the third scientific revolution of the 20th century, following on the heels of relativity and quantum physics,’ said atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

…

The roots of chaos theory trace back to at least the late 19th century, when French physicist Henri Poincare discovered to his chagrin that it was not possible to calculate the stability of a celestial system containing more than two bodies – at least using techniques available at the time.

That was a shock because Newton's laws of gravity and motion promise order and predictability, and Poincare concluded that there must be other equations that would eliminate the problem. In the absence of computers, however, there was little anyone could do to test that thesis.

…

Lorenz worked out the math involved and reported his findings in the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences in a 1963 paper called ‘Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow.’

…

Lorenz later said that he had planned to use a sea gull as an illustration, but that an MIT colleague suggested a butterfly would have more impact. He chose Brazil for its alliterative value.

According to the Web of Science online database, Lorenz's original paper has now received at least 4000 unique citations by subsequent authors, making it one of the most prolifically cited papers of all time.

(Source: Maugh, 2008)

Activity 4 Climate modelling and chaos theory

When convenient, spend 20 minutes searching on the internet to determine the current state of climate change modelling.

A prominent contemporary writer in the same traditions of systems dynamics and chaos theory is Fritjof Capra. Capra is more influenced by the ideas of non-linear dynamics coming from complexity science and chaos theory, but is able to describe the significance of these ideas in more accessible terms of systems thinking.

The following reading is perhaps one of the most popular expressions of systems thinking in the domain of environmental responsibility and sustainable development.

Activity 5 Systems thinking for environmental responsibility (1)

Read ‘The web of life’ by Fritjof Capra (1996).

View document

Capra is a physicist. Like other scientists, he draws inspiration from thinking about systems, and in particular thinking about living systems. He regards systems principally as interrelated entities constituting the ‘web of life’ (p. 1):

The more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realise that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent. For example, stabilising world population will only be possible when poverty is reduced worldwide.

Systemic problems arise from the interrelationships and interdependencies of entities associated with a system. Thinking about complex issues associated with the environment in terms of systems provides a powerful framework for understanding and getting a grip on the issues. Capra equates systems thinking with ecological holistic thinking and its accompanying language and understanding, which he calls ecoliteracy. Developing ecoliteracy requires attention to concepts of interrelatedness and interdependence. Thus, returning to Talbott's metaphor of having an effective ecological conversation, ecoliteracy may provide the lingua franca (or common language) for mediating conversation. In other words, understanding the principles of ecology can provide the conceptual devices that are necessary to flourish in a sustainable ecological world. Such ideas of interrelatedness and interdependence have resonance amongst senior managers in both public and private sectors, particularly on issues of climate change – as demonstrated in the continual calls for ‘joined-up thinking’ (Figure 2).

Figure 2 The call for ‘joined-up thinking’

Long description

In a later work, Capra expands on the ecoliteracy described in his book The Web of Life and shifts his attention towards ecodesign:

My extension of the systems approach to the social domain explicitly includes the material world. This is unusual, because traditionally social scientists have not been very interested in the world of matter. Our academic disciplines have been organised in such a way that the natural sciences deal with material structures and the social sciences deal with social structures, which are understood to be, essentially, rules of behaviour. In future this strict division will no longer be possible, because the key challenge of this new century – for social scientists, natural scientists and everyone else – will be to build ecologically sustainable communities, designed in such a way that their technologies and social institutions – their material and social structures – do not interfere with nature's inherent ability to sustain life.

Activity 6 Systems thinking for environmental responsibility (2)

Read ‘Hidden connections’ by Fritjof Capra (2002).

View document

The framework used by Capra is one based on the science of living systems. Despite the obvious power of tools such as systems dynamics and modelling that are associated with complexity sciences, there remain challenges on at least two fronts: first, in attempting to capture the immense complexity of nature; and second, in trying to meaningfully engage people, particularly those who are not scientifically literate, with ecoliteracy and its significance. Systems models of this type are complex.

The following is an extract from the concluding chapter of Beyond the Limits, which discusses the difficulties of addressing environmental problems through the type of literacy associated with systems analysis (Meadows et al., 1992, pp. 223–4):

In our search for ways to encourage the peaceful restructuring of a system that naturally resists its own transformation, we have tried many tools. The most obvious ones are displayed throughout this book – rational analysis, data, systems thinking, computer modelling, and the clearest words we are capable of finding to express new information and models. Those are tools that anyone trained like us in science and economics would automatically grasp. Like recycling, they are useful, necessary, and not enough.
We don't know what will be enough. But we would like to conclude this book by mentioning five other tools we have found helpful, not as the ways to work toward sustainability, but as some ways to work toward sustainability. We are a bit hesitant to discuss them because we are not experts in their use and because they require the use of words that do not come easily from the mouths or word processors of scientists. They are considered too ‘soft’ to be taken seriously in the cynical public arena. They are visioning, networking, truth-telling, learning, and loving.

Activity 7 Thinking about systems and responsibility

Make a note of your reaction to the extract from Beyond the Limits. How might this extract resonate with the two endeavours of environmental responsibility? What implications might it have for any formal framing device?

So far in this section I have considered systems more in terms of hard, real-world entities – nature typically understood as ecosystems. In the following subsection, a more critical systems literacy is introduced in which a softer notion of systems as human conceptual devices is examined for its relevance to environmental responsibility.

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1.4 Nature matters in terms of a critical systems literacy

The Open University — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:15 GMT

The systems philosopher and social planner Werner Ulrich has long argued for a more ethically informed idea of systems. Before looking at Ulrich's ideas, however, it is worth returning to examine the relevance of the earlier Moore and Martell readings to this subject.

One of the hallmarks of systems thinking is a recognition of the limits of holism, relating to the problem of aesthetic framing expressed by Ronald Moore (2006, p. 263):

In the end, the framing controversy is about the variety of limits on attention. Everyone admits that our sensory exposure to the world is limited and that our way of making sense of, or appreciating, the world to which we are exposed is also limited. Not only are the limits inevitable, they are basic conditions of the intelligibility of our sensory world.

Systems thinking is often invoked as a holistic approach towards assuring comprehensiveness. Luke Martell (1995) makes his unease with the notion of holistic systems thinking clear in his criticism of ‘preservation of systems’ as a basis for attributing value to the environment. He identifies six problems with thinking about nature in terms of some idealised holistic system, which can be summarised as follows.

The ‘fact’ of holism, and interdependencies between entities, can be questioned – it ought not to be taken as given.
It is not enough to unquestionably associate ‘the natural’ with something worthy of respect. ‘Fetishising’ nature (that is, being obsessed with the value of nature) as something deserving of unquestioned respect can be dubious.
Thinking of nature as systems serves only to make concrete a commonly perceived and unhelpful dichotomy between the social and the natural. Ecosystems tend to be viewed as being outside the social domain.
Nature is contested terrain – it invites the allocation of human value as to whether it is good ( flourishing) or bad (destructive).
Deferring to a pristine notion of Nature in terms of non-interference is not always the best course of action. Sometimes human intervention is not only good but essential.
Systems cannot in themselves have intrinsic value. They may have value, but only in terms of an instrumental value to those individuals making up the system. It is the individuals that have intrinsic value.

Martell's critique and language assume that systems are real-world entities, but he also alludes to the idea that systems are socially constructed. There is in his language the notion that thinking about nature invokes different perspectives, and therefore limitations, on our understanding of nature.

A more fundamental problem was referred to earlier in the discussion of semiotics (see Box 2) – the idea of confusing the map with the territory. This might be significant particularly when systems are to be used not only as (inevitably partial) representations of reality, but also as mediating devices for effective ecological conversation with the purpose of generating meaning and value. The insights gained from an ecological systems approach to nature are also circumscribed by particular frameworks of thinking, and are therefore subject to the possibility of fallibility and inadequacy. Systems are maps – conceptual devices for making sense of complex realities and communicating with others about improving those realities. Worthwhile enthusiasm for the study of living systems can sometimes distract attention away from this basic premise behind systems thinking.

This represents one of three concerns outlined in the following reading by Werner Ulrich, regarding systems thinking for what he calls future-responsive management.

Activity 8 Systems thinking for environmental responsibility (3)

Read ‘Can we secure future-responsive management through systems thinking and design?’ by Werner Ulrich (2002).

View document

The three concerns outlined by Ulrich might be paraphrased in terms of three imperatives of systems thinking:

dealing meaningfully with holism
engaging with multiple perspectives
framing reality from a critical perspective.

Below, I expand a little on each of these three aspects in relation to identifying their significance for environmental responsibility.

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1.4.1 Dealing meaningfully with holism

The Open University — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:15 GMT

Ulrich's primary observation is quite straightforward. Any system as a human construct is unable to capture the total complexity of interrelationships and interdependencies that make up the real world. This idea resonates with the paradox of framing referred to by Moore. It also resonates with Ilan Kapoor's reference to the work of Slavoj Žižek, quoted earlier: ‘Reality is what we (mistakenly) take to be wholeness or harmony, while the Real denotes the impossibility of wholeness’ (Kapoor, 2005, p. 1205). There are limitations on what we can frame – no framework can ever incorporate all interrelationships and interdependencies (Figure 3). For this reason, although systems thinking and ecological thinking are culturally important framing activities for alerting us to interrelationships and interdependencies, claims towards holism or being holistic can only be relative. Thus Capra's ecological thinking, for example, is more holistic than conventional scientific reductionist thinking.

Figure 3 Understanding the complexity of climate change

Long description

Complexity scientists and chaos theorists provide an invaluable understanding of reality and living systems as interconnected wholes. Yet ultimately these are codified understandings of what ‘is’ ; they can never be absolute, true representations. Moreover, there is a further problem. Moving from a powerful descriptive understanding of reality towards appropriate practice in that world requires shifting our framing device from an ‘is’ mode to an ‘ought’ mode. This is an ethical jump, requiring value judgements as much as judgements of ‘fact’. Confusing the two leads to what philosophers have long referred to as the ‘naturalistic fallacy’. Put simply, this means assuming that what is natural in the descriptive world is necessarily what is equivalent to what is good – a judgement in the normative world rather than the descriptive world. Martell makes reference to this in terms of ‘fetishising the natural’. Judgements of fact (descriptions) are different from, though very much related to, value judgements (norms) – the latter being more associated with the realm of multiple perspectives.

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1.4.2 Engaging with multiple perspectives

The Open University — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:15 GMT

A systems approach begins when first you see the world through the eyes of another.
(Churchman, 1968, p. 231)

The Ulrich reading is an extract from an article written in honour of another systems philosopher, C. West Churchman. Also drawing on Churchman's influence, Jake Chapman sums up two qualities of systems thinking in terms of ‘gaining a bigger picture (going up a level of abstraction) and appreciating other people's perspectives’ (2004, p. 14). He goes on to acknowledge that appreciating other people's perspectives remains the most challenging aspect of systems thinking. ‘Systems approaches’ tend to focus on the need to make proper representation of the interrelationships between entities deemed relevant to a situation. They sometimes pay little attention to practical issues of engaging with different perspectives (Figure 4).

Figure 4 Multiple perspectives on climate change

Long description

The ability to frame a perspective and also to reframe a perspective based on another viewpoint is a powerful tool that is peculiar to humans. Churchman's idea about seeing the world through the eyes of another is also discussed by Stephen Talbott (2004, p. 52):

The well-intentioned exhortation to replace anthropocentrism with biocentrism, if pushed very far, becomes a curious contradiction. It appeals to the uniquely human – the detachment from our environment that allows us to try to see things from the Other's point of view – in order to deny any special place for humans within nature.

Talbott considers this capacity to be overtly anthropocentric, and one that legitimately distinguishes us from non-human nature whilst at the same time bestowing particular responsibilities on us: ‘We are asked to make a philosophical and moral principle of the idea that we do not differ decisively from other orders of life – but this formulation of principle is itself surely one decisive thing we cannot ask of those other orders’ (ibid.).

So making perspectives transparent and appreciating other perspectives, particularly those that may not share the same foundational worldview of science, religious commitment or whatever, is a key attribute of systems thinking. In the context of carrying out an ecological conversation, or any other such way of describing our relationship with non-human nature, systems thinking confers a particular responsibility on us as humans. Humberto Maturana, the systems theorist referred to earlier (see Box 3), describes Churchman's endeavour in terms of practising being epistemologically ‘multiverse’ (Maturana and Poerksen, 2004, p. 38), as distinct from assuming access to some ontological ‘universe’ (or even multiple ontological universes, as in the contemporary scientific meaning of multiverse). Ontology is the study of the nature of being, whilst epistemology is the study of knowledge, its validity and scope. Thus the focus moves away from an ontological idea that there is a single reality to be discovered, towards the acceptance that there may be many valid realities depending on the criteria of validity and values applied (an epistemological concept that is inherent in Churchman and Maturana's systems thinking).

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1.4.3 Framing reality from a critical perspective

The Open University — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:15 GMT

The question arising from the previous two imperatives of systems thinking – dealing with holism and engaging with multiple perspectives – is how we might develop frameworks that deal responsibly with our inevitable limitations on being holistically comprehensive and epistemologically ‘multiverse’. Ulrich reminds us that a ‘systems approach’ to environmental responsibility is perhaps not quite the panacea that it so often mistakenly promises to be. Take, for example, the ‘ecosystem approach’ as described by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (2005):

The ecosystem approach is a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way. Application of the ecosystem approach will help to reach a balance of the three objectives of the Convention. It is based on the application of appropriate scientific methodologies focused on levels of biological organisation which encompass the essential processes, functions and interactions among organisms and their environment. It recognises that humans, with their cultural diversity, are an integral component of ecosystems.

Humans may be integral, but is something omitted by referring to them as component parts of ecosystems? Are they mere (object) entities, or rather (subject) agents with different, sometimes conflicting perspectives on the ecosystems? Reference to ‘the’ ecosystems approach suggests one viewpoint (Figure 5). Like Capra's ecoliteracy, it may be a valuable viewpoint in drawing out (some) interrelationships and interdependencies, but it ought not to mask the possibilities of other viewpoints. A more reliable perspective is one that recognises the limitations of systems thinking, or indeed any human thinking – as raised by commentators such as Ulrich and Moore.

Figure 5 ‘The’ approach to climate change

Long description

In a paper outlining a critical systems approach to corporate responsibility, Martin Reynolds draws on the traditions of Churchman and Ulrich to map out three distinct types of systems framing associated with three generic purposes:

a framework for understanding (fwU)
a framework for practice (fwP)
a composite framework for responsibility (fwR).

These frameworks are described by Reynolds as follows (2008b, pp. 385– 6):

A critical systems framework constitutes three distinct though interrelated (sub)frameworks: firstly, a framework for understanding (fwU) complex interrelationships and interdependencies; secondly, a framework for practice (fwP) when engaging with different perspectives; and thirdly, a composite framework for responsibility (fwR) in dealing ethically with inevitable limitations on being holistically ‘universe’ and pluralistically ‘multiverse’.
…
The three frameworks can be regarded as systems for addressing [corporate responsibility] dilemmas. The fwU provides a system for ‘getting real’ – translating complex realities into manageable systems. The fwP provides a system for ‘getting it right’ – enabling multiple perspectives to engage with constructing better systems. The fwR provides a system for ‘getting a grip’ – responsibly coming to terms with inevitable incomplete understanding and inadequate practice.

Figure 6 gives a representation of critical systems thinking, adopting the model of responsibility that was used earlier.

Figure 6 Framing nature matters through systems thinking (adapted from Reynolds, 2008b, p. 387)

Long description

In sum, a framework for understanding (fwU) can help us to appreciate the holistic realities of interrelationships and interdependencies associated with the natural world. A framework for practice (fwP) can support constructive engagement with multiple and sometimes conflicting perspectives on the complexities of the natural world.

A framework for responsibility (fwR) reminds us of the limitations of any fwU and fwP, and keeps our attention focused on continually improving our framing constructs to best suit the demands of environmental responsibility at any one time and in any one place.

Two brief examples of how this triadic framework might be used in the context of climate change are provided in Box 6, illustrating how the three frameworks might tease out matters of importance in environmental responsibility.

Box 6 Framing issues of climate change through critical systems thinking

Example 1: Biofuel controversy

(If you would like further current information on this issue, use the keywords ‘biofuel crops’ in your online search engine

fwU: The development of biofuels was triggered by fear that our energy supply cannot be dependent on fossil fuels, given the exhaustible supply of the resource and the effects of using it – burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gases, which in turn contributes to global warming, prompting increased pressure to find alternative sources of fuel.

fwP: Multiple conflicting perspectives emerged, including (i) governments with an interest in meeting carbon emission targets (global North) or ensuring national food security (global South); (ii) large corporate agricultural industry promoting biofuel production through genetically modified crops; (iii) relocated smallholding farming households dispossessed of land and dependent on the low-wage economy of biofuel production; and (iv) environmental groups concerned about the increased reliance on pesticides, and increased ecological degradation and reduced biodiversity due to monocropping.

fwR: Approaches to biofuel production would seem to require both a better understanding of the multiple socio-economic factors as well as the ecological causes of climate change, and engagement with appropriate practice with due concern for the perspectives of the different stakeholders.

Example 2: A cool look at global warming

In this second example, the three frameworks are used as a device for critically examining one particular viewpoint or generalised framework of thinking about climate change. Though personified in terms of one author, it is a viewpoint quite widely held.

In his 2008 publication An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming, Nigel Lawson argues against the 2006 UK government's Stern Review into climate change and its logic of responsibility that suggests we ought to act swiftly now to curb our carbon footprint so as to offset problems later.

Instead, Lawson is in favour of continuing as normal but putting resources towards technological adaptation. A simple summary of Lawson's framing of what matters can be expressed as follows.

fwU: Climate change is regarded as being something inevitable and ‘naturalistic’ – ‘what will be will be’. There is an understanding here that humans are disconnected from Nature.

fwP: Instead of adopting an fwP based on reducing overall consumption (as proposed by Stern), Lawson suggests we need to simply go with the flow and technologically adapt to climate conditions when and if necessary. His fwP is in the form of ‘business as usual’, with no need to change consumption levels.

fwR: Lawson puts an emphasis on the uncertainty regarding an fwU, and a hopefulness in technological development for fwP. His overall approach towards responsible intervention requires a suspension in understanding the causes of global warming in favour of some future trust in the practice of technological development.

Activity 9 Testing frameworks for responsibility

For Example 2 in Box 6, provide your own response to each of the framing devices (fwU, fwP and fwR). What are the policy implications of Lawson's framing of global warming?

Systems thinking as advocated by Fritjof Capra, in contrast with Nigel Lawson, puts more emphasis on a framework for understanding – fwU – for making sense of, and drawing out what matters about, the reality of the natural world. In particular, as practised by climate modellers, complexity scientists and systems advocates in the same tradition as Capra, framing an understanding of the natural world using systems ideas (fostering ecoliteracy as an fwU) is helpful in identifying the interrelationships and interdependencies associated with a complex world, and informing frameworks for practice (ecodesign as fwP). But crucially, systems thinking is also about engaging meaningfully with different perspectives on the natural world.

Although the gift of framing is one shared by all humans, some frameworks of reference are inevitably given primacy over others, particularly in formulating policy and guiding action. This raises questions about who constructs the framing devices and what legitimacy they have. Here, I want to flag the general importance of framing what matters in questions of environmental responsibility, and the implications this has for policy and action.

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2.1 Dealing with change in what matters: ethics, policy and action

The Open University — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:15 GMT

Much of what has been covered so far in this unit deals with the individual human capacity to frame nature as a means for enabling environmental responsibility. But what are the implications of this for actually doing something about policy design and action to improve matters? Framing the natural world is an inevitable human endeavour that we all carry out, whether consciously or subconsciously, as part of our interaction with human and non-human nature. For example, each of the tools listed below might be considered as a system (a framework that may be put to work in conveying ideas around environmental responsibility):

classification or typology (e.g. the three views of environment – externality, managerial and integral – that you met in Part 1, or the perspectives on sustainable development introduced in this part)
metaphor (e.g. ‘conversation’ as a way of understanding the interaction and tension between human and non-human nature)
analogy (e.g. the ‘family’ as a way of understanding two dimensions of responsibility, caring and accountability)
models (including simple diagrams, as used in this part to help you understand the various dynamics of responsibility).

The codified expressions of rights and duties can also be regarded as framing devices, each prompting questions regarding its value as a framework for both understanding and practice. And from a framework for responsibility (fwR) viewpoint, we might question the comprehensiveness of any one particular ‘right’ or ‘duty’ and also the impact it may have on different perspectives. Such matters, it might be argued, are essential when raising issues of environmental responsibility.

Be that as it may, a system, framework or any other human conceptual construct always starts with some distinction over what matters. In other words, it starts with an ethical judgement on the realities of the ‘real world’. Yet this real world may be judged differently by different people, as David Russell suggests (Russell and Ison, 1991):

My real world is different from your real world and this must always be so. The common ground which is the basis of our ability to communicate with one another, comes about through the use of the common process of perceiving and conceptualising. The process might be common but the end products are never the same … we do not share a common experiential world.

The initial judgements made by humans are judgements of ‘fact’. But judgements on reality are, in the first instance, intuitively determined by some bounded value judgement of what is good and what is bad. In framing what matters, we are therefore dealing in the first instance with a consequentialist ethic. In other words, ‘caring for environment’ is based on the fundamental criterion of what harms the environment. Given the differences in human perspectives, there may often not be a consensus on such judgements. However, in many cases there might at least be some movement towards convergence. Marilyn Holly, in her discussion of the role of virtue-based ethics, describes this convergence as an asymptotic tendency, approaching but never reaching consensus (2006, p. 414):

I suggest that we must think in terms of at best an asymptotic approach to consensus about what harms the environment, and use this as a criterion of wrong environmental action, and then argue backward as it were to what human virtue(s) would prevent such wrong environmental action and what human actions would promote right environmental action. Leopold's Land Ethic … could be the criterion of right and wrong environmental action as promoting or not promoting the beauty, stability, and integrity of the ecosystem. Then, arguing backward from this, we could specify what human virtues as character traits would lead to environmentally right actions that also promote human flourishing. Both of these, conceived of in this way, may or may not be time-bound by the ethos and the conditions of a given historical/philosophical milieu. These matters can be rethought from time to time.

An assessment of what matters is not only arguably the first point of departure in environmental responsibility but also, as Holly further suggests, variable over time and place. This variability is due not only to the change and natural flux in Nature, but also to ever-changing sets of human judgements. Werner Ulrich (2003) refers to these judgements in terms of boundary critique. They include judgements of ‘fact’ associated with developments in science; societal and individual value judgements permeating through an evolving human culture; and boundary judgements used to frame our understanding and practice regarding what is good and what is right for the environment.

Activity 10 Making judgements on climate change

Take around half an hour to listen to this three-part studio discussion on issues relating to climate change:

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Make notes on (a) the issues raised during the discussion, (b) instances where you feel that the three participant discussants are using judgements of ‘fact’ or value judgements, and (c) whether you experience the discussion more as a conversation or as a debate. You will be asked to reflect further on this audio resource later.

Given this flux of change and interaction, what confidence might we have in the framing of the natural world being used at any one time to support relevant policy design and as a guide to action? In other words, how might we recognise appropriate professional expert support – in addition to citizen support – in the arena of policy design and action? I shall examine two complementary traditions in this section. First is environmental pragmatism, which has its roots in the tradition of philosophical pragmatism – a tradition referred to by Ronald Moore when he cites the influence of John Dewey (see also Box 3). Second is citizen engagement in the tradition of science and technology studies. Both of these traditions support the idea that value formation is integral to providing expert scientific support. In other words, they are both critical of the notion of value-free scientific support, and call instead for a more responsible mode of professional practice. The aim here is to try and recognise different attributes of professional expert support and citizen support for environmental responsibility in terms of contributing perspectives on what matters.

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2.2 Environmental pragmatism: positioning expert support

The Open University — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:15 GMT

I believe that the principal task for an environmental pragmatism is not to reengage the … debates in environmental ethics but rather to impress upon environmental philosophers the need to take up the largely empirical question of what morally motivates humans to change their attitudes, behaviours, and policy preferences toward those more supportive of long-term environmental sustainability.
(Light, 2002, p. 446)

This is a quotation from a part of Light's ‘Contemporary environmental ethics’ that is not included in the Course Reader. Here Light is suggesting a focus on policy design, wanting to move beyond the four philosophical debates that have dominated environmental ethics – anthropocentrism versus ecocentrism, individual versus holistic ecocentrism, subjective versus objective holism, and moral monism versus moral pluralism. This is an example of environmental pragmatism.

The tradition of environmental pragmatism was briefly discussed in Part 1. Within the heuristic of ethical traditions informing environmental responsibility introduced in that part (consequentialist, deontological and virtue-based ethics), environmental pragmatism represents one of the more contemporary expressions of consequentialism. Its point of departure from more traditional expressions of consequentialist thinking is the real-world,‘empirical’ experiences of action in the environment.

Robyn Eckersley provides a helpful summary of environmental pragmatism juxtaposed with ecocentrism. In effect, she focuses on the last of the debates identified by Light, that between moral monism and moral pluralism, and identifies environmental pragmatism as being an exemplar of moral pluralism – that is, an ‘ecumenical’ endeavour to embrace different perspectives, but with the prime intent of addressing the issue at hand. In contrast, ecocentrism is an exemplar of moral monism – that is, a firm, unassailable belief in the oneness of the human–nature relationship. Eckersley calls the pragmatists ‘mediators’ and the ecocentric theorists and activists ‘advocates’. She sees a value in both types of contribution to the process of drawing out what matters in deliberative democracy.

Activity 11 Mediators and advocates

Read ‘Environmental pragmatism, ecocentrism and deliberative democracy’ by Robyn Eckersley (2002).

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Eckersley identifies three limitations of environmental pragmatism, which might be paraphrased as follows.

A narrow focus on the ‘problem-solving’ context means that there is a risk of being too accommodating to views and prejudices that are the root cause of environmental problems. So, for example, a pragmatic discussion of the merits of biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels may distract attention from a deeper-rooted problem concerning the general over-consumption of fuels.
Environmental pragmatism is too ‘instrumentalist’ and utilitarian, denying the value of non-instrumentalist ‘dialogue for dialogue's sake’, which can sometimes of itself generate respect and trust (as much as conflict). The ‘action’ of dialogue can itself have great intrinsic value.
While professing pluralism, environmental pragmatism is not pluralist enough since it is essentially anthropocentric, based on a tradition of ‘liberal humanism’. This inherently alienates extreme forms of ecocentric representation, which see such traditions as being anthropocentric and therefore inappropriate to engage with.

The criticisms offered by Eckersley are gentle, in that she acknowledges the wide and fruitful range of expression amongst pragmatists, and the attempts by many to redress such concerns. The philosophical tradition of pragmatism, for example – as rooted in the works of Charles Peirce (1839–1914), William James (1842–1910) and John Dewey (1859–1952) – would suggest that environmental pragmatism can accommodate wider critical reflection on problem structuring, as well as problem solving. Many environmental pragmatists would also recognise the value of deliberation in itself as a means of enabling trust. Crucially, though, environmental pragmatism must acknowledge its own limitations in its capacity to frame nature.

In this respect, Eckersley's concerns mirror those of Werner Ulrich (Reading 12c). But such concerns, as Ulrich himself points out (2006), are again shared by the authentic tradition of philosophical pragmatism. Pragmatism is critical. But what, then, is the role of the monist? If pragmatists are self-critical, should they be the only contributors to environmental policy design? In response, Eckersley borrows Kate Soper's distinction between ‘nature’ and Nature, asking ‘are we seeking to liberate the “nature” we have constructed, or Nature as extra-discursive reality?’ (p. 30). She continues (ibid.):

Indeed, the acknowledgment that the only Nature we know is a provisional, socially constructed ‘map’ that is at best an approximation of the ‘real territory’ provides the basis of a number of cautionary tales as to how the ‘emancipatory project’ might be pursued. Such an argument might run as follows: if we want to enable nonhuman nature to flourish and if it is acknowledged that our understanding of nature is incomplete, culturally filtered and provisional then we ought to proceed with care, caution and humility rather than with recklessness and arrogance in our interactions with ‘nature’. In short, we must acknowledge that our knowledge of Nature and its limits is itself limited (and contested). Practically, these arguments provide support for a risk averse posture in environmental and technology impact assessment and in environmental policy making generally.

Accordingly, there is an underlying respect for environmental pragmatism and other instrumental ideas as a legitimate exercise in using a range of different values for mapping or framing policy design with the intent of changing values, but there is an important acknowledgement that Nature cannot be completely assimilated. Hence there must be room for a continual creative tension between ‘mediators’ and ‘advocates’.

Question 1 Mediators and advocates amongst systems thinkers

Drawing on your studies in Section 1, state in what ways the tension between mediators and advocates is implicitly expressed amongst systems thinkers in the field of environmental responsibility.

Answer

Answer 1

Fritjof Capra is much more an advocate than, say, Werner Ulrich. Capra promotes systems thinking as the new paradigm – one particular perspective, based on a set of fundamental principles derived from living systems. Deep ecology is an example of such a perspective, and so it is ironic that while Capra advocates tolerance as being one of the fundamental principles, it is amongst deep ecologists that a sense of intolerance is often expressed.

Ulrich, on the other hand, is more a mediator, calling for a deeper sense of complementarity between different viewpoints. However, he might also veer towards being a monist, and therefore an advocate, in relation to promoting a particular theoretical standpoint on practical philosophy.

Activity 12 Mediators and advocates in the studio discussion?

Think back to the studio discussion that you listened to in Activity 10. Describe each of the four participants (including the person chairing the discussion) in terms of whether and when they took the role of a mediator and/or an advocate.

Eckersley's reflection on the dangers of environmental pragmatism becoming too complacent echoes a similar critique of science in the tradition of writings associated with science and technology studies. Here, science might be regarded as the dominating ‘mediator’ of environmental issues, particularly in terms of framing issues of risk, whereas lay citizens represent an enduring, sustained source of ‘advocacy’ for changes to the way in which the natural world is framed. This suggested divide between science and citizens mirrors a wider supposed expert– lay knowledge divide (Wynne, 1996). So how might citizens together with scientists frame what matters for environmental policy and action?

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2.3 Citizens in conversation with nature and experts

The Open University — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:21:15 GMT

Before leaving office in 2008, Sir David King (the ex-Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government) introduced an ethical code for scientists. This drew particularly on his experience in working across the scientific–political divide on issues of climate change. The code comprises three attributes of scientific endeavour: rigour, representation and responsibility (Figure 7, p. 106). Box 7 provides an extract from a leaflet produced by the Government Office for Science.

Figure 7 Three attributes of scientific endeavour

Long description

Box 8 gives a definition of expertise taken from a Wikipedia article. This describes the relationship between members of the public and technocrats (elite technical experts), inviting questions on how environmental issues are framed and who frames them. You may like briefly to reflect on the extent to which your own culture defers decisions on environmental issues to ‘experts’.

Box 7 Science and responsibility

The Universal Ethical Code for Scientists

Our social licence to operate as scientists needs to be founded on a continually renewed relationship of trust between scientists and society. The code has been developed in my Office to help us meet this challenge.

Sir David King, Government Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Office for Science.

Rigour

Rigour, honesty and integrity

Act with skill and care in all scientific work. Maintain up to date skills and assist their development in others.
Take steps to prevent corrupt practices and professional misconduct. Declare conflicts of interest.
Be alert to the ways in which research derives from and affects the work of other people, and respect the rights and reputations of others.

Respect

Respect for life, the law and the public good

Ensure that your work is lawful and justified.
Minimise and justify any adverse effect your work may have on people, animals and the natural environment.

Responsibility

Responsible communication: listening and informing

Seek to discuss the issues that science raises for society. Listen to the aspirations and concerns of others.
Do not knowingly mislead, or allow others to be misled, about scientific matters. Present and review scientific evidence, theory or interpretation honestly and accurately.

What is the Universal Ethical Code for Scientists?

The Universal Ethical Code for Scientists is a public statement of the values and responsibilities of scientists. By scientists we mean anyone whose work uses scientific methods, including social, natural, medical and veterinary sciences, engineering and mathematics.

The code has three main aims:

to foster ethical research
to encourage active reflection among scientists on the implications and impacts of their work
to support communication between scientists and the public on complex and challenging issues.

Individuals and institutions are encouraged to adopt and promote these guidelines. It is meant to capture a small number of broad principles that are shared across disciplinary and institutional boundaries.

What it isn't!

This code is not intended to replace codes of conduct or ethics relating to specific professions or areas of research.

The code is not mandatory but scientists and institutions are encouraged to reflect on and debate how these guidelines may relate to their own work.

(Source: Government Office for Science, 2007)

Box 8 Expertise: birth of the technocrat

Plato's ‘Noble Lie’, albeit arguably a notion of ideological propaganda, is often where the debate begins concerning ‘expertise’. Plato did not believe most people were clever enough to look after their own and society's best interest, so the few ‘clever’ people of the world needed to lead the rest of the flock. Therefore, the idea was born that only the elite should know the truth in its complete form and the rulers, Plato said, must tell the people of the city ‘The Noble Lie’ to keep them passive and content, without the risk of upheaval and unrest. Thus, the creation of an elite form of specialist and authoritative knowledge came about.

In contemporary society, doctors and scientists, for example, are considered to be experts in that they hold a body of dominant knowledge that is, on the whole, inaccessible to the layman … However, this inaccessibility and perhaps even mystery that surrounds expertise does not cause the layman to disregard the opinion of the experts on account of the unknown. Instead, the complete opposite occurs whereby members of the public believe in and highly value the opinion of medical professionals or of scientific discoveries … despite not understanding it.

(Source: Wikipedia contributors, 2008)

Since environmental issues first began to ‘matter’ in the global North, around the mid-twentieth century onwards, a wellspring of environmental expertise has been generated. This is situated in governments and private sector consultancies, as well as the many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) associated with the environmental movement. It is also increasingly acknowledged that whatever expert-driven plans are made and whatever assurances of success are given, there will always be consequences that are either unforeseen or foreseen but not particularly valued (hence marginalised). Human-induced accidents such as the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster in India, the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion in what was then the Soviet Union and the 1989 oil spill from the tanker Exxon Valdez in Alaska have generated what has increasingly been seen as scepticism towards traditional expert support – particularly scientific or technical (technocratic) expertise, which is often viewed as being too closely aligned with business interests.

In 2007, a series of high-profile ‘Camps for Climate Action’ began in the UK. These are campaign gatherings that are set up on anarchist principles in protest against particular policy initiatives that have been given legitimacy by considerable levels of scientific and technical evidence, but that are deemed by many to be harmful to the climate. Between 2006 and 2008, camps took place at Drax power station (Figure 8), at Heathrow Airport (in protest against a planned new runway), and at the site of a proposed new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth.

Figure 8 ‘Climate Camp’ at Drax power station in 2006

Long description

The long tradition of direct action amongst activists in the environmental movement (see, for example, the Reynolds reading in the Course Reader, which discusses protests against the Narmada Dam Project in India) is one manifestation of the distrust between citizens and technical experts. Another manifestation is the widespread calls for greater citizen participation in planning processes. Box 9 looks at this in more detail.

Box 9 Challenging the technocrats

(T)he engagement of citizens and professional experts potentially opens a learning space. (A)ny human engagement both occupies and creates space where outcomes cannot be pre-determined. In particular, the assumption that everyone will discover the same universal truths requires challenge. The literature that investigates ‘beyond the truth’, drawn principally from participation and development studies, and public engagement with science is, however, limited in that the focus in both literatures is largely the potential for active citizenship. There is much less about the potential of others who inhabit these spaces. Prominent among these is the professional expert who, characterised as a technocrat and accorded only circumscribed agency, is seen too often solely as part of the problem (Wilson, 2006, p. 511).

In his paper, Beyond the Technocrat, Wilson acknowledges the demise of positivist epistemology exemplified by (a) critiques of the elitism of professional expert ‘learners’ (e.g. through promotion of rapid and participatory rural appraisal methods), and more recently, (b) elevating citizen ‘learners’ and ‘self discovery’ through, for example, promoting in-country poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs). But he counsels against denigrating both science and the value of practice through positing oppositional dichotomies (ibid. p. 521) – positivist or constructivist, and practice or understanding. Wilson advocates instead a more practical exploration of a social constructivist epistemology through enabling space for interaction between professional experts and citizens.

(Source: Reynolds, 2008a, pp. 768–9)

The ‘social constructivist epistemology’ referred to in Box 9 relates to the way in which knowledge is created: not through some privileged access to ‘truth’, as supposed by (epistemological) positivism and science, but rather through a continual process of dialogue (a conversation) in order to formulate new frameworks for understanding and practice as social activities.

Experts do not have privileged access to what is true, but they do have particular skills in framing ‘reality’ and ‘nature’ from the Real and Nature. Such skills can be valuable as tools for facilitating ecological conversations, but often they can be experienced as instruments for discouraging conversation. Even amongst experts themselves, framing devices can sometimes get in the way of meaningful conversation. Climate scientists have long been in dispute over the influence of human activities on climate, depending on the frameworks of measurement used. Many climate scientists have also been at loggerheads with economists and statisticians regarding their use of cost–benefit analytical frameworks in assessing the importance of climate change (for example, see Bjørn Lomborg's controversial 2001 publication, The Skeptical Environmentalist). These discussions are largely reserved for academic journals and books, yet many disputes have influence amongst those involved with policy design. But what might an enabling space for interaction between professional experts and citizens look like?

In the Wilson extract quoted by Reynolds in Box 9, reference is made to the tradition of ‘public engagement with science’. This is also known as science and technology studies (STS). Notable contributors include Bruno Latour, Frank Fischer, Jerry Ravetz and Brian Wynne. They focus on the way in which science constructs environmental issues in the policy domain and the effect that this type of framing may have on discounting other perspectives. Wynne in particular is a critic of the way in which policy informed by science circumscribes conversation in terms of ‘risk assessment’, and is also critical of some aspects of Ulrich Beck's concept of the risk society (see Section 5.3.1). For Wynne, the idea of ‘risk’ and its importance needs to be a contested issue in itself, rather than something that is simply ‘given’ or assumed by the facts of science. In a rebuke of policy designers relying heavily on technical experts, Wynne states that a continual problem in the policy domain associated with environmental issues is the effect of disengaging the public (2008, p. 29):

Thus the implicit condition for citizens' recognition by science-informed policy institutions, is that they comply with the reductionist issue-framings and meanings imposed by those policy institutions and their experts. This would mean for example … that a public issue like nuclear power is ‘only’ a question of whether it is safe (and thus accepting their [policy designers/experts] absurd proposition that parliament has already decided democratically all the other non-technical issues, and also the framing of what count as the technical issues). The same applies to GM [genetically modified] crops, which has been insistently defined by policy expert institutions as only a scientific risk issue.

Activity 13 The studio discussion and scientific support

Reading through your notes on the audio recording of the studio discussion (Activity 10), comment on how each of the protagonists uses science as a means of supporting their viewpoint.

Much of the work on STS is generated from a European context. However, Shiv Visvanathan, an Indian anthropologist and human rights researcher, has also worked for a long time in this field. In the spirit of Wilson's call for scientists not to be displaced, Visvanathan takes the underpinning criticisms further by trying to identify the type of space required for more meaningful conversation between scientists and citizens. In 1999 he coined the term cognitive justice as a normative principle for more equality in the treatment of all forms of knowledge. Cognitive justice implies a diversity of knowledge types and the need to embrace this divergence. The following short reading contextualises cognitive justice in India, and argues for the need to move on from simple calls for ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and other buzzwords used in policy intervention.

Activity 14 Cognitive justice: legitimising what matters

Read ‘Knowledge, justice and democracy’ by Shiv Visvanathan (2005).

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The Visvanathan reading brings the discussion on ‘nature matters’ to the metaphor of conversation. For policy design and action that meets the requirements of environmental responsibility, there needs to be space given to different expressions of what matters. An ecological conversation that informs policy design and action is shaped not only by science but also by the culture in which that science is generated (Visvanathan, 2005, p. 89):

[W]hat one needed was a science that realised that nature was not just an object of an experiment or a resource but part of a way of life. As Tom Kocherry, leader of the Kerala Fishers Forum, claimed: ‘Seventy per cent of India depends on nature for its livelihood.’ Nature was thus not only a mode of production but a mode of thought. The movements realised that there were few life-affirming notions of nature within science. The concept of wilderness used in American ecology was inadequate because for the American the wilderness was an unpopulated monument. One needed something beyond the American dialectic of wilderness and frontier or the British obsession with gardens.

In policy design, giving appropriate expression to caring for the environment and ensuring accountability for harm or wrong done to it presents significant challenges. Yet these are not so much around getting the science ‘right’, though scientific ‘conversation’ with Nature is important; rather, they focus on the quality of wider conversation amongst experts, and between experts and citizens in different cultural contexts.

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3 Next steps

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References

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Acknowledgements

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Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit:

The content acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons licence). See Terms and Conditions.

Text

Box 5: Maugh, T H (2008) ‘The MIT Meteorologist’s theory’, The Los Angeles Times

Box 7: Rigour, Respect, Responsibility: A Universal Ethical Code for Scientists. Crown Copyright material is reproduced under Class Licence Number C01W0000065 with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland

Table 3 Turner, R K Pearce, D W and Bateman, I. (1994) Environmental Economics: An Elementary Introduction, Prentice Hall Europe

Readings

The material below is contained in Reynolds, M., Blackmore, C. and Smith, Mark, J (eds) (2009): The Environmental Responsibility Reader, published by The Open University in association with Zed Books Limited, © The Open University 2009, compilation, original and editorial material.

Chapter 11: Ronald Moore, ‘The Framing Paradox’ in Ethics, Place and Environment, 9(3), 249-67, 2006. Reproduced by permission of the author.

Chapter 12b: extract from The Hidden Connections: Integrating the Biological, Cognitive and Social Dimension of Life into a Science of Sustainability by Fritjof Capra, copyright © 2002 by Fritjof Capra.

Chapter 12c: From Ulrich Werner, ‘Can We Secure Future-responsive Management Through Systems Thinking and Design?”, Interfactes, 24(4), 1994, 26-37. Copyright 1994, the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), 7240 Parkway Drive, Suite 300, Hanover, MD 21076, USA.

Chapter 13: Robyn Eckersley, ‘ Environmental Pragmatism’, pp49-69 in Democracy and the Claims of Nature, Ben A. Minteer and Bob Pepperman Taylor (eds), Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Reproduced by permission of the author.

Chapter 14: extract from S. Visvanathan, ‘Knowledge, Justice and Democracy’ in Science and Citizens: Globalization and the Challence of Ebgagement, Melissa Leach, Ian Scoones and Brian Wynne (eds), Zed Books, 2005.

Figures

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This resource was created by the Open University and released in OpenLearn as part of the 'C-change in GEES' project exploring the open licensing of climate change and sustainability resources in the Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences. The C-change in GEES project was funded by HEFCE as part of the JISC/HE Academy UKOER programme and coordinated by the GEES Subject Centre.

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