Introduction to (eco)systems thinking

The theory

One of the most classic Einstein quotes is: "You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew." I was quoted it once in a permaculture workshop, by somebody who was utterly convinced she was telling me something I didn't know. I suppose the moral of the story is that before preaching your Bible to the savages, check out the wisdom they may have already.

So, you may or may not be aware of this already: To make the world more sustainable, one of the main things needed is a major change in mindset. The difference between the way most people think now most of the time and (eco)systems thinking is simple but powerful, and it's the same difference as between traditional biology and ecology.

Biology studies living organisms: their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution and classification. This is very much the same way we think about most things: separate entities that may have parts, histories, etc. When we want to know more, we take a closer view and/or try to freeze the movement that is going on and study the static picture in detail at our own leisure.

Ecology studies the interactions of living organisms with each other and their environment, their distribution and dynamics. It's like taking a step back: you aren't looking any more at separate entities, but at the whole web of life. Instead of looking closer, separating things and freezing the movement, you are trying to step back and take in the big picture all at once, and see exactly how everything is moving and everything affects everything else. If you aren't used to this, you can feel dizzy very quickly!

Let's look at a couple of examples from ecology to get a first taste about how to think in systems. The first one, a graph that shows a cyclical ecological sucession. Ecological sucession is the name for the changes in the composition and structure of an ecological community.

The text inside the cycle isn't very readable, but don't worry, it's mostly Latin anyway. The main idea is simple: instead of looking at each plant and animal separately, this is looking at the whole history of what happens in this particular plot of land across time. And it doesn't take a lot to see that the process is similar to many others that you may have seen, not just in nature but wherever you have seen simple and complex systems alternating.

The second example is what's called a food web. This tries to show the relationships between different living creatures in an ecosystem - specifically, what eats what:

Looking at it as a web some things become immediately clear: what happens if the numbers of Arctic cod suddenly declined? You can tell with only a glance that it would be havoc for just about every other big living organism in the Arctic.

The practice

There is nothing to stop you from doing this same exercise of stepping back and looking at relationships and evolution instead of separate entities at one moment in time, in any practical problem that you are trying to solve, and see if that gives you any new insights.

Get a piece of paper and try to do a diagram of what is happening, either as time passes or in relationships, to any situation that you are trying to change. A few examples of experiments you may want to try:

1. If you are part of an organization, try to do a map of all the organizations you relate to, and how everyone relates to everyone else. An arrow (A->B) is used to mean "A is necessary for B". You may want to use different colors to show different types of links. What patterns emerge?

2. If you are in a situation that seems to be going in circles and going nowhere, make a drawing of the circle with all the steps. Can you see at any step the possibility of choosing a different path?

3. If you have a project and you are running into a major obstacle, try this. First, ask yourself: what is the obstacle? Chances are, you will choose either a person, or a group of people, or a rather concrete thing, like "money" or "stupid regulations". Try to think in terms of interactions and a bigger picture instead of an isolated obstacle. Ask yourself, what is wrong about the interaction I have with this person/money/this obstacle? Who needs who or what? Are there any more elements in the environment that I can bring to change this interaction? What would need to happen so that I could do the things I can't do now?

In future posts I intend to go in much more detail and give you very specific tools and examples. For the moment, enjoy this first taster!