REPLY Limits to Growth Plan B (SD7000)

[SDMAIL Jack Harich]

Posted by  Jack Harich <register at thwink.org>


> Posted by Jay Forrester
> This program by the Nature Conservancy is a losing strategy because it 
> tries to fight in niches against the overpowering forces of population 
> growth and industrial expansion without addressing those dominating 
> causes.  "Conservation by Design" is a nice phrase that is effective 
> in gaining financial support for the organization and keeping the 
> Nature Conservancy operating, but in the long run the strategy will 
> fail.  

Conservation by Design was mentioned as an example of a good process. 
But the goal of a process determines the outcome of process execution. 
The goal of Conservation by Design is, of course, conservation. The 
strategy behind that goal is the premise that more conservation is an 
effective way to go about solving the environmental sustainability problem.

I agree with you 100%. This is a naive strategy, as I explained on:
http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/RootCauseAnalysis.htm
where it says: "Stage 1. Conservation - The first class of solutions to 
solving the environmental sustainability problem was conservation. This 
treated the symptom of disappearing unspoiled lands and waters by 
setting large tracts of land aside. The idea was that if we set enough 
aside, it would somehow solve the problem. It did not, of course. It was 
a naive first solution."

Conservation by Design is, however, a dynamite example of a good 
process, especially when compared to the formal processes of most NGOs, 
which is none. Imagine what might happen if the Conservancy (and other 
NGOs) employed a process with the right strategy and the related right 
process goal.

>
> In the third paragraph of their website:
>
> http://www.nature.org/aboutus/howwework/cbd/
>
> they say:
> "But despite all our progress, climate change, a rapidly expanding 
> human population, damaging industrial and agricultural practices and 
> other dynamics continue to threaten our natural world and quality of 
> life."
>
> Having identified the fundamental driving forces for environmental 
> deterioration, they then turn to fighting losing battles around the 
> edges rather than facing the underlying causes that could win the war. 
> It is rather clear that organizations like this do not want to 
> antagonize their supporters by campaigning for zero population growth 
> and an end to the ever-increasing industrial growth.  However, their 
> obvious and self-evident courses of attacking symptoms rather than 
> causes will be futile.

Again, I agree. This is why I wrote in my chapter (see link below) on An 
Assessment of Process Maturity:

"The mission of The Nature Conservancy is not to solve the environmental 
sustainability problem. Instead, it is a conservation organization:

“ 'The mission of The Nature Conservancy is *to preserve* the plants, 
animals and natural communities that represent *the diversity of life on 
earth* by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.'

"The bolding is theirs and is a nice capsule summary of their mission. 
It points to the goal of preserving enough of the biosphere to save the 
diversity of life on earth, while ignoring the rest. This is a 
save-the-representative-ecosystems strategy, and is nearly identical to 
the first form of environmentalism: the conservation movement of the 
19th and early 20th centuries. The idea was that if we set aside enough 
areas of the world as protected parks or managed renewable natural 
resources, such as forests, then that would keep enough of the earth in 
pristine condition for the average condition of the earth to be 
acceptable. This did not work, however, because it had no effect on 
pollution and environmental degradation elsewhere. It was a naive solution.

"Still, The Nature Conservancy is doing a superb job of conservation. As 
of 2005 they have protected an impressive 17 million acres in the US and 
117 million acres in other countries. They have achieved high mission 
success.

"Or so it seems. But there is a dark cloud hanging over every protected 
acre. It is the brutal fact that if the rest of the biosphere is not 
protected, it will soon degrade to the point where the human system 
collapses. That in turn will cause the islands of conservation that The 
Nature Conservancy has so lovingly set aside to be impossible to 
maintain, and they too will fall to the irresistible forces of collapse."


>
> I suggest that you look at Chapter 5, "Obvious Responses Will Not 
> Suffice," of "World Dynamics" for how treating one symptom can unleash 
> a different overwhelming reaction. 
> Forrester, J. W. (1971). _World Dynamics_. Waltham, MA, Pegasus 
> Communications.
>
> You may want to look at Figures 6-7 and 6-8 in Chapter 6, "Toward a 
> Global Equilibrium," of  "World Dynamics"  for a proposal to sustain a 
> good standard of living in a finite world.  
Thanks. I studied this book in September 2004 (and Urban Dynamics the 
next month). It affected my strategies immensely. I've since quoted from 
it extensively.


This discussion brings up a point you may be able to shed some light 
upon. You and many others have argued that "courses of attacking 
symptoms rather than causes will be futile."

Well, what ARE the causes? When you say "It is rather clear that 
organizations like this do not want to antagonize their supporters by 
campaigning for zero population growth and an end to the ever-increasing 
industrial growth." This suggests the causes are population growth and 
industrial growth.

But are these the root causes? Conventional wisdom says they are. My 
analysis argues they are merely intermediate causes. The intrepid 
analyst can ask "Why is population growing so high, despite signals it 
should not?" and the same for industrial growth. This line of 
questioning will lead to the deeper causes that I've discussed earlier 
on this list.

As far as I can tell the unifying deeper cause is systemic change 
resistance. Since the world has many solutions that will work but has 
not adopted them, there is smoking gun proof aplenty that change 
resistance is the reason and is high. As others like Lester Brown and Al 
Gore have put it, the "political will" to adopt these solutions is low.

Thus actions like "campaigning for zero population growth and an end to 
the ever-increasing industrial growth" push on low leverage points, 
because they seek to resolve intermediate instead of root causes. As I 
have so often quoted in my work:

"Why do people use low leverage points again and again? The founder of 
the field of system dynamics, Jay Forrester, has this to say: (Bolding 
added)

" 'Social systems are inherently insensitive to most policy changes that 
people select in an effort to alter behavior. In fact, *a social system 
draws attention to the very points* at which an attempt to intervene 
will fail. Human experience, which has been developed from contact with 
simple systems, leads us to look close to the symptoms of trouble for a 
cause. But when we look, we are misled because the social system 
presents us with an apparent cause that is plausible according to the 
lessons we have learned from simple systems, although *this apparent 
cause is usually a coincident occurrence* that, like the trouble symptom 
itself, is being produced by the feedback loop dynamics of a larger 
system.' " (from World Dynamics, by Jay Forrester, 1971, page 95)

Many people have read these words, both in your work and mine. The above 
paragraph has changed a few minds. But this has not been enough. So I 
wonder how we CAN reach them?

One thing I tried was the chapter on An Assessment of Process Maturity 
in the Analytical Activism book, at: 
http://www.thwink.org/sustain/manuscript2/AssessmentOfProcessMaturity.htm

Without even reading the chapter, you can examine the summarized results 
on the above web page. It contains the Process Maturity Grid image, 
which says so much. Click on the grid for a bigger and more readable 
image. Notice how none of the organizations scored well in the last 
three key process elements. These are:

9. The analysis centers on a social system structural analysis
10. Low and high leverage points have been identified and tested
11. Why change resistance is so successful has been determined

As you can see, I have been trying to spread your message. :-)

This chapter methodically rates ten representative environmental 
organizations on 11 key process elements. The Nature Conservancy, the 
UNEP, the European Union Environmental DG, and smaller orgs like the 
Sierra Club and Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection are included. 
The idea was to prepare the assessment and then at some point show the 
rated organizations (and others) the results. This I have not yet done. 
The intended effect is they will suddenly see that the strategic cause 
of their inability to solve the sustainability problem is low process 
maturity. Because it's low, they focus on resolving "coincident 
occurrences" instead of striking at the root.

Do you think showing the rated organizations the results would be an 
effective action to take?

Thanks,

Jack
Posted by  Jack Harich <register at thwink.org>
posting date  Wed, 07 May 2008 18:39:25 -0400