p.5 Norton (2005)... argues for the need for a radical shift in attitudes, that environmental policies should be derived from long-term adaptive plans, based on the values embedded in each community or locale.
p.41 Many phenomena do not easily lend themselves to a linear, reductionist or classically scientific
method of analysis and explanation... Complex adaptive systems identify problems and possibilities that are simultaneously multidimensional, dynamic and evolving.
A systems approach involves examining the connections and relationships between objects and events as much as the objects and events themselves.
p.42 In general, the more complex a system and the more interlocking its feedback loops, the more robust and better able they are to resist change. Emergence is a key concept in systems thinking equally applicable to the natural and social sciences... 'complex adaptive systems' are: characterized not only by a high degree of interaction among component parts, but also by the way that the particular nature of this interaction - the way the system is organized - generates outcomes not linearly related to initial conditions... emergence is a property of non-linear systems whose mode of organization makes for non-obvious, and sometimes surprising, consequences. Relationships are important... between parts of the whole. It is therefore possible to view societal, group or organizational culture as each exhibiting emergent characteristics.
p.43 An ecological, social or economic system may experience some disturbance... but it is the resilience, or capacity of the system to absorb this disturbance and reorganize itself, while experiencing change and still maintaining essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks, that is truly important (Folke et al, 2003; Berkes, 2007)... complexity theory and resilience thinking enables us to recognize that disturbances will have broad-based, non-linear consequences.
p.43-44 Instead of hierarchy, of seeing one thing as more important than another, there is panarchy (Holling, 2001 and 2004), meaning a basic equality and connectedness between systems and subsystems. For Walker and Salt (2006) and Berkes (2007), resilience thinking offers new ways of coping with future surprises and unknowable risks through intentionally building up resilience in social-ecological systems.
p.44 Diversity provides the seeds for new opportunities and maximizes options for coping with change. By supporting and protecting diversity, countries or regions render themselves less vulnerable to adverse effects of future change... By recognizing the directional nature, and drivers, of current changes, countries have the opportunity to design the institutional flexibility necessary to anticipate and adjust to change.
p.170 Global futures evade prediction because of three factors:
- Ignorance - Incomplete information on the current state of the system and the forces governing its dynamics leads to a statistical dispersion over possible future states.
- Surprise - Complex systems are known to exhibit turbulent behaviour, extreme sensitivity to initial conditions and branching behaviours at critical thresholds; the possibilities for novelty and emergent phenomena render prediction impossible.
- Volition - the future is unknowable because it is subject to human choices that have not yet been made.
p.170 As Raskin et al (2002, p14) write, 'rather than prediction, the goal of scenarios is to support volition and rational action by providing insight into the scope of the possible'.
p.179 In practice, Ravetz continues, indeterminacy and multiplicity means that any sustainability appraisal is never a final and true answer - it is always a work in progress - but it is more likely to be viable if holistic system principles guide the methods and context of investigation.
p.231 a number of opportunities lie between the twin poles of living harmoniously and sustainably and complete catastrophic breakdown. Complex systems are able to adapt, and adaptation to moments of breakdown offers possibilities for creativity and for leadership to push society down one path rather than another. Adaptation will depend on the extent to which we are able to increase our... resilience, accomplished in large part by the development of a 'prospective mind'
p.237 A self-organizing or autopoietic system selects flows of information or influence, enabling it to develop or change its internal structure spontaneously and adaptively. What it integrates is not so much a product of conscious decision-making, but rather the system's capacity to make sense of, and rearticulate or redesign, itself in accordance with what it encounters. A self-organizing system is not determined by an established series of specific goals or targets. Rather it may be said to have a function shaped by and within the overall context in which it operates.
p.237 Management theorist Peter Senge (1990 and 1999) argues that our focus must be on generative and creative learning that sees systems as shaping events. When we fail to grasp the systemic source of problems such as economic growth, we are left to 'push on' symptoms rather than eliminate underlying causes.
p.239 Knowledge is often linked with power. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to link it to life and sustainability. As Wheatley (2001b) writes: Although we live in a world completely revolutionized by information, it is important to remember that it is knowledge we are seeking, not information.
