[Essay written July 2020]

Introduction:

In viewing modern day civilization as a system that is subjected to new forces introduced by climate change and human caused environmental damage it can be stated that such a situation be described as a ‘wicked problem’ (WP). Sustainability is key to resolving this problem but our previous attempts to implement international policies which address the matter are failing to succeed. By assessing the general features of WPs it can be better understood how to approach such a complex problem. By splitting civilization on earth into a system of three major components that form a ‘triality’ consisting of the factors of power, the human condition, and planetary boundaries it is possible to identify three core issues of the problem. This course of inquiry leads to a conclusion that redesigning the socio-political and economic frameworks from the ground up may be necessary to create the conditions required for international and global cooperation. By incorporating ideas that lead to greater sharing of resources and integration of people between nations could prove successful in creating progress in this task. Potential strategies of how to devise new possible frameworks are mentioned and these are informed by the analysis of the nature of WPs.

Evidence, Analysis and Argument:

The complex system of modern-day global civilization:

Humanity is endangered by the global catastrophic risks of climate change, which if not addressed could lead to an extended period of climactic shifts which make human survival challenging or human extinction. The topic of environmental politics and economics strikes to the core of the issue as the state of civilization is approximately determined by a ‘triality’ of issues defined by the three variables of power, the human condition, and planetary boundaries. Power is important in politics and economics which are also affected by features of the human condition. The interplay of these two factors determines the outcome of our activities which can be measured against planetary boundaries such as climate change and biosphere destruction within the background context of natural climatic and ecosystem shifts.

The world’s population is spread over multiple, disconnected continents and divided into almost two hundred countries. Each country possessing a widely varied stock of natural resources from the land, sea, air and sun. These factors influence an international system where states and alliances act as factions to compete in a race to sustain or advance national development. This process seeks to progress economic development which can improve the quality of life and wellbeing of citizens often through industrialisation and an advanced technological infrastructure. Each nation has its own governance type and structure and operates using differing political and economic ideologies with different coordination strategies, practices, and policies. There also exists an anarchistic element of risk in most societies described by the less quantifiable and often illegal activities such as the sex trade, drugs trade, gambling sector and other elements of crime and corruption. As we now begin to experience the effects of the Anthropocene era, there are new variables to add to the complexity of the system of civilization. These include existing and potential effects of climate change and biosphere destruction such as famine, drought, crop failures, malnutrition, wildfires, sea level rise, infrastructure failure, poverty, climate refugees and wars arising from resource scarcity.

Wicked Problems and Social Messes:

Singularly and collectively the many aforementioned issues are often described as WPs which are defined as having solutions which are very difficult to determine and in some cases impossible to solve without taking the entire global system into account and making changes to every subsystem involved. Features of such problems include contradictory and changing requirements that involve complex interdependencies. Solutions are described as ‘one-shot operations’ because a trial and error approach is not feasible because each intervention can cause irreversible consequences (Rittel & Weber,1973). Another feature might be that the problem is not understood until after the formulation of a solution (Conklin,2005). A related concept to a WP is described a ‘social mess’ defined by a system where every problem interacts with other problems (Ackoff,1974) and includes features of ideological, cultural, political and economic constraints (Horn & Weber,2007). Global climate change itself has been described as being a ‘super wicked problem’ which as a term differentiating it by highlighting the role of the agent trying to solve it as one that is contributing to the problems. It includes features of a limited timeframe in which to solve it and of having no central authority (Levin et al.,2012). A more complete summary of the multiple definitions for such complex problems is given in table 1.

Table 1: The varying definitions of wicked problems, super wicked problems, and social messes

Features of Wicked problems as defined by Rittel and Webber (Rittel & Weber,1973):

• There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.
• Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
• Solutions to wicked problems are not true or false, but better or worse.
• There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.
• Every solution to a wicked problem is a “one-shot operation”; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt counts significantly.
• Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan.
• Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
• Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
• The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem’s resolution.
• The social planner has no right to be wrong (i.e., planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate).
  Features of Wicked problems as defined by Conklin (Conklin,2005):
• The problem is not understood until after the formulation of a solution.
• Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
• Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong.
• Every wicked problem is essentially novel and unique.
• Every solution to a wicked problem is a ‘one shot operation.’
• Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions.

Kelly Levin, Benjamin Cashore, Graeme Auld and Steven Bernstein define a super wicked problem as having these additional characteristics (Levin et al.,2012):

• Time is running out.
• No central authority.
• Those seeking to solve the problem are also causing it.
• Policies discount the future irrationally.
  Features of a social mess originally described by Ackoff (Ackoff,1974) but later extended by Horn (Horn & Weber,2007) into this list:
• No unique “correct” view of the problem;
• Different views of the problem and contradictory solutions;
• Most problems are connected to other problems;
• Data are often uncertain or missing;
• Multiple value conflicts;
• Ideological and cultural constraints;
• Political constraints;
• Economic constraints;
• Often a-logical or illogical or multi-valued thinking;
• Numerous possible intervention points;
• Consequences difficult to imagine;
• Considerable uncertainty, ambiguity;
• Great resistance to change; and,
• Problem solver(s) out of contact with the problems and potential solutions.

International collaborative efforts to address environmental issues:

International efforts to generate global solutions to environmental issues were bolstered by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) which was a treaty adopted and ratified by many countries between 1992 and 1994. This was later further amended and developed into its successor treaties of the Kyoto Protocol and the most recent Paris agreement. Within these treaties are a variety of methods to tackle the challenge of rising global GHG emissions which are generally encompassed by the nationally determined contributions (NDC’s) by each member signatory. An audit of such existing pledges (UNEP,2017) finds that they are insufficient to reach the target of halting the rise of average global temperatures to below 1.5 degrees C above preindustrial levels (PIL). They instead predict such pledges would lead to an average global increase of 2.6-3.1 degrees above PIL (Rogelj et al.,2016).

Some of the strategies already attempted or proposed include carbon emissions trading schemes which introduce the concept of carbon credits but trialling this idea failed in 2012 as the value of credits collapsed and has been left unresolved (The Economist,2019). Carbon offsetting is another idea that can be used to get close to or reach a net zero carbon footprint as an individual, company or nation to achieve carbon neutral status. Environmental pricing reforms are proposed to include true-cost accounting of environmental externalities and can be implemented using eco tariffs or eco taxes. Since the beginning of the development of these treaties in the early 1990’s up till the current day, all of their proposed mechanisms and commitments have failed to deliver sufficient impact in reducing climate and ecological dangers over the past three decades evident by yet still increasing GHG emissions  (UNEP,2019).

The problem with these proposals and treaties might be that they do not approach this WP with enough vision to redesign large scale global operations of social, political, economic, and environmental spheres. Instead they build into the system more complexity whereas by reassessing the foundations of the system you may be able to simplify it before adding back in complexity that is necessary and effective. WPs are almost paradoxical in that they are said to not be fully understood until after the formulation of a solution. This creates difficulty because many of our most common problem-solving techniques begin with or at least involve a step of problem structuring which describes the scope of the problem. A general list of such problem-solving techniques is given in table 2.

Table 2: A general list of problem-solving techniques and concepts

Root cause analysis Morphological Analysis Identifying fundamental first principles Information mapping Issue Based Information System -Issue maps Concept maps Argument maps Problem structuring Triple constraint model of project management Logical reasoning Creative problem solving Lateral or abstract thinking Reading research of academics or thinkers on the topic Collective problem solving Anonymous deliberation

An exercise in Defining sets of problems connected to environmental issues:

As an example, here is a brief and incomprehensive attempt by the author to define the WP of the effects modern civilization has on the environment. A list of interconnected problems that might be considered when developing a reasonable and workable solution to minimise global catastrophic risks or existential threats is given in table 3. They are numbered in order of an approximation as to their rank of importance and potential to address the problem. The rankings are not definitive as they only serve as an example of one perspective from which to view the issue.

Table 3: A problem solving exercise, carried out by the author, which ranks features of modern-day civilization according to their assigned significance if factored into the designing of a workable solution to the WP of environmental issues

Rank	Problems that may require addressing in response to the risks civilization poses to itself
1.	Overpopulation – there is no existing global restriction on the number of humans that can safely or comfortably inhabit earth.
2.	Human competition between groups such as between nations – The ideas of kinmanship and a tribal drive for dominance to ensure the identity, ethnicity or a group collective survives, thrives, maintains and expands territory and power.
3.	The inequalities between each nation’s natural resources and the amounts of material and energy it needs to support it’s population in a particular region. Such needs are determined largely by the weather and regional geography which determine agricultural viability for foodstuffs, shelter types, heating and clothing as basic requirements.
4.	The nations which are the largest GHG emitters, biggest exporters and consumers of fossil fuels and those that possess powerful military capabilities
5.	Large natural resource based economies – The national efforts for development by increasing wealth derived heavily from natural resources – this can remove ecosystem services (such as rainforests as carbon sinks), accelerate the depletion of exhaustible reserves of useful materials for future generations and generate GHG emissions in the extraction, processing and the end use of the resources
6.	Nations being connected and disconnected in a vertical siloed structure – The individual and group pathologies which arise from these diverse socio-political systems factor into the alliances formed and trading bloc partners aswell as tensions between political or economic adversaries
7.	Unessential Industrial activity – Over production, over consumption and over replacement of goods in a non circular economy
8.	Excessive fossil fuel consumption for energy – Heating and cooling, Industry, Transport, Fossil fuel extraction
9.	Fossil fuel based transport
10.	Deforestation and biosphere destruction – Carbon sinks and ecosystem services
11.	Agriculture – Animal agriculture – Methane from ruminant cattle and other farmed animals, water intensive practices
12.	Fossil fuel extraction and dependency – Reduce energy usage since prevention is better than cure
13.	Excessive natural resource consumption – Tragedy of the commons, Excessive atmospheric GHG concentrations, water reservoir and aquifer depletion, overfishing
14.	Wealth competition between individuals, groups and nations – drives emissions and biosphere destruction
15.	Resource competition between individuals, groups and nations – drives emissions and biosphere destruction
16.	Refrigerant mismanagement – potent GHGs often leak out of products that use refrigerants when they reach end of life
17.	‘Green’ technologies that generate energy from renewable resources are not being rolled out fast enough to smoothly transition the world’s largest GHG emitter’s energy needs to non fossil fuel based alternatives. Producing such a large amount of technology to carry out such a task would involve a high amount of GHG generation in itself also.
18.	Food security and Food waste
19.	High animal product consumption of national populations
20.	High density urban populations – Urban areas currently require diesel trucks to deliver necessities like food and medicine which run on a ‘just in time’ delivery basis. Electric powered alternatives are yet to be widely adopted. A number of frequent citizen activities in cities can often take place in distant locations requiring transportation between locations.
21.	Food being predominantly produced non locally – A ‘locavore’ based diet reduces food transport emissions of trucks and shipping and also increases food security. Urban farming is not widely practiced.
22.	Excessive Freshwater use – The high output fashion and textile industry since cotton requires large amounts of water to produce, Excessive luxury features such as swimming pools, water fountains or decorative lawns or plants in water stressed regions
23.	Biogeochemical flows – Non organic agricultural practices and other practices which cause soil erosion
24.	Varying degrees of infrastructure development among nations – Undeveloped nations may wish to develop quickly and thus may want to do so using fossil fuels and developed nations may be resistant to policies which could be viewed as decreasing comfortable lifestyles perhaps with less modern conveniences.
25.	Religious or cultural beliefs, values, tradition, doctrine, law or dogma which may impede development of international integration due to differing views on human rights or acceptable behaviours.

The issue of overpopulation (1) is placed at the top of the list because whilst it is a long term solution  already recommended by other scientists (Ripple et al,2017), the setting of limits might also help remedy other issues such as competition. Our predominant tribal nature (2) is displayed by human efforts to compete for wealth accumulation and resources to benefit ourselves and the national collective. The third most impactful issue to take into account are the inequalities between each nation’s natural resources (3) which includes the environmental conditions such as its location and latitude determining it’s climate and geographic features of the land and weather such as temperature and rainfall. These factor into a nation’s energy needs and economy such as required imports or profits from exported resources and goods.

These factors, in the context of combatting climate change, might apply most importantly to the world’s nations or continents that are the largest emitters of GHG’s (4) such as the USA, China, Europe, India, Russia, Japan and Brazil (Friedrich, Ge & Pickens,2017). The individual and group pathologies which arise from these diverse socio-political systems (6) factor into the political and economic alliances or adversaries which form. Thus, sets of nations being connected and disconnected as individual or grouped vertical siloes forms a very linear economic landscape with few degrees of freedom and this can create many opportunities for disagreements, stalemates, and rivalries. These first six foundational issues provide significant information to determine a general direction that a solution derived from this problem structuring would follow.

Brazil is a country of concern to the problem since it possesses an important and powerful living carbon sink for the world in its rainforests. But it is being continually cleared to transform it into suitable land for mining minerals and for grazing cattle which emit large amounts of the potent GHG methane (TRASE,2019). Another important actor is that of Russia which has a large population living in a relatively cold climate requiring high energy needs to heat buildings during the coldest months (Bashmakov,2016); It holds the position as the world’s second biggest exporter of fossil fuels comprising over 50% of its exports as of 2018 (Swann,2019;WITS,2018); and it is one of the few countries that possess advanced military capability which is armed with nuclear weapons. Will Russia accept a large reduction in its future profits if shifts are made away from fossil fuels to save the environment? And if so, how will it provide the large energy demands to heat the homes and workplaces of its large population in a cold country without the continued high income to invest in green technologies to power its society? The examples of Russia and Brazil demonstrate that if these inequalities of resources are not incorporated into an equitable solution then it could lead to a tragedy of a global commons such as the atmosphere or rainforests if they feel they have no other option than to exploit their nation’s resources. International tensions of this sort also present a risk of war.

How can solutions be discovered and what might they look like?

Potential solutions need not only come from specialist academics or policy makers but open calls for ideas from all disciplines and backgrounds can be fruitful. An example of such a strategy is the announced competition called the Earthshot Prize organised by the Royal Foundation which aims to generate solutions to global problems (Earthshot,2020).  A previous similar initiative of this type was the New Shape Prize competition organised by the Global Challenges Foundation which called for global governance to be redesigned (Global Challenges Foundation,2017). Borne from this competition were two somewhat similar entries which describe a club based model (Rade,2017) or a league of sustainable cities (Mihălțianu,2017) which uses ideas that may have application to the aforementioned dilemma of natural resource inequalities between nations. This type of subnational multilateralism could allow the incorporation of features of other ideologies or theories such as transnationality, flexible nationality and global citizenship to help break the vertical siloed model of separate nation states into a more horizontal, paradiplomatic communitarianism among groups of nations. Then to address the economic inequalities it could be possible to borrow ideas from mutualism, distributism, pluralism, eco communalism and bioregionalism to correct the natural resource imbalances. Increasing the number of degrees of freedom in the system can increase options and connectivity which decreases the chances of nations becoming limited by their own geographic territories.

Academic fields which study such large-scale transformations include the multidisciplinary fields of sustainability, global systems science, political economy, ecological economics and social, political and deep ecology in particular. Attempts to describe a stable civilization include ideas such as global steady-state theory which maintains a stable population size (ref). Proposals for economic interventions include the introduction of a new global currency such as the ecounit (ecounit,2012). Other visions include Earthland which describes a state of transition to a planetary phase of civilization (Raskin,2016). Initiatives that create more trans disciplinary collaboration to research the problem should be prioritised as there is no existing academic field sufficiently developed or broad enough to encompass the entire problem.

Conclusions:

From this exercise of identifying and ranking issues, the first six issues considered as core in this model have identified some potential intervention points. These include making international agreements on population sizes and moving away from the linear vertical siloed model of international interactions in social, political, and economic matters. This latter intervention point may require an entirely new design for the roles that both citizen and government play in a reimagined civilization. Informed by a better understanding of the nature of wicked problems, generating as many solutions as possible using many strategies and sources would likely increase understanding of the problem itself and thus help create better solutions.

The ideas such as mutualism and distributism when applied to international economics in the context of geographically separate but collective districts under newly aligned jurisdictions would be a cause for further research. There was limited scope to explore this in this brief as the main assertion here is to recommend strengthening and diversifying well informed initiatives to find solutions. But finding meaningful paths forward as a species when confronted with the challenge of environmental issues such as climate change is an urgent priority for all citizens to engage with.

References:

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