Panel Reflection
Prof. Stephen Dovers (Director FSES) discussed the increasing complexity of environmental problems. There has been a shift from focusing on single environmental problems, to complex resource management, to sustainability which links ecological, social and economic agenda. For example there has been a change from soil conservation to integrated catchment management to triple bottom line accounting.
Panel Question
There was not enough time for questions this week. In light of the comments about people being motivated to do the right thing from intrinsic motivation rather than external pressure I would have asked whether a carbon tax is likely to reduce carbon emissions.
Tutorial Reflection
Network diagrams and interconnectedness continue to be useful tools in the tutorials. This week interconnectedness in environmental systems was used to highlight their resistance to reductionism. Reduction of issues into smaller parts  was one of the first tools we considered in the course, but does not work in all cases. This example demonstrates why it is important to have many tools to chose from to manage complexity.
The marshmallow/spaghetti towers were mentioned again in the context of proactive versus reactive approaches to problems. Both are approaches are valid, depending on the situation. Sometimes it makes more sense to start work and fix problems as you go. Other times it is more prudent to do a full design before starting on the implementation.
Connections within this course
This week the presenters talked a lot about management of systems. Management is a good term because it implies you are actually going to do something about the issue/problem, without carrying the (impossible to achieve) sense of finality that is implied by solve. For this reason I was prompted to rename my tools to address complexity to tools to manage complexity.
Connections or corridors between national parks are essential to ensure biodiversity. This issue could be managed using the frequently mentioned network diagrams. These diagrams would be derived from spatial databases. Developing this further the path-length of the corridors could be compared to observed animal behaviour to ensure that the network of corridors was appropriate to achieve the desired outcome.
The insights about policy instrument choice will be developed further in later weeks, as we start to work on our policy brief.
Connections to other courses
Issues in managing environmental/sustainability issues cross many generations. Actuaries have tools to analyse intergenerational issues and are involved in managing the financial aspects of these issues. Taking this idea further and combining it with the proposed carbon tax, perhaps the proceeds from the tax should be used to compensate/assist those future generations who are affected by current environmentally degrading practises. Rather than putting the money into consolidated revenue it could be invested in a “future fund” style of system to fund future liabilities. However this is unlikely to happen because, as Prof Dovers pointed out, governments are not well suited to dealing with long-term and dispersed issues.
External Connections
On the way to the panel this week I noticed that the Research School of Biology had their outside lights on even though it was the middle of the day and the sun was shining brightly. The lights were still on later in the week when we had the tutorial, unnecessarily wasting energy. You can set up great policies to encourage people to behave in certain ways but there will usually be other unforeseen factors that dilute the impact of the policy. People are more likely to “do the right thing” from intrinsic motivation, rather than from external pressure.
By contrast much of the group work in the panel was done with the lights off, which seemed philosophically consistent considering the issues we were working on.
(UPDATE: the lights were still shining brightly during the day, on the day of our policy briefs.)
Tools to Address Complexity
Stephen Hatfield Dodds discussed aggregation (the term he used was scale) in trying to understand systems. For example, it is easier to understand the whole real estate market than the price of a single house.
Decisions about environmental issues are required now, even if we are not sure of everything. Speed of decision making is a consideration in the management of complex problems.