Transcript L04 Sust 09-10 winter

Sustainability
Freshman Inquiry
Jan. 13, 2010
Jeff Fletcher
Logistics
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Service experiences
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MLK service day a great opportunity to get involved and get extra credit (Register Here)
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Ideas and/or preferences for class service project (Recyclemania?)
Attending outside events for Extra Credit
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See EcoWiki events calendar
Community Outreach of Our United Villages: Strengthening the Social Vitality of
Communities
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Reading for Monday after next (MLK holiday): Kolbert Chapters 5, 6, & 7 (p. 93-149)
Mentor Session Today
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I’m use to clutter so don’t worry
Can meet in 3rd floor lobby if you prefer not to meet in your room
Read Kolbert Chapters 3 & 4 (Quiz on Wednesday?)
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Friday at 1pm at the School of Social Work 6th Floor Academic and Student Recreation Center, Room
660. (Flyer)
1 on 1 meetings; be sure you know your time
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Meet 8am for transportation to Concordia.
Strategies for doing Carbon Footprint Assignment
How to do citations
Can we put up Sustainability Autobiography “maps”?
Follow-Up Kolbert Ch. 1&2
• Lag between Scientific understanding and public
understanding (p. 10)
• Permafrost lets more plants grow—isn’t that a
good thing to fight CO2 increases? (p. 22)
• Expedition to get stuck in the ice (p. 24)
• Climate Models (p. 33)
– NetLogo model of Climate Change
• Greenhouse gas effect natural (essential) (p. 38)
Plan
• Discuss Systems and Systems Science
• Identify Key Systems Ideas
– Use examples from Earth Systems
– Focus today on natural physical systems
rather than social systems
– Other systems ideas are more relevant to
social systems (later this term)
Justification
• Sustainability involves complex and
interrelated issues
– e.g., Climate change involves multiple
complex systems (both natural and social)
– e.g., Population control involves multiple
complex systems (both natural and social)
• So what do we know about systems that
might give us a framework for more
effectively addressing Sustainability?
What is a System?
• Consider an ecosystem and economic
system: what is similar? Why are they both
called systems?
• Why might it be useful to focus on their
similar “system-ness” rather than on their
uniqueness?
Systems
• Comprised of:
– Elements
• Ecosystem and Economic system examples?
– Interactions or relations
• Ecosystem and Economic system examples?
• A common relation between systems is hierarchical
– subsystems, supra-systems
– Consider some earth systems
• Other ideas
– order vs. disorder, order is constraint on relations
• relations describe structure vs. total disorder (entropy)
– system and environment
• boundaries define systems
What is Systems Science?
• Consider flocking birds, schooling fish, a group of friends
walking together
– ornithologist, ichthyologist, sociologist
• Mario Bunge “Stuff-free science”
• How is knowledge normally grouped at a University?
– System Science not as abstract as math and philosophy
– But more abstract (general) than individual disciplines
• Systems Science emphasizes theories that cut across
disciplines
– Game Theory, Evolution Theory, Information Theory, Network
Theory, Chaos Theory, Complexity Theory, etc
• Interested in addressing real-world, complicated
problems, from a multidisciplinary perspective
Key Ideas About Systems
• What makes a system?
– Elements and Relations
– order vs. disorder
– system vs. environment
• Systems States and Dynamics
– Equilibria, Stability
• Positive and Negative Feedbacks
– Non-linear dynamics
• Chaos Theory, Catastrophe Theory
– Emergence
– Structure
• Open vs. Closed
• Matter, Energy, Information
Systems can be in different states
• For instance, temperature or composition of
atmospheric system
• How systems change states over time is called
dynamics
• Equilibria
– Stable vs. Unstable
– Static vs. Dynamic
– Positive and Negative Feedbacks (aphids)
• Exponential growth example of + feedback
• Homeostasis example of - feedback
Complex Systems Yield Surprises
• Most models of systems are linear
– Change in state predicted to be proportional to
change in inputs
• Most real and complex systems are non-linear
– Systems with feedback are often unpredictable
– Small causes can have big effects
• Butterfly effect from Chaos theory
• Catastrophe theory: state is not reversible by reversing cause
– Current financial crisis is great example
• Emergence
• To be continued next week …