Month: June 2023

My take-away from the first year of the MACAL program is that it was designed to prepare climate action leaders with core competencies to research, analyze and design climate action projects. So far in the program I’ve worked with my professors and peers to co-construct learning products that demonstrate my competency across communications, climate science, and risk management. In the last course I’ve drawn from these skills to develop a business case for climate action. Does this mean that I’ve reached the pinnacle of learning how to be a climate action leader? Is it enough to have learned to identify, design, and make the case for climate solutions?

I wonder if we have what we need to work through the dialectical tension that comes with working across disciplines. I wonder how, when new transformative ideas result from transdisciplinary efforts, that they will be received by the practitioner’s individual disciplines.

What tools and skills are needed to help make change take hold and for transformative ideas to stick? It’s with these questions that I look forward to the next course, CALS 505 – Leading Change in the Context of Climate Change.

In anticipation, I watched Denise Withers’ TEDx Talk, How to Make Change Easier with Narrative Intelligence, where I discovered a hint that we may be returning to the theme of the power of story. This makes sense. Many successful leaders have learned how to tap into the power of story to inspire. A recent leadership example comes from Sanna Marin, the youngest person to ever be appointed as the Prime Minister of Finland.

While receiving an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Marin delivered an inspiring commencement message to New York University’s Class of 2023. Starting out with the charge that “the face of power is not the same as the face of the people—and this has to change” (Marin, 2023).

Marin emphasized 3 key messages for the new grads, while challenging them to step up:

You have to want things to change
Wanting is not enough, you need to take over
Don’t be afraid

Marin painted a global backdrop of intersecting vulnerabilities and then enumerated several problems that are awaiting the application of the talents of emerging leaders, not least among them, climate change.

Climate change is widely considered to be a wicked problem. The use of the adjective ‘wicked’, to describe problems that are swirling in complexity, has been evolving since the 1970s (Rittel & Webber, 1973 cited by Cormon & Cox, 2020). So, while I’m inspired by Marin’s advice, I also wonder if inspiration is enough to lead solutions designed to address wicked problems. I wonder about the need for competencies such as the power of dialogue for working across opposing world views. We know that “[w]ith wicked problems there is a slipperiness, high levels of uncertainty, and high stakes” (Corman & Cox, 2020, P.4). Combine this with the urgency that comes from being constantly bombarded with climate doomsday headlines. Is it any wonder that, when it comes to the topic of climate change, “…we have largely lost the ability to simply talk and think” (Isaacs, 1999, P.78). In dialogue, and the art of thinking together, Isaacs is speaking of this loss more broadly as he describes the fundamentals of dialogic skills. He proposes four dialogic practices as required building blocks (Figure 1). Starting with truly listening without resistance to the words being spoken, showing respect through awareness of the other’s position, suspending judgement, and then using your voice, to speak your truth (Issacs, 1999).

Dialogue is a foundational practice needed by transdisciplinary leaders because as Corman & Cox (2020), citing Bohm (1990), remind us, “[d]ialogue makes the emergence of new understandings possible” (P.14). After considering dialogue, the next question that arises for me is: what happens when, after the practitioners, skilled in dialogue, triumphing over dialectical tension, with transformative ideas in hand, return to their own disciplines, and are met at the door by stubborn resistance to change?

To enact change, are technical skills combined with dialogic skills, enough to work through cultural resistance? Transdisciplinary leaders need to help make change happen. The competency not yet explored, change leadership, holds the promise of helping emerging climate action leaders to engage others in the necessary work towards change at all levels, from the individual, to communities, to the broader societal shifts that are needed.

Without competency in dialogue, as well as change leadership, new ideas may not get a chance to grow into the solutions that hold the promise for better futures. Contemplating the message in Withers’ TedX Talk, I return to dissect Marin’s speech. I realize part of Marin’s power to inspire the future leaders in her audience is in her mastery of narrative. I experienced this power viscerally while watching. I had my own ‘aha’ moment as she explained that if she had waited for permission to step into politics, she’d still be waiting. It was her personal story that connected me to my own stories, where too many times, I had waited for permission to act, and in doing so, lost the opportunity for the changes I desired. This idea of connecting through stories has stood the test of time. In her talk, Withers suggests that one of the reasons we are on the brink of collapse on so many fronts, not just climate change, is that we’re stuck in our own stories. She suggests that building a competency in “narrative intelligence gives us the power to create the future we want” (Withers, 2023, 10:30). So it is with constructive optimism that I’ll enter this final course, ready to put the cap on the Graduate Diploma, by learning the skill of change making.

References

Corman, I. & Cox, R. (2020). Transdisciplinarity: A Primer. Royal Roads University. https://commons.royalroads.ca/macal/wp-content/uploads/sites/88/2021/04/MACAL_Transdisciplinary_Thinking03-31-21-3.pdf

Isaacs, W. (1999). dialogue and the art of thinking together: a pioneering approach to communicating in business and in life. Doubleday.

Marin, S. (2023, May 17). New York University Commencement Speech. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMms7FVLSiI&t=266s

Wallston, K.A. (1994, Apr.) Cautious Optimism vs. Cockeyed Optimism. Psychology and Health 9(3):201-203. DOI: 10.1080/08870449408407480. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232606472_Cautious_Optimism_Vs_Cockeyed_Optimism

Withers, D. (2022, Apr. 20). How to Make Change Easier with Narrative Intelligence. [TEDx Talks]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5paqr2IN_zU

It’s June 4, 2023, the planet is at 424.72 ppm, and here I am, stuck at an intersection, in a metaphorical traffic jam. I’m studying Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and working in Disaster Risk Management (DRM).  

I’ve been asked to make an argument for or against the question, what’s the better approach to adaptation, incremental or transformational? DRM is decidedly in the incremental sphere, which makes me wonder, if a practice area doesn’t have the vocabulary, then how does the practitioner make the switch? One of the assigned readings for this line of inquiry, Adaptation and transformation, provides some insight into this question with an argument for a need to “… ultimately co-construct a more dialectical approach to DRM/CCA…” (Pelling et al., 2015, P.124).

Typically, DRM is described as a cyclical process ranging from prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery (GRDC, ND). Historically, there’s been no language for transformation. DRM lacks the vocabulary for going beyond incremental adaptation. Some DRM practitioners might say that incremental adaptation is the stretch goal.

Although CCA and DRM practitioners operate in separate spheres, there are commonalities (Figure 1).

Pelling et al. (2015) provide a comparative example for this need to co-construct a more dialectical approach:

A DRM Advisor with incremental framing: working towards community risk reduction, is compared to a Climate Change policy advocate using transformational framing: setting GHG targets.

The latter is in support of an energy transition away from fossil fuels while the former is triaging the impacts of fossil fuel induced climate change hazards. Somewhere in the middle is the more typical CCA practitioner working on incremental changes such as protecting communities from the impacts of climate change, like sea level rise or increasing wildfire events. Each practitioner is interested in solving parts of the same problem, but they’re working in separate spheres.

Meanwhile, as practitioners on both sides of DRM and CCA continue to keep busy with calculating incremental adaptation measures to protect communities from increasingly frequent and severe climate change impacts, the world continues to become more polarized. The definition for polarization is broad, ranging from racial segregation, class divides, and political ideologies, to name a few (Rao, P., 2023). The common thread is increasing societal conflict.

With this increasing societal conflict, it’s hard to make space and time for transformative change, to create safe spaces for dialogue, to build community, to learn together. It’s easier to continue along in our asynchronous swim lanes, calculating the exact right formulas, based on our area of specialty, our world view, within our limited spheres of control.

How do we break away from the dominant power structures to become a leader capable of switching over to transformational adaptation? Is it even necessary or is incremental adaptation good enough? The authors of the second required reading, Fedele et al. (2019), argue that transformative adaptation to reduce the impacts of climate change is rare, facing many barriers, such as those with vested interest in particular outcomes. They also point to narrow mandates for institutions responsible for planning adaptive interventions, and which therefore lack political or social support for this type of change. They provide an agricultural example (Figure 3) showing a continuum, from coping to incremental adaptation, to transformative adaptation, illustrating possible responses to climate change impacts.

It’s here the practitioner hits the roadblock as “transformation raises the stakes in adaptation decision-making, bringing into focus many ethical and procedural questions: who-or what processes – determine the dominant mode for adaptation, and selects objects for change?” (Pelling et al., 2015, P.115).

Faced with this challenge, situated within the social contract, with rights and responsibilities structured in hierarchical relationships, such as those in the workplace, raises a question. How do practitioners find paths away from incremental, business as usual processes, when they are co-dependent on the system’s success? One thought is through the development of transformational policy. However, adaptation pathways interact over time, in unplanned ways, and even when transformational policy is directed, it may still be undermined as it’s implemented locally (Pelling et al., 2015). Resistance is embedded in culture, economic processes, and land use systems (Pelling et al., 2015).

One example of the power of resistance to transformational change can be seen in responses to environmental migration, which is exacerbated by climate change. Forecasts of future migrations vary from between 25 million to 1 billion people by 2050, depending on which climate scenarios are realized (IOM, ND). As increasing political strife related to environmental migrations have shown us, there are no easy answers. There are, however, organizations and projects focused on bringing these two practices closer to working together, towards their shared goals.

PLAtform for Climate Adaptation and Risk reDuction (PLACARD), an intersectional project, has developed a visualization tool called the Connectivity Hub, which aims to help practitioners find information and organizations working at this important intersection. The project aims to counter fragmentation between domains and sets an example for co-constructing a dialectical approach to DRM and CCA. In this lies hope for pathways to co-constructed initiatives which might just help practitioners like me, stuck at the intersection, to forge pathways to a better future.

References

Fedele, G., Donatti, C. I., Harvey, C. A., Hannah, L., & Hole, D. G. (2019). Transformative adaptation to climate change for sustainable social-ecological systems. Environmental Science and Policy, 101, 116–125.

NIRAS. (2021, Mar.). Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Management Capability Statement. NIRAS. https://www.niras.com/media/nh1pggyp/cca-drm-capability-statement.pdf

Pelling, M., O’Brien, K. & Matyas, D. (2015). Adaptation and transformation. Climatic Change (133), 113–127. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-014-1303-0

Rao, P. (2023, Jan. 18). Which Countries are the Most Polarized. Visual Capitalist. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/polarization-across-28-countries/