Category: CALS 501

CALS 501 – Unit 3 Blog Post – Assignment 5

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This aphorism comes to mind as our team works through the design thinking challenge for CALS 501. While we have brought thoughtful consideration of multiple perspectives into our design, we have also faced the risk of numerous pitfalls. Bringing our unconscious cultural biases and preferences into our design, unchecked, is one pitfall we are actively working to avoid. We have committed to continual self-reflection to ensure that as we make design decisions, we are practicing the values and principles we espouse within our conceptual project prototype. To maintain our integrity, we must walk the talk toward our goals for this project.

The coursework in the MACAL program has pushed us to look deeply at our ideas, to connect with the cultural and historical origins of those ideas, to hone what we are trying to say (and to whom), and ensure our design prototype provides value to our audience. As we iterate and innovate our design, we are conscious that we are a team comprised of four western, white women in positions of privilege attempting to create a prototype that embodies diversity and embraces different cultural worldviews. As such, we must repeatedly examine our positionality, cultural orientation, perspectives, values and cultural constructs (Holmes, 2020; Tuhiwai Smith, 2012 ). We are embracing an adaptive approach to our work while deepening our connection to different ways of knowing, being and doing in the world, mainly centring on an Indigenous worldview in this era of reconciliation here in Canada. As such, we have been very intentional about bringing diverse perspectives into our interviews to inform our conceptual design and shine a light on our blind spots. In this way, we hope to create a program that will exemplify community-led climate action centred on diversity, inclusion, accessibility and equity. Integrating an Indigenous worldview into our design has been a critical element since our earliest discussions. 

Values common to an Indigenous worldview include reciprocity, connection, and respect in relation to other humans and with the natural/more-than-human world (Kimmerer, 2014). The western view of nature as being separate from people, as something to be tamed, rearranged, and altered is an example of a Euro-centric cultural conception of space (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012). Upon reflection of these differences in worldview about human relationships with nature, we had some concerns about using the term”nature-based solutions” to describe the climate solution in our prototype (e.g., basic natural infrastructure, restoring/rebuilding wetlands, planting trees, removing invasive species and replanting indigenous landscapes, etc.). We recognize that using the term “nature-based solutions” could come across as “using” nature as a self-serving solution, a means to an end, rather than as an act of relational reciprocity.

The term “nature-based solutions” also wears the stain of greenwashing from some perspectives, so we want to be cautious about our language. As a result, we have decided to use a different term, “rebuilding nature,” which will be clearly defined within the framework and values on which this project is centred. Indigenous worldviews have informed our design prototype as a whole, including the language we use to describe the notion of “rebuilding nature” as a climate adaptation strategy for community-led climate action. 

A common thread woven throughout the fabric of the MACAL program relates to the importance of connection. Connection with the historical context and systems of colonialism, relationship to other people and community, connection with nature, and connection to knowledge and resources to support effective action. Meaningful connection takes effort. By committing to a practice of reflection and reflexive thinking, we hope to walk the walk on the road that leads us to our intended outcomes, rather than just talking the talk, and paving the road to you-know-where.

References

Darwin Holmes, A. G. (2020). Researcher positionality – a consideration of its influence and place in qualitative research – a new researcher guide. Shanlax International Journal of Education, 8(4), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.34293/education.v8i4.3232

Kimmerer, R. W. (2014). “Returning the Gift.” Center for Humans and Nature. https://www.humansandnature.org/returning-the-gift-article-177.php

Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2012). Research through Imperial Eyes. In Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples.


CALS 501 – Unit 2 Blog Post

Upon reflection of my learning from CALS500: Climate Science, Impacts, and Services, I can say that one idea that intrigued me most was less about the science itself and more about gaining an understanding and appreciation for the differences between Western and Indigenous worldviews related to science; specifically, where science is situated within our respective governing societal structures, and what that tells us about efforts toward climate adaptation and mitigation measures. CALS500 also provided an opportunity for me to deepen my understanding of the science that supports climate action generally, but also emphasized how important it is to focus on adaptation efforts, knowing that while mitigation is still required, it is an insufficient response to the problem on its own (Moser et al., 2017). 

Exploring solutions for a low-carbon, resilient future needs to address mitigating climate change through reducing emissions, and addressing climate hazards of the present and future to support the built and natural systems on which we depend (Moser et al, 2017). For example, we can build a carbon-neutral, energy-efficient LEED-certified building, but if it isn’t built for future climate, it will not be sustainable (Moser et al., 2017; Shuttleworth & MacAskill, 2021). It will not function properly when there are extreme heat events. It will not shed/drain water adequately during prolonged, intense precipitation events. It may be constructed in a location that will increase its risk of flooding; e.g. built on a floodplain, in the coastal zone subject to sea-level rise and storm surge, etc. (Moser et al., 2017; Moudrak & Feltmate, 2019). We need to construct buildings and infrastructure to be responsive and resilient to future climate extremes, yet building codes still utilize historical data to assess the risk of climate-related events; e.g., flood return rates, heat, etc. (Infrastructure Canada, 2020). 

In our western approach to decision-making in the face of change, we tend to wait for the observational evidence to roll in before we act. We can’t afford to do that anymore, as the climate has already started changing in response to emissions from the distant past, and more change and impacts are locked in from those past emissions. We need to find ways to empower action based on the science of future climate projections. The planet is giving us all kinds of information and scientists have translated it, yet decision-makers in government seem unable to look at the potential climate future and make the meaningful, transformative change that is required to support the built and natural environments in closing the resiliency gap (Moser et al., 2017).

In a guest lecture this past August, Gwen Bridge (2021) discussed the differences in how science is positioned in western and Indigenous societies (see Figure 1), and this provided such an “ah-ha” moment for me in understanding why our system isn’t functioning as it needs to.

Figure 1: Adapted from Gwen Bridge’s lecture: Evolving toward ethical space: the authority of Earth knowledge (science) in Western and Indigenous societies (2021)

I hadn’t fully considered how due to its position at the bottom of that societal system, science in our Western context, seems destined to inform but never drive meaningful change in decision-making because it has to push up from the bottom. Conversely, Indigenous frameworks generally hold the Earth and science/ecological information second only to the Creator, which means that it drives behaviour and decision-making around management and how to live. This was such a powerful distinction that provided great insight into both understanding the problem we face, as well as potential solutions. The importance of understanding not just the contents, but also the structure of societal systems, led me to wonder about what that would mean for mitigation and adaptation efforts and actions. 

Transformational change will require people to challenge their dominant worldviews and culture…to find the space where there is overlap between different ways of knowing, ways of doing things, and then explore respectfully within that overlap. Prioritization of efforts to deeply understand various underlying societal systems broadly and at community levels will be necessary and helpful to inform and stretch our collective imaginations to co-create new ways of organizing and operating within planetary boundaries, as dictated by nature and science. We may not know the exact details of our climate future, but we know how things are trending (Bush, et al, 2019). We know things are already changing beyond the stable climate normals from the past that continue to be used as a basis for things like building codes and infrastructure planning decisions (Infrastructure Canada, 2019). By using climate projections and feeding those into different scenarios, it becomes easier to paint the picture of various futures for people. To paint pictures that are relevant to people, we must ensure climate projections and scenarios are tailored to local contexts to inspire action.

In terms of how we have integrated some of this thinking into our team design challenge, the key considerations were related to scoping our audience, and taking local knowledge, impacts, physical conditions, etc. into account as a first step; appreciating the local experience of impacts, while linking climate change as a global phenomenon that plays out in the context of local and regional settings. We will need to bring forward an understanding of the regionally downscaled climate models and scenarios to make them locally relevant and scoped to each particular audience. Talking about sea-level rise in the coastal zone to a farmer in the prairies isn’t likely to inspire action. Talking about the loss of ice in northern communities may generate concern from someone living in an urban centre, but is unlikely to empower them to take action in their communities. 

As such, our approach to the design challenge shifted from a national, multi-sectoral audience, to a community-based audience that would work with the local conditions, concerns, circumstances, and desired outcomes of each community using a design-thinking approach to affect change from within. By working outside the confines of our Western societal governance structure that positions science at the bottom (see Figure 1), we can take the science to communities and use it to inform and generate the stories, principles, and ways of living that will increase their resilience to climate futures, modeling the Indigenous societal governance structure. We can give science a more prominent position in our decision-making process while putting pressure on the existing Western structure of governance to make the required changes to support adaptation measures and make climate-informed decisions when planning things like building construction/retrofitting and infrastructure development at a local government level. Then hopefully, it will trickle UP.

References

Bridge, G. (2021). Evolving towards ethical space: the authority of Earth knowledge in Western and Indigenous societies. CALS500 Lecture, Royal Roads, August 12, 2021.

Bush, E., & Lemmen, D. (Eds.). (2019). Canada’s changing climate report. Government of Canada. http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2019/eccc/En4-368-2019-eng.pdf

Infrastructure Canada. (2020). Climate-Resilient Buildings and Core Public Infrastructure Initiative. https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/plan/crbcpi-irccipb-eng.html

Moudrak, N. & Feltmate, B. (2019). Weathering the Storm: Developing a Canadian Standard for Flood-Resilient Existing Communities. Prepared for Standards Council of Canada and National Research Council of Canada. Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, University of Waterloo. https://www.intactcentreclimateadaptation.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Weathering-the-Storm.pdf

Moser, S.C., Coffee, J., Seville, A. (2017). Rising to the Challenge: A Review and Critical Assessment of the State of the US Climate Adaptation Field. Kresge Foundation. https://kresge.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/rising_to_the_challenge_together_linked_0.pdf

Shuttleworth, A. and MacAskill, K. (2021). Net-zero adaptation—a review of built environment sustainability assessment tools. Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability. 1. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2634-4505/ac1c5e

Climate change is a complex problem that requires a deep, comprehensive exploration across social and physical science disciplines, multiple worldviews, and lived experiences, in order to integrate multiple knowledge systems, generate new insights and knowledge, and develop a deeper understanding of the roots of the problem (Corman & Cox, 2020; Gram-Hanssen, 2021).  These deep understandings can help generate new ways of thinking and doing that might address the sometimes cavernous gaps between specialist knowledge, local/stakeholder/Indigenous rights holder knowledge and lived histories, and the range of real-world social and economic conditions people are currently experiencing (Gram-Hanssen, 2021; Whyte, 2017). All of these perspectives are complex and layered in and of themselves and need to be considered holistically to examine the deep issues and potential solutions to the wicked problem of climate change. 

This brings me to the lens of transdisciplinary thinking. Transdisciplinarity is a concept that helped me understand both complexity and integration in a whole new way. Walker (n.d) uses the metaphor of a cake to explain transdisciplinary thinking by representing disciplines as individual ingredients, that are mixed together and then baked, which transforms the ingredients into something entirely different. The ingredients, or disciplines, are then no longer distinguishable as what they once were in their original form (Choi & Pak, 2006, as cited in Walker, n.d.). As such, the outputs of transdisciplinary thinking can provide entirely new ways of thinking and doing things that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. Corman & Cox (2020) further describe transdisciplinarity as a process of inquiry and reflection; of relating deeply with others through dialogue, and of having a mindset and orientation to blurring boundaries between, across, inside and outside disciplines and worldviews to generate new knowledge and possibilities of solutions to wicked problems. Similarly, transdisciplinary practice echoes characteristics related to the Indigenous conceptualization of relationality, or ‘right relations’, defined by Gram-Hanssen (2021) as a continuous process of reciprocity and responsibility toward other humans, other species, land, and water, etc. Right relations and relational systems thinking include acts of deep listening, the creation of space for different knowledge systems to co-exist while remaining intact, reflective practice, and collaborative dialogue (Goodchild, 2021; Gram-Hanssen, 2021).

Over the past 2 weeks of the MACAL intensive, we’ve essentially been in transdisciplinary boot camp. Not only have we been exposed to multiple ways of thinking about climate change and different worldviews through readings and lectures, but we’ve also been utterly immersed in the experience of transdisciplinarity through daily community-building activities with our instructors and cohort members, engaging activities and assignments, cohort-wide discussions, and discussion and reflection in the context of our design thinking challenge project within our teams. We dove into the theories, backgrounds, and methods of complex systems thinking and design thinking through presentations/lectures by experts, and webinars with climate action leaders and policymakers. Then we explored those methods for ourselves over the course of the intensive in the form of sharing/debriefs within teams and among the entire cohort, establishing reflective writing rituals (like this blog post, along with discussion forum posts), and doing independent research summaries to support our design challenge. Now that I’ve emerged from those two weeks, I can see how this exposure to a number of key ingredients and practices has supported us in starting to bake our complex, emergent transdisciplinary “cakes”. 

In addition to learning and experiencing these methods and ways of thinking about the challenge of addressing climate change, we also had the opportunity to play with them and integrate them as part of our design challenge process. Systems thinking is a holistic approach to analysis that looks at how the individual parts of a system relate to one another within the context of other systems, some of which are complex and adaptive, meaning they are dynamic and evolving, with unpredictable emergent features that are difficult to understand and control (Holland, 1992; Homer-Dixon, 2011). Gaining a better understanding of how social systems and physical systems interact, inform, change and affect each other, really helped me connect the dots toward defining the deep problems underpinning the climate crisis we find ourselves in. 

Our design thinking challenge followed the process of first exploring and defining the problem we wanted to try and solve, which involved a deep dive into the structures of the complex adaptive systems that are giving rise to these “wicked” problems in the first place, namely the socio-economic, colonial and political systems that dominate our global societies (Gram-Hanssen, 2021; Homer-Dixon, 2011; Whyte 2017). The design thinking challenge work we experienced in our teams and the Cascade Institute’s cognitive affective mapping (CAM) tool provided us with ways to explore the practical application of the theoretical concepts of systems thinking and transdisciplinarity (Homer-Dixon, et al., 2014). These applied processes and tools provided a means for us to see ourselves within the context of complex adaptive systems, and develop an appreciation of other perspectives, including worldviews, institutions, and technologies that influence how we think about things, which in turn influences how we do things (Ross & Piereder, 2021). The design thinking approach of involving and empathizing with the people most affected by a particular problem like climate change reinforces and provides a means of practicing transdisciplinarity; ensuring stakeholder involvement from the beginning of the process to explore and define the problem and be co-creators of potential solutions.

The Climate Action Leadership program has us students building a practice of transdisciplinary thinking by baking in the support structures of open learning practices through the crafting of blogs, digital identities, and development of a web presence that supports participatory culture; a space for us to gather our ingredients, practice the art of dialogue, crack open and expand our minds, and be co-creators of content in the climate action space…and then iterate.

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 

Goodchild, M. (2021). Relational systems thinking: That’s how change is going to come, from our earth mother. Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change, 1(1), 75-103. https://doi.org/10.47061/jabsc.v1i1.577 

Holland, J. (1992). Complex adaptive systems. Daedalus, 121(1), 17-30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20025416 

Homer-Dixon, T. (2011). Complexity science. Oxford Leadership Journal, 2(1), 1-15. http://homerdixon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Homer-Dixon-Oxford-Leadership-Journal-Manion-lecture.pdf 

Homer-Dixon, T., Milkoreit, M., Mock, S. J., Schröder, T., & Thagard, P. (2014). The conceptual structure of social disputes: Cognitive affective maps as a tool for conflict analysis and resolution. SAGE Open, 4(1). DOI:10.1177/2158244014526210 sgo.sagepub.com  

Ross, H. & Piereder, J. (2021, June 10). Belief systems in a complex world: A cognitive-affective mapping tutorial [Lecture recording]. Cascade Institute.

Walker, S. (n.d.). Transdisciplinary learning: all mixed up!. PYP in Practice. https://sites.google.com/isparis.net/conceptualinquiry/transdisciplinary-learning-all-mixed-up 

In the first week of the MACAL Intensive, we explored different contemporary approaches and ways of thinking about the issues of climate change and climate action leadership. This exploration included an introduction to design thinking, systems thinking, Indigenous ways of knowing/thinking, transdisciplinary thinking, and the concepts of open learning, participatory web, and pro-social web. 

The one, simple idea that really resonated with me was related to design thinking and can be summed up like this: one must invest the time and energy to appropriately define a problem before taking any steps toward finding solutions. The very thought of slowing down my solution-seeking/problem-solving impulse felt very uncomfortable at first. However, after diving into the design thinking exercise, the idea that an intentional and thoughtful exploration of the “real problem” could be the key to developing effective solutions lit up and wove its way back through all the topics discussed throughout the first week of our program, especially topics on Indigenous experiences and ways of knowing, and transdisciplinary thinking. 

This idea of putting much more emphasis on problem-finding rather than problem-solving has challenged me to think more deeply about the “real” problems in our society related to climate change and Indigenous peoples, for example, and giving weight and consideration to the historical factors of colonization which have ultimately produced the climate crisis (Gram-Hanssen et al., 2021). From the Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Being, and Leading Circle we all participated in on June 1st came the suggestion that we really need to slow down, consider solutions in terms of seven generations forward and backward, and take the time to build relationships and trust as a first priority, which reflects the idea of defining the problem first, before jumping to solutions (M. Lickers, personal communication, June 1, 2021). As I continued my reflection on problem-finding, the concept of transdisciplinarity defined as “…a process of inquiry” (Corman & Cox, 2020, p.2), whereby wicked problems can be explored from multiple perspectives through open, productive dialogue aligns with the importance of first orienting to and investigating the problem before leaping into solutions. Both of these perspectives on problem identification take time and effort, and I would argue it is a necessary investment if we have any hope in solving the climate issues at hand.

One of my favourite quotes on climate action is from the book called Drawdown, “If you are traveling down the wrong road, you are still on the wrong road if you slow down” (Hawken, 2017, p. xiii), and I think this is right in line with the idea from the design thinking lens that if you’re answering the wrong problem with the right solution, then that solution isn’t really going to be worth much at all.

Corman, I. & Cox, R. (2020). Transdisciplinary Thinking in the context of the MACAL program. Royal Roads University. https://commons.royalroads.ca/macal/wp-content/uploads/sites/88/2021/04/MACAL_Transdisciplinary_Thinking03-31-21-3.pdf

Gram-Hanssen, I., Schafenacker, N., & Bentz, J. (2021). Decolonizing transformations through ‘right relations.’ Sustainability Science. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-00960-9 

Hawken, P. (Ed.). (2017). Drawdown: the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming. Penguin Books.