Climate action is like a cake. Let me explain.
First, we have to talk about the fundamental aspects that make up a cake. What is a cake, anyways? A cake is a mixture of independent ingredients baked together under specific conditions (such as an oven’s temperature). Usually, cakes follow a specific set of instructions, or recipe, which describes the necessary ingredients, steps and required conditions to successfully bake the cake. Each of these ingredients has a very specific function, which is why recipes include exact measurements. When combined, and under the right conditions, the ingredients will react in a particular, desired way to form what is known as a cake (e.g., a cake may rise the perfect amount when baked at a specific temperature). In other words, baking a cake is to create a new thing by combining several ingredients under the right set of conditions.
“I’ll do almost anything for cake — even trample little children!”
— Gayle King
In general terms, this process can be thought of as transdisciplinarity. Transdisciplinarity is an approach to inquiry that involves taking into account knowledge from multiple disciplinary and non-disciplinary perspectives (Nicolescu, 2010). Just like when baking a cake, the combination and reaction between, across and beyond multiple ways of knowing creates something completely different than the independent ingredients that compose it (Choi & Pak, 2006).
As surprising at it may seem, the same approach can be applied to climate action. Climate action requires the combination of multiple different ingredients. The end result of such combination, or the climate action cake, will depend on the ingredients added to the mixture, as well as their reaction to each other and the specific conditions in which the ingredients were mixed. The cake analogy, inspired by Walker’s (2020) PYP in Practice blog, can be helpful for understanding the concept of transdisciplinarity, and in turn, climate action.
“Where there is cake, there is hope. And there is always cake”
— Dean Koontz
Unlike cakes, however, there are no specific recipes for climate action (at least none that I am aware of). The ingredients, measurements, steps and conditions to create climate action are still being developed, so individuals and organizations are having to test different combinations to see what works and what doesn’t. It is easy to imagine a similar situation taking place around the time the first cake was invented. Back in ancient Egypt, when the first cake was invented, experimentation was necessary to find the correct combination of ingredients, reactions and conditions to successfully bake the first cake (Humble, 2010). I expect a similar process may be true for climate action.
Nonetheless, climate action is transdisciplinary. Executing climate action requires the combination and advancement of knowledge, methods and resources from a variety of communities, cultures, and ways of knowing, both disciplinary and non-disciplinary. In other words, only by combining the right ingredients under specific set of conditions we can create the new thing that we call climate action. For this reason, I would argue that climate action is like a cake.
References
Choi, B. C., & Pak, A. W. (2006). Multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in health research, services, education and policy: 1. Definitions, objectives, and evidence of effectiveness. Clinical and investigative medicine. Medecine clinique et experimentale, 29(6), 351–364.
Humble, N. (2010). Cake: A Global History. Reaktion Books.
Nicolescu, B. (2010). Methodology of Transdisciplinarity–Levels of Reality, Logic of the Included Middle and Complexity. Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.22545/2010/0009
Walker, S. (2020, October 30). Transdisciplinary Learning: All Mixed Up. PYP in Practice. https://sites.google.com/isparis.net/conceptualinquiry/transdisciplinary-learning-all-mixed-up