Change resistance as the crux of the sustainability problem
This article PDF is written in the same plain and simple language as The Limits to Growth. It uses the same tool, simulation modeling, to make these key points:
1. The environmental sustainability problem becomes much easier to solve if it's decomposed into two smaller and thus easier to solve subproblems. These are first (1) Overcoming change resistance, and then (2) Achieving proper coupling.
2. Society knows by now how to solve the second subproblem, proper coupling. We know the proper practices required to live sustainably. But for strange and mysterious reasons, society is resisting adopting these practices.
3. Therefore change resistance is the crux of the problem. It must be solved first.
4. But this is not what environmentalists have been doing. Instead, they have been using the process of Classic Activism to solve the proper coupling problem first. This is physically impossible, because change resistance must be overcome first.
5. This explains why the world has been unable to solve the global environmental sustainability problem.
6. Wakeup call catastrophes cannot be relied upon to help solve the problem by suddenly overcoming change resistance. Why this is so is clearly shown in the simulation model.
Exciting Abstract (what the paper really says)
When we take the sword of truth and slice the sustainability problem into two subproblems, first overcoming change change resistance and then achieving proper coupling, we arrive at a startling conclusion: problem solvers have spent the last 30 years trying to solve the wrong problem. They have put the cart before the horse and are trying to solve the proper coupling problem first. But this is impossible, as a simulation model simple enough to put on one page shows. The model and 7 scenarios are used to bring these points alive and open the door to a new way of thwinking. As a bonus, it is shown that the present problem solving process environmentalists are using, Classic Activism, suffers from a fatal flaw that has a surprisingly easy correction. You just shift your gaze on the model a few inches, and start working there. What could be simpler?
Dull Abstract (the one in the paper)
Why, despite over 30 years of prodigious effort, has humanity failed to solve the environmental sustainability problem? This paper attempts to answer that question by decomposing the problem into two sequential subproblems: (1) How to overcome change resistance and (2) How to achieve proper coupling. A simulation model shows that in problems of this type (common good problems), the social forces favoring resistance can adapt to the forces favoring change. This adaptation response frequently either prevents proper coupling from ever being achieved or delays it for a long time. From this we conclude that systemic change resistance is the crux of the sustainability problem and must be solved first. The model also shows that the conventional problem solving process, Classic Activism, suffers from a blind spot that prevents it from seeing and thus addressing change resistance at the systemic rather than the individual agent level.
The Paper
Change Resistance as the Crux PDF - This 22 page paper was submitted to the System Dynamics Journal on November 26, 2008. Designed to be understood by the non-specialist as well, the paper takes the concept of change resistance that was briefly introduced in the Dueling Loops paper and expands on it.
The Model
Here's an image of the model. Here's the simulation model ZIP . Please see The World of Simulation for how to run the model.
