The Necessary Revolution by Peter Senge
Reading this book about sustainability, and much of it resonates with what I know of the environmental movement in China (all of which is subject to change from what we see when we make “Beijing’s Olympic-inspired Greening” in August).
From page 11, “The difference between many random initiatives that add up to something and a revolution that can transform society boils down to a shift in thinking.” But I will argue that “a shift in thinking” is a scape goat. I would argue that Senge’s “shift in thinking” is actually increased interconnections and information sharing. Maybe it is the framework that I’m looking at the problem from–my training is in International and Global Studies–but I think that increasing the flow of information and the strength of the interconnections between the information can cause everyone to grow in a stronger and healthier way.
Peter Senge goes on to list the basic premises for creating in a more sustainable way, and I think that we should focus on these premises when Jeff and I are shooting our film. The three core premises that Senge outlines are: seeing systems, collaborating across boundaries, and creating versus problem solving. I think I need to think more about Senge’s third premise more carefully. What does it mean to create versus to just problem solve? I can understand that problem solving doesn’t change the system that gave rise to these problems, and maybe that’s the point of creating instead. It’s an idea that I haven’t fully adopted yet, because maybe it’s the most difficult to implement.
As one of the co-authors of The Necessary Revolution, i want to comment thqat creating vs. problem solving speaks to focusing on what we want, rather than on what we don’t want. Often we focus our energies on fixing a problem, and our field of vision is entirely filled with the problem and what we hope will be the “fix’ for the problem. this is essentially a reactive approach, and focuses on and energizes the very condition we seek to avoid. A creative orientation, on the other hand looks at a blank canvas, and what we seek to create. By definition it focuses on creating what we want, rather than avoiding what we don’t want. As we bring new systems into being, many of the old problems simply fall away.
And yes it is more difficult in many ways ,not to implement, but to imagine and envision in the first place. We tend to get stuck in our old mindsets, world views, mental models, and figure “that’s just the way the world is”, and in doing so miss many possibilities that may be right at hand.
Take the notion of reducing waste, for example. it assumes that there must be waste in the first place, and that waste is inherently bad. By contrast., the concept of transforming what is waste in one time and place into food in another, shifts the entire equation. Linear thinking sees and creates waste, cyclical thinking sees waste as feedstock for another process, as it invariable is in natural systems. If waste is seen as food for other processes, like manure into fertile fields, is becomes an opportunity rather than a problem. Flky ash becomes concrete additive, rice straw becomes building material, ppp bottle become new carpet, old carpet becomes car parts or even new carpet. The concept of waste itself is what it eliminated.
Thanks for your input, Joseph. I often forget to think about creating versus problem solving–and so from which direction the issue is being tackled, whether the energy in the problem solving system is proactive or retroactive. I’m glad this pattern was highlighted for me.
I’m wondering though about if you think that this system is only applicable when considering systems that are just beginning to develop. The Chinese environmental movement is only now only beginning to develop, and so it’s important to pay attention to the way that the energy is working. I think it is growing in an emergent way–I’m also reading Emergence by Stephen Johnson, and I may be just trying to apply everything I’m learning to this project. “Grassroots” systems in the West are similar, but I feel like they are only popping up retroactively, and so are stuck in the problem solving-mode. In China, bottom-up systems are being “created”. Is it possible to go back and create bottom-up systems in a macro-framework that is using a reactive problem solving system in the West? I’m skeptical of “grassroots” movements in the West.
I’m not sure, but in nature, emergent systems displace established ones all the time- A caterpillar dissolves and imaginal cells bring forth a butterfly. Mammals emerge, bide their time and develop survival strategies, then take off when the dinosaurs go down. grassroots movements that are stuck in the same mindsets as the dominant systems may fail to create reach change. But I think that those that are truly coming from a different set of mental models, if they can persist, may find an opportunity to blossom and displace the old system and paradigm. The rise of the internet, the transparency that comes with it, and a generation raised with it is one example. I think the conditions that led to the collapse of the old Soviet union and client states and the rise of more democratic (though often chaotic) movements is another. The new trends were nascent and somewhat latent, and when the opportunity emerged, like an old tree falling in the forest, new forms were able to take root.
Joe, can you talk a little more about “grassroots movements stuck in the same mindsets as dominant systems that may fail to create change”? How to determine whether a movement is “truly coming from a different set of mental models”? I’m so skeptical of “grassroots” movements in the West–maybe it’s the name? But I’m all for an emergent system of environmentalism in China. What we need is some good parameters to judge the sustainability of the projects we see in China. There are lots of parameters published for specific projects, but I’m looking for something we can apply to Chinese environmental projects. Maybe we have to develop it?
Reading further, I can see in that The Necessary Revolution does outline some “tools and strategies to help you make progress” in the fourth section of the book. It seems that these are geared toward product sustainability, and not systems sustainability though. We are questioning whether the environmental systems that are being adopted in Beijing are going to continue to make positive changes when the Olympics are over, and I don’t know that the product-talk is directly applicable.
Concerning sustainability in a more general sense, it did occur to me to ask interviewees at IENGOs in China what they think their role will be in 25 years. Introducing time into this equation makes it more interesting to me, and more closely related to what I’ve been thinking about. I hope we can effectively integrate the time element into a 25-40 minute film.