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Drawing on experience from LEC UK, DEFRA and DTC

A journey to find a methodology for environmental systems that actually achieves outcomes. Graham Harris UTas , Centre for Environment and UoW SMART Infrastructure Facility. Drawing on experience from LEC UK, DEFRA and DTC. Taken from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology

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Drawing on experience from LEC UK, DEFRA and DTC

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  1. A journey to find a methodology for environmental systems that actually achieves outcomes. Graham Harris UTas, Centre for Environment and UoW SMART Infrastructure Facility Drawing on experience from LEC UK, DEFRA and DTC

  2. Taken from the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) strategic plan This is what ecologists and research agencies (CSIRO) say they do! But we have an unspoken conundrum...... It doesn’t work!! It’s all about evidence and “settled science” “evidence-based” policy and “predict-act”

  3. Plans and audit reports….. We can do (a lot) better Some local successes but overall decline in biodiversity Water quality not improving

  4. Restoration?Mega-projects? • Achieving outcomes is difficult. Evidence? • Success rates c. 10%; little better than chance • Well intentioned actions leading to perversion • Problems with infrastructure projects, • Failure to deliver expected outcomes on budget • Also 60-70% of M&As also fail (Rio Tinto) • Everything is on a path from somewhere, to….?? • So what are we restoring to what? • Can’t go back…. Conservation??.... Offsets?? • So what is “strategy”? (Chia & Holt, 2009)

  5. If you talk to the UK Environment Agency they want to know why, when they use the same programs of works and measures, they get different answers; and if they use different works and measures they often get the same answer??Perverse outcomes…. even in lifeand the management of big companies!“it’s life Geoff, but not as you know it”

  6. The myth of outcomes • What are….? • Plans, strategies, scenarios, visions even? • The world is rife with uncertainty, contingency • The world is not Newtonian: we cannot go back • What can we expect? What should we expect? New approach for non-stationarity

  7. THE RISE OF HUMAN SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OVER 16Ky A lesson in Oxbridge PPE Development driven by science and technology; perverse outcomes visible through ICT, social media

  8. Science and society 21st Century • Scientific method reveals axiomatic “laws” of Nature (process of abstraction – externalities) • Cause-effect deduced from axiomatic laws (remember Cartwright.... “ceteris paribus” laws) • “Predict-act” works, evidence and refutation drive new knowledge: strong inference. (evidence can be found) • “There and then” are the same as “here and now”. Stationarity – ergodicity(evidence is transportable) • Modernist, rationalist, realist, materialist worldview science, engineering, economics, management • Physics envy, liberal humanism, sociology, economics • Market-based instruments, biodiversity offsets, TEEB • Risk assessments: CGE models, finance, the GFC • Theory, abstraction, universal rationality, strategy

  9. The myth of models Uncertainty….. Prediction or Prophecy? Life is different – physics won’t do! Beven’s work on hydrological models (GLUE) Life is different and hydrology isn’t physics (Hauhs) Models make category errors – don’t include recursive relationships DON’T EVER REPLACE EMPIRICAL DATA WITH MODEL OUTPUTS!

  10. Allenby & Sarewitz (2011) • Level 1- low risk, technological fixes, largely isolated from environment and people • Level 2 – manageable systemic risk, adaptive management, evidence • Level 3 – complex, uncertain, “black swans”, recursive, complex, life, people, society, economics… the real world • “Science” uses Level 1 (maybe 2) tools on level 3 problems and makes a category error

  11. A&S level 3 problems • What to do about spatially and temporally extensive, heterogeneous, adaptive (evolving), non-linear, contingent, emergent systems with people (life)? • Infrastructure, economies, companies, ecosystems?? • Non-stationary, systemic risks, network failures, super-transients: cultures, beliefs, values (norms) • No controls, no replication, inability to “control” variances – “cause-effect” unclear… weak inference, induction • “There and then” is NOT the same as “here and now” • But we still use “received” level 1 (maybe 2) modernist science and management – lack of critical thinking • Prediction? Planning? Strategy?

  12. PILLORIED BY CLIVE HAMILTON IN A RECENT PIECE IN “The Conversation” ENVIRONMENTAL FLOWS IN THE MURRAY DARLING??

  13. Post-Enlightenment • Now dealing with perverse system-level externalities from value free “received” science and technology • Methodology for recursion which recogniseschoices and values (Mattessich 1978) • Modelling and abstraction challenge: new science, applied philosophy. (Casti 1992) • Governance, asymmetry, sub-politics, (Beck, 1992) values domain: higher level of work • Reflexive ethics and practical wisdom: “letting be” and phronesis (Hadot, 1995)

  14. Systems methodology • Mattessich (1978) argued that science – particularly the applied science of systems – is “structural-holistic, dynamic as well as instrumental” because it “not only emphasises the recorded insights of science but also stresses the entire process of doingscience, as well as the holding and using of theories, of elaborating and eventually replacing them by better ones (his italics, Mattessich, p. 250). • i.e. Choices of methodology and values are linked and are critical. There are ethical considerations particularly when dealing with systems

  15. Not “atoms” but components • Components have reflexive relationships with other components (Rosen, 1991) • Therefore there are both external and internal (system) drivers – the new physics (Crutchfield) • Purpose, meaning, intention?? (Philosophy) • Causes beyond (above) the Material (Horrors!) • Non-ergodic and non-stationary: new science • Systemic risks – non-Normal statistics (WEF 2012) • Meta-statistics and new kinds of experiment (Hauhs, Atmanspacher) – trajectories in space/time • The role of time.... Development..... • Smolin and Charles Sanders Pierce • And the role of chance – being “blind-sided” • Taleb, Chia FORGET PHYSICS ENVY FOR THE OLD PHYSICS

  16. A THEORY OF MODELS: Casti (1992) A problem in applied philosophy for a new age decoding Syntax Semantics INFERENCE N F CAUSAL observables theory encoding When we do this we make choices and abstractions Newton made a choice! Rosen, 1991

  17. Recursive systems/networks developing new area: new science • Information is buried in dynamic network structures • Relationships (Rosen), signed and weighted digraphs • Little information on how this works in ecology or genetics (Wagner – robustness, evolvability): small world, power laws – structure  function related in real time • Ecosystems (Ulanowicz) and genomes (Wagner) occupy small subset of all possible combinatorial configurations – we only see the persistent ones! • How much biodiversity is “enough”? What configuration? • Fluidity, emergence, change, chance, heterogeneity • Information flows.....What evidence? How?? • Not computable at present (Crutchfield)

  18. So how do we get back to something like this? Especially if we don’t know what we have lost – including the secondary compounds ALSO TILMAN ET AL HAVE RECENTLY SHOWN THAT THERE ARE HYSTERESIS EFFECTS

  19. Asymmetry in knowledge and values Worldviews and semiotics Biophysical constraints Evolved Human Constraints Complex Middle ground Biosphere Anthroposphere Emergence Thresholds Regime shifts Thermodynamics Evolution Values Beliefs Realist Scientific Approach Relativism Postmodernism Narrative Engagement Decisions Risk Uncertainty Incomplete knowledge Sociology Economics Analytical tools “experts” Participatory tools “society” THE KNOWLEDGE PROBLEM THE COLLECTIVE ACTION PROBLEM

  20. Asymmetry in knowledge and values Costs and benefits Biophysical constraints Evolved Human Constraints INFRASTRUCTURE Complex Middle ground Biosphere Anthroposphere constructed nature Values Beliefs Thermodynamics Evolution Relativism Postmodernism Realist Scientific Approach Narrative Engagement Decisions Risk Uncertainty Incomplete knowledge Sociology Economics INSTITUTIONS EXPERTISE?? Analytical tools Participatory tools OUR PRESENT “SYSTEM” IS BASED ON A CATEGORY ERROR

  21. Big changes • Big changes since the 1980s • Move to individualism, markets, neo-liberalism – more to come? • Less regulation, more MBIs and incentives – difficult definitions • Ulrich Beck (1992) The “risk society” • Sub-politics, reflexive modernisation • Governance, costs – benefits, compensating for the asymmetry • Pervasive perversion! BUT WE’RE STILL USING A LEVEL 1/2 APPROACH

  22. Artifactual structure (North) TACKLING THE ASYMMETRY • Effective use of institutions and 3rd sector infrastructure (Ostrom) – meta-architecture • Layered governance of information flows • Self organisation“bottom up” (UK River Trusts, NZ water forum) – arose spontaneously • Lack of review of incentives, market structures, institutional, legal (constitutive) design (NEMCO?) • So require innovation, subsidiarity, adaptation, fast failure, retain what works, try various options, • Define the rules of the game and who can play • Enduring solutions not compliance-based but collaborative

  23. 3rd sector social infrastructure: NRM regions Incentives, perversion, recursion Collaborative federalism, reciprocal obligations, layered governance PUT SCIENCE AND VALUE-LADEN CHOICES IN THE HANDS OF THE USERS Information flows and governance to match the natural world

  24. Perverse incentives and misaligned institutions Requirement for “joined up” thinking We need to think about our accounting methods INNOVATIONS?? DEFRA UK uses……. Each of these requires a different set of institutions and constitutive rules: ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL!

  25. From COSUST paper in proof – Bryan et al (2013) We have added layer upon layer of regulation and incentives over more than a century

  26. Catchments have many, self organised, “paradoxical” properties (eco)systems are a “baroque” – diverse, redundant, heterogeneous HI-FREQ DATA DOES MORE THAN GIVE BETTER LOADING ESTIMATES NEW EVIDENCE

  27. Spatial pattern is important even at this scale Work of Kate Orwin in Lancaster 50-60% of the variance in ecosystem services was due to the spatial arrangement of species IN EACH POT!

  28. Forward indicators of perversion • The science will never be settled, prediction not possible, uncertainty high, chance impacts • Leading indicators of system risks (Google and flu outbreaks, PRISM – social networks, web, email) • To guide recursive dialogue and action • Non-aliased data: meta-statistics, dynamic, recursive • (existing data not fit for purpose... Unless relational) • Time series (hi res), networks, ε-machine analyses • Pragmatic, instrumental experiments (Beck, 1992) • Transparency, values, engagement, involvement • Delegation, citizen science, expertise, sub-politics?

  29. The policy arena has just lifted the level of the questions by an order of magnitude And they want evidence!! Forgive them for they know not what they do!!

  30. WE HAVE TRANSFERRED ABOUT 1/3 OF THE AVERAGE FLOW TO THE COMMONWEALTH WATER HOLDER – WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH IT?

  31. New infrastructure/technologies • Exploit the “high frequency wave of the future” (Kirchner) – monitor relationships • Use web-based tools to put the science in the hands of the community e.g. OPAL UK • e.g. iphones as sensors, GridStix, acoustic sensors, motes, GPS, RFD tags, cameras • Distributed expertise, extend and democratize science – a new environmental Google? • Pluralism trumps expertise when uncertain

  32. “Joined-up” thinking and action • Changing community and regional role – upwards into reflexive/recursive problems • Values domain – increasing complexity • Fluidity, people, networks, trust, ethics • Meta-statistics, new science, data, concepts • Crowd-sourcing leading indicators, citizen science • Innovation and changes in infrastructure • Legal, governance, markets, technology, perverse impacts • Information to guide action and conservation • Values – easier to define in $$ for infrastructure • Difficult in environment – also perversion requires clear definition of original goal and costs/benefits

  33. Decisions are not always rational…… Bounded rationalism

  34. Moral corruption • Ethical problems if: • Distributed impacts • Fragmentation of agency • Temporal dispersion • Theoretical ineptitude • Uncertainty • Institutional vacuums • Stephen Gardiner (2011)

  35. Not moral relativism • Some argue (Cilliers) that complexity implies moral relativism (no access to the “good” Platonic ideal of knowledge) • Gardiner, Appiah, de Botton make strong ethical case for reviving old concepts (Aquinas) of “good” linking “is” and “ought” separated by the Enlightenment (Hume, 1739) • Return to pre-Enlightenment ethics and values?

  36. Raphael Sanzio “The school of Athens”, 1510-11, Stanza dellaSegnatura, Vatican palace, Rome

  37. New (non-instrumental) ethics • Lucas Introna: ethics of “letting be” • Recognition of other values and constraints • Unlike Flyvbjerg, Chia sees “phronesis” as an Eastern non-instrumental (reflexive) practice vs

  38. Not strategy but dwelling within • Finding “win-wins” through Aristotelian ideas of phronesis, praxis, metis • Dwelling within: Purposiveness not purposefulness • Involvement NOT strategy • Michel Foucault's “technology of the self” (Pierre Hadot) • Pope Francis, Jesuits • Enrichment of public discourse • Time to reflect how to be moral

  39. Pulling the threads together • Defined outcomes not expected. Perverse outcomes likely. No planning or strategy…. • New systems methodology, forward indicators of perversion – new evidence, recursion • Get the constitutive rules, institutions etc right and use them (re)flexibly and adaptively • Dwelling within, moral corruption, non-instrumental (reflexive) ethics, phronesis RECURSION/PERVERSION REQUIRES A REFLECTIVE, POLITICALLY (AND PHILOSOPHICALLY) PRAGMATIC AND ETHICALLY ACCEPTABLE SYSTEMS METHODOLOGY

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