How is the science-policy landscape changing?

We have seen in this course how genuine solutions to the climate and biodiversity crisis require us to move beyond superficial and narrow thinking. We certainly need technological and economic innovations, but these alone aren’t sufficient, or won’t happen, without deeper change to mindsets and culture.

Such insights have been discussed since at least the 1970s when a pioneering systems thinker, Donella Meadows, suggested that ‘deeper leverage points’ are needed to effectively transform systems (eg, our food, energy or transport systems). According to Meadows, interventions that affect material flows in a system (such as by influencing taxes, subsidies and regulatory standards) are less transformative than deeper changes which influence the underpinning values, world views and goals of actors, who go on to reshape the direction of the system¹. Essentially, successfully transforming a system requires going beyond superficial fixes to making deeper changes to our mindsets and culture.

As you saw in Week 1, there are many examples where superficial approaches to transforming systems have been attempted. However, major science-policy initiatives around the world are increasingly recognising the need to work on deeper leverage points involving mindsets and culture, as you saw in Step 1.3

Are we seeing a wider shift in the science-policy landscape, where a focus on deeper leverage points around mindset and culture is becoming the dominant way of framing these issues? Is there a paradigm shift in how we approach environmental problems?

In the next Step, you’ll be able to listen to the discussion I had about this with Gus Speth, a senior environmental lawyer in the USA.

References

Leverage points for sustainability transformation. Abson, D.J., et al. Ambio, 46, 30-39. 2017