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Nicola Andreij Rieg
My name is Nicola and currently I'm working as a language instructor. I'm planning to do an MA in the UK next year and I am using this platform to gather as much knowledge as possible on the topic.
Location Seoul, South Korea
Achievements
Activity
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This was actually an initiative by Hubbub. And it's a really good example of insight. What the article above doesn't mention is that the disposal container was installed in an area of many pubs, bars, clubs in London. Getting (semi) drunk people who are partying to avoid littering is really difficult, they don't care about information why smoking/littering is...
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
The projects of the UK Charity https://www.hubbub.org.uk/ tick many of the items on the list above, very interesting what they do.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
Hello I'm Nicola. I work at the University of Surrey, UK, delivering programmes with a focus on sustainability and sustainable behaviours.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
A good example that comes to my mind is the use of pesticides in industrial agriculture. Pesticides are used, then pests get resistant, and in turn more/more aggresive pesticides are applied. Pests get resistant again, and voila, positive feedback loop. Consequences are that the soil gets degraded, water gets polluted and animal and human health suffers.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
Maybe you could describe the human body as a system, and different parts sending continuously feedback to the brain, which then reacts to it. For instance, body temperature is rising, we start to sweat etc.
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If I'm not wrong the course started yesterday, so you should be able to catch up - I just started a this afternoon. You can access this course until 1 April, so I guess that gives you plenty of time.
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It is quite difficult to answer if social systems exist in an objective way or whether they are subjective constructs.
I'd say that they are subjective constructs, probably there is some objective reality, but for humans to know it would be rather difficult.
In research, to reduce subjectivity, the most important things is to know what your own...
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Very good comment, totally agree.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
I think this sounds like a good working definition for now, but as mentioned by JK before, many systems are nested in other systems, or two systems interact by sharing certain kind of components.
I'm not sure if that is a good example, but I was thinking about the water-food-energy nexus.
Each of these three part is a huge system in its own with an even...
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
I think the transport sector has many good examples. In 1997, the city of Hasselt in Belgium made their public transport free of charge in order to decrease the use of cars. However, an unintended consequence was that people who formerly commuted by bike or were walking also started using the buses. Use of public transport rose so much that they had to...
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What do you hope to get out of this course?
+ Since I'm currently studying a Masters in environmental science at Leeds, I would like to complement my studies in order to get further insight in to many of the environmental problems (+wicked problems).What policy problems can be addressed through Systems Thinking and Complexity?
+ Many of the current...
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
Interesting video - immediately raising some questions:
How does a system change when you change it's purpose? And how does that affect the other components of the system?
Is the train system's purpose still transporting people? Or is it maximising financial gains for its owners (Privatisaion of British rail 1997)?
Same goes for the hospitals (maybe...
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
I'm currently studying climate change impacts and adaptation and expanding my knowledge on weather phenomena will hopefully help me to better determine how climate change affects weather, particularly extreme weather events.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
I normally just take a look outside the window. Since I live in England, I almost always carry a small umbrella. At this time it is wet almost everyday, so I wouldn't go out without waterproof shoes. Same when I go hiking to the lake or peak district or the moors, the probability that it will rain at some time is so high that I just prepare for any case.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
The city of Vienna, Austria has a very interesting housing program:
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr_edge_featd_article_011314.html
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Thanks for the input and the interesting article, Brendan. Although I was familiar with the two different concepts, I've never heard describing them in terms of locusts and honeybees, a very fitting analogy.
Denise, I agree with you, nevertheless for some people, especially less affluent citizens, it can be really hard or close to impossible to become...
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
In don't know very much about the city I'm currently living in and I have to obtain more information on that.
In the meanwhile here an article about the last President of Uruguay, a person who, in my opinion, fulfills all the criteria of ethical leadership.
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Or we use that superhero power to elect people like Donald Trump, who is personified ethic and lawfulness.
Regarding Syria, I doubt that it was the Syrian people who by themselves tried to demote Assad. The tragedy that is happening in Syria is not easy to analyse from the outside, especially because western media is extremely biased.
Just in case your...
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
I guess we really have to be very aware of our doing and thinking in order to perceive when we experience cognitive dissonance.
In his Book 'What we think about when we try not to think about global warming' Per Espen Stoknes describes the 4 main strategies of the brain when dealing with cognitive dissonance. He uses the example of smokers, because the...
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I agree with you to a certain extent, but the findings of the Chilcot Report actually state something different and show that to a large part it was also his personal responsibility.
(+ As a high executive, he is responsible for choosing people who work well and give him the right data. As the boss, he is responsible for the actions of his employees, that's... -
Nicola Andreij Rieg replied to Nicola Andreij Rieg
I don't know about other regions in the world, but in America it happens a lot the democratically elected leaders are somehow sacked in putsch like manner over small matters. Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, Manuel Zelaya in Honduras, Dilma Rousseff in Brasil just to name a few recent cases.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
The last mayor of Bogota, Gustavo Petro, was one of those few politicians who made progressive politics for the less fortunate. For instance, he subsidised water for the poorest citizens, made mobile health centers available for homeless and drug addicts etc.
Of course he was not liked very much by the elite and the right wing politicians.
In 2012 he... -
Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
I like the reasons that Professor Byrne provides but I slightly disagree in the first point
"The city lacked ethical leadership, as local officials sought to benefit themselves at the expense of their community, and did not establish ethical organisational values."
I don't think that it is necessarily the task of the local officials to establish ethical...
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I don't really understand your comment, could you elaborate?
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
As Lorna said before, it is difficult to judge other social contexts, especially if we don't know enough about the culture we are supposed to judge.
I also would like to suggest, like some do in their comments below (and contrary to Transparency International's CPI), to see corruption in a broader sense.
Here is a nice article describing some flaws of...
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Regarding Uber or AirBNB, I've never used either, but I'd say that AirBNB was started with a good intention but is being misused in many cities with negative effects like distorting the local housing markets.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
Very interesting topic. Regarding the convenience stores, I think this is highly complicated and embedded in so much other issues, and as mentioned in the article it really depends on the context of culture and city. Where I currently live, there are no convenience stores, but when I was living in Seoul I could find one at every corner.
How does this relate...
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
I don't know very much about the city I live in right now, but there is a good example of corruption when I was still living in Bogota, Colombia.
To sum it up in a few words, a group of congressmen and officials of the department of urban planning were handing out public contracts for constructions in the transportation sector to a certain company that in...
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Nicola Andreij Rieg replied to Daisy Carr
It is interesting to see how the brain deals with cognitive dissonance. In this case, it could add extra cognitions like "we're having this new environmental strategy, therefore we can continue with those festivals".
It's the same as "I switched all my light bulbs to LED, I don't need to have a bad conscience about that weekend trip to Barcelona by...
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
In theory, both, ethics in process and outcome are very important, but reality is often more complicated.
I think that a big problem we're currently facing in western societies is that decision makers often put goals over process. If I don't care about the ethics of the process, I can have quicker and less expensive solutions to certain problems. But this...
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
Hello All,
At the moment I live in Karlsruhe, Germany. What I really love about this city is that there are a lot of green spaces, public parks, a lot of trees, rivers and places to spent time outside in summer. There are also a lot of bike lanes, so you can get around by bicycle quiet comfortably.
I cannot really say what I'm concerned about, but what I...
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
I'm going to study a Master's in Environment and Development this year and I want to gather as much knowledge as possible on the different subtopics.
I also read the book "The Sixth Extinction" written by Elizabeth Kolbert a couple of months ago and it was really interesting, so I hope I can learn more about the scientific aspect of extinctions, especially... -
Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
At a very basic level I'd say minerals, dead and living organisms.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
Hi, my name is Nicola. I'm going to do a master's in environment and development this year and I want to gather as much knowledge as possible on related topics.
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Yes, that's what I meant with "environment". This year we're moving to England so the language spoken outside home will be different.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
I'd say that all of these activities/skill sets would fit in the category of young learner (2-5), some of them even before that age.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
I definitely agree with Joanna, engaging children through playing is extremely important, as is repetition.
We're educating our son bilingual, he is two years and 6 months old now, and in his strong language (learning with mom, her family and environment) he can express a lot of thoughts, wishes etc.
His weak language is less developed since I and a few... -
Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
There are already some very good comments below answering the question. For all those who have some time I recommend reading "the language instinct" by Steven Pinker. Easy to read and very interesting.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
I'm a language trainer (high school and university) and father to a 2-year-old. I'm fascinated by the way children learn language and I want to learn more about it.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
Hi, I'm Nicola and I'm generally interested in languages.
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Hey Morien, thank you for the explanation. I understood your assignment in another way. Putting it like this, it seems definitively a good idea to follow.
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Excellent video, nothing much left to say. I just have bought the book and look forward to reading it.
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I would suggest, if you take Per Stoknes by the word, maybe for now it would not even be necessary to create wast knowledge about climate change, especially regarding people who have to worry about every day life, income, health etc.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understood you have a lot of problems related to pollution in Morocco and Nigeria....
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You're making a very good point here. Regarding your questions, I think there is no 'manual' to adress these problems, it rather depends on the context and the person you're dealing with. Sometimes it can help to ask a set of questions and make this person question his own attitude, but again this works with some people in some contexts.
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
When I reflect on my leadership starting points, maybe that was when I actively began working to help other people as a teenager. Back then of course I didn't think about it as some kind of leadership. I gave voluntary language classes to asylum seekers and organised football matches and other events, it just seemed something normal to me.
After years of...
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A wicked problem actually implies that there is no solution (at least when using the definition of Keith Grint). All that we can do is to mitigate, ameliorate and adapt.
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I think we could apply here the theory on tame and wicked problems (I learned that in another course, Climate Change Leadership).
While a ban on neonicotinoids would represent an elegant solution to a tame problem, the extinction of bees seems to be rather a wicked problem that requires a clumsy...
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Nicola Andreij Rieg made a comment
A very informative and intelligently written article with the author making reasonable and comprehensible points. I read a little bit into Lynn Dicks' blog and other articles she wrote and she seems to be a very qualified, well informed, unbiased but also concerned scientist.
That is even more refreshing, since most of the debate, similar to the debate on...
