A collaborative class project with each participant creating an animal/plant sub-model​ to explore the greater population/community dynamics of the Yellowstone ecosystem. Changes to original: removal of non-connected variables to simplify view for middle school students. 

This is a simulation that represents the populations of lions in the world over the last 200 years.

A collaborative class project with each participant creating an animal/plant sub-model​ to explore the greater population/community dynamics of the Yellowstone ecosystem.

Common Timothy is an invasive grass species.  Alpine Timothy is the native grass species in Yellowstone.  I calculated the carrying capacity of the grasses by converting acres, square feet, pounds per square feet and seeds per pound.  There is a higher birth rate and lower death rate for the common timothy because the grass is taking over the area due to a lack of wildlife predators.

​S-Curve + Delay for Bell Curve Showing Erlang Distribution

Challenges in sustainability are multilevel.
This diagram attempts to summarize levels of self reinforcing destructive dynamics, authors that deal with them, and point of leverage for change.

The base of the crisis is a mechanistic rather than ecological worldview. This mechanistic worldview is based on outdated science that assumed the universe to be a large machine. In a machine there is an inside and an outside. The health of the inside is important for the machine, the outside not. In an ecological view everything is interconnected, there is no clear separation in the future of self and other. All parts influence the health of other parts. To retain health sensitivity and democracy are inherent. The sense of separation from other that keeps the mechanistic worldview dominant is duality. Being cut off from spiritual traditions due to a mechanistic view of science people need access to inter-spirituality to reconnect with the human traditions and tools around connectedness, inner discovery, and compassion. Many books on modern physics and biology deal with the system view implications. "The coming interspiritual age" deals with the need to connect spiritual traditions and science.

At the bottom for the dynamic is an individual a sense of disconnectedness leads to a dependency on spending and having rather than connecting. The connecting has become too painful and dealing with it unpopular in our culture. Joanna Macy deals with this in Active Hope. 

This affluenza and disconnection is worsened by a market that floods one with advertisements aimed at creating needs and a sense of dissatisfaction with that one has.

National economies are structured around maximising GDP which means maximising consumption and financial capital movement. This is at the cost of local economies. These same local economies are needed for balanced happiness as well as for sustainability.

Generally institutions focus on maximising consumption rather than sustaining life support systems. David Korten covers this well.

Power and wealth is confused in this worldview. In striving for wealth only power is striven for in the form of money and monopoly.

Those at the head of large banks and corporations tend to be there because they exemplify this approach. They have few scruples about enforcing this approach onto everyone through wars and disaster capitalism. Naomi Klein and David Estulin documented this.

Power has become so centralized that we need this understanding to be widespread and include many of those in power. Progress of all of these levels are needed to show them and all that another way is possible.

A simulation illustrating how the size of a fish population affects the number of fish caught and vice versa.

The purpose of this deer management model is to explore the capacity of wildlife management actions to help us adapt to the effects of climate change.

This model illustrates predator prey interactions using real-life data of wolf and moose populations on the Isle Royale. It was "cloned" from a model that InsightMaker provides to its users, at
https://insightmaker.com/insight/2068/Isle-Royale-Predator-Prey-Interactions
Thanks Scott Fortmann-Roe.

I've created a Mathematica file that replicates the model, at
http://www.nku.edu/~longa/classes/2018spring/mat375/mathematica/Moose-n-Wolf-InsightMaker.nb

It allows one to experiment with adjusting the initial number of moose and wolves on the island.

I used steepest descent in Mathematica to optimize the parameters, with my objective data being the ratio of wolves to moose. You can try my (admittedly) kludgy code, at
http://www.nku.edu/~longa/classes/2018spring/mat375/mathematica/Moose-n-Wolf-InsightMaker-BestFit.nb

{WolfBirthRateFactorStart,
WolfDeathRateStart,
MooseBirthRateStart,
MooseDeathRateFactorStart,
moStart,
woStart} =
{0.000267409,
0.239821,
0.269755,
0.0113679,
591,
23.};

This is a basic model for use with our lab section.  The full BIDE options.

Simple dynamic model of species gain and loss from individual trees as patches in the landscape, including removal of surrounding trees and changes in climatic stressors.

Cloned from Ash Moran's Insight 1256 Systems and Models (Hartmut Bossel) Figure 2.16. Notation matches the Appendix of Marten Scheffer's 2009 Book Critical Transitions in Nature and Society p329 

​Climate Sector Boundary Diagram By Guy Lakeman

A simulation illustrating simple predator prey dynamics. You have two populations.

This model has two main components. First is modelling the change in population composition as non-First Nations immigration increases with the opening of new mines in the region. The second is modelling the increasing income disparity between First Nations and non-First Nations as mining jobs are disproportionately gained by non-First Nations workers.

This model illustrates predator prey interactions using real-life data of wolf and moose populations on the Isle Royale.

Experiment with adjusting the moose birth-rate to simulate Over-shoot followed by environmental recovery

This model illustrates predator prey interactions using real-life data of wolf and moose populations on the Isle Royale.

Experiment with adjusting the initial number of moose and wolves on the island.

This model illustrates predator prey interactions using real-life data of wolf and moose populations on the Isle Royale.

Experiment with adjusting the moose birth-rate to simulate Over-shoot followed by environmental recovery

This model illustrates predator prey interactions using real-life data of wolf and moose populations on the Isle Royale.

Experiment with adjusting the initial number of moose and wolves on the island.