This is a basic BIDE (birth, immigration, death, emigration) model.  Not all parts are implemented, however Birth and Death are.

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 This mechanistic worldview is based on outdated science that assumed the universe to be a large machine.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.

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

Basic wolf population dynamics

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.

Overview

It is a model simulating logging and adventure tourism (mountain bike riding) competition in Derby, Tasmania. It is a chance for northeast Tasmania to become an exciting, new, world-class product for the mountain bike tourism industry, which drives local economic development.

Simulation borrowed from the Easter Island simulation.

How the model works

l  Trees grow; we cut them down because of demand for Timber and sell the logs.

l  The mountain bike visits depend on previous experience and suggestions.

l  Previous experience and suggestions depend on the number of trees compared to visitors and adventure number of trees and users. Park capacity limits the number of mountain bike trail users.

l  The employment opportunity depends on the mountain bike demand and demand for Timber.

Interesting Insights

Mountain biking appears to be unaffected by heavy logging. The visitor experience and numbers are improved by reducing park capacity. The main issue is that any success with the mountain bike park increases visitor numbers. A high timber price is also required to balance the park's popularity. Mountain biking appears to require only a narrow corridor; that is, single-track mountain bike trails are enough. The employment is a measure of the economic acting, a recession or growth trends.

Rūta Grasberga

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.

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 simulation shows how plant, deer and wolf populations impact each other in a deciduous forest ecosystem.

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

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

This model illustrates predator prey interactions using real-life data of rabbit and fox populations in Chile
Experiment with adjusting the initial number of moose and wolves on the island.

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

This very simple model generates a tidal curve and a light climate at the sea surface to illustrate the non-linearity of the diel and tidal cycles. This has repercussions on benthic primary (and therefore also secondary) production.

This simulation shows how plant, deer and wolf populations impact each other in a deciduous forest ecosystem.

B

Westley, F. R., O. Tjornbo, L. Schultz, P. Olsson, C. Folke, B. Crona and Ö. Bodin. 2013. A theory of transformative agency in linked social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 18(3): 27. link

Modeling forest succession in a northeast deciduous forest.

This is a basic BIDE (birth, immigration, death, emigration) model.  Not all parts are implemented, however Birth and Death are.

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