Derived from a model at the Meadows institute. http://bit.ly/zI4axo.

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HANDY Model of Societal Collapse from Ecological Economics Paper 

Template for mapping SDG linkages for sustainable systems engineering

Simple Health Care Supply and Demand Interactions

This model incorporates several options in examining fisheries dynamics and fisheries employment. The two most important aspects are the choice between I)managing based on setting fixed quota versus setting fixed effort , and ii) using the 'scientific advice' for quota setting  versus allowing 'political influence' on quota setting (the assumption here is that you have good estimates of recruitment and stock assessments that form the basis of 'scientific advice' and then 'political influnce' that desires increased quota beyond the scientific advice).

This model incorporates several options in examining fisheries dynamics and fisheries employment. The two most important aspects are the choice between I)managing based on setting fixed quota versus setting fixed effort , and ii) using the 'scientific advice' for quota setting  versus allowing 'political influence' on quota setting (the assumption here is that you have good estimates of recruitment and stock assessments that form the basis of 'scientific advice' and then 'political influnce' that desires increased quota beyond the scientific advice).

This simple model will attempt to demonstrate how modern civilization's groundwater practices are unsustainable and how they are affected by the changing climate.

This model incorporates several options in examining fisheries dynamics and fisheries employment. The two most important aspects are the choice between I)managing based on setting fixed quota versus setting fixed effort , and ii) using the 'scientific advice' for quota setting  versus allowing 'political influence' on quota setting (the assumption here is that you have good estimates of recruitment and stock assessments that form the basis of 'scientific advice' and then 'political influnce' that desires increased quota beyond the scientific advice).

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 This mechanistic worldview is based on outdated science that assumed the universe to be a large machine.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

Thanks for taking the time to look at my model on how greenhouse effect impacts food security!

Classwork

Population growth and increased resource usage per person (in terms of energy, land use, dwellings, public services, use of products, food products, etc.) are at the core of the rapid changes in the Earth's surface layers (land use, soil, hydrosphere, atmosphere), which are unsustainable. To what extent is the way population growths and increased resource usage is sanctioned consistent with the ethical principles our society is based on and what changes in systems that provide sanctions for population growth and resource usage would increase the consistency between the normative and descriptive ethics in our society? The case study will consider what population growth and increase in resource usage is expected for the Chesapeake Bay area and identify the potential hazards this growth might create for the Bay. The study will discuss the fragilities of the human and non-human environment to growth-related hazards, and will develop foresight in terms of possible futures. The study will consider to what extent these futures would be consistent with the current ethics and develop interventions that would reduce any discrepancy between the descriptive and normative ethics.

HANDY Model of Societal Collapse from Ecological Economics Paper 

•Average (Status Quo) Case

•Dry Period Case

MEE460-04