Building a simple model

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

To develop a model and rating system to be able assess how sustainably responsible the Queensland Government, Local Government, Government Agencies, and Industry are. The rating system is based on the key sustainability factors identified by the United Nations: Social, Environment, and Economic.

HANDY Model of Societal Collapse from Ecological Economics Paper 

This is a model depicting Durham region waste management. It shows 4 types of waste, what township they come from, and how much waste (in tonnes) comes from each of the 3 townships in the Durham Region with a Durham Region-owned waste management facility. The garbage leftover from each township after removing everything recyclable, compostable, and reusable, is sent to the Durham York Energy Center to create energy from the garbage. 

HANDY Model of Societal Collapse from Ecological Economics Paper 

Small community that becomes overpopulated requires change in order to survive

HANDY Model of Societal Collapse from Ecological Economics Paper 

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).

•Dry Period Case

The fishing sector (artisanal and industrial) considered as a renewable resource is a sector with a strong potential to create employment and new resources necessary for the population. It is also an important source of foreign exchange due to the export of sea products and represent a potential for the development of entrepreneurship.

Indeed, Benin, a West African country with a population of about twelve million inhabitants, has a 125 km long coastline. Benin's fisheries sector contributes only 3% of the GDP, forms a very small part of exports, while Beninese fisheries products are in increasing demand in Europe.

However, the widespread use of non-regulatory fishing methods and gear, the uncontrolled increase in fishing effort, the degradation of ecosystems, and the pollution of water bodies by household and industrial waste mean that national production of fishery is stagnating at an average of 39,500 tons per year.

The increase in commercial fisheries production is therefore becoming an imperative in order to continue to guarantee the fishing industry and to safeguard its sustainability and to increase its contributions to the GDP. Simulation models can be used to help making durable decisions.

In the proposed model, we assumed that the largest population of fishermen harvesting the most important species of fish in the large sea of Benin, the shrimp.

The complete the fishery system consists of the coupled dynamic systems of the Fish population and the one hand and the Fishing boat (fishing industry) on the other, that have been represented by the Stocks.

Earnings of the fishermen are used to maintain, buy new fishing boats or to replace old boats that go out of commission, but also, to take care of families.

Dynamics of natural fishery growth and effect of fishing quantity on sustainability of fisheries

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 

Classwork

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).

Building a simple model to understand how to run a profitably fishing business

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).

Aqui se apresenta a simulação proposta no curso Thinking Complexity para o problema da pesca sustentável em um determinado local.

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.