Learning from Nature with System Dynamics

We have left the Holocene and entered a new epoch, the Anthropocene, in which the biosphere is rapidly changing due to human activities. We do not need to decide to address these issues. They are already addressing us: grabbing us by the collar, so to speak. Our only choice is how to respond. In the process we can learn a lot from nature, which has had far more time than human civilization to develop flourishing complex systems, and has successfully weathered many crises. Nature has many lessons to teach us, which we are just beginning to learn. In what follows I’ll talk about a few aspects of this: biomimetic technologies, ecological economics, ecological engineering, and the theory of leverage points. I’ll explain how most of these are connected to “system dynamics”: a modeling tradition that applies to interacting social and biological systems. And I’m including a ton of references, to learn more. The Anthropocene Climate change is just one part of a much broader process where…