For the first few years of my consulting career I was a statistician specialising in complex multivariate time series analysis. We used Box Jenkins Transfer Function Analysis (a technique in engineering control theory, to isolate signals from noise in data). I used it on marketing data to isolate the signal of response to advertising. I measured the "unmeasurable"!

It wasn't until my boss spotted Barry Richmond and his new modelling software, STELLA, that my life changed. Barry came to London and taught us about system dynamics. I had seen the light!!

Operational Thinking

Barry pointed out that correlation isn't causation and he introduced me to what he called "Operational Thinking". He illustrated it very well with an example of milk production. He said "ask an econometrician what drives milk production and they will say GDP, interest rates, fertilizer prices etc". He went on to say "if, however, you ask a systems thinker what drives milk production and they will say the number of cows and how much milk each one produces". Obvious, simple, but often overlooked!!

For more information see Barry's paper on what he calls "Operational Thinking" [https://thesystemsthinker.com/operational-thinking/ here].

How does this relate to Climate Change?

Barry's operational thinking tells us that the key driver of climate change id the carbon concentration in the atmosphere and the operational drivers of that are #people and the carbon/person.

Corporations divide and conquer us into smaller and smaller units. This is how they leverage cash flow. See [[A Stony Story]].

My work on scenarios for climate stability shows we must either reduce population or carbon/person or both. If not climate will control our population. Well, at least it will create a scarcity of resources and then we will control our population through fighting over resources.

The big opportunity for human kind is sharing. If we shared our homes we could actually save the planet! We would also save a lot of money. Rising house prices are helping to make this happen but it is a very reluctant revolution. Where I am right now is going to be subject to many more new builds. The land will then go from net carbon neutral to net carbon highly positive. And this will mean we'll all lose out.

What is getting in the way of sharing? The human being is a gregarious animal. We need each other!