Complete the reading in the Learning Activity “Global Issues and a Systems Persp

Complete the reading in the Learning Activity “Global Issues and a Systems Perspective/Model.” Provide a real-life example based on the reading of how a challenge is really an “opportunity for action.” According to the reading, what are two of the questions you should ask when identifying solutions? Explain how those particular questions could lead to more holistic solutions.
Global Issues and a Systems Perspective/Model
Introduction
Global issues live within an integrated system and require a systems perspective/model to think about and solve. Read this section and take notes in your Learning Journal on the seven steps in the applied guide of a systems perspective/model.
Please answer these questions as well:
In your opinion, which two steps are the most important and why?
Do the seven steps make sense?
What is one question that you have about the seven steps?
Another way of thinking about global issues is to first think about how each business affects the economy, the natural environment, and the people who live in that environment, along with interrelationships that exist between factors. Any time someone tries to solve a global problem, it is important to think about the context of that problem or issue. The systems perspective/model can assist with that.
Systems thinking necessitates thinking about the larger physical environment, society, and the economic aspects all together and how they interact with one another as a part of the global issue.
Analyzing a global problem using a social systems approach can help countries and leaders consider how the consequences (outcomes) of their activities affect the context within which they operate.
© BenGoode/iStock/ThinkstockFor instance, let’s take the problem of global climate change. Recently, there have been some major shifts in weather patterns and climate throughout in the world. These shifting weather patterns impact trade and the transfer of goods and services as they often create changes in physical environments that impact trade routes and shipping lanes, railroads, or roads. They also impact the way that people commute and/or travel to work. This is an example of how the changing environment impacts society. When the outside physical environment changes, so, too, do the interaction and transportation patterns of individuals and goods and services. Bad or unexpected harsh weather may close shipping routes and slow down the transfer of foods and services. Ultimately, this could severely impact the cost of the goods when they reach their final destination and could slow down the availability as well.
So if you are someone who is interested in the issue of global climate change, you might begin by starting with the “environment” or outside circle featured in Figure 1.1, and working your way into the next layer, “society.” When we focus on environment, we mean what is the physical environment like? We also want to consider, where is the physical environment?
The last circle within the systems model is business/economy. In the case of global climate changes, the impacts on the society will ultimately trickle down to impact the economy as well.
Another aspect to consider is the changing human interaction patterns that result from the changes that occur in our surrounding physical environment.
Systems Perspective/Model—Seven Steps
Here is an applied guide to translating the social systems perspective/model into a useful tool for studying global issues:
Topic Identification
Boundaries and Environment
Society/People
Economics
Conceptual Framework
Challenges
Solutions
This section provides more detail on each of the seven aspects of the applied guide.
Topic Identification
You want to clearly identify the topic or global issue/problem. This means providing a fairly succinct description of the issue and explaining why it is important to study and who would benefit and/or care about the results of solving such a problem. As a part of this process, you want to employ some big picture thinking and try to identify any overarching main concepts that stand out as a part of the global issue. For instance, if you think about deforestation as a major global issue, you might consider the factors that contribute to or impact that process. These major factors could include fuel wood demand, type of environment (urban versus rural), population size, and poverty. This could be your first pass at identifying the main concepts or factors that influence deforestation.
Deforestation. The planet’s growing population has increased demands on natural resources, including forest products. Humans have been using trees for firewood, building homes, and making tools for millennia. Trees are a renewable resource, but deforestation occurs when they are removed faster than they can be replenished. Most people in rural areas in developing countries rely on firewood to cook their food. Many of these areas are experiencing a fast decline in the number of trees available. People living in mainly type B (dry) climates may not have access to a lot of trees to start with; therefore, when trees are cut down for firewood or for building materials, deforestation occurs. In the tropical areas, it is common for hardwood trees to be cut down for lumber to gain income or to clear the land for other agricultural purposes, such as cattle ranching. Countries that lack opportunities and advantages look to exploit their natural resources—in this case, trees—for either subsistence agriculture or economic gain. Deforestation has increased across the globe with the rapid rise in worldwide population.
Here is the short description: in many developing countries, people use fuel wood on a daily basis to cook, heat water, and provide heating. Such countries often experience great population booms, which produce a large amount of people who need to rely on a specific natural resource—in this case, trees—to meet their daily needs. People who live in rural areas that lack other available energy options are going to especially rely on fuel wood. Ultimately, this leads to greater deforestation. This is just the first attempt to understand the concepts and how they relate to one another, and it could be that other new concepts or variables get integrated into the mix as you go through the process of finding out more about your topic.
Boundaries and Environment
As you think about your global issue, it becomes very important to identify and/or set the boundaries for the issue; otherwise, it becomes too big to study. These are some of the questions to consider in this step: Where does your issue exist geographically? How are you going to define the boundaries of your global issue? What is the physical environment?
The global issue may have a very broad expanse and may actually affect many different areas, but it is essential to set the boundary for your own investigation of the issue. In other words, you want to clearly delineate the geographic area for your project. For example, let’s say that you are interested in the topic of tropical deforestation, the subject mentioned earlier. Once you’ve identified your topic, the next natural step is to think about where to focus your research efforts as a part of studying the global issue. The big question becomes, “where?”
But how do you decide geographically where to focus if you are still learning about a new topic? The process for geographically bounding and/or focusing your project is fairly easy because you simply need to review newspaper articles, academic journals, and magazine articles, along with some reputable sources of news on the Internet, to discover “where” your topic even exists. Based upon that information, you can move forward with delineating your boundaries.
Since the topic under study involves trade as a global issue, probably the boundary for your topic is naturally going to involve more than one geographic location or country. In the case of the issue of deforestation, it would be a good idea to do some background research to discover which countries or regions of the world have issues with deforestation and then choose among them to establish an area of focus.
Society/People
There are a few questions to consider when you look at explaining the social or society component of your research. Some of these questions include: How would you describe or define the society/societies involved in the global issue? Which countries, regions, states, or groups are involved in the issue? What roles do they play? What are the cultural norms and values of these entities?
It is very likely that if you have chosen a global issue that crosses two different geographic locations, naturally it will involve people from different societies and backgrounds.
The layer represented by the term “society” really refers to all of the social aspects of a group of people—things such as their culture, norms, and values. This label could also include the political system and structure of a group of people. For instance, if you were going to focus on the United States, our political system is democratic. If you were to focus on another country, like China, you would note that their political system is communist. As you assess global problems and issues, it is very important to develop an overarching view of the people and their culture, politics, and government, all of which are a part of the global issue.
So how do you find out which societies are involved with the global issue that you have chosen? First, you want to set the boundary of the issue. Once you have done this, you can start to do some online research to determine which stakeholders are related to your topic or issue. This kind of information can be found while reading news stories on the issue, reviewing academic journal articles, and conducting a general search for the populations within your defined boundary region (e.g., country or state) related to the topic.
Economics
Many global issues that you may choose to study will naturally have an economic component. This economic component is important to so many global issues because it is often the driving force for decisions made by countries, states, and regions regarding policy and practice. There may be some issues for which you choose not to include or focus on economics, and that is fine, but since it such a major factor in global issues and in decision-making about global issues, it bears mentioning. What sorts of economic systems or structures are in place for your area of study? For instance, if you are using countries as your area of focus, what are the political systems in that country? Is it capitalist? Is it communist? Depending on your global issue, the economic reality of the region could play an important role in how you conceptualize and analyze your problem.
Conceptual Framework
Early on in the social systems application process, you identified the main concepts as a part of defining the problem. To fully understand and grasp the relationships between the concepts, we suggest that you create a visual display of your main concepts and label it as your conceptual framework (Figure 1.2). This will help you to visualize the relationships between various aspects of your global issue. In this step, the goal is to create a drawing/figure that illustrates the main concepts and the relationships between them.
As mentioned in the deforestation example, the dependent variable is deforestation; as a concept, it would be placed on the far right of the drawing if you create a model that flows from left to right. If you create a model that is drawn from top of the page to the bottom of the page, your dependent variable would most likely be located at the bottom of the page.
The dependent variable is the main topic or issue that you are interested in trying to explain or examine. The four main concepts are type of environment (urban versus rural), population size, fuel wood demand, and the main concept, deforestation. In such a scenario, we would classify the type of environment (urban versus rural) as an independent variable. In rural areas, there is a greater chance of there being trees to use than in an urban area, where they would have been cut down to make way for development. In more rural areas, there is going to be greater demand and access to fuel wood than in more urban areas, where wood is most likely an alternative source of energy. Additionally, the population size of the region would be a major influencing factor on how much fuel wood is used. As a part of dissecting the various pieces of your global issue, it would help to draw out a conceptual framework that highlights these various pieces and the relationships between them. Figure 1.2 portrays the relationships between the concepts that we have described here.
Figure 1.2 Deforestation Conceptual Framework
Of course we realize that there are potentially other factors that could influence deforestation as well, but the factors that we chose were the concepts that stood out the most in our chosen geography. Again, the case presented here is hypothetical, but it can be used as an example to highlight the use of the conceptual framework as a means to both diagram and understand your chosen global issue.
Challenges
A challenge is really an opportunity for action. The goal is to identify the various major challenges and/or hurdles that need to be overcome to solve the problem. Here you also want to think about where geographically such challenges exist, as well as the scope of these challenges. It is also important to think about who or what groups are involved in the challenging aspects of the problem or situation. Given that your issue is a global issue, there is a good chance that the problem will cross multiple geographies, involving different populations and various economic structures. Therefore, the more understanding that you have developed for these diverse groups, the easier it will be to objectively think about where improvements should occur.
Solutions
In this final step, the goal is to identify solutions to the problem. Some of the questions that should be considered include: Where specifically do you think that changes should happen? Can you justify/explain why you made these choices? What sorts of policies should be developed to improve the situation or global problem?
A policy can be described as some form of an action step. In this step, the goal is to be creative and practical at the same time. Policies can occur at pretty much any level of analysis—local, state, national, international. A policy could be a new practice that a government puts into place, a law, or an educational program. The options are really limitless when you think about what you can do to change a situation or setting.
When thinking about how to solve a global issue, there will be major challenges to addressing the issue, perhaps across country or state boundaries. Your proposed solutions may involve developing policy or action steps that relate to more than one country as well. A central component to creating plausible solutions to your problem is to accurately assess the challenges identified in step 6, and to be clear about the boundaries or areas to which they pertain.
Note. The material in this section was written by Sheila Steinberg. Copyright 2014 Flat World Knowledge, Inc.