Healthy Environments And Sustainability In The EU (EPH1024)
Class notes
Lectures Healthy Environments and Sustainability in the EU
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Course
Healthy Environments And Sustainability In The EU (EPH1024)
Institution
Maastricht University (UM)
1: introduction,
2: complex adaptive systems and sustainability,
3: planetary health,
4: perspectives on the sustainability concept and health (pathways about sustainability),
5: environmental governance EU glyphosate / precautionary principle,
6: urban sustainability,
7: climate change and h...
Healthy Environments And Sustainability In The EU (EPH1024)
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Healthy Environments and Sustainability in the EU Lectures
Introduction lecture
Playing = learning
Why is going to the beach healthy?
o Fresh hair
o Recuperation
o Ionization
Environment:
o Soundscapes
o Spaciousness
o Ecosystems services
o Change
o Patterns and rhythms
Sustainability in the Netherlands:
o Climate change
o Coastal protection
o Temperature regulation
o Carbon storage (in the sea)
o Energy production
o Biodiversity
Sea in the context of Europe:
o Boundary / Boarder
o Food-source
o Economy
o Migration
o Transportations / Mobility
o Energy
o Laws / Regulations / Governance
Systems perspective
A system isn’t just any old collection of things.
A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that
achieves something.
A system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnections, and a function or
purpose.
Example. Tutor group
Elements = students
Interconnections = conversations / cases
Function = exploring a topic / understanding something
, • Simple system = baking cooking from a recipe → very easy / knowable
• Complicated system = making a new car → knowns and unknowns that you must test
for
• Complex system = nature / global food system / raising a child → adaptive /
outcomes are never the same
• Chaotic system = a crisis → completely new territory / unknowable’s
System thinker
Interested in the whole system not in the parts
Looking at the larger system and processes and networks to find embeddedness
Why do we need a systems perspective?
Sustainability and health problems are systemic
o Fossil fuel dependency
o Runaway global capitalist system
o Lack of human-nature connection
Look at these problems from multiple perspectives…
o Environmental problem?
o Economic problem?
o Political problem?
o Cultural problem?
o Empathetic problem?
Our privileged position brings responsibilities!
How do we take this responsibility?
o By minding the stories we tell
o Stories matter
o Stories materialize
,Stories about nature and risk
Fatalist perspective → survival of the fittest / we can’t do anything about it / why bother?
Hierarchists → manage the world by taking control
Individualist → take risks / self-centred / “I don’t comply”
Egalitarian → take control to protect society in a preventive way
Chaos:
o Lack of certainty
o Lack of logical linear progression
o Lack of order and pattern
o Lack of control
o Crisis
o Collapse of system
o Pessimism
o Doom and gloom
Complexity:
o New possibilities
o Non-linear change
o New patterns emerge
o Scenarios
o Chance
o Evolution of system
o Optimism
o Window of opportunity and hope
Emergent patterns / Trying to understand:
o Initial conditions
o Feedback loops
o Attractors (direction of change)
o Interdependencies
o Evolution / change
o New systems emerging
, Complex adaptive systems and sustainability
The Anthropocene
Humans have changed the way the world works. Now they must change the way they think
about it, too.
What is sustainability about?
We should change as a human species, but humans are competitive egoistic species. This
leads to an uncertain world with a precarious future. However, humans can care, become
creative, to share, to love, to cooperate.
Crisis = chance for (directing pathways) change
Basic Principle of EMERGENCE
1+1=3 → the whole is always more than the sum of its parts.
Diversity and connectivity are important in a system:
❖ Entropy (chaos) = increasing disorder within a system
❖ Resilience = the ability of a system to return to its original state after being disturbed
Closed systems (separate bowls of ingredients that do not mix)
Second law of thermodynamics → dissolution / entropy and then it ends.
Closed systems do not exist outside of laboratory settings.
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