Confronting the dreaded blank canvas

Donella Meadows walks a class through the model conceptualization process in Creating Models from Scratch:

One interesting thing here is that she starts with a causal loop diagram. This is a case where there are some clear physical quantities of interest (people and mosquitoes), so I would probably have started with stocks and flows. (Or, I like to think I would.) But you never know how things are going to go – I can think of other situations where CLDs worked out better. The key is to stay flexible and switch methods as needed, and as the audience requires (see around 30:00 for the stock-flow implementation).

Four Legs and a Tail

An effective climate policy needs prices, technology, institutional rules, and preferences.

I’m continuously irked by calls for R&D to save us from climate change. Yes, we need it very badly, but it’s no panacea. Without other signals, like a price on carbon, technology isn’t going to do a lot. It’s a one-legged dog. True, we might get lucky with some magic bullet, but I’m not willing to count on that. An effective climate policy needs four legs:

  1. Prices
  2. Technology (the landscape of possibilities on which we make decisions)
  3. Institutional rules and procedures
  4. Preferences, operating within social networks

Continue reading “Four Legs and a Tail”