Overview of Chapter 2 in A Primer for Environmental Literacy

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of Chapter 2: The System in Frank B. Golley’s 1998 book, A Primer for Environmental Literacy.  An overview of the origin of the word system and its current definition leads into a discussion on natural systems, or ecosystems, which is the focus of Golley’s chapter. Special attention is given to three key attributes of natural systems, which is that they are open, have ecotones, and exhibit the property of emergence.  The paper concludes with a consideration of how natural systems, cultural systems, and economic systems may be viewed in an “ecosystem approach” framework that holds a place at its nexus for the systems thinking that will be instrumental in working towards a more sustainable and abundant future.

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The word system has been in use since ancient times. It derives from the Latin words sunìstemi, which means uniting or putting together and systēma which means a whole compounded of several parts or members. Today, the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines a system as consisting of “regularly interacting and interdependent components forming a unified whole”. This definition shares the essential elements with the definition Golley puts forward in Chapter 2: The System of his book, A Primer for Environmental Literacy (1998), which states that a system is “an object that is made up of subsystems or components which interact in such a way that they have, collectively, a recognizable wholeness”. 

Although the basic definition of the word system is fairly agreed upon, the word itself is used in numerous unique contexts ranging from information systems, to cultural systems, economic systems, natural systems, and beyond.  Odum and Barrett (2005) explain natural systems as “containing living (biotic) and nonliving (abiotic) components that constitute biosystems, ranging from genetic system to ecological systems.”  The discipline of ecology is largely concerned with the larger ecological systems, or the collective functioning of communities of living populations and the non-living environment they occupy.  It is worth noting that the term ecosystem can be used to refer to general types of systems, such as estuarine bays, or to a site specific system such as the Chesapeake Bay which has a 64,000 square-mile watershed that is home to approximately 16 million people over its span of more than seven east coast states (EPA, 2004).  

Three key attributes of all natural ecosystems (not manmade ones like the Biosphere projects) are that they are open, have ecotones, and have the property of emergence. Open systems receive inputs from and give outputs to other systems.  As a result, they usually do not have well-defined boundaries like manmade systems typically do.  The term ecotone is used by ecologists to describe the “zone of interaction” of a system with its neighbors (Golley, 1998).  Ecotones may have fairly distinct boundaries, such as the interface between areas of forest and cleared land, or a more gradually blended gradient, such as wetlands, where species from each community will be found together along with unique local species. Permaculturists consider this “edge” to be a highly productive, dynamic part of a system. 

One of the most fascinating attributes of natural systems (and systems in general) is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.  This is a simple way of describing the concept of emergence in which the interaction of the whole system produces something new and different that is not seen in and cannot be predicted by the individual parts (Golley, 1998).  Both Golley and Odum & Barret use the classic example of water to illustrate the property of emergence.  When hydrogen and oxygen are combined in a certain molecular configuration, water is formed – a liquid with properties utterly different from those of its gaseous components.

Based on these core attributes, half way through Chapter 2 Golley (1998) specifically defines natural systems as a “weakly bounded object made up of living and environmental components and processes that interact to form a whole.”  

Although Golley’s chapter on systems emphasizes natural systems, for the purposes of this course and our greater discipline of sustainability education, I found it interesting to reflect on the interplay between natural systems and other types of systems such as cultural systems (interaction of different elements of culture) and economic systems (people, institutions and their relationships to resources).  The Convention on Biological Diversity (nd), which I have evaluated for work, uses the “Ecosystem Approach” shown to the right as a framework to achieve their goals of integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way.

The “integrated approaches” nexus of their van diagram model appears to be a place where systems thinking, or the process of understanding how things influence and connect to one another, can occur to create webs of connections to achieve sustainability, resilience, and abundance. Golley (1998) concludes his chapter on systems with the caution of avoiding the “machine thinking” that could easily be associated with the term system and encouragement to look beyond the analytical thinking that is typically the primary perspective of science, particularly in the US, to find the creative insight that comes more readily from systems thinking and synthetic experiences.