Super Wicked Problems Research Articles

Using Catholic Social Thought and the Normativity of the Future in Responding to the Super Wicked Problem of Climate Change

The climate crisis has been dubbed a “super wicked problem”—one where there is a sense of urgency, complicity in the problem by those who wish to solve it, and difficulty in sacrificing the short term for the long term. To respond to the difficulty of long-term thinking in addressing super wicked problems as part of SDG 13 (Climate Action), there is a need to pay attention to the narratives, norms, and values at work, and how we employ these categories in climate action. This paper discusses how Catholic social thought and the concept of the normativity of the future can be an approach to understanding the SDGs and the alternative future they offer in order to energize communities toward responding to the climate crisis, especially in response to current dominant narratives that make climate action difficult, as well as a way to make sense of the tensions found within the SDGs themselves.

Governmental Capabilities and Responsiveness: Global Investigations into CO2 Emissions and Decarbonization. The Ultimate Super Wicked Problem!

ABSTRACT We consider how the governmental and political contexts of societies affect the delivery of decarbonization agendas. Data on government effectiveness and political stability (capability) and voice and accountability (responsiveness) are related to emission levels in high and middle/low-income countries. The analysis implied that greater government effectiveness initially decreased, but then increased emissions. Alternatively, improvements in political stability had no effect in high-income countries, but lowered emissions elsewhere. Increasing voice and accountability had no effect on the emissions of high-income countries, but raised then (at higher levels) lowered emissions in middle and low-income countries. Findings are used to develop a scholarly understanding of the effects on complex public policy outcomes.

From super-wicked problems to more-than-human justice: new bioethical frameworks for antimicrobial resistance and climate emergency.

In this article, building on our multidisciplinary expertise on philosophy, anthropology, and social study of microbes, we discuss and analyze new approaches to justice that have emerged in thinking with more-than-human contexts: microbes, animals, environments and ecosystems. We situate our analysis in theory of and practical engagements with antimicrobial resistance and climate emergency that both can be considered super-wicked problems. In offering solutions to such problems, we discuss a more-than-human justice orientation, seeking to displace human exceptionalism while still engaging with human social justice issues. We offer anthropological narratives to highlight how more-than-human actors already play an important role in environmental and climate politics. These narratives further justify the need for new ethical frameworks, out of which we, for further development outside the scope of this article, suggest a queer feminist posthumanist one.

Towards a transformative climate change education: questions and pedagogies

This paper approaches climate change as a superordinate concern that should guide a holistic transformation of formal schooling towards integration and sustainability. The call for climate change education (CCE) has been amplified by international organizations and youth protestors alike, united by a shared concern for our planet. By combining CCE with principles of transformative learning (TL), the paper outlines a framework for transformative climate change education (TCCE). If climate change fits the description of a super wicked problem, this is also true of TCCE, which requires the simultaneous transformation of curricula, pedagogies, and assessment systems. The paper argues that the implementation of TCCE faces significant challenges because it disputes the underlying values of our transmissive educational systems. Those challenges are formulated here as a series of questions, which are followed by a discussion of sustainability pedagogies that help learners build capacity for understanding and acting on climate change.

Why is the sky blue? A new question for political science

The future of political science in this crucial century requires that it (i) adopt the contemporary scientific paradigm, (ii) open itself to pluri-, inter- and transdisciplinarity, and (iii) redefine the main political actor, ourselves, in light of post-anthropocentric and relational turns. A theoretical revolution to a post-normal and eco-political science is needed and, through the influence of new fields such as sustainability science, is probably already in motion. In the Anthropocene, it implies paying attention to biological links that once seemed extemporaneous. And this is when we realize that the sky has become co-vulnerable. We may actually be at risk of losing blue sky through anthropogenic actions, including global warming or solar geoengineering. Politics will be crucial in determining whether or not to preserve its blue, and everything that goes with it. The article explores, through the answer to the blue question, this new super-wicked problem to illustrate the stated objectives for political science and the need to apply them. The proposals that have emerged from this also provide a new framework for Clean Air strategies for blue skies that are being developed at international and national levels.

AI for crisis decisions

Increasingly, our cities are confronted with crises. Fuelled by climate change and a loss of biodiversity, increasing inequalities and fragmentation, challenges range from social unrest and outbursts of violence to heatwaves, torrential rainfall, or epidemics. As crises require rapid interventions that overwhelm human decision-making capacity, AI has been portrayed as a potential avenue to support or even automate decision-making. In this paper, I analyse the specific challenges of AI in urban crisis management as an example and test case for many super wicked decision problems. These super wicked problems are characterised by a coincidence of great complexity and urgency. I will argue that from this combination, specific challenges arise that are only partially covered in the current guidelines and standards around trustworthy or human-centered AI. By following a decision-centric perspective, I argue that to solve urgent crisis problems, the context, capacities, and networks need to be addressed. AI for crisis response needs to follow dedicated design principles that ensure (i) human control in complex social networks, where many humans interact with AI; (ii) principled design that considers core principles of crisis response such as solidarity and humanity; (iii) designing for the most vulnerable. As such this paper is meant to inspire researchers, AI developers and practitioners in the space of AI for (urban) crisis response – and other urgent and complex problems that urban planners are confronted with.

Woldemar Voigt’s Alliance of Finite Reality with Infinite Fantasy

This article tries to explain why we should ally the cerebral and asymmetrical finiteness spared in autism with the cerebellar and symmetrical infinity impaired in it to avoid global warming, a super-wicked problem. Woldemar Voigt implied the alliance of detectible finiteness and lying infinity in 1887 at the University of Göttingen through the transformations of his “Shining Sphere,” or Riemann Sphere. Since they cannot lie, autistics cannot face problems, rooted in the maybe of dreaming and fantasy. The author posits that our problem is ignoring the alliance of classical asymmetry and quantum symmetry in our brainstem, Stonehenge’s builders, artless discourse, and nature’s nature. The author posits that recalling nature’s roots will save about eight billion nonautistic liars (rooted in the “tree of knowledge”) from a fate worse than Lisbon’s Earthquake in 1755. The ruin of life on Earth can wane by willfully grasping the union of vertical and finite asymmetry with horizontal and infinite symmetry in the “tree of life.” Asymmetrical finiteness (e.g., from front to back in a dog tick) hugs symmetrical infinity in living beings (e.g, the legs and eyes of a dog tick) as relativity hugs quantum physics; and Descartes’ cosines hug Euler’s sines in a complex plane.

Antimicrobial resistance as a super wicked problem: how do we engage the public to be part of the solution

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is now regarded as one of the greatest global challenges of the 21st century. The complexity, urgent timeframe, and lack of clear solution to AMR have contributed to its classification as a 'super wicked problem'. Yet knowledge surveys of the general public have found that they still harbour numerous misconceptions linked to both the sources and impact of AMR. This confusion is compounded by AMR being a One Health issue, and therefore a factor in not just human health but in other industries, such as farming. This can further inhibit understanding and knowledge transfer around AMR for those without a prior knowledge base. In order to address the escalating risk that AMR presents, however, it is essential to address this knowledge gap and engage with the public to support wide scale changes in behaviour and consumer choice. The WHO now requires national action plans tackling AMR to include patient and public involvement/engagement (PPI/E) to support changing the trajectory of AMR. Despite this, little detail is available as part of strategic plans on how PPI/E should be undertaken in order to aid implementation. This paper discusses a number of approaches to support the design and delivery of PPI/E in relation to AMR, including the different social behaviour models underlying successful PPI/E strategies, and key considerations linked to specific activity types. The framework produced includes features for steps from initial planning and design through to evaluation. The aim is to help improve the ability of scientists and healthcare professionals to produce high quality AMR PPI/E.

Active community for climate change: a Dynamic Performance Governance analysis of a biodiversity preservation program

PurposeThis study aims to illustrate how collaborative platforms may leverage active community for climate change adaptation to implement biodiversity preservation policies.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts the Dynamic Performance Governance methodological framework to analyze the causal relationships affecting biodiversity preservation policy outcomes.FindingsActive community reduces harmful factors for biodiversity (i.e. biological threats and anthropogenic pressure), limiting the risk of extinction of perennial plants. Stakeholders’ prior knowledge is an enabling condition of climate adaptation processes as it triggers the adoption of prescriptions and cultural changes in a community.Practical implicationsThe study provides methodological guidance to define measures to deliver material information to support environmental performance governance. It elaborates an inventory of short- and long-term performance indicators integrating natural-science targets into accounting measures that can support policymakers operating in other contexts to implement climate change adaptation policies.Social implicationsAs a response to the study findings, social implications provide insights into how active community in collaborative platforms for climate change may support stakeholders to address natural resources imbalances, define strategies to share the burden among them and intervene on multiple policy domains (e.g. financial, environmental and social).Originality/valueClimate change adaptation challenges are conceptualized as “super wicked problems,” and the collaborative platforms designed to address them are rendered as complex adaptive systems. This makes the paper go beyond traditional environmental governance, demonstrating that stakeholders’ interactions within collaborative platforms harness active community specialized knowledge.

Governmental Capabilities and Responsiveness: Global Investigations into Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Decarbonization. The Ultimate Super Wicked Problem!

Governmental Capabilities and Responsiveness: Global Investigations into Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Decarbonization. The Ultimate Super Wicked Problem!

W(h)ither entrepreneurship? Discipline, legitimacy and super-wicked problems on the road to nowhere

The discourse of the twenty first century is increasingly a discourse of crisis – global warming, climate change, environmental degradation, health pandemics, geopolitical instability, poverty, enforced migration and refugee movements, among others. Increasingly these ‘grand challenges’ pose complex environmental and social problems that present radical uncertainty regarding the consequences of current actions and encourage multiple conflicting evaluations. We argue in this paper that in response to this ‘new world’ of super-wicked problems and hyperobjects, there is a unique opportunity for entrepreneurship to take centre stage, given that the entrepreneurial context itself is extreme in terms of uncertainty, time pressures, cognitive load, emotional reactions, and social interactions. However, there is a danger that this opportunity may be compromised by ongoing debates over the status, coherence, identity and legitimacy of entrepreneurship as a discipline. Accordingly, we argue for more problem-oriented research in entrepreneurship, not as an additional focus of attention but as foundational to the nature of the discipline itself. This argument is based on a broader discussion of the nature of scientific disciplines as the increasingly specialised division of knowledge and challenges the drive to establish entrepreneurship as a theory-led scientific discipline in the traditional mode. Commitment to the social legitimation of disciplinary discourse advocating problem-oriented entrepreneurship avoids the danger that consensus in the discipline is established at the expense of intellectual development, practical relevance and real impact.

The Energy Transition as a Super Wicked Problem: The Energy Sector in the Era of Prosumer Capitalism

The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate that the energy transition as part of prosumer capitalism is a socio-economic process whose complexity increases over time, which makes it an example of a super wicked problem. It comprises many new phenomena emerging spontaneously, and often unpredictably, in the energy markets. The main contemporary challenge involves such an energy sector transformation which will prevent climate change and will ensure the sustainable development of the global economy. However, this requires solving a large number of sub-problems in areas such as legislation, energy distribution, democracy, and cybersecurity. Therefore, this is a multidisciplinary issue. Moreover, the situation is complicated by the frequently omitted fact that energy transition is not part of the standard capitalism model, extensively described in handbooks and scientific literature, but it is conducted as part of a new economic system—prosumer capitalism, which has not been properly explored yet. However, a solution to this super wicked problem has to be found soon, as the energy system may be threatened with complexity catastrophe, which denotes exceeding the upper complexity limit associated with the breakdown of its adaptability. Therefore, developing effective techniques for alleviating the complexity catastrophe, including redefining the change management and complexity management methods to the global scale, becomes the top priority among the tasks faced by science.

The super wicked problem of ocean health: a socio-ecological and behavioural perspective.

We are dependent on our oceans for economic, health and social benefits; however, demands on our oceans are escalating, and the state of the oceans is deteriorating. Only 2% of countries are on track to achieve the desired outcomes for the sustainable development goal (SDG 14) for the oceans by 2030, and the changes needed to prevent further degradation, or limit the impact of existing degradation, are not being undertaken fast enough. This paper uses a socio-ecological lens to explore the nature of actors and behaviours for change at the local, community, state, national and international levels, and introduces the need for technology, information- and knowledge-sharing, and policy as interconnected mediators, that work both in concert, and independently, to address the 'super wicked' problem of ocean health and to promote resilience. We recommend the need to develop transformational teams and leaders, as well as transformative policies within a holistic and integrated system to ensure ocean health initiatives are greater than the sum of their parts and are actual, realistic, achievable and evidence-informed pathways to change. This article is part of the theme issue 'Nurturing resilient marine ecosystems'.

Fossil Fuel Consumption, CO<sub>2</sub> Emissions and Growth in High-Income Countries and Low-Income Countries

This paper investigates the pairwise causality and co-integration that links fossil fuel consumption (FFC), carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and real gross domestic product (RGDP) between low-income countries (LIC) and high-income countries (HIC). This comparative analysis is anchored on Lv et al. (2019). Lv et al. (2019) enable the analytical framework model utilized to investigate the causality between FFC and CO2, CO2 and RGDP, and FFC and RGDP in HIC and LIC. Data were obtained from world development indicator between 1960 and 2019. The results obtained are, as follows: There exists a unidirectional causality, thus the RGDP granger causes CO2 in HIC, and no causality between RGDP and CO2 in LIC. Also, the study found no causality between FFC and RGDP, and FFC and CO2 in HIC and LIC. The mixed inter-regional causality result showed that there exists bi-directional causality between RGDP and CO2 for HIC and LIC. This implies that RGDP in LIC granger causes CO2 in HIC, and CO2 in HIC granger causes RGDP in LIC. Hence, the presence of a regional super-wicked problem. Also, CO2 in HIC granger causes FFC in LIC. The result suggests that countries should seamlessly adopt proportionate mitigation and adaptation policies to reduce the pollution transmission between economies. The non-existence of pairwise co-integration between FFC, CO2, and RGDP in HIC and LIC connotes that the CO2 reduction policy should be a short-term public policy strategy with conscious and deliberate targeting to avoid long-run growth reversal. Therefore, this paper concludes that reducing FFC may not necessarily lead to a decline in growth vice versa. Thus, to achieve a low carbon economy and a high growth regime, the global community should adopt a techno-economic paradigm model that would accelerate growth within a low-carbon economy regime to realize the 45% carbon reduction target by 2030 and the 2050 net-zero emission target.

Bioeconomy and the Nagoya Protocol

Brazil has ratified the Nagoya Protocol putting an end to a decade of internal disputes among agrobusiness, environmentalists and scientists. But the challenges remain. The utilization of genetic resources can lead to innovation in many types of industry, but depending on the way they are exploited they can be a form of unfair competition or even biopiracy. This paper brings some tools designed to curtail this and that are brought forward by international legal documents as well as by voluntary compliance mechanisms. The aim is shed a light on the pros and cons of these asymmetrical regulatory systems and the importance that these instruments are used to favour global justice and not the interests of a minority. In this way, the research aims to contribute to the UN SDGs 2 (sustainable agriculture), 12 (responsible production), 15 (preservation of life on land), 16 (justice and effective institutions) and 17 (partnerships and means of implementation). Summary: Introduction on bioeconomy; Brazil’s megadiversity legal system; The Nagoya international regime; Biopiracy a super wicked problem, Global governance, Market driven initiatives, International Standards; Only few standards are on biodiversity; Environmental justice; Conclusion a long way to go

Managing pandemics as super wicked problems: lessons from, and for, COVID-19 and the climate crisis

COVID-19 has caused 100s of millions of infections and millions of deaths worldwide, overwhelming health and economic capacities in many countries and at multiple scales. The immediacy and magnitude of this crisis has resulted in government officials, practitioners and applied scholars turning to reflexive learning exercises to generate insights for managing the reverberating effects of this disease as well as the next inevitable pandemic. We contribute to both tasks by assessing COVID-19 as a “super wicked” problem denoted by four features we originally formulated to describe the climate crisis: time is running out, no central authority, those causing the problem also want to solve it, and policies irrationally discount the future (Levin et al. in Playing it forward: path dependency, progressive incrementalism, and the “super wicked” problem of global climate change, 2007; Levin et al. in Playing it forward: Path dependency, progressive incrementalism, and the "super wicked" problem of global climate change, 2009; Levin et al. in Policy Sci 45(2):123–152, 2012). Doing so leads us to identify three overarching imperatives critical for pandemic management. First, similar to requirements to address the climate crisis, policy makers must establish and maintain durable policy objectives. Second, in contrast to climate, management responses must always allow for swift changes in policy settings and calibrations given rapid and evolving knowledge about a particular disease’s epidemiology. Third, analogous to, but with swifter effects than climate, wide-ranging global efforts, if well designed, will dramatically reduce domestic costs and resource requirements by curbing the spread of the disease and/or fostering relevant knowledge for managing containment and eradication. Accomplishing these tasks requires building the analytic capacity for engaging in reflexive anticipatory policy design exercises aimed at maintaining, or building, life-saving thermostatic institutions at the global and domestic levels.

Reframing how we care for people with persistent non-traumatic musculoskeletal pain. Suggestions for the rehabilitation community

There have been repeated calls to re-evaluate how clinicians provide care for people presenting with persistent non-traumatic musculoskeletal conditions. One suggestion is to move away from the ‘we can fix and cure you’ model to adopting an approach that is more consistent with approaches used when managing other persistent non-communicable diseases; education, advice, a major focus on self-management including lifestyle behavioural change, physical activity and medications as required. Currently the global delivery of musculoskeletal care has many of the elements of a ‘super wicked problem’, namely conflict of interest from stake-holders due to the consequences of change, prevailing expectation of a structural diagnosis and concomitant fix for musculoskeletal pain, persistent funding of high risk, more expensive care when low risk more economic viable options that don’t impact on the quality of outcome exist, and an unquestionable need to find a solution now with the failure resulting in a growing social and economic burden for future generations. To address these issues, 100 participants included clinicians, educators and researchers from low-, middle- and high-income countries, eight presenters representing the physiotherapy, sport medicine and the orthopaedic professions and the insurance industry, together with three people who shared their lived experiences of persistent musculoskeletal pain, discussed the benefits and barriers of implementing change to address this problem. This paper presents the results from the stakeholders’ contextual analysis and forms the basis for the proposed next steps from an action and advocacy perspective.

Four shareworthy SEPR scenario ideas.

In this communication article, we share our scenario ideas at the request of the journal editor. These are (1) a scenario for building sustainable suburbs; (2) a counterfactual scenario for coping with the super wicked COVID problem; (3) envisioning alternative futures of cultural ecosystem services supplies in Southwestern Ghana; and (4) a path toward writing successful scenarios. The ideas will be fully developed in due course into scholarly articles for the journal.

The COVID-19 pandemic in informal settlements: (re)considering urban planning interventions

In view of the Sustainable Development Goal 11, for cities and human settlements to be made inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, Chigbu and Onyebueke contribute ideas for mitigating the COVID-19 threat in slums They have structured the Viewpoint in line with its objectives First, they begin by unpacking the predominance of informal settlements in cities of the global South Second, they situate the CP incidence in informal settlements as a super-wicked problem Third, they state why (and how) urban planning matters, particularly in conjunction with public health, in the formidable effort to safeguard slums from pandemic threats in the short and long runs

Wicked Solutions to Wicked Problems? A Christian Ethical Reflection on Synthetic Biology as Nature Conservation

Abstract While a distinction should be made between wicked problems as first defined by Churchman (1967) and Rittel and Webber (1973) and problems that are merely challenging and difficult to solve, in this contribution, I argue that climate change and the resulting destruction of nature could be explained as a wicked problem. One of the proposed solutions to climate change, making use of synthetic biology for nature conservation, has the potential to be classified not only as a wicked solution but as a solution that spawns a number of other wicked problems. I will examine the ethical issues raised by synthetic biology as a wicked solution to this super wicked problem from the perspective of Christian ethics, drawing in particular on the resources available in Christian ecotheology and, specifically, notions of interdependence, relationality, responsible stewardship, and global justice.