Developing future visions and designing transitions for the problem of Invasive Species in Pittsburgh
Assignment #4: Designing for Transitions: Visioning/Backcasting/Assessing the Present
Carnegie Mellon University, School of Design, Transition Design Seminar 2024
Background
Transition Design is a transdisciplinary approach to address the many ‘wicked’ problems confronting 21st-century societies: climate change, forced migration, political and social polarisation, global pandemics, lack of access to affordable housing/healthcare/education and many others. These problems are interconnected, and interdependent and always manifest in place and culture-specific ways. Transition Design argues that new knowledge and skill sets are required to address these problems. Their resolution is a strategy for igniting positive, systems-level change and societal transitions toward more sustainable, equitable and desirable long-term futures. Transition Design Seminar 2024 is taught by Terry Irwin & Gideon Kossoff
Team Murmuration: Anthony Haynes, Eugina Chun, Kyla Fullenwider, Ruby Wu and Vanya Rawat
Introduction
This marks the fourth instalment in a series of five articles detailing our efforts to comprehend the complex issue of invasive species and its implications specifically within Pittsburgh, PA. The preceding three articles outlined our endeavours and findings in delineating the components of the problem in its current state (Assignment 1), elucidating the relationships among key stakeholders involved in addressing the issue (Assignment 2), and (Assignment 3) exploring the historical factors such as events, innovations, and policies that have propelled the proliferation of invasive species in the United States. While Assignment 3 delved into the distant past, Assignment 4 utilizes our previous research as a foundation for envisioning future scenarios extending across multiple scales. These visions, aimed at motivating developmental progress over the next fifty years, are crafted with the phases outlined in our transition pathway.
Our Process
Assignment 4 is split into two parts: 4A and 4B.
Assignment 4A looks at Developing Long-Term Future Visions.
The aim here is to set aside the logistical concerns of how the future might be realised and instead concentrate on conceiving entirely novel, sustainable, and fair socio-economic-political paradigms that could lead to resolving the problem at hand. We drew strategies and concepts from Cosmopolitan Localism, Commoning and Mutual Aid, Pluriversality and Manfred Max-Neef’s Theory of Needs for inspiration. This exercise isn’t primarily about proposing potential solutions; rather, it revolves around portraying aspects of everyday life within a future society across various scales. Innovative ways of living, working, and socialising should be implicit within these descriptions rather than the central focus.
We populated each level of the Domains (Household, Neighborhood, City, Region, and Planet) and have established symbiotic connections between them so that we can consider crafting a narrative depicting a long-term future that is both sustainable and equitable, which is Participatory Ecology. This encouraged our team to imagine the future we truly desire!
Assignment 4B looks at Backcasting and Assessing the Present.
In this phase, we undertook a process called backcasting, where we start from our envisioned future (participatory ecology) and work backwards to our present problematic situation, thereby creating a ‘transition pathway’. Along this pathway, our solutions, or systems interventions, will serve as incremental steps towards achieving the desired future. Initially, we evaluated our current state in comparison to our desired future, using a matrix that prompted us to assess both established practices and emerging alternatives. This assessment helped guide us in determining what aspects we wish to retain as we embark on our multi-decade journey towards the desired future.
We started with an in-class activity where we tried to create a “Vision Thread” between three levels of everyday life that were complimentary but different and also assessed the present against the vision thread
Next, we looked at a facet of a future vision that might involve mutual aid or commoning for our problem.
We also did an activity that helped us look at what new economic paradigms might exasperate or contribute to solving our problem.
For our final map we worked on Assignment 4A first and then 4B. We started by writing down statements about the future at different levels and then moved to creating narratives around it. We used connecting lines to connect our post its across levels.
Our Findings
4A: Developing Future Visions for 2075
- Household
At the household level, everyday life is cultivated with a renewed and emboldened relationship between the human condition and the natural world. At the foundation of this relationship, true Ecological Literacy has become a core component of family education and life practices. People strive to be more knowledgeable about native flora and fauna so that they can better thrive alongside them. Families have adopted narrative traditions and story as mechanisms to cultivate a culture of stewardship, empowering their children to contribute to the generational shift towards a participatory ecology. In these stories, children are taught that humanity is not above nature, as the mechanistic paradigm had taught for so long, but rather that humanity is with and of nature, fulfilling a unique role as caretakers, charged with maintaining the balance of the natural world.
Sprouting from this ecological literacy and narrative, households have shifted to prioritize and hold in high regard native plant species. As the Great American Lawn became a relic of an era of environmental naiveté, in its place, household landscaping has become a central conduit for people to build a relationship with the local ecosystem. They develop this connection through a thorough rewilding of their green spaces with a polyculture of native plants, facilitating stability and habitat for native plants, pollinators, and animals alike.
Through these permaculture gardens, they also have created a means for local resilience and mindful self-sufficiency with family microfarming and local food production. Families have collectively made the shift for indoor, vertical, and household gardens, maintaining the ability to grow a significant portion of their own food in a sustainable way. Through these gardens, people have become more mindful of the investment that goes into growing their food and of mindful consumption, helping reduce the broader effects of industrial farming as well.
In the context of climate change and the introduction of widespread ecological literacy, the concept of what may be considered an “invasive” species has evolved into a more nuanced understanding and perception. Families recognize that many species previously characterized as invasives have become endemic to a region and that climatic zones for plant species have changed in kind; the old ways of eradication and toxic chemicals no longer seem appropriate. Now families adopt a posture of do no harm to reduce the environmental impact they impart, through being careful not to introduce non-native species or rely on harsh pesticides within their home gardens.
The Neighborhood
At the first collective echelon of the neighborhood, the power of a fundamental and widespread ecological literacy becomes concentrated towards creating meaningful, naturally attuned spaces and practices.
Continuing in the sincere desire to understand and collaborate with other elements of the natural world, neighborhoods host their own ecological design workshops with the intent of consciously reweaving the ecopsychology that was dismantled over the previous centuries. Through these workshops, residents routinely engage in a space for exploration, co-creation, ecological design, meditation, and learn other stewardship practices.
Springing forth from these workshops, each neighborhood has taken a serious commitment to practice eco-scaping and create a local “green heritage,” weaving human culture and native ecologies into a cohesive fabric for the local landscape. These eco-scaping practices have produced neighborhoods with natural spaces as a cornerstone, routinely and elegantly interwoven among houses. The community has abundant and equitably accessible parks and green corridors, and every home has a thriving garden with aspects of the local style.
Going beyond common practices, neighborhoods have formed tight communities through their shared commitment to develop this green heritage, collaboratively designing and cultivating urban eco-niches. Through mindful study, design, and collective implementation efforts, each neighborhood emerges as an ecological micro-habitat, creating a human-ecology interface across the landscape. In various ways, communities are made whole through this process, as they co-create a unique socio-ecological culture and reconnect with one another after the previously isolating era of the early 21st century.
Through all of these collaborative efforts, communities have created trust, rapport, and a shared sense of responsibility to one another that was rarely seen when the convenience of globalization eroded the necessity for closeknit communities. This responsibility and common regard are frequently expressed in the form of resource sharing and local servicing, with tools for planting, assistance for harvesting, and general know-how knowledge being openly exchanged between neighbors.
The City
At the city level, collective efforts have become powerfully focused towards generating systemic shifts and equalizing access to information and resources. Through administrative initiatives, citizen-driven environmental data, decision-making, and engagement platforms are developed for interactive monitoring, study, and action campaigns. These platforms expand access to understanding the broader picture of local and regional ecological health and provide insights to make analysis and contextual application reasonably applicable for all residents. The opportunity to meet with members across the community and engage in essential conversations regarding important developments empowers all stakeholders within the community to express their values and contribute to core decisions of ecological governance and civic development.
Building upon the neighborhood eco-niche, garden development, and green landscaping initiatives cities have leveraged these engagement platforms to connect producers with other residents that may help maintain grounds. Through an intentional practice of mutual aid and ecological management, neighborhoods may self-elect as distributive community gardens, wherein homeowners may share access to their permaculture gardens and their harvests with those that are willing to help with various tasks in the gardens. This also brings together various generations of the community, with many older residents able to impart their ecological expertise to eager, younger residents who will take up the torch as the communities’ stewards.
The environmental, public works, and public health departments all collaborate on the development of sponsored public spaces, designated to bolster the health of people and ecology. A primary application of these spaces are pollinator gardens, with expertly designed micro-habitats that ensure the health and vitality of local pollinator populations, while also creating engaging and welcoming public venues. As a complement to these spaces, city initiatives help provide access to native plants for designated residents and native plant polycultures are mandated for external planting on all commercial properties.
Among the Pittsburgh Department of Education’s most proud initiatives is their development of the “Every Citizen a Naturalist” program, with a curriculum for both public schools and public workshops that cultivates an in-depth knowledge about ecological vitality, the practice of stewardship, and advocacy. The thriving ecology that has since emerged as a result of the program has inspired a culture where becoming a naturalist is as much as a rite of passage as graduating high school.
The Region
The regional level is where the continued efforts of every household, neighborhood, and city begin to take shape and express the restorative power of participatory ecology practices as core aspects of a thriving culture. As the fundamental concepts of mindful consumption, “do no harm,” and active contribution percolate up from the household level, the landscape of business and industry has similarly transformed into an instrument of societal prosperity and regeneration. These regenerative industry practices have revolutionized not only the behaviors of industry, new and old, but have transformed the intention and purpose of business beyond profit-generation as the sole motive. Regional industrial stakeholders prioritize providing for the needs of all community members, currently living and in posterity, practicing restraint on production and encouraging community resourcing. Their operational procedures have thoroughly been redeveloped to minimize environmental impacts and to internalize the costs of all production that could not be abated otherwise. Across the industrial sector, organizations pledge to contribute to the design, implementation, and effective maintenance of a circular economy, while simultaneously investing in the restoration of native ecologies. The “green industry” MO has become to operate as efficiently as possible, to lead with innovation, and to have a net-positive impact on both society and environment.
In tandem with these industrial partners, regional governments have committed to the widespread restoration of environments that were degraded by preceding generations. These restoration efforts are comprehensive and have contributed to the restoration of forests, wetlands, riparian corridors, and other ecosystems, with biodiversity making a resurgence.
These regional projects are made all the more impactful through inter-regional data sharing practices, syncing citizen-scientists and experienced naturalists, critical analytical capabilities, and real-time decision-making for an amplified landscape rejuvenation.
One such product of these coordinated landscape and integrated data-driven development practices is the pollinator super-highway, which has sought to restore the pollinator “dead zones” created by industrial monocrop practices. Reclaimed agricultural zones are replaced with expanses of native wildflower meadows and native new-growth forests.
The Planetary
On the globally interconnected scale, landmark progress has been achieved on behalf of the natural world, mirroring advancements in human rights that emerged over the course of the 21st century. The greatest accomplishment and symbol of a socio-ecological reunion has been the ratification of the United Nations Rights of Nature, modeled after the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights. Within this landmark framework, the formal recognition of the right of plants to reproduce and pollinate is declared, protecting their claim to coexistence without unjust prejudice for human affairs. This declaration has cascading effects, triggering industry and cross-sectoral commissions to eliminate toxic chemicals and decisively harmful practices that have caused undue harm to the environment and contributed to the destruction of habitats.
As an extension of this paradigm shift, the concept of national defense has expanded to see human security and environmental security as mutual aims and co-essential elements of every nation’s agenda. Led by the example of the Nordic countries, the United States, and other nations each implement their own conception of an Ecology Corps as the newest pathway for nationwide civil service. The Sustainable Development Goals specifically attributed to the restoration and maintenance of the environment become principle to the mission of these corps’, with specialized local units attending to matters of climate action, life on land, & life below water.
As regional business practices align with this regenerative paradigm, the inter-relations between industries across regions and nations enables a dynamic of equitable and good faith universal basic resource sharing. The Global North has taken comprehensive efforts to reign in their own resource consumption and redirected previously mal-appropriated resources to help the Global South develop with place-informed and bioregional attuned practices. The combined effect of these global campaigns includes the uplifting of hundreds of millions out of material poverties, energy poverty, and an assuaging of climate inequities as the influx of resources and assistance allows local communities to develop true resilience.
In the institutional and scientific spheres, the transformative epidemiological model of climate modeling has become commonplace, aided specifically by advancements in integrated satellite and GIS technologies. The international ecological monitoring network enables a climate-informed, bioregional attuned “health profile,” monitored and nurtured by a coalition of ecologists, sociologists, epidemiologists, GIS analysts, and other experts which help coordinate transdisciplinary policy development. Through their efforts, biodiversity health, forest coverage, water management, and other key ecological indicators are optimized to a level previously unknown in modern history.
4B: Designing a Transition
ESTABLISHED WAYS OF DOING THINGS: WHAT TO KEEP & WHAT TO LEAVE BEHIND
Established ways of doing things: What to keep and What to leave behind
We assessed the current established practices that either either exacerbated or alleviated our wicked problem of Invasive Species, aiming to discern the actions an organisation or community can undertake for a deliberate, long-term transition. We examined what should be phased out of the system and what ought to be retained.
Regarding practices to be discontinued, we advocate for the cessation of unsustainable landscaping methods, such as the prevalent use of chemical herbicides. Not only do these practices foster the growth of ornamental invasive species or rely excessively on chemicals for their eradication, but they also inflict harm on local ecosystems and public health. Furthermore, the widespread introduction of non-native species in both private and public spaces, coupled with the underutilisation of native plants, disrupts local ecosystems and deprives crucial habitats for pollinators. This issue is intertwined with conventional farming practices in the US, characterised by monoculture crops and heavy chemical usage, leading to soil degradation, diminished ecosystem resilience, and conducive conditions for invasive species proliferation.
Additionally, we advocate for dismantling the prevailing ecological ignorance and unsustainable consumption patterns among the public. The current linear, “take-make-waste” economy could be transformed into a circular model, extending the lifespan of products and thus reducing waste and pollution harmful to wildlife. Simultaneously, addressing the widespread lack of ecological knowledge among the public regarding the impact of invasive plant species, the significance of native species, pollinators, and other fundamentals of ecosystem health could bolster the sustainable consumption movement and practices.
Now let’s explore what we are currently doing well and should maintain. There has been an increase in governmental agency work and progressive efforts to manage the sales, trade, and introduction of invasive species at both the national and state levels. We remain optimistic that this system can become more robust and effective. Additionally, there have been conservation partnerships established between government agencies, non-profits, and the private sector to utilise resources and expertise for more effective control of invasive species.
In contrast to the heavy use of herbicides and monocrop farming, which weaken ecosystems for native plants, there has been a movement within contemporary landscape architecture practices to enhance native habitats. This movement prioritises native plants, facilitates pollinator access, and minimises chemical usage. Moreover, there have been community-led initiatives where local groups are restoring native habitats, removing invasive species, and reintroducing native plants.
EMERGENT OR NASCENT IDEAS AND PRACTICES THAT CAN IGNITE TRANSITION
Innovating: What existing innovations and pratices can disrupt or ignite the transition
In the realm of business, the emergence of B-Corps and “E-Corps” marks a radical departure from traditional paradigms, embedding the well-being of nature, the environment, and local communities at the heart of corporate decision-making. This shift signifies a profound realignment of business operations with the broader ecological and social fabric, ensuring that the pursuit of prosperity does not come at the expense of planetary health.
Parallel to this economic transformation, the development of sophisticated outbreak modeling heralds a new era of preemptive action against public health threats. Leveraging vast data points, these “disease monitoring” models stand as vigilant sentinels, enabling societies to anticipate infectious disease outbreaks and orchestrate timely responses, thereby safeguarding community well-being in the face of uncertainty.
Agriculture, too, is undergoing a renaissance of sustainability as practices such as crop rotation, cover cropping, and integrated pest management gain traction. These methods not only fortify the soil and reduce dependency on chemical interventions but also shield our agricultural landscapes from the vulnerabilities wrought by invasive species, weaving resilience into the very fabric of food production.
Moreover, the digital realm of social media has become a powerful vector for awareness and engagement, connecting individuals across the globe in a shared mission to combat invasive species. Through strategic campaigns and storytelling, these platforms galvanize public consciousness, fostering a collective resolve to protect our natural heritage.
Future Finding: Unearthing Tomorrow’s Seeds Today
Amidst these waves of innovation, the nascent roots of our future vision are already sprouting in the present. Rights of Nature legislation, burgeoning at the local level, imbues ecosystems with legal personhood, redefining our legal and moral obligations to the natural world. This groundbreaking approach encapsulates a profound shift in perspective, acknowledging the intrinsic value of nature beyond its utilitarian purpose.
Citizen science and crowdsourcing platforms are democratizing environmental stewardship, empowering individuals to partake in biodiversity monitoring and invasive species tracking. This grassroots movement harnesses the collective power of community observation, melding individual efforts into a cohesive force for ecological vigilance.
The rallying cry for community-led restoration projects echoes the growing momentum toward rewilding and habitat restoration. By knitting together disparate local initiatives into a unified force, these endeavors aim to stitch the torn fabric of our ecosystems back together, reinstating native flora and fauna to their rightful place.
Education is a beacon guiding our path forward as well, with state-level standards integrating invasive species education into curricula. By enlightening young minds on the complexities of ecological interdependence, we cultivate a generation poised to inherit the mantle of guardianship over our planet’s precious biodiversity.
As we chart our course toward 2075, these facets of innovation and discovery illuminate the pathways of transition, sketching the outlines of a world where harmony between humanity and nature is restored. In this envisioned future, the lessons of the past and the innovations of the present converge, weaving a tapestry of resilience that shields our planet from the shadows of invasive threats. This journey, rooted in the fertile ground of our collective will, aspires to a legacy of stewardship and sustainability, ensuring that the verdant expanse of Pittsburgh’s environmental history flourishes for generations to come.
Toward a Participatory Ecology
The final segment of our work focused on a series of futures exercises that we started by first articulating a vision for the future and then describing and designing the transition from the present to the desired future. This process was done in three temporally based segments: near casting (5–10 years out); mid-casting (25–25 years out); and backcasting (50–60 years out).
The exercise is meant to create the space for thinking in long-horizons of time and exploring what is both possible and probable in the transition to the future we’ve described. Each timespan explores four main areas of concern:
1) What isn’t working and should be phased out over time
2) What is working and should be maintained
3) Emerging practices and innovations that can be amplified and scaled
4) Aspects of the future that are already here and can serve as both muse and inspiration for what is possible.
Below are some highlights from our visioning process.
Our vision focused on what we’ve described as “Participatory Ecology”. That is, a future in which the human relationship to nature evolves and reconciles an understanding of ourselves as both part of and stewards of the natural world. The Rights of Nature are formalized by borrowing from the frameworks and legacies of human rights and civil rights work, ultimately allowing for mutual and beneficial ecological participation between humans, flora, and fauna in a healthy and balanced ecosystem.
With this vision in mind, we set about near casting what might be achieved in the next 5–10 years as we transition to the future we’ve described. First, we describe the phasing out of “Great American Lawn”, including public awareness and a cultural shift that makes chemically enhanced lawns planted with invasive species and enhanced with toxic herbicides undesirable. This will help transition away from the cultural zeitgeist of “globalized landscapes” that have resulted in massive imports of invasive species. Next, we describe the importance of expanding pest management education to governmental sectors to enhance ecological farming practices. An innovation we think is important for the 5–10 year trajectory is the development of an invasive species “disease” or “outbreak” monitoring network by the state of Pennsylvania that would increase transparency and information flow about the movement of invasive species throughout the state, including in Pittsburgh. Finally, we are envisioning a K-12 naturalist curriculum that will integrate ecological literacy into core curriculums across all Pittsburgh city public schools as a means of cultivating and growing an ecological worldview and capacities in young people.
We now jumped far into the future, backcasting from our vision to transitions that would take place approximately 50–60 years from now. As a core part of the transition, we see a future where linear and consumption-based economic systems have become circular and largely eliminate the environmental degradation that has created the conditions for invasive species proliferation. As part of this long horizon transition we see the need for a local/global landscape practice standard of stewardship that includes sustainable land management practices and incorporating traditional ecological knowledge with modern conservation strategies. As part of the phasing out of the consumption-based economy, we believe it’s of critical importance that new kinds of business models offer alternatives to the “profit-first” and cost externalizing model, toward one that prioritizes stewardship and holistic contributions to local communities, Earth, ecology, customers, and societal well-being as core tenets and works within a fully realized doughnut economic model through for example, B-Corp and E-Corp models. And as part of this broader shift toward a participatory ecology culture, an education standard that includes one similar to the K-12 naturalist curriculum in Pittsburgh is integrated across the United States, including through institutions of higher education as well. Like any core curriculum course, students would advance through more sophisticated and advanced studies related to the natural world and ecological health. The “language of nature” would be a second language for all Americans.
After we described the nearest and farthest time horizons we ended by mid-casting the space in between, about 25–35 years out. A starting point for this period is a reduction of mono-crop farming as a means of reducing the ecological niches available for invasive species as well as the wide-spread overuse of herbicides and pesticides. We envisioned an expansion of local/global community-based conservation networks that would help ensure local engagement in invasive species management and sharing of global best practices. This conservation network could also use and support the outbreak monitoring platform as a mechanism for information sharing. And perhaps most importantly, it is in this period (in the decade between approximately 2050–2060) that our understanding of our relationship with the natural world and ecosystem health “crosses the chasm” and there is a widespread shift in both the cultural norm of including nature as a stakeholder as well as policy and legislation enacted that codifies those norms into law in what we have described as a “Bill of Rights for Nature”. Nature finally has a voice.
Reflections and Next Steps
As a team, we were inspired by the Healthcare CDC analogy. We wanted to inspiration from how their current system works when it comes to infectious diseases. We adopted a similar approach to solving for invasive species with moves for containment, overall management, restoration of local ecology, increasing awareness and education framework. We feel the current systems for solving the problem of invasive species is similar to how drugs to fight cancer are created- they destroy the good and bad in effort to get rid of the problem. Another reflection is that our personal bias or limiting thought process about what is realistic will often be a mental barrier for truly speculative and innovative solutions and visions for a better future.
References
“Goal 13 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs.” United Nations, United Nations, sdgs.un.org/goals/goal13. Accessed 2 Apr. 2024.
“Goal 14 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs.” United Nations, United Nations, sdgs.un.org/goals/goal14. Accessed 2 Apr. 2024.
“Goal 15 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs.” United Nations, United Nations, sdgs.un.org/goals/goal15. Accessed 2 Apr. 2024.
“Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” United Nations, United Nations, www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights. Accessed 2 Apr. 2024.
