Learning together: facing the challenges of sustainability transitions by engaging uncertainty tolerance and post-normal science

Abstract

Current efforts towards sustainability tend to focus on maintaining existing systems and structures, by relying on reductionist approaches to problem solving. Increasingly, there is a call for more effective action in reaching sustainability, not through reductionism (e.g. solutions which reinforce the status quo), but through transformative societal changes and cultural shifts. Despite these calls, widespread resistance to such changes remains. This work discusses one of the underlying causes, namely maladaptive responses to uncertainty.

Uncertainty impacts nearly every aspect of sustainability transformations within a society. There are uncertainties related to the defining characteristics of sustainability, the complexity of sustainability, and to the changing roles and identities of individuals within a society as they transition to sustainability. Furthermore, the process which is increasingly called upon to address these diverse sources of uncertainty, known as post-normal science, introduces novel sources of uncertainty.

Up to this point, many societies’ responses to this array of sustainability transitions uncertainty is to respond maladaptively, representing uncertainty intolerance (e.g. denial, dismissal, disengagement), as opposed to adaptive responses (e.g. curiosity, acknowledgement and action). Herein, we describe the sources of uncertainty related to sustainable transitions, the role that post-normal science can play in addressing these uncertainties, and describe strategies to support societies’ collective capacity for developing uncertainty tolerance to better engage with the processes required for a sustainable future.