Thinking systemically - how to do it

Frank Fisher (from the Understandascope) in an article in today's Age shows how systemic thinking can be used to break out of traps. Traps develop when current ways of thinking about, and acting in, the world are no longer adequate. Here is a flavour:

'Beyond these largely well-known consequences of the thermal power stations are their less well-known environmental demands for water, ecological, geological and climatological dislocation. In the case of water, we are talking about water for cooling, the dispersal of "waste" heat equivalent to twice the energy shipped out as electricity, which when dumped into airsheds around power stations causes local and global climate changes. Local ecosystems are extensively damaged, especially around the respective mines and power stations by earth and water movements and a range of polluting gases and particulates. Geological changes are made through mining, redistribution of mass ("overburden"), site drainage and water course (aquifer) changes'.

We need much more of this!