 Humanity faces a lot of problems, smaller problems, such as a dead battery on your telephone, but also bigger problems, so-called wicked problems. And Tuplik University offers the GMSI program, Global Management of Social Issues. And Global Management of Social Issues deals with wicked problems. And as said in the media, climate change might be the super wicked problem. And we're going to talk about climate change with these three students of the GMSI program, starting with Simeone Péterfi. She's a 21-year-old second-year GMSI student and she was born in Romania, but did her international high school in the Hague. And she's a very active student, not only a member of the Association of the MU and Tilburg, but also she does the Outreaching Honours program. In the middle, there we have Monica Villalobos, if I pronounce correctly, from Venezuela. And she's a second-year student, just a Simeone of the GMSI program. And your main interest is wicked problems and very coincidental. Climate change is your favorite subject. So I'm hoping to hear all about that from you. And last but not least, we have a first-year student. He is from Germany and that is Adrian Rübke. And his ambition, and now I'm going to quote him, is to build communities and networks to tackle wicked problems and to participate in a great transformation towards non-destructive ways of living on Earth. Well, if that doesn't counter climate change, then well, it would really surprise me. First, Simeone, climate change is very big. But what are your latest efforts into reducing your footprint? Well, my friends call me a tree hugger. So I do a lot of different things on a daily basis. I don't eat beef or I switch my light off. I convince all my friends to switch my light off before we go out. So all the lights off, small things. It's a very good thing. And Monika, you're from Venezuela and climate change is your favorite wicked problem. But why is that your favorite wicked problem? Well, I will say because it's more of a macro perspective of life, even though people will say like, yeah, you're from Venezuela. You should focus on your political and social crisis. But no, I mean, in the long term, things like climate change is a way more important issue that is not only building Venezuela, which is highly like concerned about it. But it's also a world problem that it will affect everyone, maybe not equally, but it will affect everyone in the long term. So that's why I'm so interested about it. And so also to change the economy in your homeland, Venezuela, maybe? Yeah, I mean, of course, like my my interests come from my background, from my country. I mean, Venezuela is a country with the largest oil reserves in the world. And it's highly dependent. Like the economy is almost entirely dependent on oil. And that is not an innovative way of producing energy and also not a sustainable one to produce like for economics. And how we're going to change that? That's something we'll talk about in a second. And we all do something to the environment, which is not good. For instance, I drive a car. What what is your environmental sin? What is the thing that you do to the environment, which is not good? I will say I'm not vegetarian. And I know that meat is a really big problem that deteriorates the environment. Although I don't buy meat that much. I will love to have a steak with a good price. I'm getting a bit hungry, ladies and gentlemen. Adrian, you're from Germany. You build a lot of cars in Germany. Yeah. Yeah. So how are you going to change that? Well, that's another wicked problem. But I think like in respect to Germany, that's quite interesting, because we are saying we are so good with renewable energies, right? But then on the other hand side, you have this car industry and a lot, a lot of consumption. So it's kind of again, this self righteousness of, yeah, we are doing a lot. But in the backside, we are also producing a lot of this problem. Yeah, so more can be done. Yeah. And first, before we go into the climate change or sustainability question, Adrian, could you explain what is a wicked problem? What what is the definition of it? Yeah, yeah. So we learn three dimensions of a wicked problem. One is complexity. So you have a lot of different elements interacting with each other. And then those elements can be like people, right? There can be organizations and they have like a difference in values and difference in viewpoints. So while I say poverty is a problem, some people might not even see that as a problem. And that's where clashes come into point. And then if you try to do something about the wicked problem, it's also very uncertain, which is the third dimension, what the outcome will be. So if I if I try to take an action, I don't know how it will unfold in the future. Okay. And why Monica, why is climate change the super wicked problem? Well, first of all, because it affects the whole world. And a lot of people and world leaders have very different opinions in regards to how to tackle it. And even in regards to defining the problem itself, some people still think that climate change is a hoax, which it is, of course, like not a hoax is real is happening. And there's even like islands sinking already. So yeah, and apart from that, even though you try to come up with a solution for the problem, there are still many problems arising from this solution. So you cannot really solve it as a whole. You can implement some sort of action to loosen the effects, but you will never be able to solve the problem overall. Because also, what we have done already is it cannot go back. It's already there. We say different different things. Let's start with the political aspect which you said, because it's your job as GMSI students, which is of course, a scientific study to convince political persons to believe in climate change, right? How does your study prove provide the data to to convince those politicians? Well, I think it provides us with the tools that we can later use in our career, if we ever like policy advising or yeah, anything like that. So you guys write the policies which the political should believe. Some don't believe the policies that you guys have written about this wicked problem. What can you do about that? Right now or in the future? Both. Okay, as a student, I think we should just continue as students or just the academic field should just continue writing and developing and making sure that the future generations know that this is a problem and that we should work on it right now. Because I think the problem is that not my parents, but some of their friends, they don't believe in climate change because they were never thought that this was a problem. So I think it starts with with the young generation. It's recent awareness, basically, even in your social network, that will make a small like contribution to the world to like share what's happening and why is it important? And for me, it goes even further than just writing about it or sharing awareness because like, let's take the hypothetical case that we are writing some paper about climate change. Yeah, it's a super big problem. Then if you don't go in the political struggle of actually convincing people, the opinion will just be pushed pushed aside. That's what you see a lot. You know, science is in the bigger discourse. It's just an opinion. So if you don't combine the scientific insight with the more reflective side with really your activism and actually going out in the world and trying to do something about it, then it becomes difficult. And where do you guys get your your scientific evidence? Where do you guys get your scientific proof for climate change? What kind of studies do you use or? In GMSI or in GMSI? Yeah, I think because GMSI is a social science, we rely on on other fields, biology and sustainability, which directly look into the problem. So biology and sustainability sustainability. Yeah. And what kind of studies do you do in order to convince those politicians to really change? To really... Well, I guess like organizational management skills and stuff like that mostly, mostly like debating skills and yeah, just public discourse and stuff like that. More than the scientific part itself. We don't have courses like environmental engineering or stuff like that. We're more into actually discussing the complexity and the divergence of the problem itself. Yeah. And you've said that small steps creating awareness really helps in a solution for climate change. Because it's such a super wicked problem, where should you begin? What's the first step we should take, Adrian? Scientific perspective would say it's difficult to say, you know, like you have to balance it. But I feel like that the transformation we have to do in order to tackle those wicked problems is very, very profound, very fundamental. Because all our like the industrial growth society is based on assumptions, which are inherently unsustainable. So you have this notion of egocentrism, right? Of self interest that people are just extracting from the environment and they don't see that we are embedded in ecosystems. And if we don't, if we don't see that, our systems will continuously be unsustainable. And I would say like for pathways for solution, it's like a mix of technological kind of advancements. We do have the technology, but for that, we also need a shift in consciousness towards that more ecosystem centric view of doing things. And then as I also said, it's a political struggle. So there are powerful interests like in the oil industry, which are dependent on this unsustainable system. I think that's a really important point. Sort of getting this issue that we have right now that is capitalism overriding ethical and moral values. Yeah. Could you name an example of such a such a situation where ethic is well, not as important as making money? I think it's seen everywhere in the world, especially with oil industries and any big industry that makes money and it's just, yeah, making money for the short term. But in the long term, they're not really entirely focusing on how this like will affect the environment. For example, fracking in the US, which is a sort of new development that they just realized that they can easily get this oil from this fracking system. But this is not only in regards to climate change and also extracting oil, but the land itself is like causing a lot of earthquakes and causing a lot of like damage to the people like around the area. So in Holland, we have Groningen, which is maybe you've heard of it Groningen, where they're also earthquake because of the gas which is being pulled up from the earth. And so how could we change? You say that the awareness at the political part of this problem, but also being less selfish. But where do you begin? Because, well, at least we all want the stake. We all want the car. We all want a life. But that's what we're saying, it's about changing the fundamental moral and ethical values that you have. And rather than having this view of being so materialistic and being so like I want this car, I want this thing, I want the other one, it's more about cooperation and living your life but sustainably. Like sort of that you don't deteriorate the life of other generations. Like you actually take into account what's going to happen in the long term and you live your life and you travel and you can do whatever but in a sustainable manner. And let's be honest, like this isolated consumerism which we're having right now is like producing empty human beings, you know? Like if I would say like we can create communities where we help each other out, where we start to share more, that's like much more fun and it could work on a more sustainable scale. Much more fun and it's good work. So Simina what do you think of we are empty human beings if we continue like this? What do you think of it? I think it's a bit too much, it's too extreme. But I do understand where he's coming from because we all want to live happily and we all want a great life but we are not going to get it if we don't change right now. So I think you have to change now in order to make sure that we have a future. We have to change now in order to make sure that we have a future. Yeah, because you see things that and I think climate change is also very connected to the other wicked problems which arise like poverty and the drought in Africa is especially problematic for migration purposes. So how is climate change connected to other wicked problems? I think it is entirely related in any sense. I mean it can give a lot of examples but now that you mentioned poverty for example, countries in Africa are really struggling to develop because they have droughts because their agricultural system is just like damaged because of this like changes in weather patterns. And so they cannot really develop their economy because their whole like agricultural system is like not functioning. And then you also have climate refugees that have to like go to other countries because they cannot live in the conditions that you're living now. I mean there are a variety of things that climate change is affecting like other wicked problems per se. And in lecture, I mean you of course talk about wicked problems in your lectures. How should you approach such a wicked problem like climate change? Where do you begin in your classroom? I think we begin by being aware of who is involved in the problem and just analyzing the problem itself and then we can move on to find course of action that we can take. And what would the course of actions be? Considering climate change? I think it should start with bringing together both organizations and politicians together because they are the main decision makers. And yes, the politicians can say hey we should be more sustainable but then the oil industry is not going to listen. So unless they are heard and they are brought to the table then they will actually realize what's happening I think. So you create the network of the industries, the politicians and then of course the scientific part comes into play because you need to, how do you say that? You need to back up the plans that you have. Also NGOs I think play a very important role in climate change. And what role would the NGOs have? I think they work together also with academics. So they are basically a link between the politicians, organizations and also people and research. And they're key players. They're key players. And what do you guys learn in your lectures considering the scientific element of such a wicked problem? Well I think the beauty of GMSI is that if you're really interested in a topic you can go more in depth and research it. So for example, I am very interested in climate change and we had this course called International Organizations. And at the end of the course we had to write a research paper and individual research paper. And I chose to focus on how the NGOs were involved in the Kyoto Protocol. So in that way you can make like a solution for this wicked problem at least stimulate that it becomes less harmful for the world? Yes. And for example, even from the first year like in organization studies we did a comparison between four organizations and I focused on four oil organizations and how they affect the environment differently. So that is already something. Or even in the wicked problems course itself then you can focus on your specific wicked problem such as climate change or migration or whatever. But obviously I focus on climate change and that's a big project that you get to research and analyze and even apply statistics to it and everything. And even like professors in GMSI they do encourage you to go a step further and sort of research from like other sources. For example, last year we did this MOOC which is a massive online course about climate change and that was like an eight weeks intense online course where we had exams and everything. And we also got to emphasize and deeply focus on what climate change is about and possible solutions and how academics and experts and NGOs and other organizations are related and how they link how they think. I think it was really, really interesting. And apart from that you can really apply all your academic courses. Like you can bring climate change into all your academic courses like projects, essays or like whatever. But we are pretty far into the problem right now. I mean we have analyzed it. We have got the partners at the table. So what will be the next step? A solution, Adrian? Yeah. I think like one of the things we also witness now is like the divestment movement. Divestment means like a lot of investors kind of take the money out of fossil fuels for example. So that's happening at the moment while on the other hand side, on the technological side you have like solar panels and alternative energy getting really, really cheap and also the means to store it. So that's one pathway of the transition. Like if you look at energy and technology. The other one is I guess really that we, when we humans start to realize that we are not the only ones on this planet. This notion of anthropocentrism, that the humans are central and the planet is there for us to exploit. It's just not working. And I feel like right now we are living in those times of in between, you know? Like the old industrial egocentric ways of doing they don't work anymore. But we also don't have yet the systems and institutions which will work eventually. And that's for me that's putting a lot of pressure kind of on me and like a lot of devastation and pain because you get to hear about all those problems. But on the other hand side, there are also beautiful solutions out there and if we grab them and if we bring them into reality we can do it. Yeah, I've got the feeling that you really believe in a solution for this super wicked problem. Yeah, yeah, like what else can you do? And how do you think about that? Is there a solution for this problem? Well, obviously there are a lot of solutions but none of them that will solve the problem completely. But yeah, I think I completely agree with what you said and some of the solutions that have been put in the table are like entirely, yeah, they should be somehow good or could solve the problem or at least loosen the effects. One thing that I will add is like burden responsibility, burden sharing. I think like we should definitely bring more responsibility like not only to the countries that are sort of exploiting the environment more or they're like polluting more of the environments or whatever, but it's sort of like a shared sense that we're all working together and we're all under the same boat and if we're gonna sink, we're gonna sink together. Yeah. We're gonna sink together but it's not a very positive way of ending this discussion. One more question for you, Monica, because you said in the beginning, well, we need to change Venezuela which is now, of course, an oil country. So what are you going to do? Well, I think the first step that we need to take is that we cannot go into the high demands of energies that developed countries have with the current means of producing this energy. So the first step that we need to bring is produce energy in a more sustainable way. So more innovative ways, technologies, wind, like solar panels. But do you have the resources to do that? No, but that's what I was saying before. We need to have a shared responsibility of countries helping other countries, like not only with money, but also with training because you might put some technology in a developing country, but then if the local people don't know how to use it, it will not be sustainable either. So it's a way to share everything and maybe bring people from abroad that know how to use these technologies and work it there. I mean, there's a lot of things that can be done, to be honest. But the first thing is that we need to talk to Mr. Maduro himself in order to change this, right? Well, yes, for sure. But maybe also investors, foreign investors, there are financing this dictatorship and this business. The money is power. I mean, if people divest, that's what you said, right? Divest. Yeah, money can change, of course, this wicked problem. I want to end positive because it's not like, okay, we're going down or sinking and no, I want to end in a positive way. What is the best thing that you see as a possibility with this wicked problem? What is the chance for humanity to, I don't know, come out as one green, healthy planet? Well, I think there is a future. A lot of steps have been taken and sustainability is very much, is discussed very much in the media right now. So I think the future is looking bright. The future is looking bright. Adrian? Yeah, you can really take it as an opportunity because what she said, if we don't realize that we are on the same planet, then we're gonna crumble. But on the other hand side, that's a huge opportunity to awaken in that oneness we are having right now and really find out, okay, how can we cooperate between so many different cultures and what's happening with globalization is beautiful, right? That we can have this conversation right now, that we can strive for solutions together. And that's really exciting in the end as well. Nice. And just a personal question because you all are interested in climate change. Will you be working in the climate change industry once you've graduated? I hope so. I really hope I get a job. See now? Yeah. We hope we are going to get a job, of course. Yeah, because then we've got the money to change but where will you be working? The European Union. I hope so. As the green officer. Policy advisor for sustainable policies. Policy advisor for sustainable policies. To be honest, I have no idea what I'll end up but as long as I am working towards my ambitions and towards my energies and towards my ambition and my values, I'll be happy. You'll be happy. Adrian, first year student, so you've got a long way to go but where will you end up? More in the interlinks between the problems. So I will be one trying to get the different stakeholders and parties and people together to actually strive for solutions. And in that way we can solve this wicked problem. Well, thank you very much for your insights. Thank you for watching and good luck with changing the climate. Thank you. It's us, you know? Like, you're in it as well. It's us. We will change. We will change. Same table.