From systems thinking to systems intelligence

Have you heard the analogy of the boiling frog?

It goes like this: If you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out. However, if you put it in a pot of lukewarm water and gradually turn up the heat, its body will adjust to the gradual change of temperature and it will not react. As the water continues to heat up, the frog will get increasingly groggy and lethargic, until it eventually cooks to death.

The metaphor is used to illustrate that when we experience conditions that deteriorate gradually, we adapt instead of reacting to them. Eventually, things worsen to the point where it becomes too difficult to fix them.

I remembered this metaphor while reading this summary of latest United Nations climate change conference (COP28), on the official website:

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) closed today with an agreement that signals the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era by laying the ground for a swift, just and equitable transition, underpinned by deep emissions cuts and scaled-up finance.

Negotiators…came together in Dubai with a decision on the world’s first ‘global stocktake’ to ratchet up climate action before the end of the decade — with the overarching aim to keep the global…