By Russell Gorddard, Matthew Colloff, Russell Wise and Michael Dunlop
2. Matthew Colloff (biography)
3. Russell Wise (biography)
4. Michael Dunlop (biography)
Adapting to climate change can require profound alterations in environmental management and policy. However the social context of a decision process limits options and resists change, often dooming attempts to adapt to climate change even before they begin. How can decision makers in policy and management more effectively see the institutional and social water they swim in, in order to better drive change?
Values, rules and knowledge (vrk) provide a useful heuristic to help decision makers analyze how the social system shapes their decision context. Put simply, decisions require:
- knowledge of options and their implications
- values to assess the options
- rules that enable implementation.