Why do some people seem to consider environmental issues deeply, while others glance over our greatest earthly challenges and seem to hardly care? Our capacity for a “systems thinking” mindset can help tell us to answer why. Today’s guest, research psychologist and geographer Stephan Lezak, conducted a study that measured people’s tendency towards systems thinking and how this correlated to their environmental values. He found that people who rank higher as systems thinkers substantially consider environmental issues to be more important. In this fascinating conversation, we discuss what it takes to see the grey areas and the vast interconnectedness in a complicated world, the mistakes we make in our reasoning, and how we can build a new generation of systems thinkers in schools and universities today.

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Thank you to Jordan, Nader, Mike, Gary, Alex, Ben, Dee, and Ian for contributing! Xx