For most of Elizabeth Sawin's career, she was not a multisolver. Instead, she worked on a single, albeit immensely important problem: climate change. Despite tremendous effort – long hours of teaching, attending conferences, publicizing analysis – at the end of the day, she felt like she was chasing her tail. Unless people began to recognize the multitude of unexpected benefits from ratcheting down emissions, climate change would remain a losing political issue.
That experience, along with the guidance of leaders in systems thinking and racial justice, convinced her that the world'sthorniest problems may be easier to tackle together than one by one. That's multisolving: using a single investment of time or money to solve many problems at the same time. (Reduced fossil fuel use = improvements in climate, health, equity, economics, and more.) While the idea of killing two birds with one stone (or "filling two needs with one deed") is age-old, and the notion of co-benefits in policy-making has been around for years, Multisolving addresses the current mismatch between complex, deeply intertwined societal issues and our siloed approach to them.
This unique resource is for local school boards that need revenue for their students but don't want to overtax low-income seniors. It is for nonprofits working to reduce food waste and combat the root causes of hunger while increasing racial justice. It is for seaside communities that can protect themselves from flooding while also improving biodiversity with a living coastline. It may also be for you: doing the work you know is imperative but that is sometimes overwhelming, a tiny a drop in a swirling ocean.
Multisolving can't promise a list of "fifty simple things to make everything OK." What it does offer are strategies to build solidarity between diverse groups, overcome powerful interests, and create last change that benefits us all.
Introduction: Science-The Next Generation
Part One: Searching for Impact
Chapter 1. Will You Please Just Listen to Me?
Chapter 2. Will I Please Just Listen to You?
Chapter 3. From Impact to Encounter
Part Two: The Spaces of Scientific Impact
Chapter 4. Asking a Good Question
Chapter 5. The Privilege of Choice: Methods, Permissions, and Location
Chapter 6. The Power of Participation: Data Collection
Chapter 7. Rethinking the "Peer" in Peer Review
Part Three: The End Is Just the Beginning
Chapter 8. The Scientist Next Door: Conversations, Communities, and Connections
Chapter 9. The Skeptic in the Mirror: The Essential Role of Uncertainty in Science
Chapter 10. In the Belly of the Beast: Scientists, Policymaking, and Advocacy
Conclusion and Acknowledgments: From Boldly Going to Steadily Engaging
About the Author
Notes
Index
Elizabeth Sawin is the Founder and Director of the Multisolving Institute and an expert on solutions that address climate change while also improving health, well-being, equity, and economic vitality. She developed the idea of 'multisolving' to help people see and create conditions for such win-win-win solutions.
"Multisolving is essential reading for anyone seeking to be a node of possibility in our troubled yet beautiful world. Beth Sawin shares a lifetime of learning about systems with clarity and care. A true companion for the path ahead."
– Dr. Katharine K. Wilkinson, co-editor of All We Can Save and lead writer of Drawdow
n"Efforts to halt the cascading crises of our times often trade one trouble for another. However, systems thinking helps us see where a single action can address two or more problems at once. Never has 'multisolving' been more needed. A brilliant, timely book!"
– Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute
"Feeling helpless at the scale of the polycrisis we face and wondering how to address everything everywhere all at once? This book is for you! Infused with ambition, courage, hope, and assurance rising from experience, it shows us how we can solve multiple problems through simple systems-based solutions."
– Dekila Chungyalpa, Director, Loka Initiative, University of Wisconsin – Madison