How System Dynamics can be a help or a hindrance

The present paper contains a short critical description of the roles System Dynamics (SD) can play within a framework for the definition of mediated solutions to complex [environmental] problems. Its main aim is to show how SD can be both a valuable tool for the definition of shared and consensual solutions to environmental problems and a burden or a hindrance since it closes any discussion and the search of creative solutions owing to its presumed objectivity and neutrality. The paper presents very briefly some basic concepts of SD and then discuss some key concepts (actors, experts and stakeholders) and their roles in the search for solutions to environmental problems. Then we examine with some details the various roles SD can play within the sketched framework and discuss both the various arenas where it can be used and when it acts as a help or a hindrance. The paper highlight the use of SD as both a cognitive and a meta tool in the sense that it both serves as a guide of the planning process and helps the unveiling of hidden assumptions and purposes and the diffusion of common knowledge for the solution of collective [environmental] problems.