To your point, I wish there were diagrams "we'd" all use to illustrate any issue with complicated interwoven relationships that put the complexity into at least some degree of comparability. Ideally you'd be able to see how some relative amount of funding needs to support some physical effort required and in the context of some degree of regulatory scope.
A simple example is the two-factor, two-axis diminishing returns line graph. As cost goes up, returns decrease and we can point to a spot and discuss it.
I wish I could give you a good intuitive example of a far more complex (more factors), but if this were easy we'd all be doing it and we'd all be seeing such diagrams more frequently. So in the absence of simple and nuanced illustrations, we have lists and we necessarily fall back on language and our own biases like we do here. (Just humans being human, no judgement.)
One possibility I can imagine is a table with solutions on one axis and influencing dimensions on another. e.g., One axis is tech, funding, regulatory, etc. and the other is proposed solutions. In the table, the cross referenced cell might contain a number showing how much of some environmental dimension is needed for a given solution.
This example is crude at best because clearly we can debate what the cross-reference values assigned are, and whether or not they're correct, and even whether or not a dimension should be broken down further, but this technique's shortcomings are a compromise–the price paid for attempting to communicate the holistic understanding of an issue. One hopes that price is worth paying for greater appreciation of the issue's systemic complexities, and enabling others to see and evaluate factors they might not otherwise consider.
A simple example is the two-factor, two-axis diminishing returns line graph. As cost goes up, returns decrease and we can point to a spot and discuss it.
I wish I could give you a good intuitive example of a far more complex (more factors), but if this were easy we'd all be doing it and we'd all be seeing such diagrams more frequently. So in the absence of simple and nuanced illustrations, we have lists and we necessarily fall back on language and our own biases like we do here. (Just humans being human, no judgement.)
One possibility I can imagine is a table with solutions on one axis and influencing dimensions on another. e.g., One axis is tech, funding, regulatory, etc. and the other is proposed solutions. In the table, the cross referenced cell might contain a number showing how much of some environmental dimension is needed for a given solution.
This example is crude at best because clearly we can debate what the cross-reference values assigned are, and whether or not they're correct, and even whether or not a dimension should be broken down further, but this technique's shortcomings are a compromise–the price paid for attempting to communicate the holistic understanding of an issue. One hopes that price is worth paying for greater appreciation of the issue's systemic complexities, and enabling others to see and evaluate factors they might not otherwise consider.