Sublime

enough pieces come together, plastics could one day become a carbon sink—a way to remove carbon rather than emit it.

MIT’s Jay Forrester likes to say that the average manager can define the current problem very cogently, identify the system structure that leads to the problem, and guess with great accuracy where to look for leverage points—places in the system where a small change could lead to a large shift in behavior. This idea of leverage points is not unique

The pioneer of systems thinking, Donella Meadows, offers this definition of the work in her essay Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System: So how do you change paradigms? In a nutshell, you keep pointing at the anomalies and failures in the old paradigm, you keep coming yourself, loudly and with assurance from the new one, and you insert

The Planetary Boundaries report released by the Stockholm Resilience Centre suggested there were nine boundaries we cannot cross and maintain a sustainable economy. They are climate change, stratospheric ozone, land use change, freshwater use, biological diversity, ocean acidification, nitrogen and

Since the inception of the sustainability movement in 1987 with the publication of the Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, where the term sustainable development was first defined as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World Commission on Environment and

“Tragedy of the Commons” template consists of two or more linked “Limits to Growth” archetypes, all sharing a common constraint or finite limit (the implicit target of all the balancing loops).

Its relentless trajectory: To bring it on, all we have to do is, um, nothing. Its overwhelming complexity: To fix it, not only do we have to do something, but, as Naomi Klein has said, we pretty much have to “change everything” about how our economy and society operates. Its asymmetries of power: Those of us most historically responsible for

Once these goals are set, forums like the COP 21 are where countries get together to report on their progress and share what’s working. And they serve as a mechanism for pressing national governments to do their part. When the world’s governments agree that there’s value in reducing emissions, it becomes harder—though far from impossible, as we

The “perfect storm” that lies ahead is caused by the collision of changing climate; spreading ecological disorder (including deforestation, soil loss, water shortages, species loss, ocean acidification); population growth; unfair distribution of the costs, risks, and benefits of economic growth; national, ethnic, and religious tensions; and the