Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
Donella Meadows, one of the authors of Limits to Growth.
Joi Ito • The Social Labs Revolution
Donella Meadows, théoricienne visionnaire des systèmes, l’un des principaux auteurs du rapport Halte à la croissance, paru en 1972.
Kate RAWORTH • La Théorie du donut
Ideas for Sustainability • Now published: Leverage Points for Sustainability Transformation
“leverage points.” These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.
Donella Meadows • Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System
As they expand, many of the world’s fast-growing cities end up building over floodplains, forests, and wetlands that could absorb rising waters during a storm or hold reservoirs of water during a drought.
Bill Gates • How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM
(in increasing order of effectiveness)
- Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards).
- The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows.
- The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures).
- The lengths of delays, relative to the
Donella Meadows • Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System
One person who was willing to risk political suicide was the visionary systems thinker Donella Meadows – one of the lead authors of the 1972 Limits to Growth report – and she didn’t mince her words. ‘Growth is one of the stupidest purposes ever invented by any culture,’ she declared in the late 1990s; ‘we’ve got to have an enough.’ In response to t
... See moreKate Raworth • Doughnut Economics: The must-read book that redefines economics for a world in crisis
