Top Donella Meadows Quotes

Donella Meadows Biography

Donella H. "Dana" Meadows (March 13, 1941 – February 20, 2001) was a pioneering American environmental scientist, teacher, and writer. She is best known as lead author of the influential book The Limits to Growth and Thinking in Systems: a Primer.

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Donella Meadows Quotes

There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion.

Boundaries, Boundary, Continuum, Discussion, Purpose, World

George W. cares as much about climate change as you would expect from a Texas oilman

Care, Climate, Expect, George, Oilman, Texas

There is too much bad news to justify complacency. There is too much good news to justify despair.

Despair, News, Too Much, Complacency

Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not distort, delay, or sequester information

Delay, Information, Commandments, Commandment, Eleventh

Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany have detailed plans to cut their greenhouse emissions by 20 to 50 percent.

Cutting, Denmark, Germany, Greenhouse, Netherlands, Plans

A knowledgeable and courageous U. S. president could help enormously in leading the world's nations toward saving the climate.

Climate, Enormously, Environmental, Help, President, Saving

Scientists worldwide agree that the reduction needed to stabilize the climate is actually more like 80 percent.

Agreement, Climate, Like, Reduction, Science, Scientists

A system is a set of things people, cells, molecules, or whatever interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behavior over time. . . The system, to a large extent, causes its own behavior.

Causes, Cells, Interconnected, Molecules, People, Time

The scarcest resource is not oil, metals, clean air, capital, labour, or technology. It is our willingness to listen to each other and learn from each other and to seek the truth rather than seek to be right

Future, Learn, Metals, Nature, Technology, Truth

We don't think a sustainable society need be stagnant, boring, uniform, or rigid. It need not be, and probably could not be, centrally controlled or authoritarian. It could be a world that has the time, the resources, and the will to correct its mistakes, to innovate, to preserve the fertility of its planetary ecosystems. It could focus on mindfully increasing quality of life rather than on mindlessly expanding material consumption and the physical capital stock.

Ecosystems, Material, Mistake, Preserve, Society, Thinking

What Clinton did with Lewinsky was despicable but was no threat to the nation. That he lied about it repeatedly and to the public is a reason for us to cease to trust him and for him to resign.

Clinton, Lied, Reason, Resign, Trust

The sustainability revolution will be organic. It will arise from the visions, insights, experiments and actions of billions of people. The burden of making it happen is not on the shoulders of any one person or group. No one will get the credit, but everyone can contribute.

Burden, Everyone, Groups, People, Vision

Any system, biological, economic, or social, that gets so encrusted that it cannot self-evolve, a system that systematically scorns experimentation and wipes out the raw material of innovation, is doomed over the long term on this highly variable planet.

Self, Long, Innovation, Material, Social, Experimentation

Why is our (US) government the only one in the civilized world with a stupid, short-term energy policy? Why do our elected officials consider a European or Japanese-type energy tax not only unpassable but undiscussable?

Elected, Energy, Government, Officials, Stupid, Tax

You should issue demerits for tree cutting or the destruction of humus.

Cutting, Humus, Issue, Issues, Tree

Since the Earth is finite, and we will have to stop expanding sometime, should we do it before or after nature's diversity is gone?

Diversity, Earth, Expanding, Gone, Stop

Calculating how much carbon is absorbed by which forests and farms is a tricky task, especially when politicians do it.

Farms, Forests, Politician, Politicians, Task, Tasks

No one can define or measure justice, democracy, security, freedom, truth, or love. No one can define or measure any value. But if no one speaks up for them, if systems aren’t designed to produce them, if we don’t speak about them and point toward their presence or absence, they will cease to exist.

Justice, Democracy, Speak, Produce

The first commandment of economics is: Grow. Grow forever. Companies get bigger. National economies need to swell by a certain percent each year. People should want more, make more, earn more, spend more - ever more. The first commandment of the Earth is: enough. Just so much and no more. Just so much soil. Just so much water. Just so much sunshine. Everything born of the Earth grows to its appropriate size and then stops.

Companies, Earn, Stops, Sunshine, Water, Years

Everyone except the far right wing of the Republican Party realizes that oil, gas and coal burning are the main activities that have sent the climate into bigger floods, droughts, hurricanes, and El Ninos

Activities, Except, Hurricanes, Oil, Party, Wings

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Donella Meadows Biography

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