Thinking in Systems: International BestsellerThe classic book on systems thinking—with more than half a million copies sold worldwide! "This is a fabulous book... This book opened my mind and reshaped the way I think about investing."—Forbes
"Thinking in Systems is required reading for anyone hoping to run a successful company, community, or country. Learning how to think in systems is now part of change-agent literacy. And this is the best book of its kind."—Hunter Lovins
In the years following her role as the lead author of the international bestseller, Limits to Growth—the first book to show the consequences of unchecked growth on a finite planet—Donella Meadows remained a pioneer of environmental and social analysis until her untimely death in 2001. Thinking in Systems is a concise and crucial book offering insight for problem solving on scales ranging from the personal to the global. Edited by the Sustainability Institute’s Diana Wright, this essential primer brings systems thinking out of the realm of computers and equations and into the tangible world, showing readers how to develop the systems-thinking skills that thought leaders across the globe consider critical for 21st-century life. Some of the biggest problems facing the world—war, hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation—are essentially system failures. They cannot be solved by fixing one piece in isolation from the others, because even seemingly minor details have enormous power to undermine the best efforts of too-narrow thinking. While readers will learn the conceptual tools and methods of systems thinking, the heart of the book is grander than methodology. Donella Meadows was known as much for nurturing positive outcomes as she was for delving into the science behind global dilemmas. She reminds readers to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable, to stay humble, and to stay a learner. In a world growing ever more complicated, crowded, and interdependent, Thinking in Systems helps readers avoid confusion and helplessness, the first step toward finding proactive and effective solutions. |
From inside the book
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... energy discrepancy desired energy level gap, the discrepancy, between your actual and desired levels of. Figure 9. energy level of a coffee drinker. Figure 11. coffee temperature as it approaches a room temperature. ChAPTer One: The BASiCS ...
... room temperature. Its rate of cooling depends on the difference between the temperature of the coffee and the temperature of the room. The greater the difference, the faster the coffee will cool. The loop works the other way too—if you ...
... temperature as the room. The function of this system is to bring the discrepancy between coffee's temperature and room's temperature to zero, no matter what the direction of the discrepancy. cooling heating coee temperature coee ...
... room temperature. runaway Loops—reinforcing feedback I'd need rest to refresh my brain, and to get rest it's necessary to travel, and to travel one must have money, and in order to get money you have to work.... I am in a vicious circle ...
... room (or cooling, if it is connected to an air conditioner instead of a furnace). Like all models, the ... temperature thermostat setting outside temperature B discrepancy between desired and actual room temperatures discrepancy between ...
Contents
11 | |
35 | |
Three Why Systems Work So Well | 75 |
five System Traps and Opportunities | 111 |
Six Leverage PointsPlaces to Intervene in a System | 145 |
Seven Living in a World of Systems | 166 |
Appendix | 187 |
Notes | 204 |