Name: Thinking in Systems, a primer
Price: 19.13 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Donella Meadows
ISBN: 9781603580557

Type

Physical Book

Author

Donella Meadows

Illustrated by

Diana Wright

Publisher

Chelsea Green Publishing Company

Year

2015

Language

English

Pages

240

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

22.6 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm

Weight

0.34 kg.

ISBN

1603580557

ISBN13

9781603580557

Synopsis "Thinking in Systems, a primer"

The 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.

Donella Meadows

(Author)

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Better known as Dana Meadows, she was born in March 1941 in Elgin (Illinois)

She studied Chemistry at Carleton College and, after earning her PhD in Biophysics at Harvard University in 1968, joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a researcher

At MIT, she helped develop the global computational model World3 for the Club of Rome, and laid the groundwork for the book Limits to Growth, which includes a study of long-term global trends in population, economy, and environment. This work sparked a global debate, which continues today, about the limits of our planet's capacity to support human economic expansion

In 1981, she founded the International Network of Resource Information Centers (INRIC), with two clear goals: to create a global process of collaborative mechanisms and to share information among academics, researchers, and activists in the sustainable development movement. She also created the Sustainability Institute, which combines research on global systems with practical demonstrations of sustainable living, including the development of "ecovillages" and organic farms

In 1990, she was awarded the Walter C. Paine Science Education Award, and posthumously in 2001, the John H. Chafee Excellence in the Environment Award. Additionally, her column "The Global Citizen," in which she discussed global issues from a systemic perspective weekly, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1991

Donella Meadows, whose influence on academic studies, government initiatives, and international treaties was widely recognized, died in February 2001 in Hanover (New Hampshire)

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