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Donella Meadows

Donella Meadows Books

Environmental Writer

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“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.”

PeoplePersonsHappensActionVisionGroupsRevolutionBurdenInsightCreditBillionsExperimentsShouldersAriseSustainability
Book:Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update
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“I call the transformed world toward which we can move ‘sustainable,’ by which I mean a great deal more than a world that merely sustains itself unchanged. I mean a world that evolves, as life on earth has evolved for three billion years, toward ever greater diversity, elegance, beauty, self-awareness, interrelationship, and spiritual realization.”

WorldYearsMeanSelfEarthSpiritualMovingThreeDealsGreaterAwarenessDiversitySelf AwarenessBillionsRealizationEvolveTransformedElegance
Author:Donella Meadows
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“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.”

PeopleWantNeedsShouldYearsFirstsEnoughEarthCertainGrowsWaterBornCompanyEconomyForeverPercentEconomicsBiggerSizeSoilAppropriateSunshineCommandmentsNational Economy
Author:Donella Meadows
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“It is not OK in this culture to talk to friends about causes you believe in, much less to ask them to join in. It's OK to blast perfect strangers with crass messages every hour of the day, but it's a tinge embarrassing, it brings up some shyness, it seems an intrusion, it risks rejection to share real heartfelt commitments. It's easier to share our cynicism with strangers than our dreams with friends.”

BelieveRealDreamSeemsCultureAsksCausesHoursPerfectRiskShareFriendsEasierMessagesCommitmentStrangerRejectionCynicismEmbarrassingOur DreamsBlastShynessHeartfeltIntrusionCrassPerfect Strangers
Author:Donella Meadows
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“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.”

ThinkingWorldNeedsMistakeQualityFocusMaterialsResourcesBoringPreservesControlledConsumptionUniformsExpandingQuality Of LifeEcosystemsStagnantFertility
Author:Donella Meadows
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