Donella Meadows, renowned systems and environmental scientist and the pioneer of the sustainability movement across the world, died after a brief illness on 20 February 2001. On occasion of earth day on 22nd April 2001, services in celebration of Donella Meadows life were held across 30 countries. Her work is even more relevant today, in 2012, than I realized when I wrote this personalized summary of her life message immediately on her passing. Here is my summary of her teachings.
Sustaining Power
Donella (Dana) Meadows spared few efforts to emphasize that most growth in the world has become UNECONOMIC. The more the growth, the more the costs than the benefits and the worse we are.
Just imagine the money volume in a nation doubling every few years. To ensure the same distribution of money per person, more money than before now needs to change hands in the same time. Transactions per day need to increase, or cost per transaction needs to increase, to let money distribution stay at the same place. After all if money does not circulate at increased pace the real income of many will fall.
If the money volume does not grow, the wealth of the nation remains the same. After a few doublings of the money volume, to ensure the same real income, we would need to run faster, and faster, like Alice in wonderland, to stay in the same place. The cost of growth would then be more than the benefits of growth. Sustaining power drops as growth becomes uneconomic.
Or just imagine your family doubling every few years. You would need more space, more food, more goods, more services, more energy, more time… And you would get back less time with any member, less of a relationship, less of identification.
Power of compounding
Spread the word Dana would say. Her ten students would have their ten and then their ten in turn would do the same. She recognized the power of compounding, the power of exponential growth. After all that insight must have resulted from the pioneering study initiated by the Club of Rome in 1970.
The insight that spread across the globe, translated into over 30 languages and spoken in different dialects from Wall Street and multinational corporations to ordinary folks and even children. The insight was perhaps best learned by children. Her strongest followers have been the generation of children during the period the insight was born. These children even invented the growth game. The one who can jump twice the previous person is the most POWERFUL. Just seven people had to try jumping before they realized they could not SUSTAIN the power anymore. There was a LIMIT to ECONOMIC growth. The costs (energy and effort) for the eight person was far too higher than the benefits of jumping twice as many times as the seventh.
Power of perspectives
Dana must have experienced closely, like anyone who invents a new perspective, the intolerant, arrogant and even destructive forces across the world. She hardly let it show. She found love as the best way to cope. It was not the indifferent attitude but the willingness to examine her own assumptions while doggedly giving the forces every opportunity to look at the world through different perspectives, that helped many of her critics to become more open, more willing and even wiser. She would say, “there is a nice person in every human waiting for an opportunity to do good. How can you help them to get that opportunity?”
She would feel sorry for those who could not give themselves to see the world from different perspectives. She would persist and gently help the person by seeing the world through their perspectives. The finance minister of a country spent 30 minutes justifying how the free floating of his currency was his priority. Dana empathized his position much as she recognized that that was definitely the last thing needed for the economy to thrive. On another occasion in an exercise in generating visions for sustainable transportation networks she was willing to advocate the use of cars to empathize with a perspective that every green opposed.
An ardent advocate of biodiversity and for letting nature be, she would be willing to concede the sheer thrill and awe that we now could not just understand the building blocks that we were made up of but even design them.
Power of integrity
Never be ashamed to live true to your beliefs she taught through her own practice. She never hesitated to be the lone dissenter, the lone sane voice in an audience of short-term interests. She would stand up for those who were driven by a passion and true love to the people, the community.
Spreading love, she was the first to identify a person’s strength and empower them to build on it. The first to help them work on their weaknesses and provide support to overcoming them. Dana set high standards of values for herself and the world. She was very strict critic towards herself and those who did not live upto her values.
Power of systems
Dana’s insights into growth and development came not from economics, but systems. Systems science is the age-old collection of methods to look at the WHOLE rather than the parts. Dana’s method, System Dynamics was a method created by Jay Forrester (also the inventor of the RAM in your computer). Dana used System Dynamics to help hundreds of businesses, NGO’s governments and thousands of students to understand the power of feedbacks within a system. To discover wise means of action and work to sustain the process or system.
To the practical world systems science brings the identification of leverage points. Leverage points are decisions that through small shifts can produce changes that are large, rapid or lasting. Through her perspective of System Dynamics, Dana identified 12 places to intervene in any system in order of the magnitude of their impact. Little wonder she unabashedly pursued the mission of getting everyone to view the world through wider and multiple perspectives.
Power of visions
When she caught herself criticizing someone’s vision, she did not spare herself. She would say, this criticism is going to cost me dearly. She recognized that when you shoot down someone’s vision you kill a little of that person.
Radically moving away from pointing out the unsustainable processes and systems we are all a part of, Dana spent the last years of her life empowering and articulating visions of a sustainable world. Her dream was to create a community that works to realize visions of sustainable communities. Realize the visions so the rest of the world could see that it can be attained, it can be done. In a world where vice and evil is the center of focus of reality, the virtue of being the master of your own mind, the master of the world you create and live in has always helped individuals and societies to overcome.
All those who worked with her were driven, charged and motivated by her being. Her vision, like that of any visionary was always far from the prevailing reality. She taught those around her to vision far from reality. What use is a vision that is part of reality, she would ask. She focused on the creative tension between the visions and the reality of the world. Use the creative energy of the tension to move the reality towards the vision, she would press.
Power of one
Through her own life she taught us the power of compounding, the power of creating mountains from stones, the power of creating oceans from drops. The power with which visions can pull reality towards visions. The power of humility, the power of being simple, the power of slowing down. The power of the mind and power of consciousness. Can you find your ten friends to empower? Can you find your own visions far from your reality? Would you too like to learn the secret power of creative tension? Let the creative tension keep us going!
Anupam Saraph has worked with Donella Meadows in the Balaton Group for over 15 years.
 |
| Donella Meadows |
Sustaining Power
Donella (Dana) Meadows spared few efforts to emphasize that most growth in the world has become UNECONOMIC. The more the growth, the more the costs than the benefits and the worse we are.
Just imagine the money volume in a nation doubling every few years. To ensure the same distribution of money per person, more money than before now needs to change hands in the same time. Transactions per day need to increase, or cost per transaction needs to increase, to let money distribution stay at the same place. After all if money does not circulate at increased pace the real income of many will fall.
If the money volume does not grow, the wealth of the nation remains the same. After a few doublings of the money volume, to ensure the same real income, we would need to run faster, and faster, like Alice in wonderland, to stay in the same place. The cost of growth would then be more than the benefits of growth. Sustaining power drops as growth becomes uneconomic.
Or just imagine your family doubling every few years. You would need more space, more food, more goods, more services, more energy, more time… And you would get back less time with any member, less of a relationship, less of identification.
Power of compounding
Spread the word Dana would say. Her ten students would have their ten and then their ten in turn would do the same. She recognized the power of compounding, the power of exponential growth. After all that insight must have resulted from the pioneering study initiated by the Club of Rome in 1970.
The insight that spread across the globe, translated into over 30 languages and spoken in different dialects from Wall Street and multinational corporations to ordinary folks and even children. The insight was perhaps best learned by children. Her strongest followers have been the generation of children during the period the insight was born. These children even invented the growth game. The one who can jump twice the previous person is the most POWERFUL. Just seven people had to try jumping before they realized they could not SUSTAIN the power anymore. There was a LIMIT to ECONOMIC growth. The costs (energy and effort) for the eight person was far too higher than the benefits of jumping twice as many times as the seventh.
Power of perspectives
Dana must have experienced closely, like anyone who invents a new perspective, the intolerant, arrogant and even destructive forces across the world. She hardly let it show. She found love as the best way to cope. It was not the indifferent attitude but the willingness to examine her own assumptions while doggedly giving the forces every opportunity to look at the world through different perspectives, that helped many of her critics to become more open, more willing and even wiser. She would say, “there is a nice person in every human waiting for an opportunity to do good. How can you help them to get that opportunity?”
She would feel sorry for those who could not give themselves to see the world from different perspectives. She would persist and gently help the person by seeing the world through their perspectives. The finance minister of a country spent 30 minutes justifying how the free floating of his currency was his priority. Dana empathized his position much as she recognized that that was definitely the last thing needed for the economy to thrive. On another occasion in an exercise in generating visions for sustainable transportation networks she was willing to advocate the use of cars to empathize with a perspective that every green opposed.
An ardent advocate of biodiversity and for letting nature be, she would be willing to concede the sheer thrill and awe that we now could not just understand the building blocks that we were made up of but even design them.
Power of integrity
Never be ashamed to live true to your beliefs she taught through her own practice. She never hesitated to be the lone dissenter, the lone sane voice in an audience of short-term interests. She would stand up for those who were driven by a passion and true love to the people, the community.
Spreading love, she was the first to identify a person’s strength and empower them to build on it. The first to help them work on their weaknesses and provide support to overcoming them. Dana set high standards of values for herself and the world. She was very strict critic towards herself and those who did not live upto her values.
Power of systems
Dana’s insights into growth and development came not from economics, but systems. Systems science is the age-old collection of methods to look at the WHOLE rather than the parts. Dana’s method, System Dynamics was a method created by Jay Forrester (also the inventor of the RAM in your computer). Dana used System Dynamics to help hundreds of businesses, NGO’s governments and thousands of students to understand the power of feedbacks within a system. To discover wise means of action and work to sustain the process or system.
To the practical world systems science brings the identification of leverage points. Leverage points are decisions that through small shifts can produce changes that are large, rapid or lasting. Through her perspective of System Dynamics, Dana identified 12 places to intervene in any system in order of the magnitude of their impact. Little wonder she unabashedly pursued the mission of getting everyone to view the world through wider and multiple perspectives.
Power of visions
When she caught herself criticizing someone’s vision, she did not spare herself. She would say, this criticism is going to cost me dearly. She recognized that when you shoot down someone’s vision you kill a little of that person.
Radically moving away from pointing out the unsustainable processes and systems we are all a part of, Dana spent the last years of her life empowering and articulating visions of a sustainable world. Her dream was to create a community that works to realize visions of sustainable communities. Realize the visions so the rest of the world could see that it can be attained, it can be done. In a world where vice and evil is the center of focus of reality, the virtue of being the master of your own mind, the master of the world you create and live in has always helped individuals and societies to overcome.
All those who worked with her were driven, charged and motivated by her being. Her vision, like that of any visionary was always far from the prevailing reality. She taught those around her to vision far from reality. What use is a vision that is part of reality, she would ask. She focused on the creative tension between the visions and the reality of the world. Use the creative energy of the tension to move the reality towards the vision, she would press.
Power of one
Through her own life she taught us the power of compounding, the power of creating mountains from stones, the power of creating oceans from drops. The power with which visions can pull reality towards visions. The power of humility, the power of being simple, the power of slowing down. The power of the mind and power of consciousness. Can you find your ten friends to empower? Can you find your own visions far from your reality? Would you too like to learn the secret power of creative tension? Let the creative tension keep us going!
Anupam Saraph has worked with Donella Meadows in the Balaton Group for over 15 years.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment