Dr. Donella H. Meadows was one of the most influential environmental thinkers of the 20th century. As principal author of Limits to Growth (Universe Books, 1972), which sold more than nine million copies in 26 languages, she and her colleagues applied the then relatively new tools of system dynamics to global problems. She went on to write eight other books and a weekly syndicated column.

Donella founded Sustainability Institute in 1996 to apply systems thinking, system dynamics, and organizational learning to environmental and social challenges. Three qualities that she combined brilliantly were dedication to scientific rigor, deeply grounded optimism, and the ability to communicate well. Donella’s use of systems tools enabled her to see clearly the root causes of seemingly intractable problems — poverty, war, environmental degradation — and her deep affection for people and the earth gave her a unique power to reach others.

The Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program honors and builds on Donella’s legacy by empowering a new generation of sustainability leaders to use whole-systems thinking in their work and life. The Fellowship integrates rigorous systems analysis with skills in articulating feelings, values, and vision. To support more women in becoming leaders of sustainability, the selection process ensures that at least two-thirds of the participants are female.

The recently graduated 2003–2004 Fellows work in the nonprofit, government, business, tribal, university, and philanthropic sectors. They hailed from major cities, university towns, and rural communities in 14 states. One Fellow came from Brazil, and several others have significant experience working in international settings with a range of colleagues and stakeholders. Through their ongoing work with their organizations, the Fellows interact with conservation activists, farmers, industry executives, legislators, citizen boards, and government officials. Their work represents diverse sectors, bioregions, and ecosystems.

The Curriculum

The Fellows Program is organized in two-year cycles, encompassing four 4day workshops at Sustainability Institute’s affiliated Cobb Hill cohousing community in Vermont, homework, and personalized coaching to apply the workshop teachings to Fellows’ current work. Staff at the Sustainability Institute, and guest speakers Peter Senge (author of The Fifth Discipline), Nancy Jack Todd (Ocean Arks International and editor of Annals of Earth), John Sterman (Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management and director of the MIT System Dynamics Group), and Sara Schley (SEED Systems and the SoL Sustainability Consortium), taught the recent Fellows to:

• Build skills in systems thinking, organizational learning, reflective conversation, mental models, and personal mastery
• Apply systems principles to complex environmental and social problems in their work
• Develop their professional and personal capabilities to serve as leaders for sustainability

Specifically, Fellows:

• Learn to draw causal loop maps that reveal system drivers and leverage points for creating change
• Practice stock and flow diagrams and “Action to Outcome” mapping
• Uncover mental models that drive policy and populations of people to accept or reject new initiatives
• Develop and lead strategies for environmental and social sustainability
• Create new collaborations among other Fellows and with Sustainability Institute staff
• Communicate more effectively, facilitate new understanding, and inspire hope
• Increase their personal mastery and articulate a vision for long-term sustainability in several issue areas

A fundamental thrust of both the Fellows program and Sustainability Institute’s work is to address the systemic roots of social and environmental problems rather than focus on their many symptoms. When Fellows learn to recognize and, most importantly, direct their strategies toward the drivers of complex systems, they greatly enhance their effectiveness. The tools of systems thinking foster connection and understanding as well as win/win dynamics.

By committing to apply the teachings of the Fellowship to their current work challenges, Fellows both use the tools of systems thinking and expose others to them. They also form a learning network representing many regions, issue areas, and professional contacts that amplifies the impact of the training for each participant.

Applying the Learnings

The 2003–2004 Fellows stated that their ability to broaden their perspective in addressing larger-scale environmental and social problems, analyze the root causes of these problems, look for leverage points to make change, and implement solutions have all increased through the program. Angela Park, from the Environmental Leadership Program, says, “The Fellowship has given me very specific tools for thinking strategically about some truly vexing, complicated projects.” Fellows apply these tools to engage multiple stakeholders in complex environmental and social issues in the U. S. and international settings. For example:

• Julia Novy-Hildesley, director of the Lemelson Foundation, has applied a range of tools she learned and practiced through the Fellows Program. She has used an adapted visioning exercise to help her executive board envision the desired results from a program they are initiating. In addition, Julia developed a stock and flow and casual loop map to articulate her foundation’s plan for increasing the rate of invention and innovation toward social ends in the developing world. The stock and flow map outlines the development of ideas to inventions to products actually in use, while the feedback loops show the ways that the foundation’s three strategies — mentoring, recognition, and dissemination — trigger reinforcing cycles that could lead to improved results over time.
• Christina Page of the Rocky Mountain Institute has applied systems thinking tools toward overcoming the barriers that prevent corporations from working together to purchase and use environmentally benign material on a massive scale. The effort pulls together Fortune 500 corporations to radically increase the demand for alternatives to hexavalent chrome, conventional leather, and other products. Christina, a facilitator and catalyst to the effort, has been using causal mapping tools to diagram the various hurdles that the project faces, for example, the building of a critical mass of participants, the potential for too many participants, and competitive pressures. She reports, “It was a luxury to talk about the project in terms of systems and mindsets rather than just budgets and immediate deadlines.”
• Tim Brown, director of the Delta Institute, works to prevent biological pollution in the Great Lakes. Such a seemingly intractable problem involves several major groups — ports, vessel owners, shippers, and the public. By incorporating systems thinking into his work of developing an Environmental Management System (EMS), Tim made it clear to his team (five people from five different organizations) that they would have to engage all stakeholders in crafting a solution that served all of their needs. Tim used a systems map he created with the help of his Sustainability Institute coach and other Fellows to provide strategic orientation to his team. His use of systems thinking on this issue was particularly significant because he is a team member, not a project leader.
• Amália Souza, Global Green grants, Brazil, is using both systems and inquiry tools in the development of a new Brazilian foundation to support grassroots environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). She says about the Fellows Program, “Learning to ‘think’ in systems terms is a challenge unlike most so far. And it is an amazing exercise to force my mind to see the whole picture. These tools are proving quite efficient in my work, since I can see things now that would have escaped my perception completely before. I have still a long ways to go in mastering these tools, but I can see why I should persevere. This Fellowship, in many ways, is revealing a new and much more interesting world to me.”
• Ellen Wolfe of Tabors Caramanis & Associates, focuses on electric utility restructuring activities. She works with electrical system operators, policy makers, regulators, and market participants to effect change in market structures. Ellen’s work over the past few years has been in the context of the California energy crises; she seeks further thinking on how to put in place effective and efficient market structures in an environment of short-run political and business cycles. She comments, “The Fellowship has shown me the value of good communication; how great it felt to hear and be heard, to give and receive good coaching, and how little relative impact it has to ‘convince’ someone of something rather than let them arrive at insights themselves. It has encouraged new ways of being for me in my work. Also, in doing so, it has given me a higher level of confidence in stepping up and taking on a leadership role in areas for which I do not necessarily have a demonstrated area of competency.”

Donella Meadows once said, “We humans are smart enough to have created complex systems and amazing productivity; surely we are also smart enough to make sure that everyone shares our bounty, and surely we are smart enough to sustainably steward the natural world upon which we all depend.” The 2003–2004 Fellows are working with multiple stakeholders in a cross-section of issue areas to do just this, giving us inspiration and hope as we build on Donella’s legacy to shift the tide to global sustainability.

Edie Farwell is program director for the Donella Meadows Leadership Fellows Program of the Sustainability Institute. Previously, she was director of the Association for Progressive Communications.

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Likewise, in a time when the global system is spiraling toward unprecedented change, those of us who want to make a difference must jump into a rabbit’s hole in order to understand and change our reality. The other option is to remain standing at the edge, looking down, and endlessly treating the symptoms of much deeper problems, both out of sight and out of control.

Changing the Paradigm

The late Donella Meadows, a renowned systems thinker, converted the metaphor of the hole into systems language in her essay, “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in the System” (Sustainability Institute paper, 1999). She described 12 leverage points for effecting change, found deeper and deeper in a system, each with greater power than the last. At the top of this rabbit’s hole, we use linear thinking to tinker with parameters, numbers, and constants, such as taxes and subsidies, as mechanisms of social change. But as we descend deeper into the hole, we reach other, harder-to-see but more powerful leverage points, such as managing feedback processes, information flows, rules, and goals. At the bottom of the hole, in the darkness, lurks the ultimate payoff — a system’s paradigms. Meadows wrote, “People who manage to intervene in systems at the level of paradigm hit a leverage point that totally transforms systems.”

In a time when the global system is spiraling toward unprecedented change, those of us who want to make a difference must jump into a rabbit’s hole in order to understand and change our reality.

In her writing over the years, Meadows regularly sought to undermine many conventional paradigms, including:

• One cause produces one effect.
• Improvements come through better technology, not better humanity.
• Economics is the measure of feasibility.
• Possession of things is the source of happiness.
• The rational powers of human beings are superior to their intuitive or moral powers.
• We know what we are doing.
• Growth at any cost is good.

But these paradigms aren’t separate and unique, littering the bottom of the hole like autumn leaves lying on the ground. They fit together into a larger, cohesive structure. Some call this structure “mythology” or “cosmology.” Others call it “worldview.” Although we popularly equate the word “worldview” with “mindset,” scholars define it as a story that answers the big questions of existence: Who are we? What is our significance? What are the laws of the universe? How was the universe created?

At the root of every system, every set of paradigms, beats a story so deep that most people are born into it and then die without ever knowing that a different way of viewing the world might exist. Our worldview operates like a cosmic screenplay that we enact each moment of our lives, guiding our actions and, ultimately, creating our reality. When we don’t realize it exists, our worldview manipulates us like a disembodied puppeteer, guiding our actions and thoughts.

Daniel Quinn traced the origins of civilization’s current worldview in his famed book, Ishmael. He writes that, 10,000 years ago, one culture among thousands that populated the earth took up intensive agriculture. As a result of food surpluses, its population exploded, requiring more land to accommodate its new numbers. With more land, its population grew again and annexed still more land. Quinn calls these people “Takers.” Their culture spread across the planet, assimilating other cultures, taking land, and converting wild lands to agricultural fields.

To justify this unprecedented activity, the Takers separated humanity, nature, and spirituality. In the new paradigm, nature was merely a resource, not a source of sacredness. Productivity became the measure of progress. The Takers believed there was just one right way to live and crushed all those who lived differently. These deep beliefs survived the rise and fall of many civilizations. Now every country in the world and 99.9 percent of the human population participates in this system. The few remaining indigenous cultures (, “Leavers,” according to Quinn) exist on the margins of civilization, often exiled in poverty and isolation.

Critics often rebut the assertion that there is just one dominant worldview, citing the many distinct cultures and worldviews that coexist today — East and West, for example. But, in the grand scheme of Takers and Leavers, the difference between most cultures that participate in the global economy is minor, a question of degree rather than of basic view of the cosmos. To see a truly different paradigm requires studying an indigenous culture, looking back 10,000 years to the birth of civilization, or looking forward to the new spiritual stories that are trying to supplant the dominant mindset.

Most social and environmental change programs deal only with symptoms: erosion mitigation, alternative energies, poverty reduction, and pollution control. They never reach the level of changing the underlying paradigm. At best, these efforts can only slow the degradation. As Quinn says, “Vision is the flowing river. Programs are sticks set in the riverbed to impede the flow.” Only a change of vision, a new story, can redirect the flow away from catastrophe and toward sustainability.

An Emotional Shift

Thus, systems thinkers must go after worldviews. Many social change advocates generate data and arguments about why we need to alter our global behavior to avoid terrible consequences. But as Thomas Kuhn wrote in his classic Structure of Scientific Revolutions (from which Meadows adopted the term “paradigm”), when scientists ultimately change from one paradigm to another, they don’t do so because they have proven the new one to be true; they do so because they experience an emotional shift or awakening. Stories can reach these deeper affective levels and, as such, are an intrinsic part of every systemic change process. Changing people’s stories re-orders their relationships with others and the world around them, and thus the system structure in which they live.

Some people have targeted our shared worldview head-on, identifying the assumptions that anchor people’s cosmic story. Physicists Albert Einstein and David Bohm did it; philosopher Ken Wilber and many in the spiritual evolution camp do it. But suddenly seeking to alter a worldview can provoke a maelstrom of resistance. Meadows took on the challenge willingly, illuminating hundreds of murky, deep-seated social beliefs. And she memorably experienced the force of resistance after she, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William Behrens published their world-shaking book, Limits to Growth, in 1972. Donella wrote, “We could not understand the intensity of the reaction our book provoked. It seemed to us far out of proportion to our simple statement that the earth is finite and cannot support exponential physical growth for very long. We wouldn’t have guessed that that idea could generate so much surprise, emotion, complication, and denial.”

As most systems thinkers know, treating symptoms at the mouth of the rabbit’s hole usually generates policy resistance because it leads to unintended and unforeseen consequences. Working at the bottom, too, provokes a different kind of visceral reaction, one that Meadows herself learned could actually be seen as a positive sign. No one can change their view of the universe without significant experiential shaking. Resistance may indicate the labored thinking of changing views.

We don’t yet understand what it takes to change the worldview of the earth’s population. Very likely, when enough individuals set off on their own change journeys, their numbers will reach a certain threshold or tipping point, allowing the rest of us to make the transition more quickly. Wilber says this positive feedback loop creates a structure — a field — that drives exponential change. He calls it a “Kosmic habit”:, “And the more people [that] have that [spiritual] experience, the more it becomes a Kosmic habit available to other human beings.”

I took up non-fiction writing at Dartmouth College, where I studied environmental journalism under Professor Meadows, and have been in the field for the past 15 years. Now I write fiction as well, so I can illustrate system dynamics in action. By doing so, I hope to help people see their worldview from the outside and envision a different future through the less-threatening medium of stories.

In the process, I’ve come to believe that, as systems thinkers, we must grit our teeth and jump down the rabbit’s hole, no matter the risk. The farther we fall, the more impact we are likely to have. As Meadows wrote, “It is in the space of mastery over paradigms that people throw off addictions, live in constant joy, bring down empires, get locked up or burned at the stake or crucified or shot, and have impacts that last for millennia.”

Jon Kohl is a writer and consultant working to combine systems thinking, spiritual evolution, and global change in his projects, prose, and fiction. For more information about his work or to contact him, visit www.jonkohl.com.

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Nevertheless, despite the progress illustrated by these and other cases, the forces of unsustainable growth and resource exploitation have continued to compound. So the release of Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (Chelsea Green, 2004) by Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows comes at an important time. For newcomers to the systems approach, the 30-Year Update presents the logic of overshoot and collapse and emphasizes the urgent need for sustainability without dwelling too much on the mechanics of the methodology (see “Key Terms”). At the same time, those already inclined to see things from a systems perspective not only have their mental models reinforced and refined, but also have a series of cogent examples to draw upon when spreading the gospel of sustainable development.

Systems and Growth

Three themes emerge in the book: background on systems and the mechanics of growth; the introduction of a formal computer model, known as World3, and some of the scenarios that it produces; and implications and recommendations (see “The World3 Model” on p. 9). Throughout the volume, but particularly in the first three chapters, the authors explain the basic laws of system structure and behavior with a lucidity that comes from decades devoted to the dissemination of these concepts.

Though usually considered “best practice,” it is not common to come across computer modelers who clearly communicate the purpose of their model and its associated boundaries; that is, the question the model was intended to address and those for which it loses its ability to provide meaningful insight. So it is a treat (for modeling geeks, anyway) to have the authors devote several pages to just these concerns in the course of their introduction to the World3 model. The central question they mean to address is: Faced with the possibility of global collapse, what actions can we take that will make a difference and lead to a sustainable future? It is clear that this is a model whose primary purpose is to help us think, not to provide the answer. In the course of laying out their model’s purpose, the authors make one of the best cases for “modeling for learning” that I have come across.

The authors introduce a variety of potential actions into the World3 model, at first, one-by-one, then in logically consistent groups. Each run, or scenario, provides insight into how that potential action or group of actions might affect the course of future events. In this way, Meadows, Randers, and Meadows are able to prioritize potential actions in order to come up with the set that offers the greatest opportunity for avoiding the worst consequences of collapse.

Recommendations for Action

In the end, World3 does provide an answer. Of the various assumptions tested and given the boundary conditions of the model, we can still make a transition to a sustainable global society if people around the world immediately take the following actions:

1. Stabilize the population
2. Stabilize industrial output per person
3. Add technologies to:
   • Abate pollution
   • Conserve resources
   • Increase land yield
   • Protect agricultural land

The bad news is that we have already begun to experience symptoms of overshoot—water tables are dropping rapidly in some areas and incidents of coral bleaching have risen but two of the most urgent signals. The good news is that, as the authors’ account of the ozone story demonstrates, once the global community sees the clear need for change, change can come about quickly.

According to the authors, people respond to signals that a system has overshot its limit in one of three ways:

1. Deny, disguise, or confuse the signal that the system is sending
2. Relax the limits through technological or economic action
3. Change the system structure Certain elements of society are

stuck in response 1, regardless of the growing mountain of evidence calling for action. We see this mindset in the refusal by some politicians to acknowledge the science behind global warming. Others place their faith solely in the market and/or technology, even though the price would be extremely high if the market system and new technologies fail to save the day. The only truly effective response is to change the system structure, the sooner the better.

This was the core message of the original Limits to Growth. And while that message became a part of society’s broad environmental consciousness, the warning went largely unheeded. The result is that the party’s nearly over, and we need to figure out how to minimize the hangover.

Restructuring Society

Because structure determines behavior, the highest-leverage approach to these problems is to change the underlying structures that have created them, such as farming techniques, forest management policy, end-user attitudes toward consumption, recycling, and reuse, and legislation regulating pollution. So how do we go about restructuring the global system? The authors share the tools they have found to be useful: rational analysis, data gathering, systems thinking, computer modeling, and clear communication.

Notice that these tools really have more to do with making the case for change than they do with enacting change that has been agreed upon. That is, they are exceptionally useful for helping lawmakers understand the need for change and explaining to corporate decision makers the logic behind a shift. These tools can even guide the overall implementation of a change effort. But once the case has been made, the day-to-day activities can look somewhat like business as usual: rewriting laws, redesigning products and processes, reorganizing departments, and so forth. The difference is that the guidance offered by these tools means the change is less like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and more like fixing the hole in the ship.

The 30-Year Update is compelling: We have already overshot the planet’s carrying capacity on numerous vital resources. Whether humanity is successful in avoiding the most disastrous effects of collapse will be determined in part by the actions taken by people across our society and planet. Unfortunately, politicians and other leaders often seem to be linear and “black-and-white” thinkers. Navigating the turbulence ahead will require decision making that appreciates non-linearities and shades of grey. The 30-Year Update will bring some to the sustainability camp. But more important, it will inspire others—those with the necessary perspective—to take action. There’s no time to waste.

Gregory Hennessy is honored to have worked with Dennis Meadows on several occasions and to have met the late Dana Meadows once.

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