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You are here: Home / Archives for systems thinking

We Can’t Do It Ourselves

How to live a more sustainable life? This question generates a lot of debate that is focused on what individuals can do in order to address problems like climate change. For example, people are encouraged to shop locally, to buy organic food, to install home insulation, or to cycle more often. But how effective is individual […]

Filed Under: Climate Change, Environment, Inner transformation, Livelihoods and jobs Tagged With: climate change, consumerism, economic growth, economics, sustainability, systems thinking

Why the “Anthropocene” is not “Climate Change”

“Anthropocene” is a widely proposed name for the geological epoch that covers human impact on our planet. But it is not synonymous with “climate change,” nor can it covered by “environmental problems.” Bigger and more shocking, the Anthropocene encapsulates the evidence that human pressures became so profound around the middle of the 20th century that […]

Filed Under: Climate Change, Economic Growth and Degrowth, Environment, Technology Tagged With: climate change, economic growth, economics, farming, industrial agriculture, sustainability, systems thinking, technology

Farming for a Small Planet

People yearn for alternatives to industrial agriculture, but they are worried. They see large-scale operations relying on corporate-supplied chemical inputs as the only high-productivity farming model. Another approach might be kinder to the environment and less risky for consumers, but, they assume, it would not be up to the task of providing all the food […]

Filed Under: Climate Change, Food and Farming, Technology Tagged With: agriculture, climate change, corporate control, democracy, farming, homepage, local food, localization, sustainability, systems thinking, technology

Will the Poor Always Be With Us?

It’s a familiar story. On his final journey toward Jerusalem, Jesus stops in Bethany to eat at the home of Simon, a leper. A woman enters with an alabaster jar of expensive ointment; she breaks the jar and pours the ointment on his head. Her gesture invokes the fury of some of those present. The […]

Filed Under: Community, Livelihoods and jobs, New economy Tagged With: community, consumerism, development, economics, happiness, indigenous, new economy, systems thinking

An Economy of Meaning – or Bust

It’s not often that a scientist gets to use the words love, creativity, and wisdom in a paper, especially when writing about economics. Perhaps that’s because economics, the dismal science, is obsessed with dismal systems – make that abysmal systems, relative to need. To be clear, I’m not speaking of the specific policies of the […]

Filed Under: Livelihoods and jobs, The Economics of Happiness Tagged With: community, economics, happiness, meaningful work, new economy, systems thinking, well-being

Positive Thinking in a Dark Age

I recall a Buddhist parable involving a stick that appears from a distance to be a snake, causing fear to rise in the perceiver. As the perception shifts upon closer examination, the fear subsides and the relieved hiker continues down the path. Understanding and awareness have a lot to do with how we feel and […]

Filed Under: Inner transformation, Resistance and Renewal Tagged With: cultural change, economic change, global ]monoculture, globalization, localization, sustainability, systems thinking

Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future

What follows are some excerpts from the late David Fleming’s  Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2016).  The excerpts have been chosen by the book’s editor, Shaun Chamberlin. Extensive references are given in the dictionary itself, but are omitted here.   Localisation.  Localisation stands, at best, […]

Filed Under: Localization Tagged With: globalization, lean logic, local economies, localization, new economy, systems thinking, transition

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