Sublime

Donella Meadows, théoricienne visionnaire des systèmes, l’un des principaux auteurs du rapport Halte à la croissance, paru en 1972.

PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM

(in increasing order of effectiveness)

9. Constants, parameters, numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards).


10. Regulating negative feedback loops.


11. Driving positive feedback loops.


12. Material flows and nodes of material intersection.


13. Information flows.


14. The rules of the system (incentives, punishments, constraints).


15. The distribution of po

“leverage points.” These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.

Pour éviter un changement climatique dangereux, par exemple, il faut que la concentration de dioxyde de carbone dans l’atmosphère reste inférieure à 350 parties par million. Pour limiter la reconversion des terres, il faut veiller à ce qu’au moins 75 % des terres jadis forestières restent boisées. Et en matière d’engrais chimiques, il faut ajouter

PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM

(in increasing order of effectiveness)

12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards).


13. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows.


14. The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures).


15. The lengths of delays, relative to the

Look for leverage points around birth rates, interest rates, erosion rates, “success to the successful” loops, any place where the more you have of something, the more you have the possibility of having more.