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Some of Dana’s words…..
… on systems
Hunger, poverty, environmental degradation, economic instability, unemployment, chronic disease, drug addiction, and war, for example, persist in spite of the analytical ability and technical brilliance that have been directed toward eradicating them. No one deliberately creates those problems, no one wants them to persist, but they persist nonetheless. That is because they are intrinsically systems problems. They will yield only as we reclaim our intuition, stop casting blame, see the system as the source of its own problems, and find courage to restructure it.
Thinking in Systems, 1993.
… on truth
Speak the truth. Speak it loud and often, calmly but insistently, and speak it, as the Quakers say, to power. Material accumulation is not the purpose of human existence. All growth is not good. The environment is a necessity, not a luxury. There is such a thing as "enough."
"Beyond the Limits", speech given in Spain, Fall, 1993.
… on change
As I travel on the path toward sustainability myself and watch my friends travel on it, I keep thinking of a motto I once heard: "Change is not sacrifice." It is learning, staying awake, being alive, moving to new places. It requires every part of us, our rational minds and our loving spirits. It treasures and protects the bottom of the pyramid, the magnificent planet and all its wondrous living things, and it moves us toward the top of the pyramid, the top of the mountain of sustainability, the ultimate end, the fulfillment of the highest and noblest human purposes.
From Knowing to Feeling to Doing to Rejoicing in the Transformation
from Growth to Sustainability" presentation in Germany, Winter, 1996
… on a sustainable world
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.
"Beyond the Limits", speech given in Spain, Fall, 1993.
… on vision
If we haven’t specified where we want to go, it is hard to set our compass, to muster enthusiasm, or to measure progress. But vision is not only missing almost entirely from policy discussions; it is missing from our culture. We talk easily and endlessly about our frustrations, doubts, and complaints, but we speak only rarely, and sometimes with embarrassment, about our dreams and values.
"Envisioning a Sustainable World", Feb, 12, 1996.
… on farming
Though I didn't grow up on a farm, I've been attracted to them all my life. When in 1972 I finally came to buy my own home, it was a farm. My psychological roots grew instantly into its cold, rocky soil. I have tried several times to leave it, reasoning that I could write more if I didn't spend so much time shoveling manure, that I need to be where the political action is, that I'm not a very good farmer anyway, that New Hampshire is a terrible place to farm. But I've always come back. Something deep in me needs to be attached to a farm.Global Citizen, 1991.
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