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The human world is a long way from meeting the needs of the present, and it is borrowing massively from the future - not only by piling up money debt, but also by degrading the resources from which all real wealth ultimately comes.
Donella Meadows
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote highlights the current unsustainable practices of society, which prioritize immediate gains at the expense of future resources.

Donella Meadows' quote emphasizes the unsustainable nature of modern society's consumption and exploitation of resources. It suggests that we are not only accumulating financial debt but also depleting the very resources that sustain true wealth, which will have dire consequences for future generations. This serves as a warning that current practices are paving a path to potential ruin, urging a need for a more sustainable approach to living.

Themes

SustainabilityResourcesDebtFutureWealth

In practice

Example use cases

This quote could be used in a speech about environmental conservation to emphasize the importance of sustainable practices.

More from Donella Meadows

Both the United States and the world economy have already reached - and surpassed - their sustainable physical limits. Ground water is being drawn down, soils eroded, forests cut faster than they grow, fish caught faster than they reproduce, non-renewable fossil fuels burnt without developing substitutes.
Donella MeadowsRead
There is hardly a place on Earth where people do not log, pave, spray, drain, flood, graze, fish, plow, burn, drill, spill or dump. There is no life zone, with the possible exception of the deep ocean, that we are not degrading.
Donella MeadowsRead
Speak the truth._x000D_ Speak it loud and often, calmly but insistently,_x000D_ and speak it, as the Quakers say, to power._x000D_ Material accumulation is not the purpose of human existence._x000D_ All growth is not good._x000D_ The environment is a necessity, not a luxury._x000D_ There is such a thing as enough.
Donella MeadowsRead
No one can define or measure justice, democracy, security, freedom, truth, or love. No one can define or measure any value. But if no one speaks up for them, if systems aren’t designed to produce them, if we don’t speak about them and point toward their presence or absence, they will cease to exist.
Donella MeadowsRead
Like the other great revolutions, an environmental revolution will require sacrifices and lead to enormous gains. It, too, will change the face of the land and human institutions, hierarchies, self-definitions, cultures. It will take centuries. If it happens. There is no guarantee, of course.
Donella MeadowsRead
There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion.
Donella MeadowsRead

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