Nicholas
Gerogescu-Roegen
Jeremy
Rifkin
Gunter Pauli
POLITICS &
ECONOMY
SOCIOLOGY Zygmunt
Edward Goldsmith
Serge
Latouche
Herman Daly
Bauman
E.F. Schumacher
Jay Wright Forrester
PHILOSOPHY
John Thackara
Victor Papanek
Tomas Maldonado
Systemic
DESIGN &
ENGINEERING
PHYSICS & CHEMISTRY Design ARCHITECTURE
Fritjof Capra
R. Buckminster
Fuller
Donella Meadows
Carlo Petrini
Janine Benyus
Howard T. Odum
Paul R.
Ehrlich
ENVIRONMENTALISM
Bill McKibben
Paul Hawken
Vandana Shiva
Viktor Schauberger
Lester Russell Brown
Rachel
Carson
Stewart Brand
BIOLOGY
Barry Commoner
1.1 Nicholas Gerogescu-Roegen
- Economist
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (4 February 1906 – 30 October 1994) was a Romanian
American mathematician, statistician and economist, best known for his 1971 magnum
opus The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, which situated the view that the
second law of thermodynamics, i.e., that usable "free energy" tends to disperse or
become lost in the form of "bound energy", governs economic processes.
Georgescu-Roegen's influence extends well beyond his well-known work on the
thermodynamic foundations of economic systems and his career involved "his ambitious
attempt to reformulate economic process as 'bioeconomics,' a new style of dialectical
economic thought" .
Works:
•The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971)
•Energy and Economic Myths: Institutional and Analytical Economic Essays (1976)
•Bioeconomia: Verso un'altra economia ecologicamente e socialmente sostenibile
1.2 Serge Latouche
Economist Philosopher
Serge Latouche (January 12, 1940) is a French philosopher and economist. Specialist of economic
and cultural North-South and epistemology of social sciences. He is considered the leading
proponent of the idea of decline (decrescita). It is also one of the best-known opponents of
Westernization of the planet and a supporter of the convivial decline and localism.
Works:
•Per un'Abbondanza Frugale: Malintesi e controversie sulla decrescita
•Il Tempo della Decrescita: Introduzione alla frugalità facile
•Come si esce dalla Società dei Consumi: Corsi e percorsi della decrescita
•L'Invenzione dell'Economia
•Breve Trattato sulla Decrescita Serena
•La Scommessa della Decrescita
•Come Sopravvivere allo Sviluppo: Dalla decolonizzazione dell'immaginario economico alla
costruzione di una società alternative
•L'Invenzione dell'Economia: L’artificio culturale della naturalità del mercato
•Giustizia senza limiti: La sfida dell'etica in una economia mondializzata
•Decolonizzare l'immaginario: Il pensiero creativo contro l'economia dell'assurdo
2. Gunter Pauli - Economist
Gunter Pauli was born in 1956. He is a graduate from Loyola's University in Belgium, Economics
(1979) and obtained his MBA from INSEAD (1982) in Fontainebleau, France. He has been active as
an entrepreneur, lecturer and commentator in culture, science, politics, sustainability and the
environment. He built the first ecological factory when Chairman and CEO of Ecover, that under
his leadership became a worldwide acclaimed ecological building, being completed in 1992. In
1994 Pauli initiated the Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives in Tokyo with the support of the
Japanese Government and the United Nations University (UNU), redesigning production and
consumption into clusters of industries inspired by natural systems.
Works
•Steering Business towards Sustainability (with Fritjof Capra).1995
•Upsizing: The Road to Zero Emissions. 1998,
•Upcycling. 1999,
•The Blue Economy, 2010,
•Zen and the Art of Blue., 2010
•Svolte epocali (Economia e management), 1997
•Il progetto Zeri. Più ricchezza, più lavoro, meno inquinamento: il nuovo approccio per l'economia
del 2000, 1996
3.1 Herman Daly - Economist
Herman Edward Daly (born 1938) is an American ecological economist and professor at the
School of Public Policy of University of Maryland. He was Senior Economist in the Environment
Department of the World Bank, where he helped to develop policy guidelines related to
sustainable development. He is closely associated with theories of a Steady state economy. He
was a co-founder and associate editor of the journal, Ecological Economics. He is also a recipient
of numerous prizes. He is widely credited with having originated the idea of uneconomic growth.
Works
•Toward a Steady-State Economy, 1973
•Steady-State Economics, 1977
•For the Common Good, 1986
•Valuing the Earth con Kenneth Townsend, 1993
•Beyond Growth, 1996
•An Introduction to Ecological Economics. 1997
•Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics, 1999
•The local politics of global sustainability, 2000
•Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications, 2003
•Economics in a Full World, articolo del Scientific American, 2005
•A Steady State Economy, ricerca presentata al UK Sustainable Development Commission, April
24, 2008
•Ecological Economics (Journal)
3.2 E.F. Schumacher Economist &
Statistician
Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was an
internationally influential economic thinker, statistician and economist in Britain,
serving as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades.
His ideas became popularized in much of the English-speaking world during the
1970s. He is best known for his critique of Western economies and his proposals
for human-scale, decentralized and appropriate technologies.
•Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, 1975
4.1 Jeremy Rifkin – Economist Politic
One of the most popular social thinkers of our time, Jeremy Rifkin is the bestselling author of The
European Dream, The Hydrogen Economy, The Age of Access, The Biotech Century, and The End
of Work. A fellow at the Wharton School's Executive Education Program and an adviser to several
European Union heads of state, he is the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends in
Bethesda, Maryland.
Works
•Entropy: A New World View, 1981
•The Biotech Century, 1999
•The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis, 2009
•The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the
World, 2011
4.2 Zygmunt Bauman – Economist Politic
Zygmunt Bauman (born 19 November 1925) is a Polish sociologist. Since 1971, he has resided in
England after being driven out of Poland by an anti-Semitic campaign, engineered by the
Communist government which he had previously supported. Professor of sociology at
the University of Leeds (and since 1990 emeritus professor), Bauman has become best known for
his analyses of the links between modernity and the Holocaust, and of postmodern consumerism.
Works
•1998: Globalization: The Human Consequences.
•2000: Liquid Modernity.
•2005: Liquid Life.
•2006: Liquid Fear.
•2006: Liquid Times: Living in an Age of Uncertainty.
•2011 Culture in a Liquid Modern World
•2011: Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age.
5. John Thackara - Designer Philosopher
John Thackara is a writer, speaker, and event producer. John is the author of In the bubble:
designing in a complex world (MIT Press) among thirteen books, and of a widely-read blog at
Design Observer. As founder and director of Doors of Perception (Doors), John organizes festivals
around the world, at a city-region scale, in which communities imagine sustainable futures - and
take practical steps to realize them. He was director of research at the Royal College of Art in
London, and then from 1993-2000 was Director of the Netherlands Design Institute in
Amsterdam.
Works:
•Wouldn't It be Great If... Designs of The Time Manual, 2007.
•In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex World. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2005
•The New Geographies of Learning, 2003
•Winners! How Europe's Most Successful Companies Use Design To Innovate, 1999
•Lost In Space: A Traveler's Tale, 1994
•DoPRom (Doors of Perception), 1994
•Design After Modernism, 1992
•T-Zone,1991
•Image and Object: Nouveau Design de Londres, 1990
•Design After Modernism: Beyond the Object, 1988
•Leading Edge, 1990
•New British Design. Co-edited with Stuart Jane. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987
6. Tomas Maldonado - Designer
Born in Buenos Aires in 1922, Tomás Maldonado is Professor of Environmental Design at the
Politecnico di Milano. He was a professor at the University of Design in Ulm from 1955 to
1967 and rector of the same from 1964 to 1966. In 1965,"Lethaby Lecturer" at the
Royal College of Arts, London. Appointed in 1966 "Fellow" of the Council of Humanities at
Princeton University (USA). From 1967 to 1970 holds the Chair in "Class of 1913" at the School
of Architecture at Princeton University. From 1976 to 1984 he was Professor of Environmental
Design at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Bologna.
Works
•Che cos'è un intellettuale? Avventure e disavventure di un ruolo, 1995,
•Critica della ragione informatica, 1997
•Cultura, democrazia, ambiente. Saggi sul mutamento, 2 ed., 1991
•Disegno industriale: un riesame, 1991
•Il futuro della modernità, 7 ed., 1990
•Reale e virtuale, 6 ed., 1994
•La speranza progettuale. Ambiente e società (1970), 4 ed.,1981
•Casabella 70’s and 80’s
7. Victor Papanek - Designer
Victor Papanek (1927 —1998 ) was a designer and educator who became a strong advocate of
the socially and ecologically responsible design of products, tools, and community infrastructures.
He disapproved of manufactured products that were unsafe, showy, maladapted, or essentially
useless. His products, writings, and lectures were collectively considered an example and spur by
many designers. Papanek was a philosopher of design and as such he was an untiring, eloquent
promoter of design aims and approaches that would be sensitive to social and ecological
considerations.
Works
•Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change, 1971
•How things don't work, New York, 1977
•Design for Human Scale, New York, 1983
•The Green Imperative: Natural Design for the Real World, 1995
8. Richard Buckminster Fuller
Architect Designer Engineer
Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller (July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American systems
theorist, architect, engineer, author, designer, inventor, and futurist. Fuller published more than
30 books, inventing and popularizing terms such as "Spaceship Earth", ephemeralization, and
synergetic. He also developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, the best known
of which is the geodesic dome. Carbon molecules known as fullerenes were later named by
scientists for their resemblance to geodesic spheres.
Works
•Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, 1975
•Utopia or Oblivion: The Prospects for Humanity, 1969
•The Clock is Stopping: The Human Scenario (AUDIO)
•Education Automation: Freeing the Scholar to Return to his Studies (1962)
•R. Buckminster Fuller on Education (1979)
•Earth, Inc. (1973)
•Grunch of Giants (1983)
9. Stewart Brand - Biologist
Stewart Brand (Born 14 Dec 1938) is one of the founders of the American environmental
movement and among the most influential thinkers of our time. He was the scientist who
convinced the leaders of NASA to release the first pictures of Earth seen from
space. In 1968 he published the first edition of the Whole Earth Catalog, the
legendary eco-catalog that Steve Jobs has called "Google on paper" and that he won the
U.S. National Book Award.
Works:
•Two Cybernetic Frontiers (1974)
•The Media Lab (1987)
•How Buildings Learn (1994)
•The Clock of the Long Now (2000).
•Whole Earth Discipline: Why Dense Cities, Nuclear Power, Transgenic Crops, Restored
Wildlands, and Geoengineering Are Necessary. (2010)
•Una Cura per la Terra: Il manifesto di un ecopragmatista
•The Whole Earth Catalog: magazine published regularly from 1968 to 1972, but only
intermittently thereafter. Whole Earth pushed science, intellectual endeavor, and new
technology. Article Categories: Understanding Whole Systems, Shelter and Land Use,
Industry and Craft, Communications, Community, Nomadics, Learning.
10. Fathers of the American
Environmental Movement
10.1 Rachel Carson - Biologist & Ecologist
Rachel Carson (1907-1964) spent most of her professional life as a marine biologist with the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service. By the late 1950s, she had written three lyrical, popular books about
the sea, including the bestselling The Sea Around Us, and had become the most respected
science writer in America. She completed Silent Spring against formidable personal odds, and
with it shaped a powerful social movement that has altered the course of history.
•Silent Spring, 1962
10.2 Barry Commoner - Biologist
Barry Commoner (born May 28, 1917) is an American biologist, college professor, and ecosocialist. He ran for president of the United States in the 1980 US presidential election on the
Citizens Party ticket. He was also editor of Science Illustrated magazine.
•The Closing Circle, 1971
10.3 Paul Ralph Ehrlich – Biologist Ecologist
Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born 29 May 1932) is an American biologist and educator who is the Bing
Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University.
He's also a prominent ecologist and demographer. Ehrlich is best known for his warnings about
population growth and limited resources, and for his controversial 1968 book The Population
Bomb.
•The Population bomb, 1971
•The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment, 2009
10.4 Edward Goldsmith – Environmentalist Philosopher
Edward René David Goldsmith (November 8, 1928,– August 21, 2009), was an Anglo-French
environmentalist, writer and philosopher. Edward Goldsmith was the founding editor and
publisher of The Ecologist. Known for his outspoken views opposing industrial society and
economic development, he expressed a strong sympathy for the ways and values of traditional
peoples.
•Blueprint for survival (Special edition of The Ecologist), 1972
•The Way: An Ecological World-View, 1992
10.5 Howard T. Odum - Ecologist
Howard Thomas Odum (1924–2002) (also known as Tom or just H.T.) was an American ecologist.
He is known for his pioneering work on ecosystem ecology, and for his provocative proposals for
additional laws of thermodynamics, informed by his work on general systems theory.
•2001, A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies, with Elisabeth C. Odum,
•2000, with E.C. Odum, Modeling for all Scales: An introduction to System Simulation
•1994, Ecological and general systems: an introduction to systems ecology
•1993, Ecological Microcosms, with Michael J. Beyers.
•1983, Systems Ecology : an Introduction.
•1981, Energy Basis for Man and Nature, with Elisabeth C. Odum.
•1967, (ed.) Work Circuits and System Stress, in Young, Symposium on Primary Productivity and
Mineral Cycling, University of Maine Press.
•1953, 'Fundamentals of Ecology, with Eugene P. Odum, (first edition).
11.1 Bill McKibben - Environmentalist
Bill McKibben is the author of a dozen books about the environment, beginning with The End of
Nature in 1989, which is regarded as the first book for a general audience on climate change. He
is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org. Time Magazine called him 'the planet's
best green journalist' and the Boston Globe said in 2010 that he was 'probably the country's most
important environmentalist.
Works
•THE GLOBAL WARMING READER
•EAARTH (Terra, Edizione Ambiente)
•FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING NOW
•Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
•The End of Nature, 1989
11.2 Paul Hawken - Environmentalist
Paul Hawken (1946 – Present) is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and bestselling
author of six previous books. He is the architect and leading proponent of reform with respect to
ecological practices.
Works
•Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and
Beauty to the World, 2007
•Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, 1999 (Capitalismo naturale, EA)
•The Ecology of Commerce Revised Edition: A Declaration of Sustainability (Collins Business
Essentials), 1993
12.1 Viktor Schauberger
Environmentalist
Viktor Schauberger (30 June 1885 – 25 September 1958) was an Austrian forester/forest warden,
naturalist, philosopher, inventor and Biomimicry experimenter. The inventor of what he called
"implosion technology", Schauberger developed his own theories based on fluidic vortices and
movement in nature. He built actuators for airplanes, ships, silent turbines, self-cleaning pipes
and equipment for cleaning and so-called "refinement" of water to create spring water, which he
used as a remedy. Schauberger's work remains an inspiration to many people in the Green
movement for his own observations of nature.
Works
•Hidden Nature: The Startling Insights of Viktor Schauberger by Alick Bartholomew
•The Water Wizard by Viktor Schauberger translated by Callum Coats
•The Energy Evolution by Viktor Schauberger, translated by Callum Coats
•Nature As Teacher: How I Discovered New Principles in the Working of Nature
12.2 Biomimicy & Bionics
Janine Benyus - Environmentalist
Janine M. Benyus (born 1958 in New Jersey) is an American natural sciences writer, innovation
consultant, and author.
• Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, 1997
13.1 Vandana Shiva
Environmentalist / Agriculture
Vandana Shiva (November 5, 1952), is a philosopher, environmental activist, and eco feminist.
Shiva, currently based in Delhi, has authored more than 20 books and over 500 papers in leading
scientific and technical journals. She was trained as a physicist and received her Ph.D. in
philosophy from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, in 1978 with the doctoral
dissertation "Hidden variables and locality in quantum theory.
Works
•Women, Ecology and Health: Rebuilding Connections, 1993
•Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace, 2005
•Globalization's New Wars: Seed, Water and Life Forms, 2005
•Democratizing Biology: Reinventing Biology from a Feminist, Ecological and Third World
Perspective, 2007
•Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed, 2007
•Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development 2010
13.2 Carlo Petrini
Environmentalist / Agriculture
Carlo Petrini is the founder of the international Slow Food movement, which was established in
1986 and now has more than 70,000 members in 45 countries around the world. Slow Food is
committed to celebrating and preserving biological and regional diversity in food, and to
promoting taste education, as well as supporting local agriculture and economies in our
increasingly homogenous world.
Works
•Bioetica, ambiente, rischio. Evidenze, problematicità,
documenti istituzionali nel mondo, 2003
•Slow Food Revolution. Da Arcigola a Terra Madre. Una nuova cultura del cibo e della vita, 2005
• Slow Food Nation: Why Our Food Should Be Good, Clean, And Fair, 2010
•Terra madre. Come non farci mangiare dal cibo, 2010
•Terra Madre: Forging a New Global Network of Sustainable Food Communities, 2010
•Buono, pulito e giusto. Principî di una nuova gastronomia, 2010
14. Lester R. Brown - Environmentalist
Lester Russell Brown (born March 28, 1934) is a United States environmental analyst, founder of
the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, "one of the
great pioneer environmentalists.”
Works
•The World Watch Reader on Global Environmental Issues, 1998
•Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth, 2003
•Plan B: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, 2003
•Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising
Temperatures, 2005
•Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, 2008
•World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, 2011
15.1 Jay Wright Forrester - Engineer
Jay Wright Forrester (born July 14, 1918-) is a pioneer American computer engineer, systems
scientist and was a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Forrester is known as the
founder of System Dynamics, which deals with the simulation of interactions between objects
in dynamic systems.
Works:
•Industrial dynamics, 1961.
•Principles of Systems, 1968.
•Urban Dynamics, 1969.
•World Dynamics, 1971.
•Collected Papers of Jay W. Forrester, 1975.
Articles and papers, a selection:
•1971, Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems.
•1989, System Dynamics and the Lessons of 35 Years.
•1991, The Beginning of System Dynamics.
•System Dynamics and Learner-Centered-Learning in Kindergarten through 12th Grade Education.
, 1992
•1994, Learning through Systems Dynamics as preparation for the 21st Century.
•1996, System Dynamics and K–12 Teachers.
•1998, Designing the Future.
•1999, System Dynamics: the Foundation Under Systems Thinking.
15.2 Donella Meadows
Environmental scientist
Donella H. Meadows (March 13, 1941 - February 20, 2001) was a pioneering environmental
scientist, author, teacher, and farmer widely considered ahead of her time. She was one of the
world's foremost systems analysts and lead author of the influential Limits to Growth. She was
Adjunct Professor of Environmental Studies at Dartmouth College, the founder of the
Sustainability Institute and co-founder of the International Network of Resource Information
Centers.
Works:
•Limits to Growth, 1972
•State of the Village Report, 1990
•Twelve leverage points, 1999 Thinking in Systems: A Primer , 2008
16. Fritjof Capra – Physicist
Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) is an Austrian-born American physicist. He is a founding
director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, and is on the faculty of Schumacher
College. Capra is purportedly setting the grounds for change in many new theories, one of which
is the living systems theory, a theoretical framework for ecology. This theory is only now fully
emerging but it has its roots in several scientific fields that were developed during the first half of
the twentieth century — organismic biology, gestalt psychology, ecology, general systems theory,
and cybernetics.
Works
• The Tao of Physics (1975)
•The Turning Point (1982)
•Uncommon Wisdom (1988)
•The Web of Life (1996)
•The Hidden Connections (2002).
•The Science of Leonardo 2007
Coauthored
•Green Politics (1984)
•Belonging to the Universe (1991)
•EcoManagement (1993)
what/how/when
•
1 Slide Timeline with Author’s Bio (Group work)
•
1-2 Slides for every book with a brief description (individual work)
•
1-3 Slides with Conclusions
– What kind of Impact has this specific Author had on Systems Thinking?
– How have there theories been applied in Systems Thinking / Design
– If possible show examples (images, videos etc)
3 pages per student ( 1.500 words/11.000 characters)
15 minutes presentation/group (May 23/30)
Sources: library (BCA, civica, nazionale etc) , internet (AveryLibrary/Librinlinea)
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