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Sustainable Development Simulation (SDSIM)
From SystemsWiki
The embedded model which is a global model of the sustainable development process to explore the trade-offs between economic and human development was developed by Luis Gutierrez.
SDSIM builds on the foundation of the LIMITS TO GROWTH models developed at MIT by Donella and David Meadows from 1972 to 2004.
In SDSIM, however, the LIMITS TO GROWTH model is both simplified and extended to include, in addition to material flows and ecological limits - which must follow the laws of conservation - psychological variables such as social capital (i.e., social cohesion - observable, for example, as human behavior consistent with the fundamental solidarity principle of gender equality).
Social capital enhances, and is enhanced by, human capital, defined in the model as the percentage of the total population that has ascended to levels 4 and 5 of Maslow's Pyramid of Human Needs. This in turn has implications for population and consumption growth. This model thus makes explicit what the Meadows intuitively anticipated in their seminal work, i.e., that the root cause of the emerging issues of population, consumption, and pollution is to be found in human behavior modes that induce extravagant consumption, environmental degradation, and social desintegration.
The basic question is: do we want a Wall Street economy, or do we want a Main Street economy? In facing the future, neither paralyzing fears nor irrational guilty feelings are helpful. Everybody has to put food on the table on a daily basis by using the means available. However, at the institutional level, there must be a switch from the Wall Street economy - where short-profits are the supreme priority - to a Main Street economy that balances economic profit with ecological conservation and human/social development.
You can read an extended description of this model at General Description on the Luis T. Gutierrez web site.
[edit] References
- The PelicanWeb's Journal of Sustainable Development Luis T. Gutierrez, Editor
- Delicious Systems Thinking Bookmarks
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