Models can easily become so complex that they are impenetrable, unexaminable, and virtually unalterable. - Donella Meadows

Calculating how much carbon is absorbed by which forests and farms is a tricky task, especially when politicians do it.

Systems thinking can only tell us to do these things. It can't do them for us. And so we are brought to the gap between understanding and implementation. Systems thinking by itself cannot bridge that gap. But it can lead us to the edge of what analysis can do and then point beyond—to what can and must be done by the human spirit.

The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological–social–psychological–economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent, intractable global problems arise directly from this mismatch.