Y2K and the Great Hawaiian Toilet Paper Panic
By Donella Meadows
–November 19, 1998–
I keep running into scary Y2K discussions. I suppose that’s because they’re happening more frequently and will continue to do so right up to December 31, 1999, when the year 2000 (Y2K) computer bug will kick in and End The World As We Know It.
That’s what some people say it will do. Others say, “come off [...]
The Cultural Creatives Are Coming
By Donella Meadows
–January 23, 1997–
I don’t know whether to cheer or cringe at the news that the way of life my friends and I have been quietly crafting for decades, always assuming we were far off the mainstream, suddenly has a name and constitutes a trend.
“Cultural creatives” they call us, or worse, “trans-modernists.” According to anthropologist Paul Ray, who seems [...]
What Shall We Do With Our Differences?
By Donella Meadows
–June 20, 1996–
A newspaper article the other day explained why the European Community is sure to fall apart. The Europeans, it said, are just too different from each other ever to get along.
To prove the point, the author repeated that hoary joke about heaven and hell. In heaven the police are British, the mechanics are German, the cooks [...]
Dear Folks: December 24, 1995
Dear Folks,
Merry Christmas! Or, by the time you get this, Happy New Year!
It’s about 5 PM on Christmas Eve. A very light snow is in the air, the flakes so insubstantial that they get wafted up a few times before they finally settle down. We’ve had three big snowstorms, and there’s more than a foot of white stuff piled up [...]
Dear Folks: November 26, 1995
Dear Folks,
Nearly always when I sit down to write this monthly letter to you, it’s a Sunday. I have been immersed in farm activities, and I am suffused with happiness — my normal state when I’ve spent a day or two putzing around outside. So I usually start off with farm stuff, descriptions of nature and animals and gardens and [...]
