Is Development the Best Contraceptive–Or Are Contraceptives?
By Donella Meadows
–May 26, 1994–
Journal articles full of statistics are not usually causes of concern at the State Department, but a recent one about family planning was controversial enough to make one Clinton appointee ask another to remove his name from it. That was a shame, because both protagonists — Timothy Wirth, Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs, and Lawrence [...]
L.A.–A Joke, A Basket Case, or a Leader Toward Sustainability?
By Donella Meadows
–March 17, 1994–
It will come as no surprise to the people of Southern California that L.A.-bashing is a favorite sport of anyone who lives north of Santa Barbara or east of the San Bernardino Mountains. We non-Angelenos love L.A. jokes. We call the place Lalaland. Here in the Northeast, even under three feet of snow, even when it’s [...]
Words for a Sustainable World
By Donella Meadows
–January 6, 1994–
Back in the 1970s when my feminist friends said they felt excluded by the word “man” — as in “the future of man” — I thought they were making a fuss over nothing.
But it was easy enough to say “people” or “humanity” instead of “man,” so I did, and gradually my gender-deafness turned into sensitivity. I [...]
Going Too Far
By Donella Meadows
–December 16, 1993–
When she was 16, Breezy Osborne suggested that her father Jennings string up some Christmas lights on their million-dollar house in Little Rock, Arkansas. He had fun doing it. So the next year he added more lights. And the next year still more.
Seven Christmases later the two-acre Osborne yard featured angels, a 60-foot tree, a Micky [...]
Brazil Has Yet to Learn the Meaning of Sustainable Development
By Donella Meadows
–July 28, 1993–
Since the assassination of Chico Mendes those who govern Brazil have been trying desperately to recover their image as fit leaders for a large, dynamic, civilized, sustainably developing country. The government stopped its subsidies to destructive cattle-ranching and set aside “extractive reserves” in the Amazon. It hosted the Earth Summit. It ousted a corrupt president.
Those were [...]
