Dear Folks: July 26, 1993
Dear Folks,
This is going to be such a busy month, I’d better write a bit now, or I’ll forget what has happened so far in the rush of what is going to happen in Costa Rica.
We got in a beautiful cut of hay. It dried in one long, brilliant June day and was dark green and sweet-smelling and full of [...]
How Do You Stop a $44 Billion Gorilla?
By Donella Meadows
–June 10, 1993–
The company didn’t even identify itself in its first negotiations with city officials. For months we only knew that a “giant retail project” might come to our already overbuilt, traffic-jammed, edge-of-town commercial strip.
Despite the company’s coyness, we guessed it was Wal-Mart, which is spreading out of the South like kudzu vine. In just 10 years Wal-Mart [...]
Why It’s a Conference on Environment and Development
By Donella Meadows
–May 28, 1992–
Reporters are calling it the “Rio Conference” or the “Earth Summit.” Properly it is the “United Nations Conference on Environment and Development,” abbreviated UNCED, pronounced “unsaid.” What is mostly unsaid, at least in the Northern press, is the last word in that title — development.
Environment and development were set up as equal issues for UNCED for [...]
Hair of the Dog That Bit You
By Donella Meadows
–January 23, 1992–
“Growth!” promised the president when he showed up in depressed New Hampshire last week and posed for a photo-op with a cow.
“Growth!” commands Alan Greenspan, as he cranks interest rates down by a whole percent at a time, hoping the economy will turn around before he hits zero.
“Growth!” chants every Congressperson, CEO, and business publication, offering [...]
Another Fight for the NIMBYs
By Donella Meadows
–May 2, 1991–
There’s an environmental fight brewing in my valley that has all the NIMBYs scrambling. You know — NIMBYs — the Not In My Back Yard folks, often looked upon as selfish obstructionists who try to stop progress by opposing somebody else’s idea of development.
In the current case the “development” is an electric power plant that will [...]
