Plus or Minus Two Hundred Billion Dollars
By Donella Meadows
–April 4, 1991–
There are two reasons, says our President, why the U.S. need not make an effort to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide:
The models that predict greenhouse warming are imperfect.
Cutting back would cost too much. A 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide output would cost the nation $200 billion a year — about the amount [...]
Markets Don’t Make Energy Policy, People Do
By Donella Meadows
–March 14, 1991–
George Bush’s National Energy Strategy is causing heads to shake in disbelief all over the world. It is a strategy for the 1950s, when we thought that energy supplies were infinite, that big cars made us better people, and that the environment was just a pretty scene out the rear window. Worst of all, the Strategy [...]
What We don’t Know About the Budget isn’t Easy to Find Out
By Donella Meadows
–November 1, 1990–
“I never knew that, about rich people not paying Social Security tax on all their income,” an outraged friend told me last week.
Said another equally angry friend a few days later, “That income tax bubble, I didn’t know about that. How could they DO it?”
They could do it because intelligent, busy people like my friends didn’t [...]
Out of the Frying Pan
By Donella Meadows
–October 18, 1990–
Dear Stanislav,
I’m sorry to hear how bad things are in Moscow. I can imagine how frustrated you are. You’ve won freedom at last, but still there’s no meat and no soap, and the potatoes are rotting in the fields.
Over here we’re pulling for you. We hope you find the patience to weather these hard times and [...]
None of the Above
By Donella Meadows
–October 4, 1990–
It took them four months of high-level haggling. They produced a plan for the biggest deficit yet — an estimated $250 billion NOT INCLUDING the Savings and Loan bailout. Once again they shoved the target date for balancing the budget five years into the future. It is always five years in the future. And as the [...]
