Join In Nonviolent Resistance to a World Takeover Plot
by Donella Meadows
— January 14, 1999 —
I’m not in the habit of reading the annual report of the Coca-Cola Company, so I thank Adbusters magazine for bringing to my attention Coke’s insidious scheme to take over the world.
“One Billion Down,” says the cover of the company’s 1997 report. The first page says “47 Billion to Go.” The second page clarifies [...]
The Long Wave
By Donella Meadows
–This piece was published in Whole Earth, summer 1998.–
Dozens of people are eager to explain the collapse of the Asian Tiger economies. Few of them predicted it. Other economic implosions, from the 1995 failure of Britain’s venerable Barings Bank to the 1987 dive in the US stock market, have been explained primarily after the fact.
Similarly, the 1994 rise to [...]
Dumb Things We Could Stop Doing
By Donella Meadows
–February 6, 1997–
I have a friend who keeps a list titled: “Dumb Things We Could Stop Doing.” I add to that list just about every time I hear the news.
Take the CIA, for instance. It might have made some sense once to have a CIA, but now it seems worse than purposeless. CIA higher-ups seem to be constantly [...]
Feeling Our Feelings Might Not Be a Trivial Exercise
By Donella Meadows
–January 30, 1997–
Anyone who travels the world is bound to experience not only wonders but also crowds, poverty, pollution, ugliness and cruelty. Anyone who looks at the statistics can see population, factories and toxic wastes zooming up, while forests, soils, groundwaters and species plummet. I don’t think it’s possible to experience our planet, directly or indirectly, without a [...]
We Walk On Earth With Big Feet
By Donella Meadows
–March 28, 1996–
Picture a city, with skyscrapers, roads, cars, towers, lights all jammed together. Now picture a huge, bare human foot reaching down from the city, stepping on the earth, crushing daisies.
That’s the image William Rees, professor of planning at the University of British Columbia, instills in the minds of his students. He calls it the Ecological Footprint, [...]
