Whose Cost? Whose Benefit? Measured by Whom?
By Donella Meadows
–May 4, 1995–
It’s going to take months, maybe years, to sort out the blitz of legislation just pushed through the House without proper hearings or time for understanding. Newt’s Hundred Days have brought forth a hundred ideas, some new, some old, most with such potential impact that in a real democracy they would be subject to critical, informed [...]
Definition of Sustainability
By Donella Meadows~
For some months I have owed an answer to one of you, who asked for a definition of the word I probably use more often here than any other — sustainability. It has become an international jargon word, with about as many meanings as there are people who use it. Those of us who have talked about sustainability [...]
Spinning the Environmental Good News
By Donella Meadows
–January 27, 1994–
Contrary to popular opinion, sometimes there’s good news about the environment — lately there’s been quite a spate of it. Some has come about through luck, some through the wisdom and forbearance of the human race, and some is completely unexplained, which leaves plenty of room for commentators to spin the environmental news, like any news, [...]
Free Trade Can Work Against the Environment – Or For It
By Donella Meadows
–September 16, 1993–
Environmentalists who worry about NAFTA and other trade agreements like to tell the tuna-dolphin story — though the moral of that story is far from clear.
Schools of yellowfin tuna off the Pacific coast often swim below groups of dolphin. Fishermen look for the dolphin to find the tuna. With their powerful purse-seine nets, they used to [...]
Al Gore for Vice President
By Donella Meadows
–July 9, 1992–
Until now it was hard for people who care about the environment to get excited about the presidential election. We had a choice between George Bush, whose performance on environmental matters is graded D by the League of Conservation Voters, Bill Clinton, who gets a C, and Ross Perot, who says, when asked about the environment, [...]
