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 [...]
The G-7 Environmental Scorecard
By Donella Meadows
–July 19, 1990–
“I’m not too happy with them. I think their grading system is absolutely essentially absurd,” said President Bush at the Houston summit last week. He was speaking of the international coalition of over 150 environmental groups, which had just ranked the Group of Seven governments on their environmental policies.
He was mad because the U.S. flunked.
When he [...]
Greenhouse Extremists — On Both Sides
By Donella Meadows
–February 22, 1990–
We don’t want to side with extremists on either side, says George Bush in defense of his wimpy stand on the greenhouse effect.
He is, of course, doing just that. He is siding with the extremists who believe there may not BE a greenhouse effect; that if there is one, we have plenty of time to act; [...]
Inactive Bush; Interactive Gorbachev
By Donella Meadows
–February 15, 1990–
There are maybe a dozen world leaders. There are several thousand leader-analysts, who tell us what the leaders are up to, what they’ll do next, and when they’ll fall. Mikhail Gorbachev continues to surprise them all.
Just as the analysts are predicting his downfall, Gorbachev stuns everyone by leaping out ahead of events — and getting away [...]
