Japan Beats America to the Twenty-First Century Car
by Donella Meadows
— April 6, 2000 —
Well, there she is. Sleek and silver, dealer plates still on, got her two days ago. Seventy miles per gallon, seven hundred miles a fill-up. so they say.
Last time I bought a new car — a 1987 Honda Civic wagon that got 35 mpg at its best — I swore I’d keep it until [...]
The New Century as Seen From More Serious Places
By Donella Meadows
–January 6, 2000–
I was bewailing the short-term, sound-bite, soul-less way in which the U.S. media greeted the turn not only of a century, but of a millennium. (You know — lists of the top ten athletes of the century, ads for the soft drink of the new millennium.) Then in from the Internet came welcome news of intelligent [...]
Who Needs Germ-Fighting Vacuum Cleaner Bags?
by Donella Meadows
— July 15, 1999 —
My trusty Electrolux dealer dropped off a box of vacuum cleaner bags the other day. What stopped me from ripping it right open was not the label, I’m sorry to say, but the price.
Thirty bucks for 24 bags. A dollar and a quarter each. Electrolux bags have always been pricey, but even with handy [...]
When our Enemies Become Us, Who do we Become?
By Donella Meadows
–October 19, 1989–
“We have no model any more,” a Japanese businessman once told me, glumly. He meant that Japan, which spent centuries trying to be like China and more recent decades trying to be like the United States, has run out of nations to emulate. The Japanese now have to define themselves without outside help. They have to [...]
