Kuwait’s Oil — The Future up in Flames
By Donella Meadows
–May 9, 1991–
“Kind of sick,” was President Bush’s response to the news that the Iraqis had opened an oil terminal and let it spill into the sea on the tenth day of the Gulf War.
We were told then that the spill amounted to 11 million barrels — 40 times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince [...]
A Scientific Consensus on Global Warming
By Donella Meadows
–October 11, 1990–
Is there a greenhouse effect or isn’t there? In the United States that question has become political. Some people think global warming is an enormous threat; therefore we should change our polluting ways. Some think that is pernicious poppycock. Several of each persuasion whisper into the ear of the President.
The discussion should not be political, of [...]
East Europe’s Agriculture in Ferment
By Donella Meadows
–September 6, 1990–
Seven hundred people are crowded into the central hall of the Budapest University of Economics (called until a few months ago the Karl Marx University of Economics). Just outside flows the Danube, brown and slightly toxic. The hall throbs with human energy, though it’s hard for anyone to take a breath. The air is hot, heavy, [...]
Tough Planet or Fragile Planet?
By Donella Meadows
–August 16, 1990–
“Gaia, as I see her, is no doting mother tolerant of misdemeanors, nor is she some fragile and delicate damsel in danger from brutal mankind. She is stern and tough, always keeping the world warm and comfortable for those who obey the rules, but ruthless in her destruction of those who transgress,” says James Lovelock, originator [...]
Ashoka: Innovators For The Public
Program provides fellowships for more than 200 “public-service entrepreneurs” in Latin America and Asia
By Donella Meadows
–Late Winter 1990–
Every now and then the air in Mexico City gets so bad that flocks of migrating birds flying overhead rain down dead on the city.
A million children in Mexico City are permanently condemned to be slow learners because they have been poisoned by gasoline lead [...]
