It’s a Long, Long way to Clean Air
By Donella Meadows
June 22, 1989
Everyone who breathes is hurt by air pollution; so are plants, animals, lakes, rivers, buildings, and the climate. That doesn’t make any of us terribly eager to stop our personal share of the polluting. We zoom around in inefficient cars, heat and cool poorly insulated houses, squander electricity, splash around volatile chemicals. We choke and cough, [...]
“Clean-up” is the Wrong Word
By Donella Meadows
–March 30, 1989–
Exxon has just hired 100 people at $16 an hour to “clean up” the massive oil spill near Valdez.
The government estimates that “cleaning up” the radioactive contamination at its weapons plants will cost over $100 billion.
The states have submitted a list of 2000 hazardous waste sites for priority “clean-up” under Superfund.
What does “clean up” mean? When [...]
We Should Prove What to Whom About Acid Rain?
By Donella Meadows
–August 25, 1988–
Every weekday morning this summer, six college students set out from the Ravine Lodge on Mt. Moosilauke in New Hampshire to spend the day measuring trees. They bushwack through the forest to 15 marked plots on the east side of the mountain. Each plot is 20 meters square; some are at low altitude, some medium, some [...]
Incinerator Blues, Part Three: Who Do You Trust?
By Donella Meadows
–September 17, 1987–
As I go back and forth from the pro- to the anti-incinerator side of the controversy in my valley, I can’t find any villains. What I find is capable, likeable folks on both sides, who can’t agree on where to put their garbage because they can’t agree on where to put their trust.
Al Haley the operations [...]
Incinerator Blues, Part Two: A Beginner’s Guide to Toxic Ash
By Donella Meadows
–September 10, 1987–
The 3200 tons of garbage on the barge that was rejected by 6 countries has finally found its final destination — an incinerator. Increasingly incinerators, sometimes called mass-burn plants, are becoming the solution to our garbage problem. A thousand of them are likely to be constructed in the next 10 years. The salesmen of the mass-burn [...]
