We Can Do Something About Population by Doing Something About Poverty
By Donella Meadows
–October 16, 1997–
When you hear talk about what to do with all the garbage, what to do about traffic, health care, urban sprawl, hunger — almost any kind of people-related problem — sooner or later you hear someone say that the real trouble is population growth.
Everyone sighs, agrees and changes the subject. Nothing can be done about population [...]
Who Causes Environmental Problems?
By Donella Meadows
–January 12, 1995–
To a small but influential bunch of global thinkers the abbreviation “IPAT” (pronounced “eye-pat”) says volumes. It summarizes all the causes of our environmental problems.
IPAT comes from a formula originally put forth by ecologist Paul Ehrlich and physicist John Holdren:
Impact equals Population times Affluence times Technology.
Which is to say, the damage we do to the earth [...]
Three Population Goals, One Achieved, One Achievable, One Not Discussible
By Donella Meadows
–September 15, 1994–
The population conference just ended in Cairo was not, despite all appearances, about the Pope. At stake were three goals vastly more important than the Holy See’s approval of a world population agreement. The first was to establish that population is a women’s issue. The second was to rally support to help women deal with it. [...]
Who Has a Population Problem?
By Donella Meadows
–September 8, 1994–
There’s a general belief in this country that the global population problem exists Over There somewhere, or maybe Down South of our border. But certainly not here.
If we could see ourselves as the other 95.5 percent of the world sees us, we’d know that nothing could be farther from the truth.
U.S. family size is going up, [...]
The Most Undiscussable Topic in the World
By Donella Meadows
–March 31, 1994–
As the nations gear up for a World Population Conference to be held in Cairo next September, a Cornell professor has given them something to talk about. He says the number of human beings, currently 5.6 billion and rising, really should be somewhere around 2 billion.
The professor, David Pimentel, is not a crackpot, and he did [...]
