Things Are Getting Better Or Worse, Depending On What You Count
by Donella Meadows
— November 23, 2000 —
Every month I get a kind of Readers Digest for people interested in the future. It’s called Future Survey, issued by the World Future Society. Each month it contains about 50 extended summaries of recent publications about the paths — economic, environmental, social — we seem to be following.
The November 2000 issue, for example, [...]
There’s “Survivor” and then There’s Real Survival
by Donella Meadows
— August 31, 2000 —
Linda Harrar is an independent filmmaker, based in Boston but usually traveling the world producing documentaries for NOVA and other PBS programs. Through the lens of the camera, she sees a lot. In the editing room she sees it over and over. It sinks in deep.
So she had a strong reaction to the CBS [...]
Poverty is Real, and it is Not OK
By Donella Meadows
–November 4, 1999 —
Almost thirty years ago I returned from a long stay in India with my mind, body, and senses full of dust and color, peace and violence, holiness and crassness, all the contradictions of a land so different from my own.
I thought I would remember always the faces of the villagers. I was pained by the [...]
Mop-and-Bucket Solutions Keep Us Forever Cleaning Up
By Donella Meadows
— August 31, 1995–
David Orr, professor of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College, likes to tell the story of the entrance exam for the insane asylum.
Candidates are led into a cement-lined room with a row of faucets on one wall, fully open, gushing water. Leaning against the opposite wall are dozens of buckets and mops.
The insane run frantically for [...]
Immigration Policy That’s Practical As Well As Noble
By Donella Meadows
–January 19, 1995–
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me; I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Emma Lazarus wrote those inspiring words on the occasion of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1886. They sank deep [...]
