An Age-Old Choice Presents Itself Again
By Donella Meadows
–January 18, 1996–
It’s an ancient urge to want to destroy those who don’t believe what you believe. People who think in strange ways seem even more dangerous sometimes than people who cheat, steal, or kill. The latter merely threaten your property or life. The former call into question your identity, your purpose, your God, your whole world.
So history [...]
Green-Washed Optimism: Reflections
By Donella Meadows
–Fall 1995–
I have before me four reviews of Gregg Easterbrook’s trendy book about the environment, A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism. All the reviews are written by scientists whom I know and respect, and all of them are scathing. The reviewers are more than negative; they’re frustrated, because it isn’t possible to list in [...]
Don’t Worry, Be Happy, The Environment is in Great Shape
By Donella Meadows
–June 8, 1995–
I have before me four reviews of Gregg Easterbrook’s trendy book about the environment (A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism). All the reviews are written by scientists whom I know and respect, and all of them are scathing. The reviewers are more than negative; they’re frustrated, because it isn’t possible to [...]
How Many Species Are Endangered? How Do We Know?
By Donella Meadows
–August 19, 1993–
Species extinction is “a potential biological transformation of the planet unequaled perhaps since the disappearance of the dinosaurs,” says Thomas Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution. Biologist E.O. Wilson of Harvard calls the loss of species “the folly our descendents are least likely to forgive us.”
“Pure conjecture,” sniff Julian Simon and Aaron Wildavsky, professors of business and [...]
You See the Greenhouse Effect When You Believe It
By Donella Meadows
–March 4, 1993–
Well, according to Rush Limbaugh and the Mobil Oil Corporation, we can stop worrying about global warming.
Says Mobil in an ad titled “Apocalypse no”: “Unfortunately, the media hype proclaiming that the sky was falling did not properly portray the consensus of the scientific community…. Subsequent colder than normal temperatures across the country cooled the warming hysteria…. [...]
