AOL Time Warner and the Dalai Lama
By Donella Meadows
–January 13, 2000—-
Ten days into the year 2000, as the media were abuzz with the merger of America Online and Time Warner, the Internet wafted to me the Dalai Lama’s millennium address. It’s a strange global info-world that brings those two pieces of information to one’s attention on the same day.
The Dalai Lama remarked that there is nothing [...]
The New Century as Seen From More Serious Places
By Donella Meadows
–January 6, 2000–
I was bewailing the short-term, sound-bite, soul-less way in which the U.S. media greeted the turn not only of a century, but of a millennium. (You know — lists of the top ten athletes of the century, ads for the soft drink of the new millennium.) Then in from the Internet came welcome news of intelligent [...]
Who Needs Germ-Fighting Vacuum Cleaner Bags?
by Donella Meadows
— July 15, 1999 —
My trusty Electrolux dealer dropped off a box of vacuum cleaner bags the other day. What stopped me from ripping it right open was not the label, I’m sorry to say, but the price.
Thirty bucks for 24 bags. A dollar and a quarter each. Electrolux bags have always been pricey, but even with handy [...]
A Tale of Two Fisheries
by Donella Meadows
— May 13, 1999 —
At the beginning of this millennium the Norse began to fish what is now called the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland. In 1501 the Company of Adventurers to the New Found Lands was chartered in England to make summer expeditions to that rich fishing ground. For the next 500 years, the Grand [...]
Monsanto Gets Pie in the Face
by Donella Meadows
— March 18, 1999 —
Poor Monsanto.
To my knowledge only one other company — Microsoft — has managed to be so hated that its CEO — Bill Gates — has been hit in the face by a cream pie. The pie that hit Monsanto’s CEO Bob Shapiro at an environmental forum last fall was made of tofu, in protest [...]
