The Long Wave
By Donella Meadows
–This piece was published in Whole Earth, summer 1998.–
Dozens of people are eager to explain the collapse of the Asian Tiger economies. Few of them predicted it. Other economic implosions, from the 1995 failure of Britain’s venerable Barings Bank to the 1987 dive in the US stock market, have been explained primarily after the fact.
Similarly, the 1994 rise to [...]
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 [...]
A Thousand Miles Per Gallon
By Donella Meadows
–September 29, 1994–
A year ago, with considerable fanfare, President Clinton entered into an agreement with the Big Three U.S. automakers to develop within ten years cars that can double or triple the 30 miles per gallon that the average new American car gets now. In fact many auto companies have had for years demonstration models that get 60-100 [...]
Twenty Years of Destruction and Progress
By Donella Meadows
–December 5, 1991–
Twenty years ago I would have been writing this column on a manual typewriter. Today I’m writing it on a laptop computer that fits inside my briefcase with room to spare. The computing power of this little laptop would have occupied a space as large as my office 20 years ago.
I’ve been using the computer to [...]
Plus or Minus Two Hundred Billion Dollars
By Donella Meadows
–April 4, 1991–
There are two reasons, says our President, why the U.S. need not make an effort to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide:
The models that predict greenhouse warming are imperfect.
Cutting back would cost too much. A 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide output would cost the nation $200 billion a year — about the amount [...]
