Fighting for Democracy Abroad and at Home
By Donella Meadows
–September 19, 1991–
Last week at a conference in Hungary a Lithuanian showed pictures of the people of Vilnius bringing their vehicles to block their TV transmitter from Russian tanks. He showed thousands of candles lit in protest at national shrines. He translated the hand-lettered signs: “In the forest the vicious animals are wolves. In the jungle they’re tigers. [...]
Energy Ideas from Inside and Outside the Beltway
By Donella Meadows
–May 30, 1991–
Dozens of energy bills are before Congress just now, most of them astonishingly dumb. In spite of vivid demonstrations from the Persian Gulf and from the environment that we need to re-think our energy policy, Congress and the President are still pleasing vested interests and playing short-term politics, rather than designing a sustainable energy future.
George Bush, [...]
When Free Traders Win, the Nation Loses
By Donella Meadows
–April 11, 1991–
When you call it “free trade,” as currently pushed by the presidents of the United States and Mexico, it sounds like something anyone would favor. But when a noted World Bank economist calls it “individualism riding roughshod over community interests,” you start having second thoughts.
The following story of Watsonville was told by Alexander Cockburn in The [...]
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 [...]
Markets Don’t Make Energy Policy, People Do
By Donella Meadows
–March 14, 1991–
George Bush’s National Energy Strategy is causing heads to shake in disbelief all over the world. It is a strategy for the 1950s, when we thought that energy supplies were infinite, that big cars made us better people, and that the environment was just a pretty scene out the rear window. Worst of all, the Strategy [...]
