Land Trusts Provide a New Tool for Growth Control
By Donella Meadows
–April 21, 1988–
There is a land trust explosion in the United States. More than 500 private land trusts have appeared over the past 20 years. They are a new addition to a community’s bag of tools that guide growth to express the community’s values rather than just the private developer’s.
Most people learn about land trusts when they are [...]
The New American Scarcity
By Donella Medows
April 7, 1988
We can’t afford to keep the post offices open full time. We can’t fix the roads or educate our children properly. Whenever a political candidate proposes to fight drugs or shelter the homeless, the other candidates respond in a chorus, “But where are you going to get the money?”, as if money has suddenly become scarce.
In [...]
Not More Simple, Not More Fair
By Donella Meadows
–February 25, 1988–
Remember how the Great 1986 Tax Reform was going to make taxes more simple and more fair? That’s what the President and Congress told us, as they held press conferences to congratulate themselves for the wonder they had wrought.
Now the 1987 IRS forms have arrived and we can see exactly how all this simplicity and fairness [...]
A Crack in the Mindset of Nuclear Madness
By Donella Meadows
–November 26, 1987–
You could welcome the Reagan-Gorbachev summit as a historic breakthrough. The Intermediate Nuclear Force agreement, the first ever to reduce the nuclear arsenal, may mark a permanent reversal of the arms race, the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons.
Or you could say that the whole business is just a show, a meaningless reduction of a [...]
The Stock Market Is Not the Economy
By Donella Meadows
–October 29, 1987–
“Everyone is a little puzzled,” said President Reagan on the day the Dow dropped 508 points. “I don’t know what meaning it might have, because all the business indicators are up.”
It was an appropriate statement for a President, an administration, and a decade that have consistently confused indicators with reality, the appearance of leadership with actual [...]
