The Costs of War to Those at Home
By Donella Meadows
–January 24, 1991–
The people who tried hardest to warn us against this war were those who had experienced war.
Among them were veterans who stood up in town halls, campus lecture rooms, Congressional hearings, trying to tell us through the feeble power of words what war is. Words cannot carry such a heavy burden. The vets communicated best through [...]
Making up a War
By Donella Meadows
–January 17, 1991–
So this is how it happens. This is how the world convinces itself that war is inevitable, logical, and necessary. It’s an age-old story, but I have never seen it acted out before, and I am heartsick.
To my generation the two World Wars are textbook history. We were too young to understand when rhetoric turned into [...]
One More Chapter in the History of Oil and War
By Donella Meadows
–January 10, 1991–
Daniel Yergin’s new book The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power is perfect background reading for this perilous time in the history of the Middle East. It provides a much-needed long-term perspective on the politics of the Persian Gulf, and on how politics everywhere is transformed by the presence or absence of petroleum, [...]
Wage a Quiet War Against War
By Donella Meadows
–January 3, 1991–
“Why aren’t you writing columns to oppose this war?” my peace-activist friends are asking me.
Because this is a time of rampant misinformation and great danger. The world is magnifying signals in strange and perverse ways. It’s possible that a loud anti-war noise could help bring on the war.
I do not want my country to go to [...]
A Glimpse of Freedom for the World’s Hostages
By Donella Meadows
–November 6, 1986–
With 50,000 nuclear weapons in the world, everyone is a hostage. We are innocent targets, held in constant jeopardy to prevent one group of men from forcing their will upon another group of men. Those men, the ones who control the nuclear weapons, hold not only our bodies and lives in hostage, but our civilization, all [...]
