Cutting Back Too Much
By Donella Meadows
–December 9, 1993–
The scramble to complete a GATT world trade agreement by December 15 is an act of desperation. There is 12 percent unemployment in France, 22 percent in Spain, 25 percent in Ireland. The Japanese bubble has burst. The industrial nations, unable to stimulate their own markets, seek salvation through invading the markets of others. Cars aren’t [...]
Great Gollups of Opinion, For Those Who Have the Stomach
By Donella Meadows
–December 2, 1993–
I wonder if I’m the only person in America who subscribes to both the Conservative Chronicle (which is advertised on the Rush Limbaugh Show) and the Liberal Opinion Week (which isn’t).
Admittedly, you have to be an opinion-page freak to read even one of these weekly papers. They bring together most of the syndicated columns of the [...]
Bovine Growth Hormone–Not the Only Choice
By Donella Meadows
–November 25, 1993–
Now that the Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of bioengineered bovine growth hormone (bGH), dairy farmers — and consumers — have some decisions to make.
The risks and possible payoffs of the bGH decision are laid out in detail in a remarkable new book called The Dairy Debate (edited by William C. Liebhardt, available [...]
Dear Folks: November 21, 1993
Dear Folks,
It’s a classic November day, veering between bright sunshine and snow squalls so thick I can hardly see the barn. We’re at that critical point where the balance between freezing and thawing is shifting definitively toward freezing. Snow dusts the ground, it melts when the sun hits it, but then more falls and it stays. The pond in the [...]
What You Pay Up Front Isn’t All You Pay
By Donella Meadows
–November 18, 1993–
The good citizens of Greenfield, Massachusetts, recently voted down a zoning change that would have brought a Wal-Mart to their town. For that act of commercial backwardness they were scolded in Newsweek magazine. Two intrepid Newsweek reporters went shopping in downtown Greenfield and reported “high prices, little service, and less charm than one might have expected.” [...]
