Is There Such a Thing as Too Much Glasnost?
By Donella Meadows
–December 28, 1989–
The outbreak of freedom in Eastern Europe can be traced directly to just one cause: glasnost, truth-telling. A new openness about the activities of government verified what every East Bloc citizen knew but could not say — that their governments were corrupt, inept, and intolerable. The truths, when fully revealed, were even worse than anyone suspected. [...]
Dear Folks: December 22, 1989
Dear Folks,
This is going to be a long, sad letter. It’s going to be hard on you if, like me, you think of life as a fairy tale, where good things happen to good people — or where bad things come out all right in the end and teach good lessons. One shouldn’t write sad letters at the holiday season, [...]
Many Kinds of Giving
By Donella Meadows
–December 21, 1989–
Every now and then come times in life when you have to change your give/take ratio — when you have to be more of a taker. Such a time has come to me.
I’m not good at taking (too many complicated sub-thoughts about my own worthiness). But it’s always useful to be forced to see life from [...]
Ashoka Fellows: Enterprises for a Better World
By Donella Meadows
–December 14, 1989–
Every now and then the air in Mexico City gets so bad that flocks of migrating birds flying overhead rain down dead on the city.
A million children in Mexico City are permanently condemned to be slow learners because they have been poisoned by gasoline lead in the city smog.
Neither the public nor the leaders of Mexico [...]
A Week’s Trash is Heavy Burden
By Donella Meadows
–December 7, 1989–
It was the students’ idea to carry their trash around for a week.
They had worked with the Dartmouth building and grounds staff to create one of the most successful college recycling programs in the nation. By the end of the first year the college had reclaimed 500,000 aluminum cans, 48 tons of white paper, 45 tons [...]
