Denmark’s Hazardous Waste Disposal System
By Donella Meadows
–April 6, 1989–
In low-lying Denmark people do not live very far from their groundwater. Whatever they dump onto the land ends up in their wells, and quickly. Back in 1970, before Love Canal, before Times Beach, before any hazardous waste disaster in their own land, the Danes were working out how to prevent such disasters. By 1975 they [...]
Thoughts While Cleaning The Living Room: Domestic work is undervalued – but it doesn’t need to be
By Donella Meadows
–Spring 1989–
Families are work, and most of the work gets done by women. In his classic book Home, Inc. (Doubleday, 1975), Scott Burns concluded that the total value of goods and services produced in households (but neither sold nor compensated with wages) was about one-third the value of the entire market economy. His prediction that the “household economy” would [...]
“Clean-up” is the Wrong Word
By Donella Meadows
–March 30, 1989–
Exxon has just hired 100 people at $16 an hour to “clean up” the massive oil spill near Valdez.
The government estimates that “cleaning up” the radioactive contamination at its weapons plants will cost over $100 billion.
The states have submitted a list of 2000 hazardous waste sites for priority “clean-up” under Superfund.
What does “clean up” mean? When [...]
Burning Coal in Connecticut, Planting Trees in Guatemala
By Donella Meadows
–March 23, 1989–
Applied Energy Services (AES) of Arlington, Virginia, has come up with a way to do something that everyone thought was impossible. It is building a coal-burning electric plant that will not add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere — which means it will not worsen the greenhouse effect and hasten global climate change.
The plant will also be [...]
Dear Folks: March 19, 1989
Dear Folks, As you can see, I had a birthday last week. The picture is from the card Sylvia drew for me, which said “Happy Birthday to Ewe!” inside. Somehow Poppy the cat got in there with all the sheep — I think Sylvia just likes to draw Poppy, who is definitely one of the major characters of this farm.
In the [...]
