New Year’s Resolutions for the Environment
By Donella Meadows
–December 29, 1988–
“What can I do?” It’s been twenty years since I’ve been asked that question so insistently. A new generation is discovering the environmental problems of our troubled planet, and I’m hearing from students, from readers, from people everywhere. “I’m really scared about acid rain, the ozone hole, the greenhouse effect. What can I DO?”
There may be [...]
Dear Folks: December 25, 1988
Dear Folks, It’s Christmas afternoon, about 3:30. A sunny warm day has just dissolved into scenic snow flurries. I’m sitting in my study by the woodstove, with a cup of tea on my desk and carols coming from the radio. The smell of roasting turkey is beginning to overwhelm the house. Anna’s kids and kids-in-law are outside energetically stacking into the [...]
Being Homeless is More Than Being Without Shelter
By Donella Meadows
–December 22, 1988–
Last Christmas I was homeless, in a way, for awhile. I FELT homeless anyway, and the pain was sharp enough to give me a small insight — perhaps as much as we who have never really lacked a home can have — of what homelessness means and why it demands a larger response than building shelters.
In [...]
Let’s Do the Environment Story Better This Time
By Donella Meadows
–December 15, 1988–
The media are buzzing with ecological consciousness. Garbage barges and the greenhouse effect are on Page One. PBS and CNN are making documentaries on the state of the planet. A researcher for “Entertainment Tonight” even called me the other day, asking whether I think television covers environmental issues adequately.
College environmental science enrollments have tripled this year. [...]
Number Seventeen in Infant Health, Number One in Garbage
By Donella Meadows
–December 8, 1988–
Throughout the past campaign the United States was Number One, the Envy of the World, the Strongest Nation on Earth. The candidates would have been stopped in mid-rhetoric if anyone had asked: In what sense are we Number One? Exactly what about us do others envy?
Now it’s transition time, a fleeting period when harmony rules the [...]
