Trading Debt for Nature Instead of Nature for Debt
By Donella Meadows
–April 14, 1988–
It is a tragedy, but not an accident, that the world’s most threatened tropical forests are in some of the world’s poorest and most indebted countries. The very poverty of those countries destroys the forests. Governments, to pay at least the interest on their debts, encourage logging companies to take timber. Forests are turned into pasture [...]
The New American Scarcity
By Donella Medows
April 7, 1988
We can’t afford to keep the post offices open full time. We can’t fix the roads or educate our children properly. Whenever a political candidate proposes to fight drugs or shelter the homeless, the other candidates respond in a chorus, “But where are you going to get the money?”, as if money has suddenly become scarce.
In [...]
Freedman Speaks Out Against Evil
By Donella Meadows
–March 31, 1988–
Nothing tests a community’s dedication to democracy and freedom more than the presence of a loud minority that sows hatred and dissension in the name of democracy and freedom. Dartmouth College has been blessed or cursed with such a group for the past eight years; the college has earned a national reputation as the home of [...]
Dear Folks: March 27, 1988
Dear Folks, Around here March is the poopiest month of the year, Mud Month, a month of deceptions, when the sun rises earlier and sets later but is always covered with storm clouds, when the animals’ water buckets no longer freeze over, except for occasional nights when the temperature suddenly dips back down to zero and they freeze solid. March wouldn’t [...]
Freedom Stories, Freedom Songs
By Donella Meadows
–March 24, 1988–
Hundreds of women paraded down the streets of Johannesberg, South Africa, a few weeks ago, singing freedom songs to protest their government’s suppression of political opposition parties.
Though it was peaceful, the demonstration was illegal. The songs the women sang were illegal. The attempts of reporters and cameramen to record the event were illegal. When the police [...]
