All the Nations Can’t Feed Themselves, but All the People Can Be Fed
By Donella Meadows
–April 9, 1987–
In the “developing countries” there were 1.7 billion people in 1950. Now there are 3.6 billion. There will be 4.9 billion by the year 2000 and 8.8 billion by 2100, according to U.N. projections.
Can all these people be fed? Are the soils and waters of the earth sufficient to provide for them? Or are overpopulation and [...]
Rambo Still Rules the White House
By Donella Meadows
–April 2, 1987–
There was reason to hope that after the Iran-contra affair the Administration would deal with foreign policy in a manner a bit less swashbuckling. But its decision about IIASA last week, while a minor matter, just a small omen, suggests that the White House is still dominated by the Rambo mentality.
IIASA is the International Institute for [...]
Creeping Degradation in a Viennese Park
By Donella Meadows
–March 26, 1987–
Every time I walk in Laxenburg Park, which I have been doing off and on for ten years now, I’m charmed and I’m depressed. More depressed and less charmed as time goes on.
For 200 years the park, 20 miles south of Vienna, was the private hunting preserve of Austria’s Hapsburg emperors. Now it’s open to any [...]
Dear Folks: March 22, 1987
Dear Folks,
It’s Sunday morning at the beginning of mud season. Most of Foundation Farm is still covered by about a foot of snow, but there are bare patches on the southern slopes, and they are solid mud, a portent of things to come. The snow has been going off very gradually. That’s good, because with all the snow we had, [...]
Zwentendorf, A Nuclear Plant that Will Never Be Turned On
By Donella Meadows
–March 19, 1987–
On the bank of the Danube 20 miles northwest of Vienna stands a completed nuclear power plant, loaded with fuel, ready to start up. It has stood there, just so, for 9 years, while the Austrians argue about what to do with it. The most popular plan is to turn it into a museum for obsolete [...]
