Nuclear Weapons After Reykjavik – Join the Debate
By Donella Meadows
–December 11, 1986–
Since Reykjavik the superpowers have gone right on insulting each other. They have expelled each other’s diplomats. The Soviets have revoked their nuclear testing moratorium. The U.S. has violated the SALT II agreement.
Only one thing seems to have changed. Nuclear disarmament has become a legitimate subject of discussion. Both superpower leaders have endorsed it. There is [...]
Why Would Anyone Want to Play Starpower
By Donella Meadows
–December 4, 2011–
When leaders in socialist countries wonder why their people are disaffected, when my conservative friends tell me how lazy and undeserving the poor are, when my liberal friends tell me how greedy and scheming the rich are, I wish they could all play Starpower.
Starpower is a deceptively simple classroom game. I have played it all over [...]
A Time of Death, a Time of Life
By Donella Meadows
–November 27, 1986–
The shepherd’s new year begins in November. That’s when we bring the sheep up from the pasture, butcher last spring’s lambs and turn the ram in with the ewes to start making next spring’s lambs. The record book closes on one cycle, and the next cycle begins.
I think of late fall as The Time When We [...]
Dear Folks: November 23, 1986
Dear Folks,
It’s late on a Sunday night and I’m too tired to be writing this. I just got back from a trip to Washington, interesting but draining. I came home to find only Dennis here, with a nice pot of lentil soup and a cabbage salad ready for me and the woodstoves all fired up and the chores all done. [...]
Rotary Takes a Stand for the End of Polio
By Donella Meadows
–November 20, 1986–
When I was a kid the hot summer months were called “polio season”.
I still remember the gusts of fear that swept over our neighborhood whenever one of my playmates came down with stiffness or a fever. Two children I knew actually got polio. One was permanently paralyzed. The other, after months of struggle in an iron [...]
