Super-Tractors, Super-Cows, Super-Farms
By Donella Meadows
–July 3, 1986–
The super-tractor of the future will have sensor beams, sweeping out 20 yards ahead as the tractor moves forward. The beams will detect soil nutrients and feed the information to the computer in the cab. Taking ground speed into account, the computer will issue instructions to the fertilizer mixer in the rear. As the tractor passes [...]
The War Between the Eco-Freaks and the Techno-Twits
By Donella Meadows
–June 26, 1986–
The population of the world in 1900 was 1.6 billion. By 1950 it was 2.5 billion. Now it is 5 billion. By the year 2000 the earth will mostly likely have 6.1 billion people.
Some people — let us call them eco-freaks — consider population growth the world’s worst problem. It exacerbates poverty, they say, and degrades [...]
Poverty Causes Population Growth Causes Poverty
By Donella Meadows
–June 19, 1986–
Everywhere in the world, in every kind of culture, the poorest people have the most children.
Does having many children make people poor? Or does being poor make people have many children?
That is a hot question in the continuous struggle over how to spend foreign aid money. Those who think population growth causes poverty advocate programs in [...]
Good News in the East, Bad News in the West
By Donella Meadows
–June 12, 1986–
The Chernobyl accident was a story about nuclear power and also a story about how both East and West distorted the story, each in a different direction.
Western news reports of Chernobyl began with exaggerated estimates of the number of deaths. Later the big story was the refusal of the Soviet Union to release information about the [...]
The Best Nations of the World
By Donella Meadows
–June 5, 1986–
Suppose that each year there were an award for the World’s Best Nation. If you were one of the judges, how would you make your decision? Would you rank nations by their wealth, or their military power, or their civil liberties? By lawfulness? By cleanliness of the environment?
The question is not trivial. People and governments do, [...]
