Trying Hard Here to Work up Some Feeling of National Unity
By Donella Meadows
–January 11, 2001–
I will never believe he won. I’ll always think he got a minority of both the popular and the electoral vote. To me he’ll always be President-Under-False-Pretense.
Well, but you know, the Rs would feel the same way if a few hundred Florida votes had tipped the other way. Only worse. If the tables were turned, the [...]
Ralph Nader and the Realos and the Fundis
By Donella Meadows
–January 4, 2001 —
The Democrats are always the ones who fight among themselves; it’s a truism of American politics. Conservatives, no matter how they may range across the spectrum of conservatism, understand both power and discipline better than free-thinking liberals. There’s something about liberalism that spurns the very idea of a party line.
Thus left-leaning movements have torn themselves apart [...]
Readers Roar Back with Varying Degrees of Politeness
By Donella Meadows
–January 4, 2001–
Sending an opinion column into the world is a bit like tickling a sleeping bear. Sometimes you get back low rumbles. Every now and then you stir up a roar.
Who would have guessed that fluorine would touch such a nerve? Last year I wrote about the wisdom (which I was beginning to doubt) of fluoridating drinking [...]
An Ounce of Precaution
by Donella Meadows
— December 28, 2000 —
What do you do, when you want to move fast but the way ahead is dark, possibly dangerous and almost entirely unknown? Accelerate? Proceed with moderation? Slow way down? Stop?
That question underlies most environmental regulations. We are not sure what pesticides are doing to soils, waters, other creatures, or ourselves. We have only a [...]
Dear Folks: December 25, 2000
Dear Folks,
Mid Christmas Day, ten degrees outside with a wicked wind swirling the powdery snow up into sparkly, painful blasts. The sparkles are slightly muted because an eclipse is going on, detectable only by the fact that the sunlight is kind of thin and even more unwarming than usual, at this lowest-sun, longest-night time of year.
Well, the good news is [...]
