A Battle Not Of Snippets But Of Moral Mindsets
by Donella Meadows
— February 11, 1999 —
For a whole year I steered clear of Monica madness. I knew what was happening, of course — who didn’t? But I watched no broadcasts, read no articles, shut my ears, covered my eyes. Then on the final Saturday I got hooked by the battle of the snippets.
Monica herself pulled me in, as the [...]
The State of the World as Seen by its Babies
by Donella Meadows
— February 4, 1999 —
Politicians and economists look at the latest GDP reports to see how their nations are doing. I look at the IMR reports.
IMR stands for infant mortality rate. It’s the number of babies out of every thousand born who die before they reach their first birthday. To give you an idea of the range of [...]
The Hottest Year Yet
by Donella Meadows
— January 28, 1999 —
OK, all you movers and shakers and impeachers in Washington, here’s a hypothetical scenario that I hope might shift your attention to something important.
Suppose the stock market starts to sink, slowly, subtly, with ups and downs, but the dominant direction is down. Suppose over an extended, agonizing time the Dow-Jones drops by 30 percent. [...]
Dear Folks: January 23, 1999
January 23, 1999
Dear Folks,
Have you ever noticed that entropy travels in waves? Things don’t fall apart in a steady or random pattern; rather when one thing breaks down, somehow the disorder is catching, and all sorts of other things break down, and you find yourself doing nothing but running around trying to get things fixed.
Maybe this phenomenon is only noticed [...]
Sand County Almanac Fifty Years Later
by Donella Meadows
— January 21, 1999 —
In 1949 a small book was published shortly after its author, Aldo Leopold, died of a heart attack while fighting a forest fire near his homestead in rural Wisconsin. The book was a collection of his nature writings, crotchety writings, lyrical writings, praise for nature and manifestos for people from a man who spent [...]
