Why be a Republican? Why be a Democrat?
By Donella Meadows
–August 15, 1996–
What are these people with the funny hats at the political conventions cheering for?
What meaning, underneath the heated rhetoric, does either party have? What is there to get enthusiastic about? Both parties are riddled with corruption. They have no principles; they huddle as close as they can get to what they think is the middle of [...]
We Can’t Load Everything onto the Land
By Donella Meadows
–August 8, 1996–
I’m just back from a meeting of forest products companies in which everyone was enthusing about fiber that doesn’t come from forests. Proud entrepreneurs were handing around kenaf paper, boards made from wheat straw, cardboard made from hemp.
These products, they said, can stop deforestation. Over the last 50 years one-fourth of the world’s forests have disappeared. [...]
The People Plan for the Forests of the People Islands
By Donella Meadows
–August 1, 1996–
The English settlers called them the Queen Charlotte Islands. Ten thousand years earlier the first settlers called them the “people islands” — Haida Gwaii. They lie off the Pacific coast of Canada, 30 miles below the southernmost tip of Alaska. Like the rest of the Pacific Northwest, these islands are covered with magnificent forests that are [...]
The Environmental Testament of a Czech Freedom Fighter
By Donella Meadows
–July 25, 1996–
When Josef Vavrousek was killed last year, buried by an avalanche with his 19-year-old daughter Petra while hiking in the Tatra mountains, the Czech people ached with sorrow. The budding green movement was especially stricken; Vavrousek had been their leader. After his nation liberated itself from communism, Vavrousek served as its environmental minister. Like his president [...]
Don Imus in My Back Yard
By Donella Meadows
–July 18, 1996–
The painters arrived, set their radio on the lawn, switched it on, and went up their ladders to scrape the second floor.
The program they were beaming through the beautiful summer day was Don Imus. I didn’t know that at first, because I’d never heard Don Imus. I’d heard OF him, but I thought you could only [...]
