Who Should Manage the National Lands?
By Donella Meadows
–November 16, 1995–
“The federal government is a lousy neighbor,” says Congressman Wes Cooley (R-Oregon). He’s speaking for a bunch of folks, mostly Westerners, who find it maddening to live near any of the 726 million acres of land owned jointly by them, you, me, and all other U.S. citizens.
Their complaint is that we collectively won’t let them do [...]
How Much Nature Do We Want to Leave?
By Donella Meadows
–November 9, 1995–
At some point the busy human economy will have to stop expanding into wilderness, either because we decide to leave some bit of nature untouched, or because there will be no untouched nature left.
For much of Europe the choice is long past. No place there is wild enough to teach us, as Wendell Berry says, what [...]
Home, Home on the Underpriced, Overgrazed Range
By Donella Meadows
–November 2, 1995–
We the American people are the most generous landowners in the world. We sell gold mines for $5 per acre. We pay people to take from our national forests 800-year-old trees worth $5000 each. And we subsidize ranchers to overgraze our range lands.
About 240 million acres of federal land are leased to private ranchers. The charge [...]
Whose Woods These Are I Think I Know
By Donella Meadows
–October 26, 1995–
“In the administration of the forest reserves it must be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted to its most productive use for the permanent good of the whole people, and not for the temporary benefit of individuals or companies.”
So declared Gifford Pinchot when he founded the U.S. Forest Service in 1905. [...]
Dear Folks: October 22, 1995
Dear Folks, It’s Sunday morning, amazingly mild (in the 60s), with the clouds of a departing storm sweeping over, letting in beams of sun. All day yesterday the valley was lashed by a nor’easter, the rare storm that slams at us backward, from the east, from the ocean, bringing enormous amounts of water. An east wind is a sign of trouble [...]
