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Making up a War
By Donella Meadows
–January 17, 1991–
So this is how it happens. This is how the world convinces itself that war is inevitable, logical, and necessary. It’s an age-old story, but I have never seen it acted out before, and I am heartsick.
To my generation the two World Wars are textbook history. We were too young to understand when rhetoric turned into [...]
One More Chapter in the History of Oil and War
By Donella Meadows
–January 10, 1991–
Daniel Yergin’s new book The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power is perfect background reading for this perilous time in the history of the Middle East. It provides a much-needed long-term perspective on the politics of the Persian Gulf, and on how politics everywhere is transformed by the presence or absence of petroleum, [...]
Wage a Quiet War Against War
By Donella Meadows
–January 3, 1991–
“Why aren’t you writing columns to oppose this war?” my peace-activist friends are asking me.
Because this is a time of rampant misinformation and great danger. The world is magnifying signals in strange and perverse ways. It’s possible that a loud anti-war noise could help bring on the war.
I do not want my country to go to [...]
Kindergarten Resolutions for Living Together
By Donella Meadows
–December 27, 1990–
“All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten,” says Robert Fulghum in an essay that is posted on bulletin boards all across America. “Share everything. Play fair. Clean up your own mess. Put things back where you found them.”
Those are obvious rules [...]
Letters from Africa, Help from America
By Donella Meadows
–December 20, 1990–
“The sheer brutality of the poverty is the hardest for us to get used to. It takes them so much energy just to live a day, it leaves me humble and in awe. Most Ugandans we have met are warm and friendly, quick to smile. Nothing short of a miracle to us that this is so.”
Charlotte [...]
