All Global Citizens columns are licensed under a Creative Commons License. DMI encourages you to share this content by following these easy steps.
When our Enemies Become Us, Who do we Become?
By Donella Meadows
–October 19, 1989–
“We have no model any more,” a Japanese businessman once told me, glumly. He meant that Japan, which spent centuries trying to be like China and more recent decades trying to be like the United States, has run out of nations to emulate. The Japanese now have to define themselves without outside help. They have to [...]
The Costs of the Greenhouse Effect will be Unpayable
By Donella Meadows
–October 5, 1989–
Forward-thinking people are preparing for the greenhouse effect. Barge companies on the Mississippi are acquiring railroads in case the river becomes permanently unnavigable. Planners of Boston’s sewage treatment system are taking into account a sea-level rise from global warming. The Weyerhaeuser company is planting drought-resistant trees. The Dutch are raising their dikes.
Either this behavior is certifiably [...]
The Greenhouse Effect, Left, Right, and Center
By Donella Meadows
–September 28, 1989–
“High Cost of Greenhouse Hysteria” reads one recent headline. Another says “Greenhouse Effect Looks Like Just a Lot of Hot Air.” And a third: “Environmentalists, Not Pollution, are the Real Threat.”
The backlash has appeared. Once the greenhouse effect was popularized, it was sure to become politicized.
Folks who are unhappy with the state of the world anyway [...]
The Environment, the Capital Gains Tax and the Burden of Proof
By Donella Meadows
–September 21, 1989–
Whenever a large profit-making enterprise in this great nation is told that its activities might not be good for the environment, it calls for proof.
Whenever the government doesn’t want to deal with a problem, environmental or otherwise, it can delay almost indefinitely by demanding proof.
The Reagan administration held up action on acid rain for eight years, [...]
Environment and Freedom in Eastern Europe
By Donella Meadows
–September 14, 1989–
In East Europe the environment is a hot topic these days, because, like nearly everything else there, it is a political topic. To be an environmentalist, as to be a trade unionist or an artist or an ethnic separatist, is to be against Government. No matter whether that government is Polish or Hungarian or Soviet, finally, [...]
