All Global Citizens columns are licensed under a Creative Commons License. DMI encourages you to share this content by following these easy steps.
Incinerator Blues, Part Two: A Beginner’s Guide to Toxic Ash
By Donella Meadows
–September 10, 1987–
The 3200 tons of garbage on the barge that was rejected by 6 countries has finally found its final destination — an incinerator. Increasingly incinerators, sometimes called mass-burn plants, are becoming the solution to our garbage problem. A thousand of them are likely to be constructed in the next 10 years. The salesmen of the mass-burn [...]
Incinerator Blues, Part One: Do You Know Where Your Trash Is Tonight?
By Donella Meadows
–September 3, 1987–
About a month ago I got a mailing from a national environmental group, warning about the very incinerator to which my garbage wends its humble weekly way. It’s a brand-new, waste-to-energy plant in Claremont, New Hampshire, built and operated by Signal Environmental Systems.
“Watch this plant!” the flyer said. “This is the second incinerator in the USA [...]
Ethnic Jokes People Tell About Themselves
By Donella Meadows
–September 3, 1987–
There are jokes some folks tell to demean other folks, such as Polish jokes told by Americans. They tell you more about the mean-spiritness of the teller than they do about the national characteristics of the Poles.
Then there are jokes people tell on themselves, about their own kind of people. Those jokes are strangely revealing. They [...]
You Too Can Help Bring Back Quetzalcoatl
By Donella Meadows
–August 26, 1987–
Badly typed, single-spaced, a xerox of a xerox of a xerox. More flaky New Age stuff. It’s amazing how much of it floats into my life.
“On August 16, 1987, a galactic beam surrounding Earth will phase from acceleration to synchronization. There will be a break in the harmonic resonance of the electromagnetic field of Earth. Many [...]
The Thinning of Turnips and the Right to Life
By Donella Meadows
–August 20, 1987–
“Twenty-fifth of July, plant turnips, wet or dry,” the old-time gardeners say. So on that day I always plant the fall turnip crop. It’s a big planting. I can’t get anybody in the house to eat turnips, but I store them in the root cellar and feed them to the sheep all winter long.
The twenty-fifth of [...]
