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Six Fallacies of Modern Agriculture
By Donella Meadows
–July 2, 1987–
Farm subsidies are over $20 billion a year, farmers go broke anyway, pesticides contaminate water and food, and topsoil washes down the river. Why is that year after year, under Republicans and Democrats, our agriculture system has persistent troubles?
Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer and a writer, says it’s because we operate from assumptions about agriculture that [...]
Making New Worlds and Appreciating the Old One
By Donella Meadows
–June 25, 1987–
Out in the Arizona desert they’re building Biosphere II, the first terrarium to contain human beings. Enclosed under 2.25 acres of glass will be a rain forest, a 35-foot-deep ocean, a marsh, a desert, a half-acre farm, goats, chickens, fish. Eight scientists will live there for two years. Nothing will go in, nothing come out, except [...]
Every Goliath Has His David
By Donella Meadows
–June 18, 1987–
The following message was brought to you by the U.S. Committee for Energy Awareness (USCEA) — for awhile. Then ABC and NBC decided to stop airing it until USCEA answered complaints about its inaccuracies.
“Almost a billion dollars every week.”
Thunk! A huge money bag drops onto a desert landscape.
“That’s how much America spends on foreign oil. Just [...]
Information on Energy America Can’t Count On
By Donella Meadows
–June 11, 1987–
You’ve seen the ad. An elongated cartoon man in green holds a candle and faces imposing stacks of OPEC oil barrels. The headline reads, “Nuclear energy helps keep us from reliving a nightmare.”
Ads like this show up regularly in major publications and on television. They come from the U.S. Committee for Energy Awareness (USCEA) — “Information [...]
We Don’t Need Leadership to Know Right From Wrong
By Donella Meadows
–June 4, 1987–
“Assaulted by sleaze, scandals, and hypocrisy, America searches for its moral bearings,” the cover of the May 25 Time magazine says. The essay inside describes how the Reagan administration has failed in moral leadership — or, more precisely, how it has succeeded in promoting “mindless materialism” and a “values vacuum”.
Given the national confusion on ethical issues [...]
