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We Don’t Need to Squander Oil and Lives
By Donella Meadows
–May 28, 1987–
Why were 37 young men killed on the USS Stark as it patrolled the Persian Gulf?
Because an Iraqi fighter plane fired an Exocet missile at their ship. Why did it do that?
We’ll probably never know.
Why was the Stark there in the first place?
It was protecting the sea lanes from interference, so oil-carrying ships could sail in [...]
Two Approaches to Sewage Treatment and to the World
By Donella Meadows
–May 21, 1987–
Down the slope from the condominiums at the Sugarbush ski resort near Warren, Vermont, are two sewage treatment plants, side by side. They are so different they are caricatures, not only of each other but of the different mindsets that created them.
One plant is a square, windowless structure with a sign at the entrance reading DANGER [...]
Gary Hart — The Hound is Brother to the Fox
By Donella Meadows
–May 14, 1987–
It’s awful to watch the pack close in on the fox right in your own back yard.
Until Gary Hart arrived in Hanover last week, I had never seen the full fury of the press pursuing a hot story. Private jets with network logos descended on our little airport. The streets were jammed by TV vans topped [...]
Hunger and Surplus Rise and Fall Together
By Donella Meadows
–May 7, 1987–
The simultaneous occurrence of hunger and of mountains of surplus food is obscene. It’s also expensive. And it’s persistent, in spite of hunger-reduction and surplus-reduction policies of many governments the world over.
Last year the United States, Japan, and Europe spent $100 billion to protect their farmers against low prices caused by agricultural overproduction. Half that amount [...]
Home, Home on the Loam
By Donella Meadows
–April 30, 1987–
It’s Earth Day 1987 at the University of Wisconsin, where Earth Day is alive and well. A retired professor of Soil Science, with the appropriate name of Francis D. Hole, comes to visit the Environmental Conservation class. He is a white-haired pixie who exudes more energy than all 120 laid-back students combined. He is carrying a [...]
