All Global Citizens columns are licensed under a Creative Commons License. DMI encourages you to share this content by following these easy steps.
Living on Sun, Water, Wind, Grass, and Community
By Donella Meadows
–March 12, 1998–
Nearly everyone who has been to the solar village Gaviotas, east of the Andes in Colombia, calls it a utopia. But it isn’t, says Paolo Lugari, its founder. That word means in Greek “no place.” Gaviotas has existed, however improbably, for more than 30 years now. Lugari says it’s a “topia” — simply a place.
When he [...]
Hurray! We Get to Revise Our Education Funding System!
By Donella Meadows
–March 5, 1998–
Poor school districts in Vermont and New Hampshire sued for the equality of education promised in their state constitutions, and, as in many other states, they won. The courts declared what everyone knew — the funding of local schools through local property tax creates huge inequities, because we practice residential apartheid. Rich folks tend to congregate [...]
Organic Farmers Fight National Organic Standards
By Donella Meadows
–February 26, 1998–
Back in 1990 when Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act, organic growers celebrated. Now, as the law is about to take effect, they’re livid.
“You’re trying to steal my words,” one of them yelled at USDA officials last week at a Northeast Organic Farmers Association meeting in Vermont. “For years people like you laughed in my [...]
What’s so Great About Being Big?
By Donella Meadows
–February 12, 1998–
“I think we need to find out why the citizens of the world’s wealthiest, most envied, most powerful country are so cynical, so distressed, so angry, so ticked off about so many things.” (William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education)
That quote comes from a new book that says we are so ticked off because things — [...]
Junk Mail in a Time of Declining Trees
By Donella Meadows
–February 5, 1998–
You know how sometimes bits of information come at you from unrelated directions and conk you on the head with an unexpected pattern? It happened to me last week.
First came a letter from Mary Zabriskie of Putney, Vermont. A year ago she got fed up with the flood of junk mail coming at her. “I decided [...]
