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Taking Over From God On The Seventh Day
by Donella Meadows
— August 24, 2000 —
“If I gamble, I usually gamble at high-stakes, high-payoff games.” That’s a boast not from James Bond, but from a chemist speaking to the prestigious journal Science (the July 14 issue, from which all quotes but the last one in this column are taken). His name is Peter Schultz. He works at Scripps Research [...]
How It Happened That We Don’t Regulate Biotech
by Donella Meadows
— August 17, 2000 —
Back in the 1970s scientists got their first inkling that they might actually be able to redesign genes. That awesome possibility started an ethical and regulatory flurry. Distinguished panels of scientists met to ask imponderable questions. Could some human-created form of life get loose and carry self-multiplying havoc into the world? How could we [...]
A World Food Production Quiz
by Donella Meadows
— August 10, 2000 —
In some ways the world food situation hasn’t changed for decades. There are still millions of starving people. There are still places where so much food is grown that it has to be thrown away. Fertilizers and pesticides pollute the countryside; soil erodes; groundwater tables drop. Every year when the new statistics come out, [...]
Getting Beyond the Choice Between Tweedledum and Tweedledee
by Donella Meadows
— August 3, 2000 —
The complaints continue to pour in:
“Why are you writing columns supporting Ralph Nader? How can you actively aid and abet the election of that dolt Bush? You can think better than that.”
And so does the applause:
“I believe that you will never regret voting on the basis of your conscience, and neither will I.”
On the [...]
Mad Cows, Mad Sheep, Mad Elk, Mad People
by Donella Meadows
— July 27, 2000 —
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (known familiarly as CJD) is something you do not want to get. Your brain degenerates, piece by piece. First you feel depressed, then you have trouble coordinating. You lose sight, speech, motor control, as the disease travels through the brain. When it reaches the control centers for breathing or heartbeat, you die.
Medical [...]
