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National Train Wrecks Result from National Addictions
By Donella Meadows
–April 8, 1993–
The poor spotted owl has been dragged into a controversy that has nothing to do with owls. The standoff in the Pacific forests, which Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has called a “national train wreck,” was caused, as train wrecks, car crashes, and oil spills often are, by intoxication. Owls are implicated because the intoxication is addictive, [...]
Rules for the New World Order: A Citizen’s Proposal
By Donella Meadows
–April 1, 1993–
We who were born to democracy value it, but human beings are not all alike. Some may prefer to live under dictatorship. Anyway, whether other people like their leaders is no business of ours. As long as other governments stay within their own borders, they are not our problem.
Those were the dominant ideas of the old [...]
Simple Economic Models and the Real World
By Donella Meadows
–March 25, 1993–
They play a game in economics classes that might help illuminate the present debate in Washington about budget-cutting and economy-stimulating. It’s a game about public and private investment. Each player starts off with 10 pennies. For each penny you put in the private investment pool, you get back one cent each round. For each penny you [...]
Watching the Energy Dollars Leak Through the Cracks
By Donella Meadows
–March 18, 1993–
On a sunny, windless March morning Marc Rosenbaum of Meriden NH brought his blower door to the home of his neighbors, Carol and Gordon Ashey. His purpose was to measure the air-tightness of the Ashey’s two-bedroom, single-story house, and to demonstrate the blower door to three interested onlookers — Mike Currier, an eighth grader from the [...]
Stuckness on the Pemigewassett, and Elsewhere
By Donella Meadows
–March 11, 1993–
Lately I have been watching people in seven towns in New Hampshire tear each other apart over whether the beautiful river they share should be federally designated as Wild and Scenic. It’s a sad spectacle. Old, good neighbors, all of whom love the river, can no longer talk to each other.
More accurately, they talk to each [...]
