All Global Citizens columns are licensed under a Creative Commons License. DMI encourages you to share this content by following these easy steps.
Give Me Feedback and I Will Change the World, Or At Least My Own Habits
by Donella Meadows
— May 4, 2000 —
This column is not a Honda ad, though it will start off sounding like one. This is an ad for feedback.
I’ve had a Honda gas-electric hybrid car for less than a month. It has taught me a whole new way of driving, thanks to feedback from its instrument panel.
An indicator flashes a string of [...]
Rhetoric About Taxes, Facts About Taxes
by Donella Meadows
— April 27, 2000 —
I’m not sure how or when our political arena became so infested with dubious “facts.” However it happened, we ordinary citizens don’t have time to separate the truth from the barrage of falsehoods. So I am grateful for public-interest research groups that watch the numbers for us.
One of the best is Citizens for Tax [...]
Earth Day Plus Thirty, As Seen By The Earth
by Donella Meadows
— April 20, 2000 —
If, in the thirty Earth Day celebrations we have held since 1970, the human population and economy have become any more respectful of the Earth, the Earth hasn’t noticed.
The planet is not impressed by fancy speeches. Leonardo DiCaprio interviewing Bill Clinton about global warming is not an Earth-shaking event. The Earth has no way [...]
The Globalization of Ben and Jerry’s
by Donella Meadows
— April 13, 2000 —
So Unilever has gobbled up Ben & Jerry’s. The $45 billion megacompany that rose from the British and Dutch colonial empires (turning palm and coconut oil into soap and margarine) has acquired Vermont’s outrageous little ice cream maker for $326 million. The American dream at work. A couple of hippies invent wild new ice [...]
Japan Beats America to the Twenty-First Century Car
by Donella Meadows
— April 6, 2000 —
Well, there she is. Sleek and silver, dealer plates still on, got her two days ago. Seventy miles per gallon, seven hundred miles a fill-up. so they say.
Last time I bought a new car — a 1987 Honda Civic wagon that got 35 mpg at its best — I swore I’d keep it until [...]
