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Nobody Ever Dies of Overpopulation
By Donella Meadows
–July 11, 1991–
In April 1991 a great storm roared from the sea into the river delta of Bangladesh and killed a number of people that will never be accurately known, but that is estimated at over 125,000. Hundreds of thousands of cattle were killed, nine million people were left homeless, 20,000 square miles of farmland (that’s almost 13 [...]
Lumber Company Journalism
By Donella Meadows
–July 4, 1991–
The newspapers are scapegoating again — or rather scapeowling.
Lumber prices have shot up. One month ago a federal judge halted logging licenses in old-growth national forests to protect the habitat of the northern spotted owl. So we find on the front page of our local paper a big diagram showing an owl gazing down on a [...]
Pick-Your-Own Land Use Planning
By Donella Meadows
–June 27, 1991–
This morning about 100 neighbors and I swarmed like bright-colored locusts over a strawberry field, gleaning fat red berries. Babies snoozed in the shade of their carriages. Bigger kids had strawberry juice from ear to ear. There was a low murmur of lazy chatter. “How many do we need for shortcake? It’s getting hot. Mommy, is [...]
An Outrageous Proposal in Preparation for UNCED
By Donella Meadows
–June 20, 1991–
Next June fifty thousand people will assemble in Brazil for the biggest environmental conference the world has ever seen. About ten thousand of those people will be heads of state from 160 nations and their entourages, there to make official international policy. The rest will be representatives from nearly every environmental group on the planet. They [...]
Professor Meadows, Why Don’t You Like Nuclear Power
By Donella Meadows
–June 13, 1991–
I had just given a talk on the greenhouse effect at one of the great corporate research labs of this nation. I had praised the company for developing super-efficient light bulbs — in fact I had demonstrated one of their bulbs. But I hadn’t said a word about another of their products — nuclear power plants.
That [...]
