Donella Meadows Archives

Climate Change Hits The Oil Industry

by Elizabeth Sawin – September 4, 2003 – Never mind the polar bear, migratory sea birds, and residents of low-lying islands. Climate change is now affecting the oil industry. Finally. A closed feedback loop in the human-climate system. The first part of this story is familiar and isn’t a feedback loop at all. It’s a chain of cause and effect that starts with human [...]

Searching for Our Untapped Sources of Power

by Elizabeth Sawin – March 19, 2003 – You’ve called your Senators and your Representatives. Or perhaps you have called the White House (possibly many times). You have signed petitions. Or you have stood with groups of your neighbors on a bridge, at city hall, or on your town green, holding up a sign saying NO WAR ON IRAQ. Perhaps you have taken your children with [...]

I’m Dreaming of A Solar Powered Christmas

by Elizabeth Sawin – November 30, 2001 – This Christmas season, we’re bombing Afghanistan, and perhaps contributing to mass starvation there. We stand apart from the rest of the world on climate change, ignoring the melting ice at the North Pole and the rising global temperature. The killing and bombing and starving are bad enough, but we’re not just at war with [...]

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 [...]

Begging, Whining, and Getting Sensible About Oil

by Donella Meadows – March 30, 2000 – What an upset!  Oil-burning New Englanders watch their heating bills double.  Truck drivers protest higher diesel costs by jamming Washington streets with their rigs.  Congress, in its wisdom, offers to combat a sixty cent jump in gasoline price with a four cent tax cut.  Our Energy Secretary runs around the Middle East begging for [...]

About DMI

Since its founding in 1996 by environmental leader Donella Meadows, our Institute has been at the forefront of sustainability thinking and training. Our initiatives have addressed economic, environmental, and social challenges from a range of angles and at many levels. In everything we do, the disciplines of systems thinking and organizational learning inform and shape our work. It is this focus on whole-system analysis, combined with careful listening, truth telling, and visioning, that make the Donella Meadows Institute unique among sustainability organizations.  Read More

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