Ross Gelbspan is a colleague of mine, a fellow journalist who has been writing about environmental issues for forty-odd years. Back in 1972, when he was working for the Village Voice, he covered a press conference about The Limits to Growth, a study of the impact of economic development and population pressures on natural resources. The Limits to Growth made headlines all over the world when it was published, and is still the best-selling environmental book of all time. “It was very interesting, very frightening stuff,” Ross recalled. “The press conference was about how all these various factors—increasing (Location 472)
population, increasing pollution, diminishing resources—were going to hit a point of exponential takeoff.” One of the speakers at the conference was Donella Meadows, a coauthor of the book and a pioneering environmental scientist. Sitting in the audience during her presentation, Ross was struck by the contrast between the grim predictions she was describing and the fact that she was pregnant—that, as he put it, “she had somehow found personal hopefulness in the midst of this really massive gloom and doom.” He saw it as a small grace note, a reminder about the possibility of optimism and renewal in even the hardest of times, and he used it as the kicker to his story. The Voice printed the article on the front page. That would have been nice for Ross—except that Donella Meadows wasn’t pregnant. (Location 476)
