May 2001

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

From the Children's Defense Fund on the Bush Budget

From a 4/9/01 statement by Marian Wright Edelman, CDF founder and president (for information: 202/662-3609):

During his campaign, President Bush repeatedly promised to Leave No Child Behind which is CDF's trademark mission statement. He and members of his cabinet continue to use these words or close variations of them in their speeches, in their written materials and on their web sites. He set the standard by using CDF's trademark. Unfortunately, today's budget falls short. It would:

• Shift $200 million from child care for young children to child care for older children when both programs are underfunded--a shell game that fails to meet pressing parental needs for quality affordable child care for younger and older children.

• Cut $20 million from the Early Learning Trust Fund which helps children get ready for school while increasing military spending by $14 billion.

• Cut support for training programs for pediatricians and other hospital staff who reach out to families and help them receive needed health coverage at a time when 10.8 million children lack health coverage.

• Leave thousands of low income young children without the opportunity to participate in Head Start--the President's budget abandons the plan to ensure that one million young children receive head start by FY 2002.
  

In Memoriam Donnella Meadows

Donnella H. Meadows, environmental scientist and writer, died recently at the age of 59. Best known as the lead author of the 1972 book The Limits To Growth which explored global trends in the population, economy, and environment, Meadows taught ethics, journalism, and environmental studies at Dartmouth College. She founded the Sustainability Institute, which combines research in global systems with practical demonstrations of sustainable living, and established and lived at an eco-village in Vermont known as Cobb Hill, where she carried out her passion for caring for all of the planet's systems.

In an April 2000 column, "Earth Day At 30--As Seen by the Earth," Meadows wrote: "Earth Day is beginning to remind me of Mother's Day, a commercial occasion upon which you buy flowers for the person who, every other day of the year, cleans up after you. Guilt-assuaging. Trivializing. Actually dangerous. All mothers have their breaking points. Mother Earth does not soften hers with patience or forgiveness or sentimentality."

Meadows' "Earth Day at 30" column is at www.womenandlife.org/WLOE-en/information/earth/earthday-fs.html. For the archive of Donnella Meadows' regular columns: http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/meadows/default.htm

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