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21 Feb 01 - Donella Meadows ** WASTE PREVENTION FORUM ** -- A project of the National Waste Prevention Coalition -------- Forum archive: http://www.reuses.com/nwpcarchive --------------------- From Tom Watson, National Waste Prevention Coalition and King County Solid Waste Division, Seattle, WA: IN MEMORIAM I have some very sad news. Donella (Dana) Meadows, one of the leading voices of the sustainability and simplicity movements, died on Tuesday, Feb. 20, from bacterial meningitis. Although I did not know her personally, we have run several of her essays in this forum. In my opinion, she was one of the very best environmental writers in the nation. Dana Meadows was a professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College, director of the Sustainability Institute in Vermont, and the author of several books and hundreds of essays and columns. She lived on a small, communal, organic farm in New Hampshire for 27 years. I believe she was in her 50s. Below are: An excerpt from an interview with Dana Meadows; messages from two people who knew her; a link to her columns (in the message from Marcia Rutan); and a longer biography. When we get the information on where to send donations in her memory, we will let everybody know. --------------- From an interview with Dana Meadows, published on the Center for a New American Dream website in January, 2000: Q. What is your greatest source of hope that society can shift to more responsible patterns of production and consumption and achieve a sustainable future? A. The fact that we have to. If we don't choose to, the planet will make us. And the fact that our lives will be better if we do. It isn't sacrifice we're selling, it's a more meaningful, time-filled, love-filled, nature-filled existence. So, as Herman Daly says, we are about to be hit by the hammer of necessity, but we are cradled on the anvil of desirability. We have no choice but to conform. Q. What are the primary obstacles to making these changes? A. The media. The corporations. The skilled way they shape our mindsets and play on our own inner weaknesses. Our unwillingness to confront those mindsets and inner weaknesses, to know and love ourselves, to stop letting narrow-minded, materialistic forces play with our minds, hearts, and souls. Q. If you could wave a magic wand and implement one policy change, what would it be and why? A. Do I only get one? I'm having a hard time deciding between uninventing the television and real, thoroughgoing, public-financed campaign reform. Since only the latter is possible, I'll pick it. We'll never win any battle, from media reform to environmental regs to health care to welfare, until we stop letting money and greed run what used to be a pretty nice democracy. ------------------- From Vicki Robin, New Road Map Foundation, Seattle, WA (forwarded by Marcia Rutan): Dear friends - I am writing to let all of you on my general update list know that Dana (Donella) Meadows died today (Feb. 20) of bacterial meningitis after two weeks in a coma. She was truly a giant amongst us - brilliant, outspoken, warm, affirming, real, and totally, integrally herself. Everyone who knows her, who read her columns and books, who learned from her, is stunned and grieving. If you didn't know her, know that she was one of my great inspirations and allies on this earth and that she worked with every shred of her life for a sustainable future for this earth. You can go to the Sustainability Institute website at http://www.sustainer.org to get a small taste of her greatness. We were lucky to have her and shocked that we won't bask in her light for decades to come. Blessings, Vicki E-mail: newroadmap [ A T ] igc [ D O T ] org ------------------- Excerpted from a message from Marcia Rutan, Snohomish County Solid Waste Management Division, Everett, WA: Dana's death is a great shock to all of us who care about the planet's sustainability and who knew her warm and dedicated spirit. I was honored and privileged to spend a week with Dana last summer at a sustainability workshop at Whidbey Institute in Washington state. My own experience at the workshop was that she was a fine, clear teacher. Many of us were new to the world of computer modeling and systems thinking, and she took us step-by-step through what was a seven-week college course in one day, with brilliance, humor, and clarity. I remember being so amazed that I could understand this information and being so grateful for her skill and intelligence, as well as humor. I also have another wonderful memory from that week. It was sunny and we'd enjoyed dinner outdoors at picnic tables outside the dining room. After the meal, a group began singing songs - camp songs, songs from musicals, spirituals, whatever. Dana belted out these songs with great gusto and shared funny odd songs she knew as well. It was a delightful hour which I won't forget. Dana was truly one of the great leaders, visionaries, and intelligent scientists of our times, working with her whole heart for a sustainable planet. She co-authored the landmark book "Limits to Growth," funded by the Club of Rome. This book conveyed the urgency of a global environmental crisis and precipitated much activism, research, and education on behalf of the health of the environment. Recently, their follow-up book "Beyond the Limits" was released, updating information and generating vision for this critical time. Dana was also a regular contributor to "Yes" magazine and on the board of directors for the Center for a New American Dream. Dana's articles have been a weekly feature in the Tidepool e-mail newsletter, and she was founder and leader of the Sustainability Institute. Her latest column, "Polar Bears and Three-Year-Olds on Thin Ice," along with all of her "Global Citizen" columns from the past five years, can be found at: http://iisd1.iisd.ca/pcdf/meadows/default.htm In addition to these contributions, Dana was also an adjunct environmental professor at Dartmouth College, a farmer, and a community member and builder. She was a person deeply grounded in the earth itself and in her human community, and she had a wide global vision. I am in shock and feeling sad today, but I am also deeply grateful - not only for the opportunity to have spent time with Dana - but also for the great spirit she brought to our planet. So though I grieve, I also celebrate the life of Dana Meadows and send prayers for her journey and to her family, friends, and whole community. Thanks for listening and for your own love for the planet. E-mail: marcia (DOT) rutan (AT) co (DOT) snohomish (DOT) wa (DOT) us --------------------- Excerpted from a biography of Dana Meadows, posted on the Dartmouth College website last year: Donella (Dana) Meadows is a systems analyst, journalist, college professor, international coordinator of resource management institutions, and farmer. She was trained as a scientist, earning a B.A. in chemistry from Carleton College in 1963 and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University in 1968. In 1972, Donella Meadows was on the team at MIT that produced the global computer model "World3" for the Club of Rome. She was the principal author of the book "The Limits to Growth" (1972, Universe Books), which described that model, and which sold millions of copies in 28 languages. She was also co-author of two technical books about the global model: "Toward Global Equilibrium" and "The Dynamics of Growth in a Finite World" (1973 and 1974, both MIT Press). Since then she has been involved in numerous studies of social, environmental, energy, and agriculture systems. She has chronicled the emerging field of global modeling in her 1981 book "Groping in the Dark: the First Decade of Global Modeling" (John Wiley). In a later book she criticized the state of the art of social system modeling using nine case studies ("The Electronic Oracle: Computer Models and Social Decisions," also John Wiley, 1983). In 1985, Donella Meadows began a weekly newspaper column, "The Global Citizen," commenting on world events from a systems point of view. The column was awarded second place in the 1985 Champion-Tuck national competition for outstanding journalism in the fields of business and economics. It also received the Walter C. Paine Science Education Award in 1990 and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1991. The column is self-syndicated and appears in more than 20 papers. Selected columns have been published as a book, also called "The Global Citizen" (Island Press, 1991). Dana Meadows has taught at Dartmouth College since 1972 in the interdisciplinary Environmental Studies Program and in the graduate program of the Resource Policy Center. In 1983 she resigned her tenured professorship to devote more time to international activities and writing. She retains an Adjunct Professorship at Dartmouth and teaches environmental journalism. She lived for 27 years on a small, communal, organic farm in New Hampshire, where she worked at sustainable resource management directly. She organized a larger organic farm, eco-village and research institute, the Sustainability Institute, in Hartland Four Corners, Vermont, where she started a research project on the sustainability, equity, and stability of commodity systems. - end -