Times Record "Sustain Maine" op-ed series

Donella Meadows' Legacy to Maine

25 May 2001

Richard Barringer
Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service, USM
David Vail
Department of Economics, Bowdoin College

Maine, the nation, and the earth lost a friend last February when Donella Meadows, author of the syndicated "Global Citizen" columns, died unexpectedly of cerebral meningitis. "Dana", as she was widely known, was a pioneer of sustainable development principles and practices. In scores of columns and two seminal books, Limits to Growth in 1973 and Beyond the Limits a quarter century later, Dana inspired us with a vision of stewardship, personal responsibility, and civic engagement to shape a better world. 

Dana's own words speak most eloquently for her. Shortly after last fall's election, she wrote to reinforce President Bush's campaign pledge to restrict US carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. As we recover from last winter's heating cost surge and brace for this summer's gas price spike, Mainers should take her words to heart:

"So here's the good news. A knowledgeable and courageous U.S. president could help enormously in leading the world's nations toward saving the climate; but [even] an ignorant or servile president cannot stop committed nations, companies, or people from doing it anyway. Whatever the United States does, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany have detailed plans to cut their greenhouse emissions by 20 to 50% -- and in the process, pioneer and patent the new energy technologies that will inevitably replace coal and oil.

"Seven corporations, who together emit enough greenhouse gases to qualify as the world's 12th largest emitting nation, have pledged cutbacks of 15% -- twice the Kyoto targets. They even include two forward-looking oil companies, Royal Dutch/Shell and British Petroleum (whose new motto is 'Beyond Petroleum'). Polaroid is working toward cuts of 25%, and DuPont, 65% Honda's and Toyota's new cars that get 50-70 miles per gallon are selling faster than expected. Daimler-Benz is close to marketing fuel-cell cars that run on hydrogen (and emit only water). In a few years Ford is planning to market a fuel-cell-powered SUV.

"You and I don't need a president or a global treaty to tell us to stop wasting energy. We benefit immediately from doing so, with lower fuel bills, less air and water pollution, less dependence on the Middle East, and ultimately, hopefully, a climate that is no longer zinging out of control.  There is no point in waiting around for leadership...Leaders only get their power from us, anyway.

Dana's final column, written three weeks before her death, was, "Polar Bears and Three-Year-Olds on Thin Ice":

"The place to watch for global warming -- the canary in the coal mine -- is the Arctic. If the planet as a whole warms by one degree, the poles will warm by about three degrees. Which is just what is happening.  Ice now covers 15% less of the Arctic Ocean than it did 20 years ago... At the current rate of melting, in 50 years the northern ocean could be ice-free all summer long.  That, says an article in the journal Science of January 19, would be the end of polar bears.

"A friend of mine, in response to this news, did the only appropriate thing: she burst out weeping. 'What am I going to tell my three-year-old?' she sobbed. Any of us still in contact with our hearts and souls should be sobbing with her, especially when we consider that the same toxins that are in the bears are in the three-year-old. And that the three-year-old over her lifetime may witness collapsing ecosystems, north to south, until all creatures are threatened, especially top predators like polar bears and people.

"Is there any way to end this column other than in gloom? Can I give my friend, you, myself any honest hope that our world will not fall apart...   Heck, I don't know. There's only one thing I do know. If we believe that it's effectively over, that we are fatally flawed, that the most greedy and short-sighted among us will always be permitted to rule, that we can never constrain our consumption and destruction, that each of us is too small and helpless to do anything, that we should just give up and enjoy our SUVs while they last, well, then, yes, it's over.

"Personally I don't believe that stuff at al... Everyone I know wants polar bears and three-year-olds in our world. We are not helpless and there is nothing wrong with us except the strange belief that we are helpless and that there's something wrong with us. All we need to do, for the bear and ourselves, is to stop letting that belief paralyze our minds, hearts, and souls."

In March 1993 Dana delivered the keynote to a Bowdoin College conference of 200 persons, gathered under the auspices of the Muskie School and the Natural Resources Council of Maine to explore the economics, politics, and ethics of a "sustainable Maine." Dana's superb address introduced sustainability's basic concepts: carrying capacity; stocks and flows, sources and sinks; renewables and non-renewables; and the profound difference between quantity and quality in society's development. 

She concluded with these words: "What I would hope and urge is that you not only think during this conference about what to do in terms of policy and leadership for the State of Maine, the nation, or the world; but that you realize that, in a democracy particularly, no one can lead the way to the sustainable revolution who doesn't start with his or her own life.                 

"There is no credibility in talking about how to bring ourselves back below [carrying capacity] limits if we aren't working on ourselves. And that doesn't mean living in poverty or going back to the cave, as many critics of environmentalism assume. It means living for quality instead of quantity.  It means working toward the top of the pyramid, toward the ultimate ends of happiness, self-esteem, community, love, and meaning in our lives. It means living life for what is really worth living for."

A voice of enduring commitment, courage and common sense has fallen silent. All of us in Maine today are in Dana Meadows' debt. Her words will continue to inspire and guide the efforts of the Maine Sustainable Development Working Group.

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