To the Editor:
News of Professor Donella Meadows' death landed heavily in my e-mail inbox and on my heart last Thursday. Though I only met her briefly at the Class of '69 Institute last fall, I have drawn hope and inspiration from her writing for many years.
Her prophetic voice taught us the gloom-and-doom hard science of the collision of continuing exponential growth of population and consumption with the reality of limited natural resources. She then turned that knowledge into a call for action to rein in an out-of-control system. A system that is headed for catastrophic collapse unless we change our course. She brought common sense, hope and good humor to the deadly serious dilemma that faces us, the six billion plus inhabitants of Earth. Unfortunately, she was scorned like the Biblical prophets in her own land. Certainly she was beloved in the classroom and respected on campus, but has the College heeded her counsel and changed the way it consumes energy and other resources? Has the College begun to design its new buildings and renovations for long-term sustainability? Not that I have noticed.
Toward the end of our Class Institute session, someone asked Dana what we could do as a class in response to Beyond the Limits. She quickly suggested we try to influence the College to move toward a more sustainable way of building the buildings that would have 40 to 100-year or longer lives and would certainly still be in use in a very different, resource-scarce world. It would be a fitting tribute to her if the College would re-examine its design and construction practices with a view to sustainability.
