[Sdpg] High Country News -- April 9, 2001: A journalist, and much more

[sdpg-admin at arashi.com]

hi Everyone
         here is a beautiful article from High Country News, which I think 
so reenforces the positive energies of Permaculture can have in our 
culture, the story starts with the death of a Donella Meadows who described 
herself simply "a farmer and a writer." and words from her last column
                 wes
below are the words from her last column which so capture a needed spirit, 
read more below

"Personally, I don't believe that stuff at all. I don't see myself or the 
people around me as fatally flawed. 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 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."



http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=10406

<http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Issue?issue_id=200>Vol<http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Issue?issue_id=200>. 
33 Issue. 7


PROFILE, April 9, 2001

A journalist, and much more
by Chip Giller

During my first semester in college, I wrote a paper for an environmental 
studies class in which I cited an article by "journalist Donella Meadows." 
"A journalist, and much, much more," my professor wrote in the margin, high 
praise from a man not given to excess.

In recent years, Meadows was known to many as the author of a weekly 
column, "The Global Citizen," published in newspapers across the country. 
The column ran for 15 years and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1991. 
Her readers were shocked to learn in February that Meadows had passed away 
at age 59, the victim of a short battle with bacterial meningitis.

Well before her foray into journalism, Meadows made her mark as a 
freethinking academic. After earning a bachelor's degree in chemistry from 
Carleton College and a doctorate in biophysics from Harvard University, 
Meadows gained world renown in 1972 as the principal author of The Limits 
to Growth, a book that pioneered the modern debate about whether the planet 
could support continued population growth and economic expansion. Based on 
a computer model developed by Meadows and a team of others at MIT, The 
Limits to Growth sold millions of copies in 28 languages.

Meadows went on to teach at Dartmouth College for 29 years. Among other 
honors, she was awarded a Pew Scholarship in Conservation and the 
Environment in 1991 and a MacArthur Fellowship in 1994.

Impressive resume aside, what I and so many others admired about Meadows 
was her commitment to putting her ideas into practice, and her talent for 
putting a human face on environmental problems. She lived for 27 years on a 
small, communal, organic farm in Plainfield, N.H., and two years ago, she 
moved to Hartland Four Corners, Vt., where she worked to establish a 
co-housing village and another organic farm. In 1997, she founded the 
Sustainability Institute, a "think-do-tank" combining global environmental 
research with practical demonstrations of sustainable living.

Fame didn't mean much to her. She got reams of mail and e-mail, but always 
found the time to write back quickly. (I e-mailed her a couple of years ago 
with a vague description of a publication I hoped to start up - could I run 
her column in it? Yes, she wrote back moments later. No charge; just 
consider giving her group a small contribution.) In her column, Meadows 
wrote about carbon sequestration, cluster zoning, Sweden's chemicals ban, 
and globalization. Not the stuff of poetry, but somehow she managed to 
personalize the issues. She'd write about two brothers who had taken it 
into their own hands to reduce their carbon dioxide output; or she'd 
reflect on how milking a cow raised questions about modern-day notions of 
progress.

Meadows described herself simply as "a farmer and a writer." Worthy trades. 
But to her legions of readers and fans, Meadows was much, much more. She 
was a model of sustainable and sensible living.

To learn more about Donella Meadows and her work, or to make a memorial 
donation, contact the Sustainability Institute, 
<http://www.sustainer.org>www<http://www.sustainer.org>.sustainer.org.



The author, a former HCN intern, is editor of Grist Magazine, 
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>www.gristmagazine<http://www.gristmagazine.com>.com, 
a Web site that publishes environmental news and humor.



Copyright © 2001 HCN and Chip Giller





Last words


"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? 
Does our only possible future consist of watching the disappearance of the 
polar bear, the whale, the tiger, the elephant, the redwood tree, the coral 
reef, while fearing for the three-year-old?

"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. That's the one way of 
believing and behaving that gives us a guaranteed outcome.

"Personally, I don't believe that stuff at all. I don't see myself or the 
people around me as fatally flawed. 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 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."

- Donella Meadows, from the final edition of The Global Citizen

##!!##
A paper for the people
Ever since it was founded 30 years ago by Wyoming rancher Tom Bell, High 
Country News listened to the people who make the West home – from park 
rangers to rock climbers, miners to medicine men. In every issue, we take a 
hard look at what the West was, and what it is becoming. And we count on 
readers like you to keep us going. Please join us by subscribing to the 
paper or donating to our 
<http://www.hcn.org/home_page/dir/research_fund_letter.html>research fund.

Thank you,
the staff of High Country News


HIGH COUNTRY NEWS
119 Grand Avenue
PO Box 1090
Paonia, CO 81428
(970) 527-4898

<http://www.hcn.org/database.html>Archives » Dear Friends Email this Article


<http://www.hcn.org>Home | 
<http://www.hcn.org/home_page/dir/subscription_request.html>Subscribe | 
<http://www.hcn.org/home_page/dir/research_fund_letter.html>Give to 
<http://www.hcn.org/home_page/dir/research_fund_letter.html>HCN | 
<http://www.hcn.org/home_page/dir/free_issue_request.html>Free Issue | 
<http://www.hcn.org/news/index.htm>News | 
<http://www.hcn.org/wotr/index.html>Opinion | 
<http://www.hcn.org/humor/index.htm>Humor | 
<http://www.hcn.org/home_page/dir/letters.html>Letters | 
<http://www.hcn.org/index.htm>Bookstore | 
<http://www.hcn.org/home_page/dir/calendar.html>Calendar | 
<http://www.hcn.org/jobs/index.htm>Job List | 
<http://www.hcn.org/links/index.htm>Links | 
<http://www.hcn.org/home_page/dir/hcninfo.html>About 
<http://www.hcn.org/home_page/dir/hcninfo.html>HCN | 
<http://www.hcn.org/home_page/dir/subscriber.html>Subscriber Services | 
<http://www.hcn.org/home_page/dir/freelance.html>Freelance Writers | 
<http://www.hcn.org/home_page/dir/interns.html>Interns


© copyright 2000 High Country News
Article Code: 10406




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.permaculture-guilds.org/pipermail/san-diego-permaculture/attachments/20010425/45e689ca/attachment.html>