The collective visions, actions, and wisdom
of the entire academic community ultimately will determine how
we will respond to the challenges of sustainability and advancing
the ecological, environmental, and natural resource sciences at Washington
State University. For one perspective, we quote from environmental
educator, Dr. David Orr:
"If education is to be measured against
the standard of sustainability, what can be done? I would like
to make four proposals. First, I would like to propose that
you engage in a campus-wide dialogue about the way you conduct your
business as educators. Does four years here make your graduates
better planetary citizens or does it make them, in Wendell Berry's
words, "itinerant professional vandals"? Does this college contribute
to the development of a sustainable regional economy or, in the name
of efficiency, to the processes of destruction?
My second suggestion
is to examine resource flows on this campus: food, energy, water,
materials, and waste. Faculty and students should together study
the wells, mines, farms, feedlots, and forests that supply the campus
as well as the dumps where you send your waste. Collectively,
begin a process of finding ways to shift the buying power of this
institution to support better alternatives that do less environmental
damage, lower carbon dioxide emissions, reduce use of toxic substances,
promote energy efficiency and the use of solar energy, help to build
a sustainable regional economy, cut long term costs, and provide an
example to other institutions. The results of these studies
should be woven into the curriculum as interdisciplinary courses,
seminars, lectures, and research. No student should graduate
without understanding how to analyze resource flows and without the
opportunity to participate in the creation of real solutions to real
problems.
Third, reexamine how your endowment works. Is
it invested according to the Valdez principles? Is it invested
in companies doing responsible things that the world needs?
Can some part of it be invested locally to help leverage energy efficiency
and the evolution of a sustainable economy throughout the region?
Finally,
I propose that you set a goal of ecological literacy for all of your
students. No student should graduate from this or any other
educational institution without a basic comprehension of:
- the laws
of thermodynamics
- the basic principles of ecology
- carrying capacity
- energetics
- least-cost,
end-use analysis
- how to live well in place
- limits of technology
- appropriate
scale
- sustainable agriculture and forestry
- steady-state economics
- environmental
ethics
Do graduates of this college, in Aldo Leopold's words, know
that "they are only cogs in an ecological mechanism such that, if
they will work with that mechanism, their mental wealth and material
wealth can expand indefinitely (and) if they refuse to work with it,
it will ultimately grind them to dust." Leopold asked: "If education
does not teach these things, then what is education for?"
To
read the complete essay, which was adapted from a commencement
address given by David Orr, see: What Is Education For?
