Remembering Meadows and McHarg

We are saddened to note the passing of two mavericks in the world of sustainability. On February 20, Donella (Dana) Meadows died suddenly of bacterial meningitis at age 59. In her late 20s, Dana was principal author of

Limits to Growth (1972), one of the first books to address the limits of population growth and resource extraction. From 1985 until her death, she wrote the syndicated column, “The Global Citizen,” and in 1992 she coauthored

Beyond the Limits, a sequel to her first book. Along with being a leading visionary on global issues of sustainability, Dana raised sheep and was creating the Cobb Hill Cohousing Community in Hartland, Vermont.

Design With Nature placed landscape architects at the center of the emerging environmental movement. McHarg was a professor of landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, where he inspired a generation of leading sustainability thinkers, including

EBN Advisory Board members Pliny Fisk and Carol Franklin. My own exposure to McHarg began at the first Earth Day celebration in Philadelphia (1970), which he organized.

– Alex Wilson