In his speech, "The Future of Environmental Sustainability," Thomashow said he sought to integrate concepts of ecology, sustainability, natural history and community service into all aspects of college and community life.

Tom Wessels, ecologist at Antioch University New England and founding director of the master's degree program in conservation biology, was the keynote speaker.

Wessels said the task of modern Americans — indeed, all of humanity — is to move from consumption to connection.

"To be able to engage in an economic system not based on continued growth, we need to find ways to sustain ourselves that are not based on materialism," said Wessels. "Our attention needs to be turned toward fostering community, strong connections to place, traditions that link community to place, and reflective practice to generate understanding and eventually wisdom. These are the only means to bring forth true, sustainable progress for humanity."

The inaugural procession included current and former members of the Board of Trustees, current and emeriti faculty, past presidents of the college, student leaders and state and local dignitaries.

After the inauguration, a reception was held in the UCPA lobby, followed by a fireside chat with Wessels in the Dorothy Quimby Library at Unity College.

Following is the inauguration address of Thomashow, president of Unity College.

This is a great time to be alive. Unity, Maine is a great place to live. And I am honored, delighted, and humbled to be the president of Unity College.

We live in a remarkably beautiful place. On any given day you might notice the rolling hills, the patchy forest, the glistening light, the wind-swept prospects, the hidden paths and trails, or the reassuring presence of the Gulf of Maine just over the eastern horizon. This is a diverse landscape of shifting patterns.

How about the weather? On any given day, depending on the season, you might experience howling winds and frigid Arctic blasts; humid, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico; moist, cool air that drifts down from the Maritimes. There are some days when you experience so many weather changes that you feel you have lived all four seasons in 24 hours. The daily changes in the weather remind us that the landscapes of our lives are always changing too.

As good observers, as people who spend so much time outdoors, we’re exposed to the fragility of life and landscape. In the midst of environmental change, we seek balance, flexibility and resilience. People who earn a living by working on the land or sea know that they must pay attention to all these subtle changes. Otherwise their very livelihood is threatened.

What is true for this landscape that we have grown to know and love is also true for the entire planet. That is why we are gathered together in this place and time. We are jointly engaged in building, sustaining, and growing an environmental college, a place of learning that supports ecological appreciation and awareness. That is our common ground. That is why we are here today.

Anyone associated with Unity College, whether student, staff, faculty, trustee, or good friend, in his or her own way is an educator. As educators, we wish to perpetuate a deeper understanding of the ecological circumstances of our lives. Why? Deep down inside you know that such understanding breeds appreciation. You have faith that appreciation cultivates gratitude. You sense that gratitude conveys a response. And you hope that response prompts action.

In essence, that chain of thinking is the fundamental mission of an environmental college. We strive to present learning experiences that inspire appreciation. We develop learning communities that change people’s lives by bringing them closer to life. We accomplish unity in this purpose by emphasizing awareness, inquiry, service, and commitment. Such is the measure of a deep, authentic community.

Unity College has a crucial role to play in educating a new generation of ecological citizens. Although we are deeply rooted in the regional community of agricultural, Midcoast Maine, by proclaiming ourselves America’s environmental college we become linked to a global community of environmental awareness. We are engaged in an educational process that is mission-driven, compelling, urgent and vital.

Ask yourself why you are here. If you are a student, what is the value above all others that inspires you to attend an environmental college? If you are a faculty member, what is it that you most want your teaching to convey? If you are a staff member, how are you contributing to the vitality of the college’s environmental mission? If you are an alumnus, what connects your experience to the legacy of Unity College? If you are a trustee, friend or supporter of the college, why are you attracted to being with us? And if you are new to Unity College, what is it that compels you to learn more about us?

These questions should prompt some moments of self-reflection. But I intend them to be a rhetorical device leading you to a common place. I know why you are here. You understand the importance of environmental learning. You know that a college education is one of the best ways to achieve that. And I am here to remind you, both today and in the years to come, that you are on the right path.

The world desperately needs your wisdom, knowledge, leadership, and guidance. It needs your resilience and flexibility. It needs your gratitude and response.

I wish to say more about Unity College and what it stands for. In so doing, I reiterate my commitment as your president, I challenge you to remember why you are here, and I convey our common dreams and aspirations.

Unity College may be distinguished by virtue of five unique qualities.

Unity College broadens the constituency for conservation

We attract students of diverse backgrounds, including hunters, farmers, foresters, gardeners, backpackers, rock climbers, naturalists, educators, artists, writers, policymakers, back-to-the-landers, and people who combine these interests in all kinds of unpredictable ways. They come from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. Many of our students are the first members of their family to attend college. Our students come from all walks of life and hold many different points of view.

To serve these students, now and in the future, Unity College will promote multiple orbits of environmental learning. We will attract a national student constituency and a regional community of practitioners. Building on our inherent strengths and values, we will have ongoing learning, research, and consultation services in fields such as conservation law and environmental policy, conservation biology and ecology, sustainability and climate change, environmental education and wildlife care, outdoor adventure and ecotourism, environmental science teaching, and environmental writing and the arts. Each of these “nodes in a network” will serve diverse constituencies, developing uniquely interesting curriculum, preparing students for fulfilling and important careers. These learning centers will take many shapes and forms, reflecting our academic vision and our external constituencies. They will be coherent enough to offer a core vision, but flexible enough to shift with the dynamic changes in the environmental field.

Unity College serves the underserved

American higher education is remarkable in the diversity of its colleges and universities. Yet increasingly there are young people who are left out of this picture. In some cases they just can’t afford the cost of an education. There are some students who have a particular approach to learning that is not well served by more traditional institutions. Also, there are students who can’t find the right combination of academic programs.

By suggesting that Unity College serves the underserved, I reaffirm that our mission is to provide affordable, accessible education for students who thrive in the milieu of experiential learning. We will strive to provide academic programs that launch students into fulfilling, service-oriented environmental careers.

We will also continue to develop programs that you may not find at other institutions. Are there other nontraditional students who would find a Unity College education just right for their career goals and learning styles? Are there interesting new programs that can meet those needs — summer-based Masters programs in sustainability education, for example?

Unity College models frugal sustainability

The future of environmental studies is linked to sustainability, an emphasis on conserving energy, food, water and materials. Unity College aspires to build a truly sustainable campus, serving as a regional leader in such efforts, demonstrating green building practices, an integrated landscape, and hands-on, campus-based sustainability initiatives.

Our new Master Planning Process, to begin in September of 2007, will envision a Unity College legacy, with the common themes of endurance and resilience. Let’s build a college that will be here for hundreds of years to come. Let’s conceive of Unity as an intergenerational college and community.

I encourage all of us to think of the Unity College campus as a sustainability field of dreams, an architect’s exploratorium, a place where we can truly live our values. Sustainability is about more than academic programs, energy infrastructure, and local food. It must entail a way of life, including participatory governance, fiscal responsibility, long-range planning, health and wellness, and wholesome community, a place where you forge respectful and long-lasting relationships. How might we use sustainability as a means to broaden the constituency for conservation, to bring businesses, NGOs, and other academic institutions into our community orbits?

That’s why a sustainable campus is so important. There is no more practical, effective, tangible statement of conviction than making the campus a living educational laboratory for our values. Such conviction is what attracts investors, builds coherence, promotes vision and signifies endurance. Is there a better way to assert a notion of legacy than actually living your life as if you believe in a long-term future?

Unity College emphasizes the outdoor, hands-on, ecological learning experience

We are experiential, developmental, and practitioner oriented.

By experiential we emphasize the importance of field-based, hands-on learning. Whether it’s a rigorous, empirical approach to natural history and ecology, a wilderness expedition experience, or an experiment in sustainable living, it’s the quality of the field experience that matters. What’s more exciting than watching a group of Unity students take off on a NOVA adventure?

By developmental, we emphasize our understanding that learning is linked to cognitive awareness, perceptual readiness, lifecycle changes, and issues of personal identity. We care about the whole learner.

By practitioner oriented, we emphasize the importance of real world, career-based learning. Whether it’s search and rescue missions, working in local schools, helping low-income housing residents retrofit their homes, developing sustainability initiatives for the state of Maine, you will always find Unity students right in the middle of the mix, and often leading the way. This is environmental studies for the real world.

Above all, we promote the outdoor experience. There is no greater learning laboratory than the great outdoors. At Unity, we encourage adventure, exploration, and full immersion in outdoor learning and living.

Unity College engages the regional community in intellectual, artistic, and recreational opportunities

The college is intimately linked to its ecological and community setting. Whether its contemporary issues in environmental policy, promotion of the arts, or recreational opportunities, the college provides regional leadership as a gathering place for community events and functions.

At the Unity Centre for the Performing Arts, we’ll offer a full palette of interesting musical performances, gallery displays, and riveting lectures and seminars. They will always be open to the whole community,

At the Unity Field of Dreams, we’ll develop recreational facilities from nature walks to Frisbee golf, a commons for students and community members alike. It will be a place for local families, or for people just passing through.

Our campus will be a place to visit for anyone who wants to learn about frugal sustainability. Campus tours will be learning experiences for their own sake.

My hope is that we build a student/community center that is designed with the whole community in mind.

Finally, our centers of environmental learning will integrate well-connected regional learning networks, providing consulting services that reflect the expertise of our students, staff and faculty.

Unity College will be known as a home of community environmental learning.

In conclusion

It is my pleasure, honor, and challenge to sustain, promote, and coordinate this vision. Accomplishing these dreams is a collaborative work effort. We must galvanize and inspire every member of the Unity community. We must all be networkers and fund-raisers. We must all be educators. We call attention to our efforts not just for the sake of Unity College, as important as we perceive our mission to be. But we must do so for the sake of the planet, for our children’s future, and to advance the vitality and urgency of environmental learning.

When you awake in the morning, what prompts you to gather the energy to participate in life? What inspires you? What motivates you to stretch beyond your capacity? If you are concerned about our ecological future, if you wish to devote your life to service, if you want to celebrate life, then you have arrived at Unity College.

Not every morning starts that way. So often we are overwhelmed with the prospects of the day. Our tasks are daunting. Our energy is muffled by the sheer inertia of everyday trails and tribulations. We overcome this inertia through fortitude and perseverance. We choose to participate in life, to awaken to the day, because we cherish the great gift of human awareness.

As President of Unity College, perhaps my most important challenge is to remind you of what’s important, to remind you again and again that you are on the right path and that you are in the right place, to support your efforts, and to help you understand that you are contributing to something that requires an entire community of collaborators.

And if I can also remind you that the task of the educator is a sacred one, and that it is filled with joy and celebration, and that your work is vitally important, then I will contribute in my own way to the future of Unity College.

Unity College is on the threshold of finding its path and ensuring its legacy. It will do this by understanding its place in the community and how it must contribute to planetary well-being. It will so this by providing a challenging educational experience to all who deserve it. In this way, Unity College will ensure its legacy. It will sow the seeds of its own future, and it will build a vital learning community for generations to come.

Following is the keynote speech delivered by Wessels at the inauguration of Thomashow.

"The Myth of Progress"

“Economic growth is key to environmental progress.”
— President George W. Bush Jr., Feb. 14, 2002

The above statement is an excerpt from a speech that President Bush gave on Valentine’s Day. I heard it while listening to National Public Radio’s "All Things Considered" news program as I was driving home from Antioch New England Graduate School where I teach.

As an ecologist, it’s evident to me that economic growth, and its associated ever-increasing extraction of resources and waste generation, is primarily responsible for the environmental problems that we are witnessing today.

How can it be that a world leader would suggest that the solution to our environmental problems is more economic growth? I then realized that the president’s speechwriters had inserted a word into a commonly used phrase. If the word environmental is removed the phrase becomes, economic growth is key to progress. This notion, which is often heard at the municipal, state, federal, and even global level, is rarely challenged, so why not put an environmental spin on it. Yet, in the natural world we don’t have one example of a system that can sustain itself through never-ceasing growth.

Although we have no memory of it, each of us was once a single, microscopic cell. This is certainly astounding to contemplate. As we developed from single cell to fetus to newborn to adult, we took in more energy than we released through respiration. As a result we stored that energy in our increasing growth as that one cell grew into more than 30 trillion.

Thirty trillion is a number that is hard to comprehend so an analogy may help. Imagine a beach backed by dunes. Between the dunes and where the ocean’s waves break at high tide is a distance of 100 feet and the depth of the dry sand where the beach abuts the dunes is three feet, so the average depth of dry sand on this beach is 1.5 feet. You walk onto the beach and scoop up a large handful of sand. This equals about 100,000 grains. How much of this beach is required to hold 30 trillion grains of dry sand? To get this many grains of sand we would need a length of beach equal to almost a mile. All of those grains of sand on that mile length of beach are equivalent to the number of cells in your body!

Yet when we reach adulthood we stop increasing the number and size of the cells in our body. The only exceptions are fat and muscle cells that can increase in size in an adult. Yet for an adult with a healthy lifestyle, growth stops and like an old-growth forest the body reaches a dynamic equilibrium where the amount of calories assimilated in food on a daily basis equals the amount released through body heat. Like us, all organisms honor limits to growth at adulthood. This is a trait that has been selected for by nature. Any individual in a population that continued to grow and needed ever-increasing food resources after they reached adulthood would have more and more difficulty meeting its energy needs compared to individuals who stopped growing.

Limits to growth occur whenever one system is nested within another, like a population of algae nested within a pond. Since the pond has finite resources, in this case dissolved oxygen, once a population digs deep into those resources negative feedback results in the population’s decline. Although most of the scientific research on limits to growth has been conducted on populations within ecosystems, all of the natural complex systems that we can observe on this planet — biological, ecological, geological, meteorological — also function under the overarching law of limits to growth. This even holds true for the largest biological system known — the biosphere.

The biosphere is comprised of all the ecosystems that cloak the Earth. Current scientific evidence suggests that living organisms have been on this planet for at least 3.5 billion years and photosynthetic organisms, those that can convert sunlight into usable energy, have been around for at least the last 3 billion years. Since that time, organisms on the Earth have captured more energy through photosynthesis than they have released as heat through their metabolism or cellular respiration.

If a plant conducts more photosynthesis than respiration, it grows. The growth can be measured as the increased biomass — increase in organic matter — of the plant from the carbohydrates stored from photosynthesis. If photosynthesis and respiration are equal in a plant, growth stops and dynamic equilibrium results where the solar energy absorbed by the plant is equal to its energy released as heat.

Scientific evidence suggests that the early atmosphere of the Earth prior to photosynthetic organisms was devoid of oxygen gas. As photosynthetic life spread across the globe, oxygen started to build up in the atmosphere. Increasing oxygen is synonymous with growth since it means that photosynthesis and the production of biomass is taking place at a higher rate than respiration, a process that consumes oxygen. If both of these processes had occurred at an equal rate since life first established on Earth, today the planet would be devoid, not only of an oxygen-rich atmosphere, but also all living and dead organic matter, since each represents stored biomass energy which has to result from historically greater rates of photosynthesis.

Atmospheric oxygen reached its current 21 percent concentration more than a quarter billion years ago. Since that time it has been quite stable signifying that biospheric photosynthesis and respiration have equalized creating a dynamic equilibrium where the rate of solar energy captured by life on Earth is equal to the rate it is released as heat through the metabolism of all its biota. This heat eventually drifts out to space where it is dissipated into the Universe. Like reindeer, lemmings, and algae, the biosphere honors limits to growth too.

This then raises the question: if everything that we observe in the world around us honors limits to growth as a means to sustain itself, why is the underlying foundation for our current paradigm of progress ever-increasing growth? The answer lies in a body of economic theory that not only has no grounding in, but is actually divorced from, the scientific laws that govern the universe. In a very real sense our reigning neoclassical, economic orthodoxy has been developed in an artificial world where resources are infinite, and waste, including garbage, pollution, toxins, and environmental degradation, don’t exist, and where our socioeconomic system functions in a void rather than being nested within the biosphere.

The governing concept on which our current economic paradigm of continuous growth is based is the principle of unlimited substitutability. This economic principle states that resources are, figuratively speaking, unlimited because as we exhaust one resource we will replace it with another, so growth will never cease. We can continue to do this as long as we develop new technologies and increased access to new energy resources.

It is precisely these new technologies and increased energy usage that need to be examined more fully since they create a nexus between economic theory and scientific law. Although orthodox practitioners like to claim their economic theories are scientific, no amount of mathematical models or statistical equations can label something as science if it intentionally ignores foundational scientific laws such as limits to growth or the second law of thermodynamics.

But before we get to the second law of thermodynamics and its relationship to energy consumption, we should take a closer look at technology — the other half of the questionable foundation upon which the principle of unlimited substitutability rests.

To an orthodox neoclassical economist, technology is a free ride where we can get something — increased access to resources — for nothing. Technology offers only benefits — cheaper energy, greater food production, greater longevity, faster travel, expanded communication networks. Yet technology is not benign. All new technologies have some costs. The negative costs of technology are probably best described in chapter nine of Barry Commoner’s classic, "The Closing Circle."

In this chapter, titled The Technological Flaw, Commoner examines the rise of pollution in the United States during the 25year period from 1946 to 1971. During that quarter of a century the U.S. population increased 42 percent, the Gross National Product rose 126 percent, and consumption of food, clothing, and shelter increased by 40-50 percent — directly linked to the increase in population. Yet these levels of growth alone could not explain the 200-2,000 percent increases in pollution. A big part of the difference was due to new technologies that brought about the replacement of pre-World War II materials with new synthetic ones.

Just a few of the product changes American’s witnessed during those 25 years were: organic fertilizers being replaced with inorganic fertilizers; soaps being replaced with synthetic detergents; glass, metal, and rubber being replaced with plastics; not to mention the use of a whole new host of synthetic pesticides. All of these new products were derived from petroleum and also demanded much higher energy consumption in their production, creating markedly increased rates of air pollution. But that was only part of the problem. The increased use of chlorine gives a fuller picture.

During this period chlorine became an important chemical product. It was needed in the production of many plastics like polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and it was utilized in the manufacture of detergents. Since mercury is necessary in the production of chlorine, its use solely for this purpose increased 3,930 percent between 1946-1971. So there are costs associated with new technologies.

Is ever-increasing economic growth and associated resource consumption analogous to a biospheric cancer? Neoclassical economists would say that such an analogy is ridiculous. They would contend that new technologies and access to increased energy will allow us to both grow and fix our environmental problems.

The track record of economic growth fixing our environmental problems is not very good to date, as we continue to see environmental degradation at the global level increasing. More importantly increased energy consumption smacks head on into the second law of thermodynamics — a scientific law that proponents of our reigning paradigm of progress never mention.

The first law of thermodynamics, also known as the law of conservation of energy, simply states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This means the amount of energy in the universe today is exactly what it was 13 billion years ago just after the Big Bang. This is a powerful concept, but from a practical standpoint it’s the second law of thermodynamics that is the most important to us.

The second law — also known as the law of entropy — states that although energy can’t be created or destroyed; it can be transformed from one form to another.

As I type, some of the electrical energy that runs my computer originally came from the decay of uranium atoms within the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. As a uranium atom breaks apart, a minute amount of the mass of its nucleus is transformed into heat energy. The heat energy is used to produce steam. The steam then turns electric turbines, a transformation to kinetic energy — energy of motion. The kinetic energy of the rotating turbines is then transformed into electrical energy. The electrical energy enters my computer and is transformed into light and the words that appear on my screen, finally being transformed into heat that dissipates into my room.

Throughout all these transformations no new energy has been created and none has been destroyed. But the transformation of energy from one state to another is not the critical aspect of the second law. The critical point is that although energy can be transformed, no transformation is 100 percent efficient. This means that within the system where the transformation occurs, some of the energy is lost from that system during the transformation. The energy isn’t destroyed; it simply leaves the system in which the transformation takes place. As we shall see the concept of nested systems becomes important here since energy lost from one system during a transformation simply dissipates into the larger system around it.

A car offers another example of the second law. The intent of a car is to transform potential chemical energy — stored in the bonds of gasoline molecules — into motion. But this transformation is only about 30 percent efficient. Most of the energy is lost from the car during the transformation as heat and drifts off into the air. The loss of energy from a system when energy is being transformed may not at first seem important, but its implications are striking, because the loss of energy from a system results in entropy.

Entropy is a process where things naturally move from a state of order toward disorder, like our homes that we continually need to clean. The problem with order and disorder is that these are subjective terms. One person’s view of order can be quite different from another’s.

A more objective way to describe entropy is as a process where things move from a state of complexity toward simplicity, or from concentration toward diffusion. In the universe at large, as time advances, things are becoming more diffused. This is most easily grasped by visualizing the concentrated energy in stars constantly diffusing into space as light and heat, or as galaxies drifting apart as the Universe expands. To reverse entropy and create concentrations of energy or materials, or to build complexity, means that energy has to be added to a system and stored within it. The logs that I burn in my wood stove were created from simple molecules — water and carbon dioxide — that were concentrated and bonded together with light energy through the process of photosynthesis to create wood — a far more complex material than the simple molecules from which it was created. So whenever energy is stored within a system, it is stored in ways that increase the system’s complexity or concentration of materials. However, whenever energy is lost from a system through transformations, the result is entropy — simplification and diffusion.

Entropy shouldn’t be a new concept for us since we all have plenty of experience with its workings. In our homes, each time we do something we are transforming energy, and as a result creating entropy as energy stored within the system from previous cleanings is dissipated. As we browse, books originally neatly stacked on shelves come to lie scattered throughout the house. As we turn each page of the newspaper some of the paper’s fibers are released into the air and drift down as a component of dust. We host a potluck dinner for company and all the dishes, glasses, and silverware that were neatly stacked in their respective cabinets come to grace every horizontal surface.

All are examples of entropy caused by our energy transformations that take things from an orderly state of concentration to one of diffusion. We don’t intentionally create entropy; it just happens — a result of the second law. However, to reverse entropy takes an intentional effort, like the cleaning of our homes — an investment of energy to increase order and concentration.

There are three outcomes for any complex system. If they release more energy from their transformations then they take in from the larger system in which they are nested, they are entropic. A cut down tree is a good example of an entropic system. It can’t take in any energy through photosynthesis, so with each transformation created by saprophytes — decay producing organisms like fungi — energy that was stored in the tree is released as heat. The complex structure of the tree is simplified as it is broken down to carbon dioxide, water, and other small inorganic molecules that completely diffuse into the air and soil.

However, if a complex system takes in more energy than it releases, it is anti-entropic. This means it grows and increases its level of complexity through time. From egg to adult we are all anti-entropic systems and as such take in more energy through food than we pay out as heat. That energy is stored in the increasing complexity of our growing bodies. As adults we are no longer anti-entropic and, as long as we are healthy, function as a dynamic equilibrium. Healthy adults take in the same amount of energy through food as they release as heat through all their metabolic transformations.

All complex systems that consume energy create entropy in their surroundings — the larger system within which they are nested. A fungus growing on a rotting stump is a good example. The anti-entropic fungus grows by extracting energy from the stump. In the process the stump decays and is simplified. Luckily, the forest in which the fungus and other creatures reside takes in as much or more energy through photosynthesis than it gives off in decomposition and metabolism of all its organisms. So any complex system, whether it is entropic, at dynamic equilibrium, or anti-entropic, is simply defined by how much energy the system takes in versus how much energy is released through its various transformations. This means that the rate at which energy is transformed within a system is an important consideration.

Picture two rooms that are absolutely identical. Each is exquisitely appointed with the same fine antique furnishings, delicate porcelain figurines, crystal vases, rare books, and potted plants. Into each room we will place an individual for one hour. In one of the rooms it will be an adult who will read the Sunday edition of the New York Times. In the other it will be an unsupervised toddler. Which room will be more entropic after one hour?

In the adult’s room the turning of the pages of the newspaper has generated some entropy in the form of dust that has diffused into the air. The toddler’s room will be quite a bit more entropic. The striking difference between the two rooms isn’t because toddlers are inherently destructive — they just create a lot more energy transformations as they explore the world around them, which results in greater entropy.

As discussed in the previous chapter the biosphere was an anti-entropic system up until about a quarter of a billion years ago when it entered a state of dynamic equilibrium. However the biospheric story today is quite different. Since the 19th century the increasing use of energy by humans, particularly fossil fuels, has pushed the biosphere out of its dynamic equilibrium state into one that is increasingly more entropic. Human activity on this planet is countering trends that have been developing for over 3.5 billion years. For the first time in the Earth’s history, a single species is responsible for the entropic degradation of the biosphere by releasing more energy through transformations than is being replaced by global photosynthesis.

Every environmental problem we are witnessing today is the result of entropy within the biosphere. If there is a foundation on which all environmental degradation rests, it is entropy generated by the ever-increasing transformation of energy by humans. The loss of natural forest cover or its replacement with mono-crop plantations results in simplification of ecosystems — entropy. The conversion of semi-arid woodlands to desert through over exploitation results in ecosystem simplification — entropy. The erosion of topsoil results in diffusion of nutrients — entropy. The eutrophication of aquatic and marine environments from the diffusion of nutrients results in decreased biotic diversity and ecosystem simplification — entropy. The depletion of the world’s fisheries results in ecosystem simplification — entropy. The loss of coral reefs and boreal forests due to the warming of oceans and polar climates results in ecosystem simplification — entropy. The loss in global biodiversity results in simplification — entropy. Global climate change due to the build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels is a process of diffusion of carbon — entropy.

Think of any environmental problem and you will see it is a process where complex systems are being simplified or concentrated materials are being diffused.

Based on the law of limits to growth and the second law of thermodynamics, our current march to progress is terribly flawed. Luckily, a number of economists realize these failings and have developed other economic models based on dynamic equilibrium.

But in order to engage in such a socioeconomic system, we will need to embrace a new set of cultural values — what I call ancient values. These are not the “traditional values” that some politicians claim will elevate society — values that characterized late 19th century America.

Inherent in traditional values is the importance of family, which is good, but also inherent is a rugged individualism that promotes individual entitlement regardless of its social or environmental consequences. A large part of the problems we face today has been spawned by individual entitlement and its self-absorbed focus. In order to really progress we need to look to far older values — ones that existed long before the development of agriculture.

To explore these ancient cultural values I recount the following experience.

It’s 1993 and I am about four miles north of where we are camped in the Pinacate region of Mexico. It is what we call “solo day” — a chance for students on this Antioch desert ecology field study trip to explore and connect to this unique landscape in their own way. I’m using the day to explore a new area of the Pinacate — the most glorious hot desert landscape that I have ever encountered.

It’s been a wet winter and spring, so the desert is lush. Fields of brilliant apricot-colored desert mallows cover black cinder substrates. Older, reddish, lava flows are carpeted by the yellow bloom of brittlebush. Most appealing of all is the ocotillo with its emerald green wands topped by flaming crimson flowers. In most deserts with light substrates, these colors would look washed out during the day, but in contrast to the black cinders and lava flows of this rugged landscape, colors are brilliant. It is the combination of this geologically young, volcanic landscape and its exquisite mix of vegetation that places the Pinacate at the heart of our desert experience.

I crest a ridge formed by an old lava flow, descend into a desert basin dominated by creosote bush, and cross a large arroyo — a dry streambed. As I start to climb out of the drainage I see a pile of lava rocks about 200 feet to my left up on the lip of the arroyo. I alter my course to check out the cairn. As I approach it I stumble upon a significant find — something I have only previously read about — an ancient footpath.

The footpaths of the Pinacate link lava-lined water holes called tanks, and eventually lead to the Sea of Cortez for the gathering of salt. The path is a distinct trough in the desert floor. Large and small rocks glistening with desert varnish line its sides. Desert varnish is a coating of manganese and iron oxides that ever so slowly coats desert rocks that remain set in place. I pick up one of these rocks; its dark-chocolate colored varnish is as smooth to the touch as enameled porcelain. Such a layer of desert varnish takes millennia to form if the rocks remain fixed in their positions during that time. The varnish confirms this footpath is thousands of years old. I try to imagine how many generations and how many feet traversing this path pushed the rocks to their present places of rest?

The last native people to walk this path were the O’odham, also known as the Papago. Before them, it may have been the Hohokam. Before the Hohokam, unnamed hunters and gathers lived here for millennia. Varnish-covered Colvis spear points dating back to 12,000 years ago have been found embedded in these footpaths. Based on microscopic inspection of the desert varnish that covers rocks associated with the Pinacate paths, some researchers have pushed their origins back to 35,000 years ago. This assertion has sparked a lively debate, but even if these footpaths are only 12,000 years old, it still makes them the oldest landscape antiquities in North America.

Instinctively, I step onto the footpath and start walking in my thick-soled boots. I see up ahead the path is going to enter one of the Pinacate’s youngest lava flows. The realization abruptly stops me in my tracks, because I remember reading that the first Spaniards to encounter the O’odham in the 17th century mentioned that they crossed this landscape barefoot. The Vibram soles of my boots are chipped and scraped by just a few days of exploration of the Pinacate’s lava flows; one lug has been cut right off. What kind of feet did the O’odham people have? And then, in that moment opened by my question, a second more profound one arises in my mind: what was life really like for the ancient hunter-gatherers who used to walk these paths?

I’m sure life was physically tough, and very hard times were common. Summer temperatures regularly climb to more than 120 degrees; on the black cinder flats ground temperatures can burn exposed skin. During some years this desert region receives less than an inch of rainfall. At such times food and water would be scarce, demanding deprivation and long desert treks. The Spanish explorers of the 17th century couldn’t comprehend why native people chose to live here. From the European perspective, this region of the Sonoran was not only a wasteland, but also the very vomit of the earth — an entirely unwholesome and unclean place. Yet I have a strong sense that even though life was physically hard, with short life expectancies, the experience of life for the people that lived here thousands of years ago was extraordinarily rich. I base this on the following suppositions.

Hunting-gathering desert culture was based in nomadic clans of a few dozen people. Within the clan group each person had a specific role — her own place — and the entire clan group relied heavily on each other and shared all that they had. Like all hunting-gathering groups, if someone was successful in a hunt, the meat was shared with those who didn’t have success. If any individual accumulated too many possessions, a giving away ceremony took place so that no one individual had too much. In this way, these ancient people practiced reciprocal altruism as a means to survive in this harsh environment. This meant there was no room for personal greed. All individuals had a direct voice in how the affairs of the clan would develop — whether they should move to the next tank, celebrate a particular occasion, or conduct a sacred ritual. For these people the idea of needing to create community would have been absurd. They were community on the deepest of levels. Through stories and rituals, in joy and sorrow, they shared the very core of their lives. I believe that this very strong sense of community, where each member was truly an integral part, greatly enriched their experience of life.

Not only did each individual have a critical place within the clan, they also clearly knew their place within the world. Through rich traditions, in the forms of stories, rituals, and sacred practices, that had been passed from generation to generation for hundreds, possibly thousands of years, these people were seamlessly woven into their landscape. As hunter-gatherers they saw themselves as a part of the land, not apart from it, sharing it with all the other plants and creatures on whom they depended for survival. Their world made sense — it was truly their home. Even though the desert is harsh, it holds a beauty and mystery that I have found in no other landscape. I can vividly sense the vitality in this place as a once-a-year visitor. It has a deep impact on me, but I can’t begin to imagine the depth of the ancients’ experience of, and connection to, this land. I am confident that their experience of life was also greatly enriched due to this intimate connection to this place.

Finally, like all hunter-gatherers, they had lots of time to socialize, tell stories, make crafts, and reflect on their existence. Reflective practice is essential to convert knowledge into understanding, and eventually wisdom.

Knowledge and understanding are often used interchangeably, but I see them as being distinctly different. Knowledge is the acquisition of factual information. It is strictly a mental phenomenon. That our bodies comprise more than 30 trillion cells is a piece of my knowledge. Understanding, on the other hand, is being able to comprehend the meaning or implications of knowledge. Just how many is 30 trillion? In addition to thinking, understanding is characterized by both an emotional and physical response. Where knowledge is black and white, right or wrong — the sort of stuff that is tested for in objective exams — understanding is the many-layered lotus blossom. There is always room for deeper understanding. It runs from AH HA! depicted in cartoons as a light bulb going off over someone’s head, to epiphany, to deep revelatory experience. Where knowledge is static, understanding is dynamic, multifaceted, and always carries with it some level of fulfillment. Understanding is an experience that inflates us.

On the other hand, if we carry too much unprocessed knowledge, it can deaden us. I used to teach a Concepts of Biology course at Antioch. It was a class for students who never had a college-level biology course. The two most common reasons these students didn’t take biology as undergraduates were that they either got the mistaken impression in high school that they just weren’t good at science, or their experience with high school biology was utterly boring. For me, it’s hard to imagine biology as boring. When we start to have a glimmer of understanding regarding the complexity of biological systems and how beautifully they function, it becomes completely engrossing. How could anyone be bored by biology? The answer for the Antioch students lies in high school courses, based on a linear mode of instruction, that were geared solely toward the acquisition of knowledge through the memorization of endless facts and terminology. Without any opportunity to reflect on that knowledge, and translate it into understanding, their experience was deadening.

Reflective practice is not solely based on contemplation; it is also fostered through the arts. Painting, sculpting, composing and playing music, are all means of reflective practice that don’t involve verbal articulation. Artistic works help process knowledge and directly impact the emotional and physical centers of both the practitioner and the audience. As such, the arts also work for the promotion of understanding. Because the Pinacate’s hunter-gatherers had ample time for reflective practice through their arts, stories, and time for contemplation, this too forged a rich experience of life.

To have ample time for reflection to generate understanding, to be an intimate member of a rich communal life, to know your place in the world through vast traditions, to be intrinsically connected to the land, all these things work to create a rich experience of life — one I’m convinced these ancient people had.

These sorts of important connections and time for reflective practice are cultural attributes desperately needed today. Our species, modern Homo sapiens, has existed on the earth for at least 100,000 years. For almost 90 percent of that time all humans shared a mode of life in the form of hunter-gathering culture. They also shared connection to community, connection to place, and time for reflective practice as the foundation on which their culture was grounded. Why in today’s society have these cultural attributes atrophied to such a degree?

Ten thousand years ago, as global climates warmed after the last glaciation and growing seasons lengthened, a new form of human culture evolved — agriculture. Through time the village and extended family replaced the nomadic clan. People continued to have strong communities, rich traditions, a close connection to the land, and ample time for reflection, that grounded them in their world. But two important changes emerged with agriculture. The first was that the sense of being a part of the land was replaced by being apart from it. The idea of having dominion over the earth represented in Genesis is a direct outgrowth of agriculture. Secondly, as villages grew in size, political hierarchies developed. This meant that the decision making process was not equally shared by all. For the first time, many individuals no longer had the ability to be involved in decision-making that directly affected their lives and culture.

For thousands of years agricultural innovation allowed villages to grow ever larger and become cities with complex economies and transportation systems, but the development of urban settings where the majority of the people were disconnected from some form of meaningful relationship with the land didn’t begin to develop until 200 years ago when industrial culture was ushered in on fossil-fuel driven, steam engines. With industrial culture, extended families were shed for more-mobile nuclear ones as the ability to travel via ship, train, auto, and plane became ever easier. Societal changes accelerated, and coupled with greater mobility, connections to traditions that grounded people to their place were lost, and with them the ability to help people make sense of their world. Even though labor-saving technology made life physically easier, increasing complexity of lifestyle actually left less time for reflective practice.

And today we find ourselves crossing the threshold into our fourth major cultural transformation. With the onset of global, post-industrial culture, we see dramatic shifts in populations due to political and economic upheavals, plus ever-changing job markets in both space and time. Some estimates suggest that 2 billion people, or one out of three humans, have been displaced from their homelands in the past few decades by war and economic systems that have left them behind. Gary Nabhan points out the words peace and place have similar roots. Thus true peace and security is linked to being connected to one’s place. For people ripped from their homelands, both peace and quality of life have been seriously eroded.

In the United States where people are not displaced by conflict, the job market has become increasingly prone to perturbations. Partially due to job market instability, by 1996 the average U.S. citizen had moved every 4.7 years. How is it possible to build a connection to community or place when moving so frequently? To make ends meet, the vast majority of American families now have two or more wage-earners and many individuals work multiple jobs. In the mid-1990s America passed Japan to become the nation whose citizens worked the longest hours of any country in the world. Because of the impacts of working longer hours, families spend far less time together than they did just a couple of decades ago. Like the extended family a century ago, the nuclear family now finds itself under increasing pressures that threaten its integrity.

Although egalitarian decision-making was eventually lost with agriculture, elected officials in industrial democracies did bear the brunt of the decision-making process that impacted citizen’s lives. Today, many critical decisions regarding our collective global future are now being made behind closed doors by trade representatives — un-elected officials — often with the blessings of amorphous, transnational corporations. Never in the history of democratic societies has the populace been more removed from the decision-making process than it is today. The combination of these trends has not only isolated a large part of the populace, but also disenfranchised the vast majority of people in decisions that directly impact their lives, their culture, and the lives of future generations.

With voice-mail, e-mail, call-waiting, cell phones and faxes we are finding more time for “productive” ventures but less time for real involvement with people. For some, virtual Internet communities have replaced the actual communities of people within which they live. For many, DVDs, computer games, sophisticated software, and the Internet are replacing the real world with a virtual one. Yes, we are gaining the sense that we are truly a global community. But is that sense being translated into greater community outreach? As the cascade of information that we are all exposed to grows exponentially, where do we find the needed time to reflect on it and extract understanding of the world around us? Where are our children being exposed to reflective practice as art and music programs are being cut in schools throughout the country while more and more time is spent in cyberspace? As T.S. Elliot writes from Choruses from the Rock, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

Of course, the last few paragraphs intentionally cast a decidedly one-sided description of the evolution of our present cultural state of affairs. In reality, there are many wonderful attributes spawned by our cultural transformation over the last few thousand years. These include, to name a few, the rise of democratic institutions, advances in the rights of women, the expansion of civil rights, the advancement of scientific understanding, and further development in the arts. Yet, in a singular way, we have become the flipside of the coin from the Pinacate’s hunter-gatherers. Where their life was physically challenging but experientially rich, it has become physically comfortable and experientially poor for many Americans today.

Just as our hands and recessed eye sockets are the direct result of our arboreal past, our need for real community, traditions that help us find our way, connection to our place, and ample time for reflective practice, are a direct result of our cultural legacy. As such they are intrinsically necessary if we are to have a rich, fulfilled experience of life. Since these things are essential to being human, they are essential if we are to have real progress.

As we have been drawn away from connection to community, place, and reflective practice, a void has developed — what I call a hollowness of experience. That void is presently being filled by a need to consume.

Yet ever-increasing consumption doesn’t make us happier or more fulfilled; it does just the opposite. As we have become isolated from community and place, reciprocal altruism and stewardship have been replaced by self-absorption. When we are connected to community and place we care about them and our actions reflect that caring as we work for their well-being.

Without those connections we lose awareness of how our actions impact others or the environment, and without reflective practice any sense of responsibility for our actions is lost as well. As such, greed becomes possible and when linked to the need to consume, the combination allows for dramatically selfish behavior.

How else can we explain the callousness displayed by CEOs and CFOs of bankrupt corporations like Enron, Tyco, or WorldCom? The isolation of people from community, place, and reflective practice has become a crisis of culture.

To be able to engage in an economic system not based on continued growth, we need to find ways to sustain ourselves that are not based on materialism. Our attention needs to be turned toward fostering community, strong connections to place, traditions that link community to place, and reflective practice to generate understanding and eventually wisdom. These are the only means to bring forth true, sustainable progress for humanity.

Our task is to move from consumption to connection.