In Memoriam — Steady Staters Who Left Us in 2021

In our first podcast episode of the year, Brian Czech takes a moment to remember some of the steady staters who left us in 2021: David Schindler, Valerius Geist, Mason Gaffney, Dick Lamm, Thomas Lovejoy, E.O. Wilson, and Lisa Vandemark. Brian lists their achievements, shares personal encounters, and reflects on life, death, and limits.

Our conversation with Dick Lamm: The Almost Steady-State President (October 2020)

Episode Transcript

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(00:00):
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Pat Choate (00:06):
From the Center for the Advancement of the Steady
State Economy, this is TheSteady Stater, a podcast
dedicated to discussing limitsto growth and the steady state
economy.

Brian Czech (00:17):
Welcome to the show, I am your host, Brian
Czech and speaking for all of usat CASSE, our board, staff,
interns, chapter directors, andvolunteer network. Happy New
Year! Now I don't need to tellyou Steady Staters that 2021 was
another year of destructiveecological overshoot. Thanks to

(00:38):
the bloating GDP, which globallyhas pushed back into the $90
trillion territory, things havenever looked less sustainable. I
also don't need to tell you thatchanging that trajectory,
putting us on a path toward asteady state economy -- degrowth
toward a steady state economy --is a task far beyond the

(00:58):
capability of any oneindividual. But I wanted to take
a few minutes this week toeulogize a few individuals with
outsized contributions. Theseare men and women that we lost
in 2021, who spent much of theirlives working for conservation,
sustainability, and a steadystate economy. Now, of course,

(01:19):
given the venue -- I mean, TheSteady Stater podcast --these
are individuals with someconnection to CASSE. In some
cases, the CASSE connectionprovides for the only personal
observation we have. So I hopeit's in good taste mentioned
that. The last two to leave usin 2021 were, you probably
heard,Thomas Lovejoy and E. O. Wilson,
who died on Christmas Day andthe following day respectively.

(01:44):
But I think it's appropriate tostart at the beginning moving
along with the sands of time. Sothen, David Schindler died on
the fourth day of March at theage of 80. Dave was an American
Canadian limnologist parexcellence. He was Professor of
Ecology at the University ofAlberta, and rose to prominence

(02:06):
for his extremely innovative,long-running experiments on
entire lakes at the famous andaptly named Experimental Lakes
Area of Ontario. Dave earnedover 100 awards and honors,
culminating perhaps in the 2016Rachel Carson Award from the
Society of EnvironmentalToxicology and Chemistry, which

(02:28):
a lot of us know as SETAC. Inhis 2008 book The Algal Bowl -
Overfertilization of the World'sFreshwaters and Estuaries,
Schindler warned that [quote]"the fish killing blooms that
devastated the Great Lakes inthe 1960s and 1970s. Haven't
gone away. They've moved westinto an arid world in which

(02:52):
people, industry, andagriculture are increasingly
taxing the quality of whatlittle freshwater there is to be
had here. This isn't just aprairie problem. Global
expansion of deadzones caused byalgal blooms is rising rapidly."
I can see why Dave won thatRachel Carson Award -- he didn't
just write, didn't just reporthis findings and leave it at

(03:14):
that. He was an active andintentional agent of change. And
like Carson, he was that rareecological scientist who ended
up making a big difference inthe regulatory framework of the
American and Canadianenvironmental agencies. I met
him at a society forconservation biology conference
in 2010. That was in hisbackyard and Edmonton, Alberta.

(03:37):
And there was a group of us --the working group for ecological
economics and sustainabilityscience -- that was trying to
get SCB to take a position oneconomic growth. We were using
the CASSE position as atemplate. Dave read it and was
immediately all over it. Heloved it. In fact, he got all
charged up about it. He emanatedthis great store of energy and

(04:00):
passion that allowed him, maybeeven pushed him, to accomplish
so much in his illustriouscareer.
Valerius Geist left us on July6, at the age of 83. Val was
known as a Canadian biologistand professor at the University
of Calgary. Val was actuallyborn in the Ukrainian Republic

(04:24):
-- as it was at the time,Ukrainian republic of the USSR
-- and grew up primarily inAustria and Germany. Quickly
though, as a young, adventurousscholar, he took to the wilds of
British Columbia, then Alberta,eventually settling into
retirement on Vancouver Island.
For decades, Val was a worldauthority on the biology,

(04:44):
behavior, and social dynamics ofNorth American and really
circumboreal large mammals, suchas elk, moose, bison... but,
most of all, bighorn sheep andwolves. One time I was in
Limerick, Ireland for aconference of the international
fund for animal welfare, and Ihad the great good luck of

(05:05):
joining Val over dinner in adining hall where, lo and
behold, an ancient pair of Irishelk antlers were hung, spanning
much of a wall, in fact. Now ifyou don't know the Irish Elk,
Google it up now -- so you willhave an idea of the majesty
we're talking about here. Infact, just Google up "Irish elk
antlers" and go straight to thephotos. While there in Limerick,

(05:28):
Val absolutely regaled me witheverything you possibly want to
know about Irish elk evolution,social behavior, physiology,
population, dynamics, and theireventual extinction.
Furthermore, he took me on atour of the natural history of
this particular specimen basedon the shapes, and textures, and

(05:50):
battle scars on these antlersfrom millennia past -- kinda
like a great forester can tellyou about the life of a tree
from its rings. Here's the thingI remember the most -- the
proverbial, everything I couldpossibly want to know just kept
expanding because of theintelligence, the intrigue, and
the drama Val applied andevoked. Yeah, Val was like a

(06:13):
walking encyclopedia of naturalhistory with an insatiable
intellectual appetite thateventually brought him to a
highly respected level ofexpertise on Neanderthal people
and their behavior. Well, likeDave Schindler, Val received
numerous honors often stemmingfrom his 20-some books. Val was
old-school too, add a uniquenexus of academia and wildlife

(06:36):
adventure. He was the only NorthAmerican hunter to be honored
with professional membership inthe Boone and Crockett Club, and
its European counterparts, theInternational Council for Game
and Wildlife Conservation. Youknow, I can't help but to see
Val up there right now, chasingthat elusive Irish elk through
some Pleistocene step.

(07:01):
Now, we can't cheat death,death, taxes are limits to
growth. But I'm going to cheathere just once by bringing in
another July death, but this onefrom 2020 -- because we didn't
have a memorial episode lastyear. So on July 16 of 2020, the
iconoclast economist MasonGaffney died. Mason was one of

(07:24):
the leading Georgists, anadherent to Henry George's 1862
masterpiece Progress andPoverty. Mason's own book from
2007, The corruption ofEconomics, is the most thorough
stripping of an emperor'sclothes you will ever read.
Gaffney was an economist and ahistorian, and he documented

(07:44):
blow by blow how the bellwetherEconomics departments of the
USA, Columbia, Stanford, JohnsHopkins, and eventually the
University of Chicago were builtto fight against the Georgist
paradigm, thus the corruption ofeconomics -- that is the
American Neoclassical school ofeconomics as it developed in the

(08:06):
early decades of the 20thcentury. Few students today are
aware that what Karl Marx was tothe capitalist in Europe, Henry
George was to the landlord inthe USA, and a few other parts
of the world as well. Georgewould have financed the polity
with a single tax on land, andfor the full rent, essentially

(08:27):
socializing land. And this atthe zenith of land baron power
among the likes of Rockefeller,Carnegie Mellon, and Morgan --
the man had guts, and so theGaffney, a World War II
volunteer. Of all the labeledschools of economic thought out
there aside from ecologicaleconomics, the Georgists are

(08:48):
perhaps most allied with westeady staters. It's no
coincidence that Gaffney was --and so many other Georgists are
-- CASSE signatories. We allrecognize the profound and
distinctive importance of landas a factor of production, kind
of in the vein of the18th-century physiocrats. One

(09:09):
thing I especially appreciatedabout Mason Gaffney is that
until I read The Corruption ofEconomics, I'd never really
found any political explanationfor how the landless production
function came about -- you know,that ecologically ignorant
equation at the center ofneoclassical growth theory that
tells us production is afunction of capital and labor,

(09:33):
with no acknowledgementwhatsoever of land. While
ecological economics was fine atdescribing the shortcomings of
the production function, it wasthe investigatory Georgist,
Mason Gaffney, that figured outwhy. You might say he brought us
all the way to the neoclassicalWizard of Oz and pulled back the

(09:55):
curtain.
Well another July death -- backto 2021 now, happened on the
29th, when steady staters aresaddened to hear of the passing
of Richard Lamm at the age of85. Dick was a three-term
governor of Colorado who, if youcan believe it, won that office
in 1974 on a platform largely oflimiting growth. We spoke to

(10:20):
Dick on The Steady Stater inOctober of 2020 and asked him,
how the heck did he pull thatoff?

Richard Lamm (10:28):
I did talk about growth. I had led the fight
against the Olympics. Coloradohad bid to host the Olympics and
they won. And I went againstthat, and led a statewide, an
initiative that defeated theOlympics. And so a lot of that
was around grow -- Colorado wasgrowing too fast. And so the

(10:50):
growth issue was part of mypolitical platform. I was
fighting in the legislature forland-use planning. But the
biggest thing where I got myconstituency is I led the battle
against the 1976 Olympics. Inthe 1972, Colorado elections, we
defeated the Olympics. Andsomebody at the victory party

(11:15):
held me up to the top of the sealeader and said, "Ladies and
gentlemen, the next Governor ofColorado."

Brian Czech (11:22):
Dick also co-founded and presided over the
nonprofit Zero PopulationGrowth, now known as Population
Connection. He was always afriend of CASSE and helped us
with advice and networking.
Let's not forget to that Dickwas nearly nominated as the
Reform Party's presidentialcandidate in the 1996 election.

(11:49):
The Grim Reaper seemed to go onhiatus through the late summer
and fall but came back with avengeance in late December.
Thomas Lovejoy left us right onChristmas day. You know, I doubt
there's ever been a fellow whosecountenance better matched his
surname. I didn't know him well,but he seemed to love the art of
joy. Google him up ThomasLovejoy, and you can see it in

(12:13):
his smile. The joy justemanates. And that's something
for a fellow so thoroughlyknowledgeable about
biodiversity, and therefore theplate of biodiversity. Among
other things, Tom was thepresident of the Amazon
Biodiversity Center, a seniorfellow at the United Nations
Foundation, and a professor atGeorge Mason University. He was

(12:36):
the World Bank's chiefbiodiversity advisor, and the
lead environmental specialistsfor Latin America and the
Caribbean. He was president ofthe prestigious Heine Center. He
gets credit for coining the veryterm "biological diversity" back
in 1980. We could go on and onabout his titles, achievements
and awards, but I have it fromHerman Daly that Lovejoy was

(12:59):
influential at the World Bank inhelping protect the Amazon from
what could have been worsedespoiling. I know too that love
joy was quite interested inlimits to growth and the steady
state economy. Although we neverquite got the chance to follow
up on our encounter at aconference in D.C.. It's
definitely one of my biggerregrets with regard to steady

(13:21):
state networking. And for thatmatter, networking period, I
feel I missed out on knowing notonly an effective
conservationist, but a wonderfuljoy loving human.
One fellow I did get to knowfairly well though was E. O.
Wilson. He left us the very dayafter Tom on December 26th, at

(13:43):
the age of 92. Known as themodern day Darwin, Ed Wilson was
a biologist, naturalist,evolutionary ecologist, and, of
course, the world's foremostauthority on that massive slice
of life on Earth called ants. Hewas a generational talent,
coming up with big ideas on bigissues on a regular basis. He

(14:07):
was the author of such books asOn Human Nature, The Social
Conquest of Earth, Consilience,Letters to a Young Scientist,

and Half-Earth (14:17):
Our Planet's Fight For Life. Ed received more
than 150 awards and medals andwas an honorary member of more
than 30 prestigiousorganizations, academies, and
institutions. Several animalspecies have been scientifically
named in his honor, mostly antspecies, of course, as well as

(14:37):
one bird and one bat. Well, Igot to know Ed while working for
the U.S. Fish and WildlifeService. I was the conservation
biologist for the NationalWildlife Refuge System. And I
caught wind of the fact that Edwas hoping to get a national
park established in theMobile-Tensaw Delta. This
massive meandering Delta alongthe Gulf of Mexico and Alabama

(15:00):
takes in the waters of theMobile and Tensaw rivers and
turns them into a flowinglabyrinth of shape shifting
mazes, as complex ecologically,as it is hydrologically. I set
about to persuade Ed that, infact, the Delta would be more
fitting as a national wildliferefuge than a national park. And

(15:21):
I'd do my best to promote it asthe potential crown jewel of
biodiversity in the nationalwildlife refuge system. There
were excellent reasons fortaking this route, and Ed was
interested. So I went to meethim at his Harvard laboratory,
met him again in WashingtonD.C., and ended up spending
several spectacular days in thefield with him that summer in

(15:43):
the Delta. Ed took quickly tothe idea of a Mobile-Tensaw
Delta National Wildlife Refuge.
Our meetings and escapades alsoled to some serious discussion
of a topic he'd largely avoidedtill then, namely the conflict
between economic growth andbiodiversity conservation. I
discovered that Ed had been --we might say -- somewhat

(16:04):
victimized by the win-winrhetoric of the conservation
bigs. You know, The NatureConservancy, World Wildlife
Fund, National WildlifeFederation, and really, almost
all of big green. You know, thatwin-win rhetoric that there is
no conflict between growing theeconomy and protecting the
environment. But to Ed's credit,once he was presented with the

(16:27):
concepts of ecologicalmacroeconomics, the fundamental
conflict between economic growthand biodiversity conservation
resonated quickly and stronglywith him, and he didn't worry
about offending any of thewin-win rhetoricians from big
green. He signed the CASSEposition on economic growth
right away, and that became aturning point in the dialogue on

(16:49):
growth among the conservationcommunity. He went on to say
that destroying rainforest foreconomic gain is like burning a
Renaissance painting to cook ameal. Ed also served as the
figurehead for the Half-EarthProject. Few projects would
square as neatly, as preciselywith the CASSE mission. What I

(17:11):
mean by precisely is -- wellhave a look at the CASSE logo
sometime, you'll know preciselywhat I mean by "precisely."
I'd like to end this collectivememoriam by recalling one of my
closest friends in life. LisaVandemark. She actually left us

(17:32):
nearly a year ago on January 17,way too young, in her case at
61. She's not a household nameand ecological economics or
sustainability science, but shewould have been if she'd wanted
to. She had the brains in spadesand she could shift the paradigm
by personality alone. I think ofher a lot, but I guess I'm

(17:54):
remembering her now especiallybecause she was at my side the
first time I met Ed Wilson, backin 2000 at a conference in D.C..
I was new to Fish and Wildlifeheadquarters, new to the
beltway, in fact, and she was ascientist with the National
Research Council. But soonafter, she took a circuitous

(18:14):
path with research in Thailand,leading very circuitously to a
second career back in the statesin social psychology. A real
Renaissance woman she was. LisaVandemark, a couple days before
she died of cancer, I told herI'd be looking up in the clouds
for -- by God she said she'dwave.

(18:52):
Well, folks, that's about wrapsus up. We've been memorializing
some of the best the world hadto offer. I am sorry if we
overlooked one of your favoritesteady staters, much less the
loved one. You know, theseremarkable, energetic,
brilliant, charismaticindividuals we talked about
today and ones we didn't too,well, it just goes to show what

(19:16):
we all know in our hearts. Thereare limits. And really, they're
not so bad. Let me try ananalogy -- without the cold,
would we ever know how it feelsto be warm? Same with limites.
Without limits, would we evereven sense any growth. So it's
life, death, those dang ol'taxes, and limits to growth. I'm

(19:42):
Brian Czech, and you've beenlistening to The Steady Stater
podcast. See you next time!