Imagine New Year’s Day inHanover, year 2100. Bundled up, you trek to the snow sculpture on the green. The warning of “The Lorax” was heeded – people like you began caring an awful lot – and humanity’s grandest finest achievement was got – planetary sustainability. Not only had Dartmouth College and the town of Hanover brought their consumption levels within the means of nature but so had the entire planet. Truffula trees abundantly swayed while ecological systems recovered and species extinction rates approached pre-industrial revolution levels. To experience war or poverty, you have to visit the historical society.

The dream of sustainabilityhas roots in our region. The world renowned sustainability scientist,Donella Meadows (1941 – 2001), taught at Dartmouth. She farmed organically before Dartmouth had an organic farm. Her ground breaking work Limits to Growth, 1972, sold millions of copies in 28 languages. In her book, Beyond the Limits, 1992, she wrote about a sophisticated computer model that predicted that changes were needed in three areas for sustainability – lower human populations, lower consumption of goods and services, and more efficient technologies. A tall order: How about we take a deep breath and return to the world of our imagination? It’s year 2100. Your great grandchildren are on the green and, against all odds, Dartmouth has become sustainable.

What would be the most positive future you could envision? What meaningful work would your offspring wake to? How would they get from place to place? How would they express their creativity? What would be the leading edge of learning, health care, and research at Dartmouth College?

Two feet back on the ground at Dartmouth, my job as Sustainability Coordinator is to put my head together with yours and to take steps toward the sustainability prize. The scope of this position is to help embed ecological values and practices into the college’s strategic planning process: how we manage our built and natural environments, research activities, the curriculum, student life, and community relationships. Ultimately, Dartmouth College is committed to becoming a sustainability leader in higher education. The process will include tracking its ecological impact and working to reduce it to a responsible and equitable level.

Poised with information, technologies, creativity, and caring individuals, success is inevitable. The Dartmouth Organic Farm and Vital Communities are working on the details of how to serve more local, organic, and in-season meals. Now, can we also transition all our dining facilities to zero-waste, cradle to cradle systems – the only output being compost that feeds next year’s crop? Our new buildings include ecological design features such as tight insulation, energy recovery and efficient lighting and appliances. Now, can we springboard off the work of Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute and halve, or quarter energy use again? Can our building rooftops capture sun and rain and supply most of the needed electricity and hot water?

In the short term my goal is to help make it easy to be sustainable. For example, your bike would have a parking spot protected from the elements, you would be able to eat meals without generating garbage, your dorm would be super-insulated… sustainability becomes the default option – easy and inexpensive. Your role? Cycling or walking around town; using public transit or car pooling for longer trips; choosing smaller, simpler housing closer to campus; when you move out of your room, you make sure all useful items are reused; using your travel mug; refusing disposable packaging; eating lower on the food chain; replacing material stuff with relationships; spending more time in nature; taking time for reflection and personal growth…

There are 1001 ways to be sustainable, but the challenge, as I see it, is for each person to find their own way to make sustainable living fun. I know that I have to really work at sustaining something that isn’t enjoyable — if it isn’t fun, it’s not sustainable. And if it’s not sustainable, it’s not going to be fun – especially for those on the green in 2100. Sustainability asks each of us to be audacious enough to live inside our own dream, contributing toward the brightest future we can envision; now that’s living.

Jim Merkel has a B.S. in electrical engineering and designed and marketed industrial and military systems before committing his energy to sustainability in 1989. Jim founded the alternative transportation task force and the Global Living Project and is the author of Radical Simplicity, 2003, New Society Publishers and Simplicidad Radical, 2005, Fundacion Tierra.