Designing a sustainable world is not simply a technocratic exercise. It is as much a cultural and ethical project as a scientific and engineering endeavor. It requires imagination, versatility, and creativity, a willingness to live our lives differently. Only if we come to comprehend that, as the ecologist and theologian Thomas Berry observes, “the universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects,” will we achieve a level of awareness sufficient to produce viable solutions. We must understand that we are woven inextricably into the fabric of life and do not stand apart from it, exercising dominion over the world around us. The “environment” is not something that exists separate from human beings but rather is what makes human life possible...

How do we want to be remembered: as leaders who understood the need to address upstream the pressing issues of our age and acted with courage and foresight, or as people whose primary goals were short-term advantage and gain and who cared for little else besides self advancement? The present moment is unlike any other in terms of what is at stake. As Berry writes, it is a moment that calls on us to transform our exploitation of the earth into a relationship that is “mutually beneficial.” And, as luck would have it, the moment is brief. Unless we act now to preserve and enhance the life, beauty, and diversity of the planet for future generations, we will become, in Berry’s words, “impoverished in all that makes us human.” The question is no longer why we should address climate destabilization, and in some cases, it is not even how. The question has become how fast and effectively we can move forward. In short, to what extent are we willing to be boldly sustainable? ...

Given global threats such as the growing disruption of the climate, staggering levels of poverty in the developing world, and the looming peak oil crisis, it is remarkable how insular much of the higher education establishment is. Amid the day-to-day tasks of measuring learning outcomes, recruiting students, cultivating donors, balancing the budget, applying for grants, and keeping controversy to a minimum, surprisingly little time or energy is spent on how to address the truly serious problems that promise to upend the lives of the next generations. “One could make the case that our universities are actually mired in the Stone Age,” notes Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University. “Our universities remain highly static, resistant to change, unwilling to evolve in pace with real time.” Just as our prehistoric ancestors went about busting up rocks, we view the world as something to break down and take apart rather than to understand holistically and live in harmony with. In Crow's words, we seek to “heat it, beat it, melt it, smash it, burn it and blow it up.”

It is time for a new set of priorities that move us from “the Stone Age to the Sustainability Age.” How can it make sense for universities and colleges to keep doing what they do when they have contributed in large part to the current predicament? In light of how we got where we are, shouldn’t higher education leaders rethink the way that teaching, research, and learning take place and how they operate their facilities? More people, both inside and outside academia, are asking these questions. Now, more than ever, we need to keep in mind Eric Hoffer’s acerbic observation that “in times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

Although colleges and universities may be inherently conservative, they must respond to the dramatically altered circumstances or run the risk of becoming irrelevant. Sustainability, as Peter Senge puts it, is “the necessary revolution.”The high stakes involved in meeting the challenges of sustainability and climate change mean that effective leadership, strategic thinking, and implementation in higher education are more imperative than ever. They demand a shift from maintaining the status quo to bringing about transformation. “Boldly sustainable” is not just a battle cry. It is a powerful strategy for higher education to achieve renewal, reformation, and relevance in the 21st century. It is an opportunity for colleges and universities to avoid the fate of collapsing under the weight of their own self-absorption, isolation, and obtuseness,to avoid becoming the intellectual equivalent of Easter Island.