Category: Heroes

There are some surprising insights that emerge from being out in the desert, if we’re willing to take the time to really look. A deeper understanding of the desert flora and fauna – one might say a deeper understanding of the biology and the desert ecosystem – might also inform the way we look at the economy and at our social systems. And long-time Tucsonan, Dr. Joseph Wood Krutch, took that time to look. But why the heck would the University of Arizona name a memorial garden after Joseph Wood Krutch? (You did pronounce it as “Krewch” or “Krootch”, didn’t you?)

Joseph Wood Krutch (November 25, 1893 – May 22, 1970) earned a doctorate in English literature from Columbia University in 1923, completing his dissertation, “Comedy and Conscience After the Restoration.” But it was his transition from a Columbia English professor to a celebrated nature writer and conservationist, and his book The Desert Year, that persuaded me to return to Tucson when the University of Arizona invited me to accept a sabbatical in 2011.

Although he was a prolific literary and drama critic, Krutch also became equally well known in later life as a conservationist. Upon retiring from Columbia University in 1952, Krutch relocated to Tucson. Although never hired as faculty there, he remained a prominent literary and naturalist figure associated with the university, later becoming a founding board member of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The University of Arizona dedicated the Joseph Wood Krutch Garden to his memory in 198

As noted in the New York Times story of his passing in 1970, Krutch had written, “Man’s humanity is threatened by the almost exclusively technological approach in social, political and philosophical thought.” In his books, including The Voice of the Desert (1955) and his 1954 volume, The Measure of Man, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, Krutch expressed a longing for an older, more contemplative way of life and a distaste for many of the inventions of the 20th century. He commented, “If you drive a car at 70 miles an hour, you can’t reflect or think about anything, you can’t do anything but keep the monster under control.” Pondering this notion, we might join him in asking, is this “the metaphor of our society as a whole?” 

In the spirit of a more contemplative way of life, we might honor Krutch by visiting the University’s Memorial Garden, and thinking through ways to shift the economic growth monster to support more fully Tucson and Pima County’s social, environmental, and community well-being. Krutch famously called the desert a place where a smaller number of species, facing harsher restrictions, manage to live without the overcrowding and aggressive competition seen in the tropics. Still a lesson to be learned?

Our June 2026 Hero of Sustainability

Dr. Robert U. Ayres

By John A. “Skip” Laitner

This acknowledgement of Bob Ayres is based on a book chapter I was invited to write by his colleagues at INSEAD (Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires), one of the world’s most prestigious and largest graduate business schools with its main campus in Fontainebleau, France.  The complete book should be published next year.  Its working title is: “The fundamental works of Robert Ayres: Pioneer of industrial ecology and early prophet of the fundamental role of energy and materials in our economic system.” By World Scientific Press.

There are so many instances when humanity has thought one way about some aspect of the world, and then found another way of thinking about it.  Centuries ago, we thought the Earth was at the center of the universe.  But then we learned that the Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun itself is only one small object within a very large universe (Gleiser 2024).

We used to think that DNA is the driving force in the development of life.  Now, however, as Philip Ball noted in Scientific American, it is RNA, not DNA, that is the key to life (Ball 2025).

And consider the comment from New York Times science writer Eugene Linden: “For decades, most scientists saw climate change as a distant prospect. We now know that thinking was wrong” (Linden 2019).  Indeed, we now know that climate change poses very real and immediate social and economic burdens.  

What else might we be overlooking or misunderstanding in the ways that we think about energy, materials, and the environment? 

One big, overlooked aspect might be the work of Dr. Robert U. (“Bob”) Ayres, a mathematical physicist and ecological economist.  Bob was a pioneer of industrial ecology and early prophet of the fundamental role of energy and materials in our economic system.

Born in June 1939, Bob was a long-time colleague and collaborator who, alas, passed away in October 2023.  But building on his long-time research we might better understand and act on his critical ideas of industrial metabolism – or what we might call “social metabolism” – important steps to realize the sustainability transition.

Bob was an Emeritus Professor at INSEAD (Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires), where he held the Novartis Chair in Management and the Environment.  Applying thermodynamic principles to economic issues, he was a prominent figure in industrial ecology, ecological economics, and technology forecasting.  His work was part of the inspiration for starting the Yale Journal of Industrial Ecology. 

Bob’s long-time research underscores the need for a healthier and more productive use of both energy and resources as they now impact our immediate social, environmental, and economic well-being.  His most critical book, co-authored with Dr. Benjamin Warr in 2009, was The Economic Growth Engine: How Energy and Work Drive Material Prosperity, https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/the-economic-growth-engine-9781849804356.html.  As we come together to rethink the inter-relationships of energy, water, labor, investment, and community well-being, we would do well to mine his funds of insight.

For more background on Bob’s research and career, see this well-written Wikipedia entry at:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ayres_(scientist).