Steve Kurtz just posted this to another list.

Ron P.

Pioneering professor, wife die in apparent double suicide

9/18/03

By SCOTT STEEPLETON

Santa Barbara NEWS-PRESS ASSISTANT METRO EDITOR

Garrett James Hardin, a pioneer in the field of population's effect on
Earth, died over the weekend along with his wife in an apparent double
suicide.

The bodies of Mr. Hardin and his wife, Jane, were found inside their Santa
Barbara home Sunday. Mr. Hardin was a professor emeritus at UCSB whose
groundbreaking 1968 essay "The Tragedy of the Commons" put forth the
notion that human misery would increase greatly without the recognition
that livable space on Earth is finite.

He was 88 and she was 81. The couple were married Sept. 7, 1941, and last
week celebrated their 62nd anniversary.

Sharon Clausen, one of the couple's four children, said they were in poor
health, her father being frail and suffering from a heart condition while
her mother had a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou
Gehrig's disease.

"They were both members of the Hemlock Society (End-of-Life Choices) and
felt very strongly that they wanted to choose their own time to die," said
Ms. Clausen.

Autopsies were being conducted on the bodies, and as of Wednesday the
results had not been released.

Ms. Clausen said there was no doubt her parents took their own lives.
"They did what they wanted to do," she said.

Mr. Hardin didn't let politics get in the way of his beliefs. He was
vilified by the left for calls to limit immigration while his abortion
rights views brought criticism from the Republican Party, of which he was
a lifelong member. He and his wife were longtime supporters of Planned
Parenthood, and in 1973 helped operate an "underground railroad" in which
200 local women went to Mexico seeking abortions.

Goleta City Councilwoman Margaret Connell, a friend of the Hardins since
1956, said Mr. Hardin's research and writing on reproductive rights "were
fundamental in getting the state Legislature to pass therapeutic abortion
bills in the 1960s."

Mr. Hardin enjoyed making a stir, said those who knew him. He wrote at
least a dozen books, but "The Tragedy of the Commons" was his most
influential work.

Former Santa Barbara County planning commissioner Ed Maschke, a longtime
friend and one-time student of Mr. Hardin's, called the essay
life-altering.

"One reason I came to Santa Barbara was, through a course in zoology, I
came across 'The Tragedy of the Commons.' Garrett was teaching at the time
and I ended up taking 24 units from him," said Mr. Maschke, 55, of Lompoc.
"I got to know he and his wife. He was truly a teacher. He certainly made
you question everything, and that in my mind is the essence of a true
teacher."

Like Socrates and Aristotle, Mr. Hardin, who retired in 1978 after more
than 30 years on the UCSB faculty, pushed students to question their way
of thinking, recalled Mr. Maschke, and that was irritating to many folks.

"Some people would say to him that his ideas were uppity, that there are
many people who have less and that we have to help them, but he would say,
'That's not my job. My job is to question the assumptions that we are
making as a society, as a government,'Ê" recalled Mr. Maschke.

Mr. Hardin was diagnosed with polio as a child and later used crutches and
then a wheelchair.

That the Hardins may have ended their own lives "is not out of character
at all," he added. "The sadness is that I called him awhile back and had
hoped to see him. Now I can't."

Mr. Hardin, who wrote well into retirement, received many honors,
including the 1997 Constantine Panunzio Distinguished Emeriti Award, which
is given each year to a retired faculty member of the nine-campus UC
system for continued scholarly achievement.

He was trained as an ecologist and microbiologist and was a professor of
human ecology.

Rupert Cutler, assistant secretary of agriculture under President Carter
and former executive director of a group known as Population/Environment
Balance, of which Mr. Hardin was a founder, called him the best spokesman
for the idea that continued growth of the human population would destroy
the very environment on which humans depend for their survival.


"My clearest memory of Garrett Hardin was when the two of us were being
interviewed by a reporter from the Arizona Republic and how the reporter
was obviously uneasy with Garrett's saying that the best days of the
Valley of the Sun were behind it," he said. Growth, Mr. Hardin said, had
sucked away the area's "cultural carrying capacity."

Mr. Cutler, 69, a city councilman in Roanoke, Va., said the professor's
voice will be greatly missed.

"As the human population continues to grow, his message is all the more
valid and important," he said. "Part of the result of his death might be
more attention paid to his writings in a retrospective sense, at least I
hope that's the case."

The Hardins' granddaughter, Sarah Hardin, saw them as a "sort of a second
set of parents for me. I spent a good portion of my life growing up with
Garrett and Jane Hardin," said Ms. Hardin, 27, of Santa Barbara. "I admire
both of them greatly. His incredible ideas and his writings, and Grandma
Jane for being the backbone that allowed him to do it."

In addition to Ms. Clausen, who lives in Mendocino County, the Hardins are
survived by daughter Hyla Fetler of Santa Barbara and sons Peter Hardin of
Amador County and David Hardin of Santa Barbara.

A memorial service is planned for 1:30 p.m. Oct. 25 at the Unitarian
Society, 1535 Santa Barbara St. Memorial contributions may be made to
Planned Parenthood or Music Academy of the West.


=====
- If there is ever a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically
lead to an increase in population until the natural state of
starvation and misery is restored.
Richard Dawkins: River out of Eden.

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