Summit brings greens to Yale

As the presidential election approaches, debates on campus and across the nation are focusing on the hot issues, and few things excite partisan debate like the environment. This was more than apparent on Sat., Sept. 21, when approximately 200 environmentally-concerned leaders convened at the Yale Law School for an environmental summit.

The purpose of the summit, sponsored by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, was to review the findings of a two-year effort entitled, "Environmental Reform: The Next Generation Project." The project, which brought together leaders from diverse academic, industrial, and governmental sectors, sought to move from a current environmental policy of rigid federal regulations mainly targeting large, visible "smokestack" industries, to a "second generation" policy that would foster eco-friendly behavior in the traditionally overlooked sectors of transportation, agriculture, and energy.

The new approach strives to create legislation at the community and state level that is economically as well as environmentally friendly. New Jersey Governor Christine Whitman said the focus was to "get industry and environmentalists to work together." For such policymaking to be effective, however, the individual consumer must be well informed and convinced of the cause's merit, Whitman said.

Here at Yale, there is an intense atmosphere of student environmental activism. Indeed, the general notion of the summit--the not-so-new idea of "think globally, act locally"--has not been lost on a great number of Yale students, and has, in fact, been given a distinctly urban twist.

Several student organizations, including the Yale Student Environmental Coalition (YSEC), the Green Corps, Fertile Ground, and the Urban Resources Initiative deal directly with economically disadvantaged urban communities and schools in New Haven, aiding children and adults in making their own communities environmentally sound.

YSEC, according to co-chair Matt Kronman, ES '98, is currently involved in community outreach and influencing the "green-mindedness" of campus businesses.

YSEC will also be involved with a "green voter campaign" to encourage people to vote in November with ecology in mind.

The campaign is sponsored largely by the Green Corps, a national student organization that sends college graduates to primary schools to increase environmental awareness. "Students have a critical role to play in the environment," Jamie Christensen, head of the Yale chapter of the Green Corps, said--especially at the ballot box.

According to Christensen, only 20 percent of students across the nation voted in the 1994 elections. This year, they hope to reach a goal of 50 percent and inform as many students as possible about ecological issues.

Liz Alter, JE '97, head of Fertile Ground, a student group that teaches New Haven elementary and middle school students about the environment, promotes the idea of the city as ecosystem. "We teach them to find nature in their backyard and to respect the environment," Alter said.

The notion that the city is an ecosystem is espoused by organizers of the Urban Resources Initiative (URI), a not-for-profit joint University/city endeavor that takes ideas developed in the Forestry School and applies them toward environmental restoration of urban areas.

The philosophy, according to Professor Gordon Geballe, an assistant dean at the School of Forestry, is "to view the city as an environment just as one would a forest." In each case, understanding and managing the flow of materials from creation to waste and the behavior of individuals within that process is vitally important to the health of the given environment. This view calls for a rethinking of what has been traditionally thought of as the "environment."

"There is no reason why Yellowstone should be considered more `natural' than New Haven," Leigh Shemitz, director of URI, said. Special attention to urban sectors, with their high population of industry, businesses, services, and people is important because of their heavy environmental impact on other natural areas.

Shemitz described what is done at the local level to improve the urban environment, emphasizing that neighborhood leaders and groups often come to them with some idea of what they want to accomplish. Through URI, these communities can apply new ideas toward their projects and learn how to gain access to other resources in the city.

This type of grassroots activity embellished with novel approaches is what policy-makers would like to see occur on a nationwide scale. New Haven, in its ongoing partnership with Yale, is in the unique position of possessing an unusually energetic corps of environmental activists. Whether this same enthusiasm can be carried over to other neighborhoods, urban or suburban, which lack the same resources and spirit remains to be seen.