Twenty-five years ago this April, environmental leaders from across the country held the first Earth Day. In what was one of the largest demonstrations of the 60s, over 1,500 colleges held "teach-ins," and dozens of large cities held rallies to address environmental concerns. Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson called the activities of the 20 million Americans who participated "a truly astonishing grass roots explosion."
At Dartmouth, a day after announcing the formation of an Environmental Studies Program, students and faculty held a symposium on the environment in the Top of the Hop. Jonathan Brownell spoke about the need for stronger environmental legislation and Professor Noel Perrin advocated birth control as a way to limit population growth.
A few years later, Dartmouth formed the Energy Council to increase efficiency and reduce the college's dependence on oil. Dartmouth also implemented a ride share program and installed energy efficient lighting throughout the campus.
Since that time, the environmental movement, here and nationally, has become increasingly complex. There are now many more issues and organizations trying to deal with them.
But take a look around. How far have we actually come? Are things any better now than they were 25 years ago?
Clearly they are not. Per capita energy use at Dartmouth and in the United States has nearly doubled, Americans drive 20 percent more and we've lost millions of acres of old growth forest since 1970. On top of all this, the world population continues to grow exponentially.
So, why aren't more people up in arms as they were during the 60s and 70s? Why has the Environmental Studies Division (ESD) of the Dartmouth Outing Club died, and why don't more students protest all the waste at Dartmouth?
The first answer is that activism is no longer fashionable, especially among students who are increasingly concerned about finding a good job when they leave college. Student leadership has waned, and it has become easier not to think about the issues at all outside of class.
It is remarkable, however, that only a few years ago, students raised enough protest through rallies, letter writing campaigns, and smoke stack banners to get the College to divest from Hydro Quebec, a Canadian based hydro-electric company which planned to flood millions of acres in northern Quebec. ESD meetings overflowed with people, and activism was thriving. Now, the one environmental group that does exist at Dartmouth, Coalition for Sustainability at Dartmouth (CSD) is lucky if five people show up for a meeting.
This suggests another reason why students have lost interest in environment: the present issues are not nearly as black and white as Hydro-Quebec. When we start addressing the less glamorous, on-campus issues like recycling in dorms or waste at Collis, we quickly learn that they are much more complex than they initially appear. For example, when CSD members approached the Administration to start a recycling pilot project in Hinman dorm, we were given a list of reasons why the project would not be "feasible" because of fire codes and other regulations. Only by persisting for long enough have we gotten past the initial resistance and started to think about creative solutions.
This national envionmental movement has faced the same challenges. In 1992, following a twelve year fight against Reagan/Bush anti-environmental policies, many national organizations were left scrambling to define exactly what policies they stood for. With Al Gore in the White House and an administration which claimed to be amenable to environmental legislation, groups like the Sierra Club were unable to refocus. This is one of the reasons why so little environmental legislation has been passed in the last two years.
At Dartmouth, whether it's Hydro-Quebec or dorm recycling, students need to continue to define the most pressing environmental issues. Although campus sustainability is at best a secondary priority for the Administration, it would be unfair to say that it is unwilling to work with students on new ideas. The Environmental Studies 50 classes have been working with the Facilities Operations and Management staff and their proposals are taken seriously by some administrators.
But we also need to realize that these efforts can go only so far. Without genuine institutional support beginning with President James Freedman and the Board of Trustees, many environmental alternatives, especially ones which require a capital investment, are doomed from the very start.
Nevertheless, there is now a window of opportunity for student activism. As the College prepares to build new buildings and expand the campus northward, students can play an active role in ensuring that the facilities are built with the least amount of waste and the most long term efficiency. If Dean Pelton's first year proposal gets accepted, students can advocate that the new dormitories use new alternative energy sources instead of relying solely on the power plant. We can push for the proposed "sustainable house" and continue to build support for an organic garden.
As the 25th anniversary of Earth Day approaches, students will no doubt realize that although environmental issues today are often more complex and less well defined, they are every bit as important today as they were in 1970. Hopefully the day will spark an interest among students to start taking a more active role in campus environmental issues.
