One more chance for humanity to win
Instructors offer solutions, say improvement must start with indiinduals
CTo Royce Ballinger,
the condition ofthe
environment is like
a baseball game
between nature
and humanity.
It’s the top of the
ninth and nature
bats last.
Ballinger, director of the School of
Biological Sciences at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, said the time span of
the human population can be divided
into stages — innings.
“If you look at the end of the game as
a chance for humanity to win,’’ he said,
“we clearly have one more out to go.”
F-or the human race to win, people
must get their priorities straight and start
taking care of the environment, he said.
If action isn’t taken soon, the game will
be over and humanity will lose.
“We are not very good as humans at
seeing the chronic effects of things,"
Ballinger told about 40 students in the
Nebraska Union on Thursday. “We are
not taught to look down the road 20
years.
“Yes, there issome hope. But there are
plenty of things that need to be done.”
Ballinger spoke in conjunction with
Earth Day, which was Sunday. The event
was established in 1970 to create aware
ness of environmental issues and en
courage the passage of clear air and
water acts.
Ballinger has been involved with the
movement from its humble beginnings.
Twenty years ago, Ballinger was a
student at Texas A&M. At that time, Earth
Day was not news, he said.
“The activity was entirely concen
trated on campuses," Ballinger recalled.
Corporationsside-stepped the issue of
the deteriorating atmosphere. Citizens
ignored the problems. Only environmen
talists cared about the country’s health.
“There wasn’t a politician that would
touch environmental issues with a 10
foot pole,” Ballinger said.
For Earth Day in 1970, Ballinger stud
ied the environment of a local county. He
surveyed the air quality, water quality
and the amount of trash accumulation.
His interest in the environment earned
him the label of "just another protester,"
he said.
He was thrown into a cateogory
composed mostly of Vietnam demonstra
tors. He wasn’t recognized nationally for
his efforts. Not many were in 1970.
But Ballinger said he did make a dif
ference.
“We established the tradition of con
cern," Ballinger said
That tradition has grown.
Since the first Earth Day, the U S.
government has enacted more than 48
pieces of legislation related to the envi
ronment, he said
Today, environment, ecology and
pollution are household words, Ballinger
said Many people recycle. Most at least
are aware.
“Now, 20 years later, environmental
issues are like motherhood and apple
pie," Ballinger said
But Ballinger and other local environ
mentalists recognize that more must be
done.
Richard Sutton, a registered landscape
architect and associate professor at U'NL,
said he is hearing the same rhetoric he
heard 20 years ago, but has seen little im
provement.
“There are still too many people say
ing it’s not a big deal,” Sutton said. “But
it is. I don’t know', maybe people are
living in a completely sealed environ
ment where they don’t see anything "
_
Sutton
Sulton said the population is rising.
The amount of waste is increasing. Trees
are being cut down. The environment is
decaying.
One American causes as much pollu
tion as 20 people in Third World coun
tries, he said.
According to Ballinger, the population
of the world grows at a rate of 10,270
people per hour.
Eighty percent of the world’s people
have gross incomes of less than S700 a
year, he said.
Twenty percent of the people in the
developed countries use 80 percent of
the world’s resources, Ballinger said.
If changes are going to be made in the
environment, Ballinger and Sutton said,
solutions must be started locally.
“People in Lincoln need to bite the
bullet and start recycling,” Sutton said.
“We need to think about Earth Day every
day."
Sutton, who calls himself a radical
environmentalist, has made personal
contributions to the event since it began
in 1970.
At that time, he was a student at
Colorado State University. He partici
(---1
Ballinger
pated in a ceremonial funeral for the
combustion engine. He was involved
with displays. He strengthened the cause
by spreading information.
Since then Sutton has remained in
volved in Earth Day. In 1980, he organ
ized a photo exhibition on East Campus.
“It was the only activity that had to do
with Earth Day on this campus," he said.
This year, he manned a booth at Pio
neers Park providing people with infor
mation about energy conservation and
wildlife. He participated in cleaning up
the park and distributing trees.
Sutton remained active in the cause
because of his relationship to the envi
ronment. As a landscape architect, he
said, it’s important to nave an under
standing of the relationship between
nature and man.
Maybe if everyone had this under
standing, he said, things would improve.
Improvement could begin with a ban
on all non-recyclable products, Sutton
said. All packaging that is not recyclable
should have a user’s fee.
In Lincoln, he said, trees must be
planted. Open spaces must be preserved,
not developed. Most importantly, people
must be aware.
“People have to come to grips with
where they are,” Sutton said. “People
need to ask themselves if in the future
there will be the resources to keep oper
ating.”
Improving the future means more
than Earth Day, according to Richard
Boohar, associate professor of biological ,
sciences.
Boohar said the event has been bene
ficial because it “put a strain on the White
House,” but he was not directly involved
in it this year.
“Good people are gelling the word
out to others,” he said “But I have other
things to do than wave a banner and
shriek.”
Boohar, who has taught at UNL for 23
years, said he will recognize Earth Day by
doing what he does every day. That’s
recycling, cutting down on energy con
sumption and driving as little as possible.
“That’s much more fun than waving a
sign on Earth Day,” he said.
College students, he said, should fol
low his example.
According to Boohar, college students
waste "right and left.” They don’t recycle
their aluminum cansor paper. They leave
lights on after leaving a room. They buy
products, such as compact discs, in over
packaged and non-biodegradable con
tainers.
"All college students have to do is start
saying there are some things we won’t
buy,” Boohar said. "And the things we
will buy we want packaged in materials
that can be recycled.”
It’s important for people to establish
good environmental habits when they’re
young, he said, so they continue them all
their lives.
Gerry Saunders, a biology teacher at
Southeast High School, tries to help his
students establish those habits.
Saunders, who is working on his
Ph D. in science education at UNL, said J
he focuses his lessons in April on envi
ronmental issues. t
This year, Saunders organized a week
of activities for Southeast students to
remind them that they "can make the
future happen or let it happen.”
Saunders has been working to make
the future happen since his childhood,
he said. He learned his good habits from
his parents.
Those habits include riding his bike
more than driving a car, eating lower on
the food chain, recycling and promoting
the cause.
In 1970, when Saunders was in col
lege, his professors incorporated F.arth
Day into their lesson plans. Other than
that, he said, there was little publicity.
“It’s a lot more of a national effort this
year," Saunders said.
The movement now is focused on the
individual, he said, which is where it
needs to be for change to occur.
“Individuals create the problems,”
Saunders said. "So individuals must cure
the problems ”
••Mindy Moxer