Environmentalists call for Republican support
Debate focuses on vital link between politics, ecology
By Tatiana Botton
As part of the 25th anniversary of Earth Day, campus groups
organized a debate Thursday on the link between politics and the
environment.
The world is now a different place than it was before, speakers
stressed. People just need to see all the recycling projects or
simply how often the words "healthy," "natural" or "ecological" are
used, they argued.
"Ordinary people who had a consciousness have made changes that
are now taken for granted," said Rick Cole, one of the speakers and
an employee for the City Council of Pasadena. "As Frederick
Douglass said, ‘There is no progress without struggle.’ It’s not
easy to make changes, they happen because millions of people
decided to act together."
The subject was chosen by Robert Herzstein, a member of the
Environmental Coalition. He explained the environment is related to
every single discipline  including politics. Herzstein added
many environmentalists were disappointed by the elections last
November.
"The Grand Old Party is attacking the environmental
perspectives. Wilson was supposed to be the environmental leader,
but now he has abandoned his positions," said Tom Soto, a UCLA
environmental studies graduate now working for an environmental
company.
But Andy McLeod, spokesman for the Resource Agency of the State
of California, argued that Pete Wilson had a long record of
environment sensitivity with a long opposition to oil drilling on
the California coast.
He added that Wilson’s efforts were far-sighted regarding
conservation in Southern California.
"November elections changed nothing in Pete Wilson’s position,
though they have changed the political landscape across the
country," he said.
McLeod added that there are no longer black and white answers,
but only a federal regulatory approach. He said the answers and
policies that have been used for more than 20 years are no longer
applicable.
But Soto explained that at the last Nov. 8 elections, the
"Contract With America" plan offered by the Republicans does not
talk about the environment at all but only about job enhancement
and economics.
A spokesperson for the California Republican Party confirmed
that the "contract" makes no mention of environmental laws.
"The Contract will allow people and small businesses to waive
the environmental standards that they need to meet, just because
they cannot meet them or simply because they aren’t willing to meet
them. What will happen or can happen to the National Water Act or
the Clean Air Act?" Soto asked.
Twenty-five years ago this week, the national environmental
movement started, speakers remembered. They talked about its
history, saying that the post-World War II policies did not have a
long-range strategy but just short-term profit motives.
The movement is now in transition, they said. And since 1987, a
major grassroots environmental movement has begun.
Environmentalism is now channeling through the different roots
of the diverse community, they said.
Speakers stressed that it’s important for students and other
people to realize that the environment has to become the web of our
life  that is our responsibility to think globally and act
locally.
"What happens to the ozone layer in Antarctica is also affecting
Westwood. We need to act locally in our own community, work or
home," Cole said.
In 1989, a group of graduate students from the department of
Urban Planning decided to create the first environmental
consciousness group called the Environmental Coalition. They helped
UCLA Facilities and Management and ASUCLA start recycling programs
around campus with recycling bins for glass, newspapers and
plastic.
"I hope that each one of us will go back, and today or tomorrow,
will have the environmental consciousness and will share it with
other people," Cole said.