Announcing the Media Launch
May 16, 2008
We’re launching our Facebook Group today and would love it if you are already a part of the Facebook community to stop by and join our group. We’d love for you to go on there and submit any links, photos, or videos that you’ve found helpful to you. Or you can submit them via our site here by visiting the Contribute page.
We also are launching our first podcast which features Rusty Pritchard interviewing Matthew Sleeth. You can check that podcast out by subscribing via iTunes here.
And then finally, if you want to stay hyper-connected with what we’ve got going on, you can follow us via Twitter for real time updates on blog posts, podcast episodes, and any news we update.
Au Sable Names New President
May 15, 2008
Peter Illyn, contributing editor for Creation Care, recently sat down with Ed Johnson, new president of the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies, to find out what makes him tick.
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
Creation Care: How did you become so interested in the concept of sustainability, even to the point of envisioning a college that is built from the ground up on these principles?
Ed Johnson: A remarkable group of faculty and chapel speakers first opened my eyes to environmental issues while I was an undergraduate student at Morningside College in the late 60’s and early 70’s. We seek as higher education faculty and administrative leaders to provide transformational experiences to our students. I was blessed to have been transformed on the concepts of Creation Care before this remarkable movement began to emerge. A second transformation occurred as I witnessed firsthand as a student the power and responsibility of a college or university to stand for the principles of social justice and the practices that it demands in teaching, how it lives in community and how it serves society. As a Christian college president at the dawn of the new millennium I felt called, as the scientific evidence of human-caused global warming mounted, to re-examine the very role of a college itself in Creation Care. That call led to the opportunity to build a new college in Phoenix based on sustainability principles and practices. Our view was that a new institution could serve as an encouragement to those campuses who were going through incremental changes as well as serving as a cutting edge innovator in building, energy use and curriculum development.
CC: Was this a gradual revelation of the importance of sustainability or did you have an epiphany of some sort?
EJ: My journey so far consists of a gradual series of transformational moments since my college days. My first urban ministry immersion in Washington, DC opened my eyes to social justice issues. A quiet sunset walk in Muir Woods one afternoon brought me to my knees for the first time in the midst of that remarkable creation. Reading seminal works by Cal DeWitt and others began my gradual intellectual nourishment. Recent exposure to some of the great minds on sustainability and Creation Care began to connect the dots for me: evangelical faith, higher education and the scientific community.
CC: Tell me about your time as president of a Christian institution, Sterling College.
EJ: After serving several public university and higher education agencies, Sterling opened my eyes to the transformative model of Christ-centered liberal arts education. For the first time in my life I was truly empowered as a servant leader, just as I am now at the Au Sable Institute for Environmental Studies. I became even more convicted that well-educated followers of Christ are the finest leaders in a broken world. I also became even more convicted that the solutions for Creation Care must come from interdisciplinary thought and action. Christian colleges and universities are finally being recognized as equivalent to any other high-quality educational experience. We have worked hard at this for several generations and God is blessing this commitment to academic excellence in His name. The ethics, talent and servant leadership of the students, faculty and staff at Sterling were inspiring. You could never have a bad day when you were in community with them. This is true at each of our Christian colleges and universities.
CC: What is a week in the life of a Christian college president look like as you balance diverse and sometimes conflicting stakeholders and priorities?
EJ: The wonder of a presidency is the remarkable number of issues that are before each and every day. The servanthood opportunities are endless because a college is such a remarkable institution of learning and service. The daily challenge is serving as the voice of the institution to external constituencies while empowering the success of students, faculty and staff on literally an hourly basis. Because God and society ask so much of these institutions, the opportunities are endless in the midst of finite resources, human and financial. You are constantly trying to find new ways to enable all to reach their potential and to experience transformation through teaching, learning, experiences and living in community. In the midst of the human elements of the institutions, all college and university presidents are dealing with realities of inadequate resources for the complex responsibilities we are now charged with. Issues of balancing the budget, improving quality, and making the experience affordable for students and parents dominate our management tasks and keep most of us up at night. We are blessed, however, that all we need to do to rebalance our spiritual energy levels is to simply leave the office and talk to a student, learn about a faculty member’s class, attend a chapel or listen to the joy of giving in the voice of a grateful donor.
CC: What advice would you give students and professors who are trying to champion sustainability ethics and policies in their campuses?
EJ: Four words: “faithful and inexhaustible perseverance!” Successful champions within the academy blend the “right thing to do” with reasoned analysis and thoughtful implementation proposals. I also advise the champions to challenge the student body to serve as the initial constituency champion and to patiently work through established networks and governance structures for long-term change. Beware of those who are in denial about the condition of the planet and the excessive use of energy on college and university campuses. Be energized by the successes at many, many institutions the last few years and learn from their best practices, both procedural and practical.
CC: Could you give me some background on the college and university Presidents’ Climate Commitment?
EJ: The Commitment mirrors a recent U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement where 500 cities have committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For perhaps the first time in American higher education history a broad coalition of public and private, two and four-year colleges and universities are pledging publicly to a common cause: to achieve institutional climate neutrality. We believe that sustainability is the defining issue of the 21st century and institutions are committed to becoming sustainability role models and to educate future generations who will work to solve these complex technological and social justice issues.
CC: What does it entail and what is the success rate?
EJ: Although the initiative is only six months old, over 400 institutions (with a goal of 1000 by 2009) have committed to develop public processes to build green buildings, reduce energy consumption, improve public transportation strategies and embed sustainability principles throughout their curricula. Each institution sets its own goals and timetables and agrees to publish annual reports on successes in each category.
CC: Which Christian colleges have signed the commitment?
EJ: As the faith-based institution board member of Second Nature, the primary coordinator of the initiative, I am proud to say that five members of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities have signed the Commitment as of September: Eastern University, Point Loma Nazarene University, Goshen College, Whitworth University, and Messiah College. We anticipate several more in the coming months.
CC: What are some of the resistance points?
EJ: There is always the issue of whether an institution signs this Commitment or utilizes other strategies to reach similar goals. Some institutions have diverse constituencies that disagree on whether current global warming trends are human-caused and whether proactive strategies should be undertaken to reverse current climate trends. Others may be located in rural areas where certain commitments on alternative energy usage might be problematic, where there is only one utility company and no public transportation. Others are unsure of the eventual costs of compliance without further study—we anticipate those institutions will reach their conclusions over the next 12 months. Finally, some institutions will need to be reassured that technical support will be provided by both the initiative’s coordinating council as well as individual best practices sharing among institutions.
CC: Why were you excited to accept the position of president of the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies?
EJ: To be called to serve the premier organization of its kind is a special opportunity in Christian higher education. Au Sable is the oldest and largest consortial provider of environmental science courses in the world. Through its founder, Dr. Cal DeWitt and many others, it has offered scientific evidence and analysis for every significant Creation Care public policy issue for over twenty-five years. Au Sable has renewed its commitment to transformational Christ-centered educational experiences in the next chapter of its story. To begin to move the dialogue and action from “what is happening” to “what shall we do” is very exciting for the Institute and for me personally. I am also looking forward to learning from a diverse group of stakeholders how Au Sable can replicate its historical roles in the emergence of such complementary areas as sustainability, public health, church-focused education and leadership development. It is truly the golden age of creation care thought and action. I am humbled to join those who have toiled long in the vineyards.
Leave No Child Indoors: Part 3 of 3
May 14, 2008
Larry Schweiger is President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation and an occasional contributor to Creation Care magazine.
This is part 3 of 3 and originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. Part 1 and Part 2 appear here.
3. We also have worked with volunteers to create 70,000 backyard-wildlife habitats, schoolyard habitats and community habitats across America where kids can connect with the nature in their back yard. Churches and Christian schools can do a lot with the land they already have (read “Inviting Creation to My Yard” on p. 18 of this issue).
4. Most importantly, we need to be advocates for a societal-scale approach to addressing nature deficit in America. NWF and it affiliates are joining with partners across the nation to ask states to adopt comprehensive Leave No Child Indoors policy programs that include such elements as:
Out of the window of my home office, I look over Pine Creek valley, where nine decades ago, Rachael Carson and her mother often roamed looking for spring flowers. I can’t help but believe that those hours afield in western Pennsylvania had a profound influence on this great conservationist and fostered her deep “Sense of Wonder.”
Edward O. Wilson wrote in The Diversity of Life, “Wilderness settles peace on the soul because it needs no help; it is beyond human contrivance. Wilderness is a metaphor of unlimited opportunity . . . We do not understand ourselves yet and descend farther from heaven’s air if we forget how much the natural world means to us. Signals abound that the loss of life’s diversity endangers not just the body
but the spirit. If that much is true, the changes occurring now will visit harm on all generations to come.”
Kids need to be outside more for their own physical, emotional and mental well-being. We all need to be reconnected to nature for the renewal of our minds and for the future of conservation. Gone are the days when the majority of kids spent hours at a time in the full flush of nature—in unstructured play exploring the hidden wonders under every rock and around every tree.
Gone too are the days when kids sleep under a blanket of stars. What will become of wild places if our children, like the boy on my plane, know little of the mystery, the grace, the interconnectedness of all living things? We only save what we love and we only love what we know.
Let me share a closing thought. Spending time in nature gives us a more vivid multi-sensory experience as we absorb inputs through our ears, through our eyes, through our nose and through our fingers. Our memories are made the richer and more durable by the multiple stimuli around us. We literally absorb the place as it absorbs us.
As a child, I spent many hours afield with my father who was a dog trainer and hunter. My father died more than thirty years ago, yet when I go to the woods and smell a familiar plant or hear a distant crow on a crisp fall morning, my memories of being with dad out in nature come flooding back in rich detail as if it were yesterday. In those moments I can hear his voice clearly and I can see his ruddy face in the golden light of an early morning sun. I cherish those fleeting memories.
I would urge every parent reading these words to make memories in nature with your children. They will scarcely remember watching television with you, but they will hold on to the times they spent in the wild with you for a lifetime.
Leave No Child Indoors: Part 2 of 3
May 13, 2008
Larry Schweiger is President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation and an occasional contributor to Creation Care magazine.
This is part 2 of 3 and originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. Part 1 and Part 3 appear here.
DOES IT MATTER?
You might be asking, so what? Why does it matter to society whether or not our kids go outside? As a conservationist, I am concerned that there is an important link between being outdoors and caring for nature. Children who fish, camp and spend time in the wild before age 11 are much more likely to grow up to be environmentally-minded and committed as adults, according to Cornell researchers. Their study indicates that participating in wild nature activities before age 11 is a “particularly potent pathway toward shaping both environmental attitudes and behaviors in adulthood,” When the Kaiser Family Foundation research showed kids are now spending six hours or more hours a day in front of a screen, we all should be worried about that. Let me suggest that the unprecedented threat from global warming has been far too long ignored by indoor people who spend their time in front of a TV or computer isolated in an air-conditioned space.
I worry that we will not address global warming… until it interferes with our television reception. The media makes matters worse by giving us information and entertainment they think we want - not what we may need. They fail to cover what’s happening to the outside world because they have concluded we are not that interested in the natural world and what is happening to it.
As an example, a team of scientists from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks published an alarming report indicating that methane is leaking from the vast stores frozen under the Siberian tundra at five times the rate that earlier scientists had found. This finding suggests that the planet is hitting a tipping point, where human-caused warming is forcing nature to give up methane which is 20-30 times more potent a heat-trapping gas than CO2. Scientists also estimate that there may be 70-80 billion tons under Siberia waiting to escape.
This alarming study was published and released to the public last September. The media didn’t cover the story. They were too busy covering JonBenét Ramsey’s supposed killer. There were 42 satellite trucks and camera crews in front of the Boulder, Colorado, DA’s office that same day.
Last summer, the boreal forest in Russia suffered from multiple fires that consumed about 29 million acres. If Pennsylvania burned last summer, it may have made news, but because it was in Russia, our media concluded that we do not care and never covered it.
Recently, the IPPC released their 4th report, concluding that human-made pollution is heating the planet and warning of many dangers ahead. The television media has given little time to the matter again; they were fixated on the body of Anna Nicole Smith for weeks. It’s sad that we give more attention to a dead celebrity than we to the future of nature. My organization has polled hunters and anglers all across America. These polls demonstrate that outdoor enthusiasts have a much higher recognition of the threat of global warming on their local world than does the public at large. So being “out there” matters for our attitudes and understandings.
WHAT MUST BE DONE
At the organization I lead, the National Wildlife Federation, we are asking partner organizations to join us in several key efforts.
1. More research and information
The emerging nature deficit issue is complex and requires significant understanding, verification, and problem solving. And we need to find creative ways to bring this urgent warning to parents who are only getting their messages from the televisions.
2. Immediate Help for Parents and Caregivers
We are supporting a nationwide “Green Hour” program aimed at encouraging parents to commit to outdoor play for their children an average of one hour per day. We started by creating a website to help parents: www.GreenHour.org. Churches can help single moms and grandparents take their kids camping and teach them how to fish.
This is part 2 of 3 and originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. Part 1 and Part 3 appear here.
Leave No Child Indoors: Part 1 of 3
May 12, 2008
Larry Schweiger is President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation and an occasional contributor to Creation Care magazine.
This is part 1 of 3 and originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. Part 2 and Part 3 appear here.
I was recently on a flight from Washington, DC, to San Francisco. Sitting next to me in the left window seat was an obese boy who was about ten years old. His mom put him on the plane to visit his dad in California. As soon as our plane was over ten thousand feet, the boy broke out his Game Boy and settled in for a long and intense session. After a couple of hours of this, our pilot came on the intercom and said, “folks, off to our left is one of the best views you will ever see of the Grand Canyon.” I watched the boy. His eyes never left the Game Boy, not even for a second. I was saddened by this boy who had no apparent interest in the wonders of nature.
It occurred to me that I was witnessing, first hand, an important American phenomenon that is having a profound impact on our children’s future and the future of nature itself. What is happening to our connection to nature and where has outdoor time gone? There are many signs that something major — something profoundly different—is happening to the basic connection between Americans and the outdoors.
The signs are everywhere:
But it is too easy to just blame modern electronic technology for the change. There are other factors too. Many parents today are bombarded with media reports of “stranger danger” even though such crime is actually down by about 40% over previous generations. Many people say there is a lack of access to safe outdoor spaces. Others mention rising fuel prices, particularly with regard to outdoor vacations.
Despite the trend, 93% of mothers report that they recognize the significant benefits of children spending more time outdoors for health and motor skill development reasons. Some 77% agreed that it improved childhood social skills and 82% saw outdoor play as a way to improve a child’s sense of self worth.
Years ago, kids burned plenty of calories playing outdoors. A study in the Journal of Pediatrics, “Physical Activity Recommendations for School-Age Youth” found that “our children are just not burning up those calories today.”
REAL DANGERS ARE INSIDE
I thought about the boy I sat next to on the flight in comparison to my own youth. My mother would often say that I lived outdoors and I suspect many of you spent a great deal of your childhood free time in outdoors too. My brothers and I roamed for hours across the hills of northern Allegheny County, climbing trees, building forts and constructing dams in the creeks.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that the missing ingredient for most kids is an hour per day of unstructured activity. Researchers in such places as Chicago and Boston are studying how the nationwide childhood obesity epidemic may cause shorter life-spans for the next generation. They conclude that, while we have enjoyed increases in expected lifespan for several decades, the new lack of childhood activity and its extra pounds can lead to adult-onset diabetes and can actually shorten average lifespan from three to five years.
Parents have become unnecessarily more fearful, though outdoor “stranger danger” is nothing compared to indoor threats. The risk of kidnapping by a stranger is one to two chances in a million. Most sexual assaults on children are from adults they already know. And yet, the risk of a child communicating with a sexual predator online is one in five. Concern about on-line danger is real and is supported by a 2005 Seventeen Magazine study of online teenage girls that found:
This is part 1 of 3 and originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. Part 2 and Part 3 appear here.
Christian Environmentalism: Debunking The Myths
May 9, 2008
Scott C. Sabin is the executive director of Floresta, a Christian nonprofit organization that reverses deforestation and poverty in the world by transforming the lives of the rural poor (www.floresta.org).
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
When I first got involved at the interface of Christian development work and the Christian environmental movement fifteen years ago, voices were few and the audience skeptical. Thankfully, that is rapidly changing. There is a ground-swell of Christians who see care for creation as a vital part of their walk with Christ. However, as I talk to people, I still hear three common myths, which I will address in turn.
MYTH 1: ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN WILL CAUSE YOU TO WORSHIP THE CREATION INSTEAD OF THE CREATOR.
I have always found this puzzling. Wilderness and nature have the opposite effect on me. My involvement has taught me about the incredible intricacy and complexity of God’s creation, reminding me of His attributes and my own humble place. “What is man that you are mindful of him?” (Ps. 8:4). It is probably no accident that so many of us became Christians while at camp, where, as we learned of God’s love for us, we could look up and see that “the Heavens declare the glory of God.” (Ps. 19:1). Or where, as we sat in humility, like Job, somewhere inside us a voice asked “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” (Job 38:4). For centuries, creation has been understood to be part of God’s general revelation, something that He called good, and which according to Paul, provides enough evidence of Him to leave us without excuse.
Indeed, I have never met a Christian who was tempted to worship creation. Instead I have met many Christian biologists and ecologists who have helped me to rediscover awe, wonder and mystery in creation, and to see the signature of the Creator in unexpected places. Far from straying from the Bible, one of the things that surprised me was how much these scientists used scripture and relied on it in their understanding of our role in taking care of the earth.
MYTH 2: YOU CAN’T CARE ABOUT BOTH PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT.
At Floresta, it was our concern for the poor and hungry that led us inevitably towards caring for their environment. In our affluence, Americans have often been shielded from the consequences of our environmental decisions. If water is scarce or contaminated we can pay to pipe it across the country and purify it. If soil is degraded we can pay for fertilizers and amendments. The cost of seafood goes up, but you can still find your favorite delicacy. Because we are buffered from direct feedback, we tend to forget that
the environment is our life-support system.
But the poor immediately feel the effects of environmental degradation, whether through drought induced by climate change, chronic diarrhea due to contaminated water, malaria epidemics exacerbated by deforestation, or myriad other examples. Any response to the needs of poor people that hopes to be sustainable must consider the environment. Conversely, in the developing world, any sustainable conservation effort must consider the needs of the poor. I hope to be exploring this relationship between poverty and the environment more deeply in future issues of this magazine. People and creation are part of the same system, and intimately connected
MYTH 3: DEEP DOWN THIS IS ALL ABOUT A POLITICAL AGENDA.
There are policy issues with immense bearing on the health of creation, which I believe that we should take very seriously. However, much of what is going on around the globe transcends politics, or defies easy political classification. For example, environmentalism is often depicted as being against private property. Yet at Floresta we have found ourselves advocating for property rights. Poor farmers who have the right to use wood and products from trees they plant will be much more likely to plant and care for them in the first place. Similarly poor farmers are more effective stewards of land that they are assured of being able to use in the future. But in other situations, government protection might make most sense.
The idea that stewardship and conservation are part of a liberal agenda seems ludicrous in much of the developing world. I remember the shock on our Dominican director’s face when I first tried to explain the suspicion with which many of our American donors regarded the environmental aspects of our work. The issues just don’t line up the same in Latin America of Africa. Being free of the political baggage that we carry here in the US, many of our brothers and sisters of in the developing world are way ahead of us in their understanding of stewardship. Americans who are not ready to change votes or party affiliations can still be good stewards and creation care advocates. There are dozens of lifestyle choices that have nothing to do with politics. All of us can live more simply, drive less, recycle, buy food locally, etc. In our churches we can bring attention to the scriptural basis for stewardship—many Bible studies exist. We can encourage our churches and workplaces to reduce their own consumption and waste. And we can support organizations like A Rocha, Care of Creation, Marah International, or Floresta, which balance the focus on politics by working directly in endangered or vulnerable corners of creation.
God has called all of us to be stewards of the earth and in so doing to love our neighbors. There is a place for all of us to respond to Him.
Creation Care on the Ranch
May 8, 2008
Rev. Stan LeQuire, former director of the Evangelical Environmental Network, currently serves as an adjunct faculty and instructional designer with Eastern University’s School of Leadership and Development. At present, Stan is working towards a doctoral degree in community-based ecotourism.
This post originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine.
Apaloosas, pintos and a dapple gray or two. Palominos. Bays. Ninety horses thundered down the dirt road. For a backdrop, a late afternoon sun illumined crags and folds in the Colorado Rockies. Perched on a boulder a safe distance from the action, I let my camera capture the beauty to take home to my urban, East Coast world. One of the first things I heard when I got to Latigo Ranch was, “Don’t miss the running of the horses.” In fact, it would be my advice to you. Don’t miss it.
Nestled up against the Arapaho National Forest, Latigo Ranch is a hidden vacation destination that deserves wider recognition. This classy yet refined resort has it all: spectacular scenery, five-star cuisine, delightful staff including knowledgeable (and patient) wranglers. And for those committed to creation’s care, Latigo Ranch has an exemplary environmental ethic. If you want to give your family a memory and support a business with an intentional and creative care for creation, I recommend a week at Latigo Ranch.
Since 1928, Latigo has operated as a dude ranch in the summer and a nordic ski lodge in the winter. In 1987, Jim and Kathie Yost, with Randy and Lisa George, purchased the ranch. Jim Yost, formerly an anthropologist with Wycliffe International, says the mission of Latigo is to “communicate God’s creation to our guests and use that as a means to help families reconnect.”
And reconnect they will—be that around dining room tables or out by the barn. For my family, the reconnection happened in our comfortable mountain cabin with a pot-bellied wood stove. We wondered if we would take on a pot-bellied profile from indulging the sumptuous menu of “nouvelle ranch cuisine,” which included prime rib, elk medallions, fresh mountain trout, and thick Colorado bacon lovingly prepared by Randy and Lisa George. My daughters still speak fondly of their wranglers that we got to know during the twice daily horseback rides through alpine forests and meadows.
Some will say that horses don’t make for good environmentalists, but Jim Yost will make a believer out of you. He has certainly won the hearts and minds of the local rangers in the Arapaho National Forest. Yost builds proactive relationships with the Forest Service and models creation care techniques. For example, Yost pioneered a new method of corralling horses during overnight camping trips with his guests. Previously, the standard was the use of a high line tether or remuda line. Yost uses portable, battery-operated electric fencing and a new corral site with each trip. Then, as camp is broken the wranglers accept an unenviable task. They spread the manure so that it doesn’t collect in unsightly piles or release concentrated wastes. Corralling thus reduces impact on fragile alpine ecosystems and eliminates siltation along stream beds. After initial skepticism, the Forest Service gave up tethering and now prefers Yost’s method of overnight corralling. In fact, the Forest Service often seeks his advice on other issues. Yost’s Western-style creation care has won him the respect of the Forest Service and he maintains that respect with the same diligence he has for his land, staff and horses.
Beyond this one practical example, Yost keeps abreast of the latest ecological principles in horse care, forest management and pasture care. Yost points out that horse touring combined with a strong ethic of creation care is better than some of the more modern forms of recreation, such as mountain biking. Conscientiously, he trains his staff in creation care. “It’s everything,” says Yost.
Fodor’s Online Guide says, “Latigo has a caring staff that does everything it can to give you an authentic ranch experience.” The ranch has been listed as the “Best Dude Ranch in Colorado” in the guide book Colorado’s Best. For more information on Latigo Ranch, visit their beautiful website at www.latigotrails.com or write for an information packet on rates and activities to: PO Box 237, Kremmling, CO, 80459, USA.
The Restoration of All Things
May 7, 2008
Greg Pitchford is a fisheries biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation. He lives in Chillicothe, Missouri with his wife Donna and daughters Abbey, Anna, and Rebecca.
This post originally appeared in Creation Care magazine, issue 35 (Spring 2008).
I recently lectured at a university about an ecological restoration project on a stream I am working on. It was not one of my better performances. I spoke about the elements of biological integrity (water quality, physical habitat, biotic interactions, flow regime, and energy sources) and how the stream was compromised in all five areas. I told them that any restoration efforts that did not address all five areas would not achieve a balanced, diverse community that reflected what was historically there. The longer I spoke, the more depressed I became. After the talk, though I was with some of the best and brightest of the next generation, I could sense frustration and cynicism. Read more
No IDLE Concern: One Father’s Fight Against Diesel Exhaust - Part 2
May 6, 2008
You can find Part One of this feature here.
“There’s training all across the state for all bus drivers sponsored by the Education Department on anti-idling policies,” said John Fahey, Assistant Superintendent of Buffalo public schools. “But Mark put an immediate face on it saying that this was happening with bus #1 and I saw them doing it today.” When asked what made Mark’s activism successful, Doherty added, “I wish I could put my finger on it, because I’d bottle it…it was his persistence, dignity, style. . . he wasn’t a parent who was ranting and raving over the phone. He presented logical reasons eloquently. He took the time to meet with me and my safety director, and left an NPR tape which showed his commitment to the issue and his research.” With “passion and intelligence,” Cerbone also won the support of Bennett Park Principal Stephanie Gregory who, early in the campaign, began to supervise with him as well and made sure that an anti-idling policy was written into the 2003-2004 school plan.
Since then, Cerbone has diligently monitored the degree of anti-idling enforcement at school, estimating 90% compliance, even in the coldest weather. Additionally, he has offered his story and wisdom to other communities battling the threat of diesel exhaust. A citizen group from a Buffalo suburb heard of his efforts and asked him to consult with them to prevent a locally-owned bus company from building a bus storage and repair facility near their homes. From strategy pointers to pep talks, Mark offered the formally disheartened “citizen rebellion” the confidence and tactics they needed to succeed. The company ultimately canceled their plans.
Cerbone cites a variety of reasons for the success of his brand of activism. Alternately donning dress slacks and sweat pants, brushing his hair neatly or sporting bed-head, using academic discourse or plain street talk, he is able to talk to a wide variety of people and vary his approach. “I can go into meetings with powerful people and conduct myself professionally” he admits. “I can also get in the face of a driver early in the morning when I’m dropping off my kids and tell him that if he doesn’t change I’m calling the police and his boss.” He is also consistent, making a daily commitment to the issue through the unglamorous tallying of data on clipboards and repeated conversations with drivers. His campaign is low-budget—he works with a sharpened pencil and a good phone plan—and his passion is informed. While doing dishes or lifting weights, he religiously listens to public radio on a trusty $20 am/fm model to keep current on issues, even taping news programs when he knows he’ll miss them. As such, he spliced together five stories that make a “pretty thought-provoking set of arguments on diesel exhaust” that he has distributed.
More importantly than his specific strategies, Cerbone has been effective because his activism is rooted in the belief that “one person can effect significant change” and the biblical injunction to “love one’s neighbor.” Indeed, his school bus activism is merely one example in an overall lifestyle of engagement with the world around him on behalf of those who “lack the education, time or confidence to speak up for themselves.” The natural tendency, he admits, is to look the other way and mutter under your breath, but he knows sterile critique is useless. He sees his cause as a moral stand against rampant individualism, clinging to the importance of the common good.
Additionally, his activism also grows out of his longstanding commitment to place. He and his wife rooted themselves in the Buffalo inner city in order to establish a high-quality, faith-based after school program for at risk children and youth. Living in the neighborhood, he has come to understand its complexity and delight in its diversity. Air pollution is not an intellectual exercise: it’s right outside his window. He seeks out first-name relationships with the people that live in and influence his neighborhood, and he is always able to say “I care because I live here.”
Lastly, the issue of retrofitting and replacing the nation’s bus fleet is becoming a high profile environmental and health concern, with Congress allocating money to “clean bus” initiatives and the Environmental Protection Agency announcing dozens of projects. Upgrades are necessary, Cerbone acknowledges, but much can be done in the meantime to limit emissions and protect health with the simple turn of the key. He took a large issue and made it simple.
Despite the local victories, Cerbone is quick to point out that the battle is not over. Buffalo in particular faces the likely construction of a twin span to Canada, which would increase idling truck traffic waiting to cross into customs. The net effect would be more toxic exhaust blown by prevailing westerly winds into Buffalo’s West Side. Knowing that U.S. children travel 4.3 billion miles on nearly 10 billion school bus rides annually, Cerbone remains committed to eliminating exhaust at least in front of schools where children are chronically, intensely and unnecessarily exposed. He still grits his teeth whenever he passes a school with a bus idling outside an open window or sees a line of buses spewing out black smoke next to a football field. Laws are good, but compliance will be where the issue gains traction—and only with ever greater education and follow-through will Cerbone finally take a deep breath.
Tricia O’Connor Elisara lives in an intentional community in the mountains of San Diego County with her husband Chris and two sons, Ethan and Elliot. She also works with Creation Care Study Program.
No IDLE Concern: One Father’s Fight Against Diesel Exhaust - Part 1
May 5, 2008
Clouds of exhaust have been troubling Mark Cerbone’s mind for the last twenty-five years. Driving the Pennsylvania turnpike in the late seventies, he often wondered how vehicle fumes affected the toll takers who worked in the midst of countless gunning engines. Since then, he has taken up an armchair interest in the issue, learning that particulate matter from exhaust can penetrate the blood-brain barrier and discovering that professionals regularly exposed to diesel exhaust suffer from high rates of brain cancer. Particularly alarming to him was the incidence of heightened respiratory disease among the urban poor, having lived and worked among his inner-city Buffalo neighbors for a decade. Toxic fumes turned him into a vigilante, however, when his eldest daughter Sage began attending public school.
Watching the patterns of school bus traffic at the beginning and end of the school day, Cerbone observed that drivers would line up “nose to tail” against the curb, thirty yards from the school building, and even on warm days, continue to idle while children were entering and leaving. Pushed by lake breezes, exhaust would also permeate the first floor and the stairwells of the school as well as the buses themselves. A friend, Dr. Jerry Lauria of Western New York Pediatric Associates, once accompanied Mark on a pick-up run. Sizing up the curb-side dilemma, Lauria remarked that the idling was creating a row of “gas chambers.” Familiar with ever-increasing childhood ailments, including asthma, Lauria wondered “How many of our children are getting gassed simply by going to school?”
“I wasn’t going to tolerate that for very long,” Cerbone remembers, “not only for Sage’s sake but for all the children and faculty and staff.” So began his one-man crusade. A well-spoken, good-humored, two-hundred pound Italian with a salt and pepper beard, he began to walk up to the school bus doors, knock politely and say, “You know, the fumes from your engines are being driven directly into the school and that’s putting those children and teachers at risk. Would you mind shutting off your engine while you’re dropping off the children or waiting to pick them up?” Various drivers met his advances with pleasant cooperation, obvious indifference or outright hostility, occasionally slamming the door in his face and threatening to contact the police. Mark, in turn, would offer his name and ask for theirs. (One irate driver even asked him if he wanted to settle this out on the playground. Mark responded cheerfully, “So I see we’re back in the fourth grade?”)
Driver names, when obtained, and bus license plate numbers were jotted down in a notebook he kept on the front seat of his car; he then periodically faxed his growing data to the Laidlaw Bus Company. Some drivers began to recognize him and would shut off their engines as he approached. In response, his tactics grew more covert. He’d approach the school from different directions, sometimes driving a different vehicle simply to “catch ‘em. When he’d see compliant drivers, he’d often fl ash a wide grin, give a thumbs up, or poke his head in the door with a quick thank-you. His wife Dianne was a regular co-enforcer, often thanking the drivers on behalf of the “many kids who will not have to walk through a cloud of diesel exhaust to simply get to school.”
The next step in his grassroots movement was to set up a booth at the 2003 school fair. His daughters Sage and Skylar, age 8 and 6, joined the quest with handmade signs written in childish, engaging script “Help my Daddy fight diesel exhaust! Ask us how!” Rather than manically passing out fliers, he asked people to take information only if they would pledge to call the five people listed, from bus depot managers to the vice president of transportation for city schools, and make two requests. The demands were clear: one, that an all-year “no idling zone” be established on both sides of Clinton Streets and two, that a similarly strict policy be extended to all of the public schools in Buffalo. Thirty-two people promised to make phone calls.
He followed up this community organizing with a presentation at the school’s parent-teacher meeting, wedged in between reports on the school garden and plans for lasagna night. This led to an invitation to address a crowd at a district wide parent-teacher association gathering, which was broadcast on cable access. At each meeting, he’d urge others to make calls. Then on Monday morning, he was back on the streets, the self-appointed watchdog, in a “fairly lonely campaign of confronting drivers.”
Next he set up a meeting with the Laidlaw Director for Western New York, Jim Doherty, with whom he had established rapport over a series of conversations. Ready to launch in again with his growing concerns and distribute more research, Cerbone was delighted to hear that the policy for school bus idling had been changed a month earlier. No busses were allowed to idle outside schools, and drivers that failed to comply would face stiff consecutive consequences from warnings to termination. As Doherty later said, “We had a national policy but because of Mark’s involvement we made it tighter and chose to enforce it by putting penalties to it in fifty different school districts. Listening to Mark and doing the research he prompted us to do, we realized this was the best policy that we should have.” Cerbone left the office, exultant.
Part Two Will Be Coming Tomorrow . . .
Tricia O’Connor Elisara lives in an intentional community in the mountains of San Diego County with her husband Chris and two sons, Ethan and Elliot. She also works with Creation Care Study Program.
