University of Virginia Library

On Ecology

Environmental Teach-In Underway

By Dick Hickman
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

With only six weeks remaining
until the national Environmental
Teach-In on Wednesday, April 22,
hundreds of organizing groups have
been formed on campuses and high
schools around the country.

Students at Emory and Henry
College in Emory, Virginia, are
developing a community environmental
education program utilizing
local resources. They are planning a
program of student-produced films
and music for local high schools
and community groups. An "Envirothematic
Art Show" is set for
the campus soon, and local artists
have been invited to submit works,
which depict environmental problems.

Environmental Teach-In Coordinating
Committee (ETC) in Charleston,
West Virginia, has persuaded
the local ministerial association to
declare April 19 Environmental
Sunday. The groups, a combined
effort of four college organizations,
is also planning an environmental
inventory to compile a list of the
major problems in their area.

Students at North Carolina State
planned a three-day program on the
future of man's environment focusing
on the population explosion.
The symposium was scheduled for
February 23-25.

A citizens group in the Kanawha
Valley of West Virginia called
Committee on Environmental Pollution
petitioned President Nixon
and state officials to enact legislation
which will force industries to
stop polluting the air.

Source Of Pollution

They site the Union Carbide
Metals Plant at Allowy, West
Virginia, as a major source of
pollution in their valley. "Union
Carbide seems to be insensitive to
the problem of air pollution,
although with a great deal of
hypocrisy it has been making
pronouncements and promises to
the effect that it is trying to do
something about it," the petition
said.

Other Eco-groups have begun to
grind out reams of petitions,
ranging from pledges to have no
more than two children to protest
against the supersonic transport.
Many involved purely local environmental
problems, but some are
circulating nationally.

In Ashtabuls, Ohio, a small
group of Kent State students led by
nineteen-year-old John Glavia has
collected more than 11,000 signatures
on a petition which demands
stricter water pollution standards,
enforcement of the standards, control
of persistent pesticides such as
DDT, protection of endangered
wildlife, and the preservation of
wilderness areas.

5,000 Signatures

Petitions against the SST and
against projects of the Army Corps
of Engineers have received more
than 5,000 signatures, including
those of Dr. Paul Ehrlich, professor
of biology at Stanford, and Dr.
Barry Commoner, director of the
Center for the Biology of Natural
Systems.

The two groups circulating the
petitions are the Students for
Environmental Controls from the
University of Illinois, and Northwestern
University's Students for a
Better Environment. The organizations
are asking community and
college groups across the country to
handle the collection of signatures
in their areas.

The petition against projects of
the Army Corps reads: "We request
that a moratorium be declared on
all public works projects of the
Army Corps of Engineers until the
full consequences of these projects
on our environment are determined.
We suggest that the funding
of the necessary studies be met
with monies presently budgeted to
the Department of Defense."

U.N. Petition

Another petition being circulated
in native languages throughout
the world is the United Nations
Petition for the Human Environment,
which urges United Nations
members "To add to the formal
structure of the United Nations a
Population and Environment Council
of coordinate ranks to the five
major organs that now serve the
General Assembly and to use this
conference to launch a unified
assault upon those problems of our
common environment on this small
planet that demand and will only
yield to the common will and
concerted efforts of all men everywhere."

The petitions will be presented
to the Secretary-General of the
United Nations in the name of
"The Concerned People of the
World."