I had the privilege of chatting with next year’s Iowa State Environmental Council Co-President and Vice President outside the Hub on Tuesday. The Council had set up a booth in honor of Earth Day. The Council was distributing information regarding the environment and asking passersby to sign postcards to send to Vice President Al Gore.

I was sorely disappointed when I stopped at the booth to make an attempt at intelligent conversation. There was none to be had. The booth turned out to be propaganda for various environmental groups. The postcards the Council was asking students to send to Vice President Gore were requests for strengthening anti-logging and anti-logging-road laws.

They were unable to explain why they wanted these changes. The only responses were “because it’s destroying our forests” and “I have other things to think about, you can’t expect a student to know the law.”

I think I should expect students to know the law when they are asking other students to change that law.

I moved the conversation toward more general topics. Topics that you would expect the future President and Vice President of the Council to know and understand. Topics like what the Council’s goals and objectives are for the next year. I was still unable to attain an intelligent response.

The only response I was able to get were general comments that where akin to “we want to save the environment.” A noble goal, but you would think they might have something more concrete with achievable ends.

My personal suggestion for next year’s goals for the Environmental Council would be to educate yourselves with facts so that when you pass out your propaganda you can, at least, back it up with something other than “because it’s destroying our forests.”

Bob Fink

Senior

Forestry and political science