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The Rice Thresher
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by Rachel Shiffrin Thresher staff Avoiding apathy and increasing awareness of environmental issues will be the focuses of tomorrow's ninth annual Rice Environmental Conference. The Rice Environmental Club is sponsoring the conference. Jones College senior Brian Pietruszewski said the conference will address how people should view the environment in the future. "With the new millennium, now is a great opportunity to re-examine how humans think about themselves in terms of the environment," Pietruszewski, one of the conference directors, said. The morning will feature a keynote address by Ken Kramer, director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. Kramer will be followed by Green Party Senate office candidate Doug Sandage and Green Party railroad commissioner candidate Charlie Mauch. Instead of inviting many experts on the environment to speak, conference director Jennifer Trub thought it would be a better idea to have just a few speakers to be more interactive with the audience. "Hopefully they will be more engaging and ready to have a dialogue with the students," Trub, a Jones senior, said. The format of the afternoon was also changed this year to an open forum instead of last year's panel discussion followed by a question and answer session. "Instead of having people lecturing at the audience, the audience is going to participate," Pietruszewski said. Because students at Rice work so hard in their academics all week, "it's hard to convince them to spend a Saturday afternoon doing something that seems just like another lecture," Trub said. Last year, 150 people attended the conference, but only 35 were Rice students. The afternoon will feature mediated forum discussions on issues such as local ecology, community involvement and voluntary simplicity. Alex Bain (Brown '00) will lead a discussion about how young people who have recently graduated can stay involved in environmental issues. "If you want to stay involved with environmental issues once you have a job, a family and a life, there aren't a lot of places to turn to," he said. "This is one avenue to learn what the important issues are to Houston right now and to meet the people who will really make a difference." Environmental Club President Peter Ly, a Brown College senior, said the emphasis of this year's conference will be on sustainable living. In previous years, the conference has addressed a specific current issue. Last year's topic was the future of transportation. "It's hard to draw a general audience for something that specific," Trub said. This year, the club hopes to "expose the general student body to the philosophy behind finding solutions to environmental issues and problems and giving students a positive outlook on finding remedies," Trub said. A swap meet will take place all day throughout the conference, and students are encouraged to bring old things they no longer need and exchange them for others. There will also be a door prize giveaway of books by famous environmental authors. Pietruszewski said that one of the goals of the conference is to change the way people think about the environment. "A lot of things today encourage people to think a disconnected way from the environment," Pietruszewski said. "We're going to have to reinvent people's perspectives. We're trying to get people to think differently about how they interact with the space around them." The conference, titled "It's the End of the World As We Know It, and I Feel Fine: A Sense of Place in the New Millennium," will be tomorrow in the Student Center from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is free to all attendees. A free vegetarian lunch will be provided for Rice students, faculty and staff; attendees who are not affiliated with Rice will be charged $5 for the lunch. A kick-off TG for the conference will be today at 3 p.m. in the Ray Courtyard, outside the Rice Memorial Center. Food, drinks and music will be provided.
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