University Has Ecology Forums Houses Have Panels Nixon Advisors Speak

Almost all the Houses and some of the graduate schools held ecology forums yesterday as part of the Earth Day celebration. The topics covered a wide range, including the SST, and population, pollution, and transportation problems.

Participants in a Holmes Hall panel on the population problem included members of Zero Population Growth (ZPG), a counselor from Planned Parenthood, and a representative from Boston Family Planning.

"America's population growth must be stopped by 1980 and the population growth of the world must be stopped by 1990." Robert C. Berwick '73, a member of ZPG said. "The more people you have the fewer choices you have and the less freedom you have. We're trying to get a little time so we can make choices. If you control the population you do away with environmental problems," he added.

"It's not the number of people that matters," said Michael W. Macy '70.

"It's that people don't have enough power to get a decent standard of living."

The forum "Transportation Crisis in Cambridge" at Eliot House centered on the problems of rerouting traffic out of Harvard Square and turning the area into a pedestrian way.

Cyrus I. Harvey '47, Brattle theatre owner and Cambridge planning assistant, told the Eliot House gathering that the Cambridge Planning Office is considering isolating Brattle Square and Harvard Square by cutting off Mass. Ave, from the Square to Mt. Auburn Street. The move would force all access roads into the squares to be rerouted, leaving an area from the new Kennedy Library to the Cambridge Common free for pedestrians.

James F. Freyberger, a representative of the Cambridge Planning Office, supported the plan, saying that it would succeed "if people would use the transit systems to alleviate the traffic problem."

At the Law School Forum panelists with a wide variety of backgrounds in environmental problems discussed whether emphasis on judicial or legislative action was more effective in combatting pollution.

"There is a need for up-dating and implementing existing laws, but at the same time we have to be ready to use the courts to see that laws are carried out," said Allan H. Morgan, executive vice-president of the Massachusetts Audobon Society.

But Laurence H. Tribe, assistant professor of Law, disagreed saying, "The limited function courts perceive for themselves preclude any significant action on the judicial level."

"If American business does not-or will not-participate in building a better environment, the job will not be done." Russell E. Train, chairman of President Nixon's Council on Environmental Quality, told a Business School audience yesterday.

Train, formerly Under Secretary of the Interior, became the first chairman of the Council on Feb. 9. He spoke in Carey Cage yesterday at an Earth Day panel on the role of industry in combating pollution.

Charles F. Luce-Under Secretary of the Interior in the Johnson administration and now Chairman of the Board of Consolidated Edison of New York-and Daniel W. Lufkin also spoke. Lufkin is a member of the President's Environmental Council.

'Tree Painting'

"Too many members of the business community believe this can be solved by a tree planting ceremony on the front lawn." Lufkin said. "I don't thinkindustry is moving as fast as it should. It has in general looked at ways to postpone action," he added.

All three speakers were critical of industry's past neglect of the environment, but they agreed that it is now changing its policies. "The important thing is that industry is paying more attention than it did five and ten years ago," Luce said "The trend is altogether in the right direction,"

Lufkin, who recently formed an environmental consulting firm. empha sized it is possible for industry to combine a concern for social problems with a beliet in the profit system.

Train said that he felt certain the federal government will increase its regulation of business practices but that, "short of a police state, government regulation cannot do everything."

He also denied charges that President Nixon is not making a total commitment to the environment "The Administration has recommended 27 specific proposals. I don't think this is lip service at all," he said. He added that the Council on Environmental Quality will set forth an overall program in July