Panelists Discuss Environment

Concerns about the global environment must be dealt with "on all fronts," three Harvard professors said yesterday in a forum about Global Environmental Change co-sponsored by the University.

The three panelists spoke to a group of about 300 on the topic of "Global Environmental Change and its Implications for Energy Policy." The forum is first in a series of four dealing with environmental issues from a wide range of perspectives.

"A general thing I want to strike is these issues are not separate issues. They are all intertwined," moderator Michael B. McElroy, Rotch professor of atmospheric science, said about global change. "Dealing with the problem is a matter of having a more global perspective."

William C. Clark, lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, said there is no "one villain" in global earth warming.

"Unfortunately, for climate change that just isn't going to be true," Clark said. "We're going to have to be fixing lots of different things in a coordinated way."

Clark compared global warming to backpacking, saying reductions in carbon dioxide emissions will come in "little squeezes."

"You don't get your weight down by worrying aobut whether to take the stove or not," Clark said, but by "taking the labels off the tea bags."

Henry Ehrenreich, Clowes professor of science, said society has to "pay attention to all the details, and make some choices."

Each American uses energy at an enormous rate, Ehrenreich said, asking "Can we really afford to live in this high style?"