Planet Worse Off Since First Earth Day in 1970 : Environment: Gains have been made in 20 years but world’s problems now are potentially more devastating.

In the 20 years since the first Earth Day, nature has proved itself to be surprisingly resilient. Witness the comeback of the American bald eagle after the banning of the pesticide DDT or the cleaning of the once-inflamed Cuyahoga River in Ohio.

But the progress the world will celebrate next Sunday on Earth Day 1990 has brought little respite. New, potentially more devastating threats to the environment have emerged, forcing the world to recast its environmental agenda for the remainder of the 20th Century.

Whereas the environmental movement 20 years ago worried about an individual dam or a single highway, the world today is facing the loss of its tropical forests and the extinction of half of its species within the next few decades, as well as a potential warming trend that could forever change the climate of the planet.

“In 1970, we were accelerating as we headed toward the cliff,” said Carl Pope, conservation director of the Sierra Club. “We applied the brakes during those 20 years and now we’re maybe half-way there.”

New controls on vehicle emissions have improved air quality over many cities, including Los Angeles, but the very fabric of the atmosphere is shredding because of an ozone-destroying pollutant not even recognized two decades ago.

Lake Erie, which was so polluted by sewage in 1970 that many conservationists considered it “dead,” has been cleaned up and now has a $600-million fishery. But not far away, Lake Michigan is believed to be so contaminated by airborne pollutants and industrial chemicals that some conservationists say women of child-bearing age should not eat its fish.

Even though the nation today has far more legally designated wilderness areas than it had two decades ago, there is far less actual wilderness. Lands that were spared the rush of development by government protections instead are being ravaged by acid rain produced by burning coal.

“By every major environmental indicator, the Earth is worse off today than it was in 1970,” said Lester R. Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based environmental organization.

Just as many of today’s environmental problems differ from those of 1970, so do the recipes for resolving them. There is more emphasis on preventive measures. Instead of focusing on saving a single bird or plant species, the conservation movement has turned toward saving lands that contain a diversity of wildlife.

Instead of just asking for more smog-control equipment, conservationists are pushing for alternative-fuel vehicles, new strategies for getting people out of their cars as well as energy-efficient buildings and industry.

Instead of requiring that contaminants be cleaned up after industry has disposed of them, the push now is to find alternatives in the industrial process. Instead of just urging people to recycle, the nation’s conservationists want less waste to be generated in the first place.

The fight against global environmental threats also has spawned a flood of proposed remedies, but they require a will to act not yet demonstrated by much of the world.

If the planet is to save its tropical forests, repair the ozone layer and head off global warming, industrialization may have to be slowed in developing countries and their economies altered. Industrialized nations will have to find substitutes for fossil fuels and ozone-depleting chemicals and improve their energy efficiency.

The challenge is mind-boggling.

“We’re looking at putting on the brakes on population growth . . . phasing out fossil fuels, reversing the deforestation of the Earth,” said Brown of Worldwatch. “Any one of these things would thoroughly challenge any generation in history. We’ve got a half dozen of them. We’ve got to do all at once.”

Many of these global threats went unrecognized on April 22, 1970, when the environment first was celebrated in a kind of national teach-in called Earth Day and the nation awoke like a latter-day Rip van Winkle to discover that pollution was rampant and getting worse. For the rest of that decade, America saw unrivaled environmental action.

In short order, President Richard M. Nixon opened the doors of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Congress passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which regulates the disposal of hazardous wastes.

Much of this occurred in a presidency not sympathetic to environmental concerns. William D. Ruckelshaus, whom Nixon appointed to head the new EPA, said in a recent interview that his former boss considered the environment unimportant, never seemed curious about it and traced environmental activism to a “softness” in Americans.

“I had several conversations with him,” said Ruckelshaus, now an executive with a waste management company. “He never once asked me, ‘Is anything wrong here’ (with the environment)?”

But public pressure to take action was strong and many of the reforms launched under Nixon produced results. Dramatic progress was made in cleaning surface water. San Francisco Bay, for example, is far cleaner today than it was 20 years ago.

So is the Potomac River. “The Potomac stunk to high heavens in the summertime,” recalled Brent Blackwelder, chairman of the board of the League of Conservation Voters, who grew up in Washington. “It was so foul you wouldn’t want to get near it. Now it’s a beautiful river.”

Air quality also improved in the densest urban settings. Although the pace of growth in some cities overcame the benefits rendered by smog-control technology, “air quality in this country would be a disaster” today without the Clean Air Act, said Rafe Pomerance, senior associate of the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank in Washington.

Perhaps the two most successful single strokes by policy-makers and conservationists were the banning of DDT and the phasing out of lead in gasoline in the early 1970s. DDT causes birds to lay eggs with shells so thin they break before hatching. Lead exposure in children can permanently impair their intellectual abilities. With the phasing out of those contaminants, endangered birds began to reproduce and lead levels in the blood of average Americans dropped substantially.

“One thing we discovered was that when we did something bold, nature bounded back better than we had anticipated,” Pope said. “When we have taken half-measures, the system hasn’t responded.”

One of the “half-measures” cited by Pope was the Endangered Species Act, which protects wildlife only after it is already dangerously close to extinction. The bald eagle is multiplying and the once imperiled American alligator has been taken off the endangered list.

Unfortunately, such success stories are rare. Many species on the federal list continue to decline in number, and others, such as the dusky seaside sparrow, already have become extinct.

But whatever their individual failings, the environmental laws of the 1970s represented the traditional American impulse to preserve, to leave the land better than it was found.

The 1980s showed yet another side of the American character, the fervor to push back the frontiers, to exploit seemingly inexhaustible resources. Some environmental activists now dismiss the 1980s as “the lost decade,” a time of missed opportunity. Environmental research, from the testing of pesticides to the development of non-polluting energy sources, significantly slowed.

Former President Ronald Reagan, who was not an advocate of environmental regulation, is largely blamed for attempts to unravel, or at least ignore, laws put on the books in the previous decade. Early in his first Administration, Reagan tended to put “marginally competent” administrators in the EPA and other agencies that “he didn’t care that much about,” said Ruckelshaus, whom Reagan brought in to reform the EPA after the President’s first choice resigned in scandal.

Reagan gave the environmental movement “the back of the hand,” infuriating environmentalists by treating them with indifference, Ruckelshaus said.

Even so, Reagan had a curiosity about the environment. “(Reagan actually) was more interested in the environment than Nixon,” the former administrator said. “He often would ask me . . . about the science of it. He wanted to know if there was any substance to it.”

Despite Reagan’s poor environmental record, some progress was made during his years. The Food Security Act of 1985 allowed for the recycling of land, the conversion of as many as 40 million acres of cropland--about 11% of the nation’s total--into grasslands or woods. Conservationists say much of this land should never have been plowed and, without the law, it might have turned to wasteland. The law already is credited with reducing erosion by one-third.

In areas where government failed to act, consumers did. After a report last year about the possible health hazards of Alar, a chemical used to improve the appearance and prolong the shelf life of apples, the nation’s consumers began demanding pesticide-free produce at their markets.

Public anxiety about the thinning ozone layer also prompted many corporations to phase out voluntarily their use of some ozone-destroying chemicals. Other companies are starting to promote their products based on their conservation merits. The H. J. Heinz Co., for instance, recently publicized the production of a new plastic ketchup bottle that can be more easily recycled than most plastics.

Market forces may even make recycling a permanent fixture of the American lifestyle. With communities running out of places for dumping rapidly proliferating waste and with disposal costs escalating, more and more cities are launching curbside recycling programs.

Legislatures have passed laws requiring deposits on bottle purchases and other recyclable goods. California will require communities to reduce garbage by 25% by 1995 and 50% by 2000, primarily through recycling, composting and reducing the sources of waste.

Corporations may be prodded into further environmental action under a proposal by environmental activists to award “green seals” of approval to products that meet certain conservation criteria. The seals could be given for anything from an energy-efficient manufacturing process to packaging that can be recycled.

Although the nation has come up with answers to some of its environmental ills, there are no such easy fixes for combatting global threats like overpopulation and deforestation.

When Paul Ehrlich warned of an overpopulation disaster in his 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” there were 3.5 billion people on Earth. Today, there are 5.2 billion and the number is growing.

Efforts to reverse the upward trend have succeeded in some countries. Fourteen European countries, with about 5% of the world’s population, have reached zero population growth and Japan, France and Finland are among others headed in that direction. Population growth fell by half in Japan from 1948 to 1955 and in China from 1970 to 1976.

But if death rates do not rise worldwide, birth rates will have to be reduced 62% to stabilize the planet’s population, according to Brown of Worldwatch. The populations of India, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Mexico are expected to double or even triple before they flatten out late in the next century, he said.

“The real question is whether we check population growth or nature checks population growth,” Brown said. “If we don’t, nature will.”

Population pressures have contributed to the loss of the world’s forests and the rise in gases blamed for the greenhouse effect. Forests shield a diversity of wildlife and absorb gases that otherwise trap heat in the atmosphere much like the panes of a greenhouse. If the greenhouse effect is not checked, sea levels could rise, droughts and hurricanes could multiply and more forests could vanish.

Progress in persuading Third World countries to conserve their forests has been scant, although Brazil recently responded to international pressure by removing tax subsidies for forest clearing.

Attempts are being made to reforest, but South Korea remains the only Third World country to do it successfully. Some industrialized countries, including Australia and the United States, have launched tree-planting programs.

Even if the forests are spared and more trees planted, global warming still could be accelerated by burning such fossil fuels as oil and coal. Most scientists agree that slowing down climate change will require a major shift from the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, which emit greenhouse gases, to less polluting solar, geothermal and other alternatives.

Although international discussions to curb greenhouse gases are under way, some conservationists concede that sweeping actions may not be embraced until there is a greater scientific consensus on how soon the Earth’s climate may change.

The phase-out of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, chemicals used in refrigeration and in a variety of industrial processes, will ease the greenhouse threat as well as protect the ozone layer. Although industrialized countries have pledged to curtail or even eliminate their use, some developing countries are planning to raise production on a scale that would offset the progress.

“I think we’ve lost a great deal,” said David Brower, a pre-eminent conservationist who once helped lead the Sierra Club and later founded Friends of the Earth and the Earth Island Institute, a nonprofit environmental group.

“We’re far worse off than we were in the ‘70s,” Brower said. “Since 1912, we’ve used four times as many resources as in all previous history, and that can’t continue.”

Brower and other conservationists are pushing for wholesale changes over the next two decades that normally would evolve over several generations. Recognizing that worldwide cooperation is essential, the organizers of Earth Day 1990 have enlisted the participation of 140 countries in this week’s activities.

“History would teach you to be pretty pessimistic because people don’t change fast,” the Sierra Club’s Pope said. “But if you look at Eastern Europe over the past year--sometimes they do.”

EARTH DAY EVENTS LIST Earth Day, 1990, is being celebrated in myriad ways around Southern California. Here are some of the highlights. Most are free except where a minimal fee is noted. For information on other events, check with your local City Hall or college campuses. LOS ANGELES COUNTY

Culver City

* April 22, noon, West L.A. College, 4800 Freshman Drive. “Culver City Earth Day 1990.” Festival: Bike-a-thon, workshops and speakers, booths, kickoff of city’s recycling program.

Long Beach

* April 16-22, Cal State Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Blvd. Earth Week activities: environmental speakers’ forum, tree planting and American Indian earth rituals, lecture by Huntington Beach mayor on effects of the American Trader oil spill, and more, culminating in a campus fair April 22 from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Information from Student Services: (213) 985-5205.

Los Angeles

* April 19, noon to 1:15 p.m., Venice High School, 13000 Venice Blvd. Student-organized “Eco-Fair” with Ruth Galanter plus 20 other environmental organizations. An Earth Day quilt will be sewn.

* April 20, 11:45 a.m. to 2 p.m., UCLA’s Westwood Plaza (near Ackerman Union). Rally: with Earth Day founder, former Sen. Gaylord Nelson and Denis Hayes, Earth Day 1990 Chairman. Eco-fair with peace and justice organizations; exhibits and entertainment.

* April 21, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., UNOCAL, Wilmington. “Hazardous Waste Roundup.” Recycling event in cooperation with the city of L.A.: Bring household hazardous waste (old paint, thinner, oil, batteries, insecticide, etc.) to be properly disposed of to: Union Oil Refinery parking lot, 1660 W. Anaheim St.

* April 21, 8 a.m. to 12 p.m, in each of L.A.’s 15 council districts. “Operation Clean Sweep.” Citywide cleanup event with more than 1,000 anti-graffiti volunteers. To participate: (213) 237-1797.

* April 21-22, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., L.A. County Museum of Natural History, 900 Exposition Blvd. “Rainforest Weekend Biodiversity Fair and Rainforest Exhibit.” Displays, discussion sessions, lectures, and children’s programs regarding issues surrounding the destruction of tropical rainforests and related environmental problems. (Tropical Rainforests exhibit runs through May 27, 1990.)

* April 22, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Exposition Park, S. Park Drive and Hoover St. “Multi-cultural Environmental Fair.” Los Angeles Earth Day 1990 hosts a mass gathering and rally with major entertainers, booths, exhibits, hands-on demonstrations and arts and crafts.

* April 22, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Ballona Wetlands Earth Day, Playa del Rey. Fair: bird walks 7:30 to 9 a.m, speeches, booths, native plant and bird displays, music and food. Teale Street off Lincoln Boulevard., south of Jefferson Boulevard.

* April 22, 9 a.m., downtown L.A. “Skid Row Tree Planting.” TreePeople sponsor planting of 40 24-inch box trees at East 6th Street and Stanford Avenue.

* April 22, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Barnsdall Arts Park, 4814 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Earth Day Art Workshop: Paper making, scarecrow workshop, dedication of children’s garden, country music.

Pasadena

* April 21, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., “Arroyo Seco Earth Festival.” Park at Parson’s Parking Lot, corner of Fairoaks Avenue and Walnut Street. Shuttle buses run from there to exhibits among nine environmentally themed villages staged in the Arroyo Seco, the five-mile parkland near the Rose Bowl. Tree-planting workshop; trash recycling demonstrations; ecology panel discussions in Brookside Park, where bike rentals will be available. Biking, walking or taking shuttle buses is encouraged; cars are discouraged.

Santa Monica

* April 22, noon to 2 p.m., Santa Monica Pier. Major rally for Earth Day 1990 on the north side of the pier with live entertainment.

West Covina

* April 21, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., City Hall courtyard, 1444 W. Garvey South. Info Fair: “Our Family, Our City, Our Earth.” Booths representing the AQMD, Suburban Water, Heal The Bay and others plus art and essay contest awards presented to schoolchildren at noon.

RIVERSIDE COUNTY

Riverside

* April 16-20, noon to 1 p.m. plus evening lectures, UC Riverside, 900 University Ave. Earth Day events: rallies and lectures throughout week, culminating in a fair with info booths, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, 4/20. Info: (714) 787-3215.

* April 22, noon to 2 p.m., California Citrus State Historic Park, 1879 Jackson St. Celebration of March For Parks walk-a-thon and Earth Day Rally featuring tree planting and presentation of Environmental Leadership Awards.

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY

Forest Falls

* April 21, 8 a.m. to noon, Fallsvale School, 40600 Valley of the Falls Drive. Mountain cleanup: roadside and creek-bed cleanup of three mountain communities in San Bernardino National Forest. Also noon to 4 p.m., same location Picnic and Eco-Fair: bring clothes to be recycled for the homeless.

Redlands

* April 22, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., San Bernardino County Museum, 2024 Orangetree Lane. “Earth Day Celebration”: exhibits, resource tables, children’s art, live entertainment.

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY

Santa Barbara

* April 20-21, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., UC Santa Barbara, Isla Vista. Earth Day Festival and Celebration: Art, speakers, music and meditation.

* April 22, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Santa Barbara City College, 721 Cliff Drive. Eco-Festival: “Earth Day 1990.” More than 100 booths, speakers, art exhibits, music by Jackson Browne and Kenny Loggins, plus Native American and Mexican music.

Additional listings of Earth Day events may be found in appropriate zoned editions.

(San Diego County Edition) EARTH DAY EVENTS LIST Earth Day, 1990, is being celebrated in myriad ways around Southern California. Here are some of the highlights. For more information about the events listed below, contact Carolyn Chase of the San Diego Earth Day 1990 Coalition, 4901 Morena Blvd., Suite 703, San Diego, CA 92117. 488-6116 or 488-3039. SAN DIEGO COUNTY

San Diego

* Through April 30, Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Lyceum Theatre, 79 Horton Plaza. Natural Diversity: A Sierra Club Exhibition of Nature as Art.

* Through April 29, San Diego Art Institute, 1449 El Prado, Balboa Park. Earth Art Show. Admission is free. Open Tues.-Sat. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m, and Sunday 12:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., closed Monday,

* April 15-22, Spanish Village, Balboa Park. Urban Forest: A forest created out of 6-foot stacks of newspaper, each representing a 35-foot tree.

* April 20. Earth Day Festivals, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. UC San Diego, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. University of San Diego and 9 a.m.-3 p.m. San Diego State University.

* April 21, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Earth Day on the Bay. Organizers hope this Clean the Bay Boat Parade will be the largest environmental armada ever in San Diego Bay. Kayaks, canoes, powerboats and sailboats welcome.

* April 21. Adopt-a-Beach, a countywide cleanup campaign at 20 sites along San Diego’s coastline.

* April 21, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., 1800 Cabrillo Memorial Drive. Cabrillo National Monument Environmental Program. Environmental issues will be explored by speakers and exhibits. Park entrance fee: $3 per car.

* April 22, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Balboa Park. Earth Fair. An early morning “5-K Run for the Rain Forest” will be followed by a day of speakers, food, educational displays and entertainment.

* April 15-22. Tree-plantings in Allied Gardens, Balboa Park, Chula Vista and Emerald Hills and other neighborhoods. (Contact Norma Assam, People for Trees, 231-3713.)

* April 22, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Scripps Aquarium, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Giant Mural at Manmade Tidepools. Anyone can add a drawing to this large depiction of California’s rocky shore.

LOS ANGELES COUNTY

Culver City

* April 22, noon, West L.A. College, 4800 Freshman Drive. “Culver City Earth Day 1990.” Festival: Bike-a-thon, workshops and speakers, booths, kickoff of city’s recycling program.

Long Beach

* April 16-22, Cal State Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Blvd. Earth Week activities: environmental speakers’ forum, tree planting and American Indian earth rituals, lecture by Huntington Beach mayor on effects of the American Trader oil spill, and more, culminating in a campus fair April 22 from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Information from Student Services: (213) 985-5205.

Los Angeles

* April 19, noon to 1:15 p.m., Venice High School, 13000 Venice Blvd. Student-organized “Eco-Fair” with Ruth Galanter, plus 20 other environmental organizations. An Earth Day quilt will be sewn.

* April 20, 11:45 a.m. to 2 p.m., UCLA’s Westwood Plaza (near Ackerman Union). Rally: with Earth Day founder, former Sen. Gaylord Nelson and Denis Hayes, Earth Day 1990 Chairman. Eco-fair with peace and justice organizations.

* April 21, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., UNOCAL, Wilmington. “Hazardous Waste Roundup.” Recycling event in cooperation with the city of L.A.: Bring household hazardous waste (old paint, thinner, oil, batteries, insecticide, etc.) to be properly disposed of to: Union Oil Refinery parking lot, 1660 W. Anaheim St.

* April 21, 8 a.m. to 12 p.m, in each of L.A.’s 15 council districts. “Operation Clean Sweep.” Citywide cleanup event with more than 1,000 anti-graffiti volunteers. To participate: (213) 237-1797.

* April 21-22, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., L.A. County Museum of Natural History, 900 Exposition Blvd. “Rainforest Weekend Biodiversity Fair and Rainforest Exhibit.” Displays, discussion sessions, lectures, and children’s programs regarding issues surrounding the destruction of tropical rainforests and related environmental problems. (Tropical Rainforests exhibit runs through May 27, 1990.)

* April 22, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Exposition Park, S. Park Drive and Hoover St. “Multi-cultural Environmental Fair.” Los Angeles Earth Day 1990 hosts a mass gathering and rally with major entertainers, booths, exhibits, hands-on demonstrations and arts and crafts.

* April 22, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Ballona Wetlands Earth Day, Playa del Rey. Fair: bird walks 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m, speeches, booths, native plant and bird displays, music and food. Teale Street off Lincoln Boulevard., south of Jefferson Boulevard.

* April 22, 9 a.m., downtown L.A. “Skid Row Tree Planting.” TreePeople sponsor planting of 40 24-inch box trees at East 6th Street and Stanford Avenue.

* April 22, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Barnsdall Arts Park, 4814 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Earth Day Art Workshop: Paper making, scarecrow workshop, dedication of children’s garden, country music.

Pasadena

* April 21, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., “Arroyo Seco Earth Festival.” Park at Parson’s Parking Lot, corner of Fairoaks Avenue and Walnut Street. Shuttle buses run from there to exhibits among nine environmentally themed villages staged in the Arroyo Seco, the 5-mile parkland near the Rose Bowl. Tree-planting workshop; trash recycling demonstrations; ecology panel discussions in Brookside Park, where bike rentals will be available. Biking, walking or taking shuttle buses is encouraged; cars are discouraged.

Santa Monica

* April 22, noon to 2 p.m., Santa Monica Pier. Major rally for Earth Day 1990 on the north side of the pier with live entertainment.

West Covina

* April 21, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., City Hall courtyard, 1444 W. Garvey South. Info Fair: “Our Family, Our City, Our Earth.” Booths representing the AQMD, Suburban Water, Heal The Bay and others plus art and essay contest awards presented to schoolchildren at noon.

(Orange County Edition) EARTH DAY EVENTS IN ORANGE COUNTY Events focusing on environmental concerns are scheduled throughout this week, in anticipation of the April 22 Earth Day celebration. Here are Monday’s events.

MONDAY, APRIL 16 Cal State Fullerton

800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton

8 p.m.

Author/biologist Barry Commoner will address environmental issues. Titan Hall, University Center. (Admission $1.)

The City Shopping Center

1 City Blvd. West, Orange

Earth Day mall display, ongoing through April 22.

Cypress College

9200 Valley View St., Cypress

11 a.m.

Cypress College instructors will participate in a panel discussion on the environment. Student Center, Gym II.

7 p.m.

The Environment at Risk: Responding to Growing Dangers, a national issues forum, will be moderated by political science instructor Joe Boyle and biology instructor Brian Myers. Student Center, Gym II.

Fullerton College

321 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton

Earth Day display featuring books, posters and resource-saving devices. William T. Boyce Library, through April 20.

Golden West College

15744 Golden West St., Huntington Beach

11:30 a.m.

Debbie Cook, founder of Save Our Parks, will speak on the campaign to restrict the sale, lease, exchange and development of city-owned or operated parks and beach lands. She will also talk about her trials as an environmentally concerned citizen and what she did to start her grass-roots political movement. College Center Patio.

City of Laguna Beach

High Drive, Laguna Beach

2 p.m.

Tree-planting ceremony at Riddle Field. Contact Cynthia King, (714) 497-0716.

Rancho Santiago College

17th and Bristol streets, Santa Ana

9 a.m.

Lecture, “Radiation in Our Environment,” by John Kalko, physical science instructor. Room R-318.

UC Irvine

Campus and University drives, Irvine

10:30 a.m.

Lecture and slide presentation, “Overpopulation and the Environmental Connection” by Ray Pingle, member of the Sierra Club’s National Population Committee. Salt Creek conference rooms, UCI Student Center.

Noon

Lecture and slide presentation, “Saving the Earth’s Endangered Plants” by Dr. Harold Koopowitz, director of the UCI Arboretum/Plant Gene Bank. Salt Creek conference rooms, UCI Student Center.

1:30 p.m.

Lecture and slide presentation, “American Forests--Saving California’s Redwoods,” by Tom Pratte, member of Forests Forever. Salt Creek conference rooms, UCI Student Center.