Home About us Daily Reflections Special Issues Publications Ecospirituality Through The Seasons Donate Environmental Resource Assessment Service   The Latch String Is Out by Al Fritsch, S.J.

Establishing Goals in the Public Interest

    We launch into our life's work saturated with an idealism that has
accumulated over long periods of formal study.  We will conquer the world
through the power of our intelligence, persuasiveness, courage, redoubled
effort, and sincerity.  But idealism fades in the hot summertime of reality
-- high noon of life.  The actions undertaken during my mid-life years
(1967-1984) were each essential components on my spiritual journey.  Others
will find upon reflection that a variety of circumstances and activities
have added to the distinct nature of their own life's path.  While these
spiritual journeys are unique, still they have basic characteristics which
may serve as guideposts for the inexperienced and encouragement for those
who have experienced barriers, dead end routes and wasted opportunities.  
My ordination launched this unique journey:  it occurred at a unique time
at the end of Vatican II (the Council which has made profound changes in
the Catholic Church and its relation to the rest of the world).  It
occurred when the conflicts in the Vietnam War and the racial riots were a
dramatic background; it required a sense of compassion in a variety of
circumstances; it meant being totally open to the working of the Spirit in
our lives; and it coincided with the rise of environmental consciousness,
an awareness never before experienced on this planet.

   My response to this unique calling in my life's summertime involved a
variety of applications, some successful and some not, some short-lived and
some continuing today.  We founders of public interest science sought to
articulate a new movement, not in theoretical terms but in practical
applications: revealing the dangers of aerosol sprays and asbestos;
struggling with solid waste disposal issues; making known hidden toxic
substances; confronting coal issues within Appalachia; saying "no" to
nuclear power; and assisting other groups in environmental assessment of
their properties.  We sought new ways to teach citizens such as through
simple lifestyle calendars, demonstration centers, finding God in the
natural world, promoting solar energy at a world's fair and building
affordable housing.

         
35   (1967)     Being Clergy without being Clerical

    You are a priest of the order of Melchizedek, and forever.
                            (Hebrews 5:6)

        The Church of 1967 was undergoing immense changes.  Vatican II,
the 21 Council of the Church, was ending and the fresh air, which was being
allowed in, was having an effect on a great number of people.  There was
general excitement, agitation, controversy, and many were reassessing their
lives -- and leaving or readjusting their religious life.  Others were
seeing Church as something more than a cultural niche which furnished a
safe haven for one's religious commitment.  A renewed faith demanded more,
and this made some reexamine their initial commitment.  People were afraid
of turmoil and conflict and thought the rock of Peter was rocking.  I
suspect that history will determine that the year 1967 as the time of the
apogee of this renewal spirit and its after-effects.  

   Different Works.  We, Jesuits, were by no means immune from this sea of
change.  Our beginnings were in one of the Church's age of great turmoil,
namely the first half of the 16th century.  Persons familiar with our
history know that members of the Society of Jesus undertook a wide variety
of works from the start -- preaching, confessions, delegates from the Pope
to foreign lands, writing, scholarship, missions.  This was according to
the vision of St. Ignatius to be mobile, sensitive to Church needs, and
willing to show the power of God working in all things.  Jesuits are not
tied to parish assignments as are most diocesan priests and other Christian
ministers.

    Leaving Hurts.  I have written millions of words, but this is the
first time I speak about the many friends who left religious life in the
aftermath of Vatican II and, especially, around the year 1967, my
ordination year.  This Council invited all Catholics to stop and rethink
their stance before God and within the Church.  Some were deeply shaken by
the fundamental questioning of their own vocation, their established forms
of security, and their religious world.  And so some withdrew or radically
changed their ministry.  At that time of dramatic change it was difficult
to see good companionship broken by departures, but we tried to pretend it
didn't.  Loyalty is put to the test and unfortunately continues through the
subsequent decades.  Losses have been keenly felt by all companions, since
the mission is immense and ranks are growing thinner.  We are torn when the
urgency for mission increases and yet we know that it is better that
friends answer their current calling.  Generally their ranks will not be
easily replaced, at least in the near future.  However, we must add that
while clergy ranks have thinned especially in North America and Europe the
ranks of laymen and women working in the Church have swelled manyfold.

    Different Ordination.  My ordination experience was certainly
different.  I didn't have a hometown celebration in June immediately after
the ordination event.  Rather, we put off any celebration until after the
wedding of my sister Patsi, which was a month later in July of 1967.  My
brother Ed had left the diocesan priesthood a month before my ordination,
and this shocked my family.  I went home in the middle of final
preparations and in talking it over we decided to tear up my ordination
invitations and save the postage stamps.  It made some distant kinfolks and
acquaintances upset, thinking they were not invited, when there simply
wasn't an event.  Unfortunately, I neglected to write to each and tell the
particular circumstances.  The ordination itself took place on a pleasant
sunny June day in North Aurora, Illinois with fanfare, good music and the
bishop from Des Moines, Iowa to perform the Sacrament of Holy Orders.  My
folks and siblings were there along with my paternal Aunt Josephine.  The
ceremony was moving, but I was somewhat numb.  I remember that a pigeon
dropping splattered my vestments on entering the church -- and I joked what
it might mean.  I later found out it was a good omen.
     
   Early Ministries.  Actually some of the most heartwarming experiences
of the priestly ministry occurred that summer of '67 at the height of the
Vietnam War, which I opposed, but still had compassion for the individual
combatants for which I served as an auxiliary chaplain.  I vividly remember
one marine at the Great Lakes Naval Base Hospital who had lost both legs
and looked so bewildered, and how my words of encouragement seemed so
powerless.  He had enjoyed running as much as I did.  I remember the fact
that there were thousands of confessions at the base just north of Chicago
where I served on weekends for the next year or so.  Half or more of all
confessions that I have ever heard was in that first year of ministry.  We
would hear confessions from 6:00 a.m. Sunday morning, during the Masses all
the way to noon and, when it came time for Communion, we would give general
absolution for those still in line (a circumstance common in wartime), and
asked them to come back after Communion for their personal confession.

    Homilies.  Homily preparation was not extensive, since I would fall
back on public speaking experience and my fresh knowledge of Scripture.
And I expected a heavy dose of charism would suffice.  Actually, only later
did the need for homily preparation become a longer preparation including
meditation during the preceding week -- and I do so for each of the
subsequent three thousand homilies.  Commercial and canned homilies are
lifeless and lack vitamins. Personal testimony is best.  I place the homily
script on the podium, but generally reconstruct the talk, only occasionally
look down for specific themes.  I try to color homilies with personal
stories; these have been assembled gradually and are often supplemented by
excerpts from the lives of saints, little known to many Catholics.

    Reflection.  Priestly ministry certainly is different from what I had
expected in the 1950s.  The culture of the princely priest disappeared with
the American Revolution, made a comeback in the 19th century bishops'
palaces, rings, titles and clergy deference.  I pray constantly that the
Latin Rite could follow the other Rites and allow married priests (as do
the Ukrainians and Melkites).  This will permit more clergy to remain in
ministry and would release us from saying numerous Masses each weekend.
Our ministry, while threatened by burn out, contains the blessings and
opportunities to say Mass and minister the sacraments.  These activities
have always given me immense satisfaction and spiritual joy.  My only
regret is that I neglected to prepare myself better for each of these
profound exercises of God's hand touching the people through the
instrumentality of the priest.

    Prayer for Fidelity.  Oh God, keep me faithful to the call and
respectful to the Mysteries which we celebrate on your altar.  


36   (1968)    Serving Students and Hospital Patients

     We cannot do great things on this earth.  We can only do small things
with Great Love.              --  Mother Theresa

   History:  I spent my fourth and final theology year at Loyola
University in Chicago engaged in part-time chemistry research with Dr. Carl
Moore.  The other part of the time was spent studying theology while living
at Arrupe House, a student dorm three blocks from the main campus.  Brother
Tony Kreutzjans was the director and I was the live-in student chaplain
from the summer of 1967 until December, 1968, with the exception of June to
August, 1968 when I was away.   My weekends involved chaplain's work at the
Great Lake Naval Training Base.  

   The chemicals which I was synthesizing in the Loyola laboratory were
being used in medical research at the same Great Lakes facility -- giving
this period a double Navy connection.  These chemicals were promising as
possible anti-viral drugs, and so Dr. Moore (my good friend and fellow
Kentuckian), Tom Meyer (a promising young research fellow who died a few
years later in early age), and I would prepare these samples which Tom had
synthesized on earlier for his own graduate research at Loyola.  My
contribution was that of finding a more efficient method at making the
chemicals.  We sent these materials over to the Great Lakes Navy Research
Laboratories to Dr. Rosenberg (the head of research) and he would test them
as anti-viral agents for a type of hepatitis.  This activity proved
exciting and we published two professional papers from our work.

   Student Dorm Work.  In the spring of 1968, immediately after the
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, the air in much of urban America
was filled with riots.  I remember Professor Bruno Jaselskis of the Loyola
Chemistry Department, saying that he feared that the Windy City of Chicago
under the proper circumstances could have fire storms like he experienced
during World War II in Europe.  The volunteers who worked with Jesuit
scholastic Jack McNamara on the city's West Side were regarded as in an
unsafe place during the racial struggles.  Jack called me and asked if he
could bring his people for the upcoming weekend.  We opened the doors to
them -- even though the dorm was somewhat crowded --but one of the students
defaced the welcome sign and indicated he did not like people working as
organizers in the mostly Black West Side.

    We sat up late that night talking about race relations, and how the
dorm had voted Denny Carney, a black student with leadership abilities, as
dorm prefect.  I asked them about their motivations.  Had he been elected
to gloss over deep down racial bias, or was he elected because he was the
leader of the dorm?  The evening was one of the longest for heart-to-heart
discussion and proved to be a meaningful exchange of ideas, a primal
college experience, and a period of purgation and fundamental review of all
of our deepest biases -- theirs and mine as well.  The students were quite
frank and I respected where each was coming from with strong ethnic
backgrounds of these second generation Americans.  And the backdrop of
fires, sirens, tanks and National Guard troops in Chicago added a sense of
urgency to the discussion.
 
   In Defense of All Theology.  The thought of preparing for the many
theses in theology still haunts me in dreams years later -- as though it
will still be ahead of me.  Actually, the event was a pleasure with some
tension in its preparation.  In fact, since I never ask for grades I didn't
know until later that I had done quite well in theology.  I received the
Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL) degree from Loyola to which the North
Aurora School of Theology was attached. I tried to do my best and what more
can be done?  The positive questioning of the theology examiners, helped
make theology a pleasant experience.  One, the late Bill Thompson, though
not one of my teachers, is remembered as a most kind and enthusiastic as an
oral examiner.    
 
   To the East.  I went with classmate George Lane (later director of the
Loyola University Press) to our tertianship program in upstate New York
(the Auriesville Shrine where Isaac Jogues and several Jesuit companions
were martyred by the Mohawks in the mid-1600s).  Tertianship is the last
training period in Jesuit formation and is regarded as a second novitiate.
It generally runs about nine months but this experimental program in New
York was an abbreviated format of three months of summer and one the
following winter.  We went east by the roundabout way of New Orleans to
attend the ordination of fellow Jesuit, Pat Hunter.  We toured the city and
traveled by bus to Tampa.  While on the trip we heard of the tragic death
of Robert Kennedy, a Democratic candidate for President.  The year, 1968,
was shaping up as a most fitful year of wars, assassinations, riots, and a
presidential election.  Upon arriving in New York in mid-June we soon
launched into our second thirty-day retreat (the first was during the
eventful summer of 1956).  The shrine grounds were majestic and the
tertianship director was  Fr. John McMahon, who had a way of focusing us on
spiritual matters in those stressful times.  For one blissful month
everything was left firmly in the hand of God and we were at peace.

    Hospital Work.  After the retreat I soon departed to the first of two
bouts of hospital chaplain's work.  In August it was at Columbia
Presbyterian Hospital (CPH) in upper Manhattan, and then later at a smaller
Calvary Hospital, a Catholic hospital for the terminally ill in the Bronx.
CPH is for the most part upscale while Calvary provides services to the
poorer population.  I remember ministering to a number of people of low and
high means .  One at CPH was a poor Puerto Rican who was later at the
second hospital and I could recall her name which surprised both of us;
this was because names appeared at the bottom of each CPH bed and allowed
both a face with written text.  Another patient was Senator Margaret Chase
Smith, the first woman senator in Congress, who was very appreciative of my
visit.  Also there was the haunting sight to the ward where jaws of cancer
victims were being replaced.  The patients were mainly young males who used
non-smoking tobacco;  the scene at that ward will never leave my mind.  In
my evenings away from the hospital I watched the Chicago riots and
Democratic convention on television, and only wished I could have been
there.  In winter, the Calvary Hospital experience was quite fulfilling,
but it revealed the practice of dumping dying people off on this little
hospital from the prestigious ones, which did not want inflated death
statistics.  At this little fifty-bed hospital there was an average of a
death a day, and I missed one dying episode while attending to a second who
died almost simultaneously.  Now Calvary is focusing on hospice patients.
   
   The Reality of Conflict.   The actual living of the priestly life is
beyond the ideal order.  It takes much to be Christ to others and no study
preparation is sufficient.  The changes that were taking place made this a
period of immense flux in our lives.  A war was being lost, and yet the
official line was that it was being won.  Where do religious ministers and
leaders fit into such a politically charged situation?  How are we to be
models and leaders in a world of such movement?  All the while in 1967-1968
questions of race relations and segregation were being posed to people in
cities in both the South and North.  The more rocky portion of our
spiritual journey was beginning.  We learned that the championing of social
justice phrases does not bring it about any more than chanting "Peace Now"
brings a cessation to war.  During the summer of 1968 that reality of
nation, city, church and minister in flux struck more and more of a chord
with us.  As a part-time military chaplain I had to deal with those service
personnel who wanted out because they no longer believed in the war.    

    Reflection.  I believe that during the late 60's I shifted from a
frequent optimist to never being one again and preferring the term
"realist."   The impact of the Vietnam War and the ensuing political and
social conflict began to strike home.  Reality became these riots and the
war wounded and the boot camps.  Student dorms contained more theological
content than did many formal lectures and discussions -- and in some ways
we each had to help generate our individual response to this social and
political upheaval, always seeking the grace and power of the Spirit.  In
some ways the powerlessness of the situation began to weigh heavily on me
even while the oils of Ordination were still fresh.  My second long retreat
experience in July, 1968 offered an opportunity to reflect upon these
changing conditions and how they would affect my future ministry.  We
became revitalized for the many struggles ahead.

   A Prayer for those in High Gear.  Oh God, we speed along and a host of
images and phantasms pass before our eyes on life's superhighway.  In one
instance it seemed we would never stop and no one could catch us.  We
occasionally think You are there in the back seat, a machine maker who
turned on the motor and we do the rest.  Show us truly that You are running
things and that we are in a cruise control which You have initiated,
operate and lead to a destiny.  Help all of us in high gear to be grateful
for energy, health and friendly associations, and for the desire to do your
will -- even when we think we have to little time to seek and discover it.
Be with us, Oh God, throughout this life's journey.  Amen.


37    (1969)   Doing Research at the University of Texas

    We are only the earthenware jars which hold this treasure, to make it
clear that such an overwhelming power comes from God and not from us.    
  (II Corinthians 4:7)

       History: I left the Albany Airport at the end of my Tertianship
experience in mid-January, 1969 */with a temperature somewhat below
freezing and landed in balmy Austin, Texas having experienced the greatest
temperature difference (about 70 degrees) in one day in my life.  Austin
was much smaller than Chicago and New York City, and quite a bit smaller
then it is today.  I joined a ten-person Jesuit residence only three blocks
from where the University of Texas Chemistry Department was located.  The
other Jesuits were students in various fields, and we resided together in
the former nursing quarters which was highly institutional with terrazzo
floors and hospital beds.  It was the Annex to the Daughters of Charity
Seton Hospital.  We had relatively good living conditions at reasonable
price and ate our main meal in the hospital cafeteria.  I especially liked
being only a block or so from the main campus.

    Nice Climate. In some ways my Texas experience was the most pleasant
15 months of my life.  And it was in part because the people were
hospitable, the climate was mild except for the single hot summer I had to
endure, and I just liked the South.  Texans are sociable people and the
people enjoyed parties.  Incidentally, I did more socializing there than at
any other time.  The Austin pecan trees, cawing crows, the Texas Long Horn
salute, and the largest cockroaches I ever saw are part of my Texas
memories.  During that summer of 1969 I had to travel from chemistry lab to
the computer center under the famous Texas tower, which is both a landmark
and the scene of an earlier shooting episode and murder by a terrorist.
The trip to the tower was from chilled room to chilled room through a hot
outdoor walk.  I think that is when I caught and endured pneumonia
unknowingly.

   Getting Around.  On weekends I biked to St. Louis Church on the far
north side of Austin in order to say two Sunday Masses.  The place had a
good choir, but the Mass text was still in Latin, which I always found
burdensome.  These bike trips were pleasant early in the morning but the
return in the hot noon sun was another matter.

     Top Grade Research.  My post-doctorate work with noted chemist
Michael Dewar was arranged by Raymond Mariella at Loyola University, who
thought I should get a heavy dose of high-powered research before going
into teaching whether at Loyola or at another school.  However, the
prospect of a lifetime of teaching chemistry at one of our Jesuit schools
was becoming less appealing, especially when Mariella was hinting at
competitive job openings at his school.  It was evident that more organic
chemists sought positions than were available.  If laypeople wanted the
job, why not give it to them?  I didn't spend all that time in Jesuit
training to compete for positions.  Let me do something which others did
not want to do or could not do.  My Loyola University friends (to this day)
were in analytical chemistry and I was no threat there, for I could have
been a complement to their own research as I had been for over a year.
During my Texas days, I kept contact with Loyola people but knew I had
little stomach for internal university politics, and so hunted elsewhere
for ministry. The uncertainty of where I would go hung over me as a cloud
throughout 1969, while the Michael Dewar research group became a true
community to me.
 
     Faith and Action.  Texas was the longest extended formal educational
period that I had spent outside of a church institutional setting.  Texas
was a high-powered scientific research facility, but many of the other
researchers were totally involved, younger than I, non-churchgoers, and
launching on a career track of teaching and research.  I considered my
situation as a budding scientist and gave it prayerful attention:  the
years of unrelated classics, philosophy and theology studies; time lost in
life's productive springtime from one's scientific specialty; the
extraordinary person required to straddle teaching and scientific research;
the growing number of Jesuit scientists in academic administration who left
their specialized field behind; and the thought of academic-research-
priestly life.  Secularized academic institutions make incredible demands
which are difficult enough for laypeople.  Years later at Marquette
University, I reconfirmed my choice to leave academia, when in 1998 I had
a hurried lunch with a Marquette faculty member who told how he had a
family, no tenure, and much to do that afternoon.

     Results.  Michael Dewar was an Englishman and about as close to a
genius as I have ever met.  He was very jovial and witty and ran a large
research program (about 12-15 people) and would for years afterwards keep
an annual letter going among the researchers.  Only two of that number were
from the United States; the rest were from Japan, Romania, Hungary,
Yugoslavia, Germany, Switzerland, England, Northern Ireland, Japan, Iraq,
and Mexico.  I performed about three months of laboratory work and then
some theoretical calculations on borazomatic compounds, and finally spent
the last third of my time writing a review of the field, which was Dewar's
own turf.  My review was later published as one section of Volume 30 of the
Special Topics in Heterocylic Chemistry series, and I was proud of being
able to achieve such a tangible sign of the Texas experience.

    A Vietnam March.  In November, a week before Thanksgiving in 1969, I
chanced to be in an anti-Vietnam march in downtown Austin and struck up a
conversation with Joe Tom Easley, a law student at UT.  He said he was
going to visit Ralph Nader's Center for the Study of Responsive Law in
Washington, DC over the Thanksgiving holidays.  On impulse I asked Joe Tom
to see whether a chemist advisor would be of any use.  He returned my call
the following week and referred me to Jim Turner at Nader's center in DC
for an interview.  That was the start of my public interest career, which
has continued throughout my active career.  In January, 1970, I had to go
to Cincinnati to perform the wedding of my cousin, Kathy Schumacher, and
was able to extend the trip to DC and there I met Turner, along with Ralph
and others, and we agreed during the meeting that I'd return in late spring
after my post doctorate ended.  Professor Dewar was most supportive and
said, if he had to do it over, he would do public interest science -- a
truly affirmative testimony.

   Reflection.  My University of Texas experience was one of those turning
points in my life.  What had appeared to be a future automatic teaching
career took an unexpected turn and, while there were moments of disquiet,
the resolution had all the hallmarks of a graced event in which God proved
quite near.  What was emerging as important was that we find and treasure
these times of continual vocational call and thank God for the consolations
brought in significant turns in our life's journey.
 
   Prayer for Enlightenment.  All knowing God, help us to know when to
apply learning for the sake of others and when for it's own sake.  


38   (1970)     Becoming Aware of the Environmental Crisis

   This is why the country is in mourning, and all who live in it pine
away, even the wild animals and the birds of heaven;  the fish of the sea
themselves are perishing.  (Hosea 4:3)

    If I were quizzed in 1970, I would have thought the environmental
crisis was temporary.  When the world would realize what the threats were
to the air, water and land, corrective measures would be taken, and within
a decade we would remember this as a temporary period of disharmony.  I
thought I would be doing other work of some sort in a decade or so --
though that prospect faded with time.  My colleague in research at the
University of Texas, Jesus Garcia, had suggested Monterrey Technological
Institute which had a chemistry opening.  This was where he was on the
faculty, there was a growing commitment to social justice matters, and
there was a very active Jesuit community next to the Institute.  I was
rapidly becoming convinced that my weakness in foreign languages would make
any commitment to Latin American education more problematic.  
   
   Times Were Changing.  The year 1970 was immediately after Rachel
Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring became popular.  The DDT pesticide that we
had sprayed on cows to kill the flies in the 1940's and 50's was getting
into the milk and into us, the milk drinkers of the world.  Other people
sprayed this pesticide by the pound to control mosquitoes, but thoughtful
scientists were beginning to have second thoughts about control chemicals
miraculous effects.  If such compounds are so powerful, they can also be
toxic to more than the selected species.  As environmental concern
heightened, there were daily press accounts of automotive pollutants in the
air which were causing breathing problems, of poisons in the workplace, and
of belching smokestacks that were regarded just a decade before as a sign
of full employment and prosperity.  The Cuyahoga River was catching fire
near Cleveland, Ohio, industrial mercury was getting in fish, and "No-
swimming" signs were appearing on beaches along the Atlantic Coast.  A
national alarm about environmental contaminants was spreading in the
country.
   
     Earth Day Memories.  Two things stand out in my mind while attending
an environmental talk on that first Earth Day teach-in at Austin, in the
shadow of the University of Texas tower:  the sound of urgency in the part
of a college faculty speaker and a clapping student sitting in the grass
near me who squashed his filtered cigarette with the heel of his sandal.
Both captured my attention and opened a dilemma -- most folks, including
this student, think the problem belongs to others and is distant from you
and me.  This failure to recognize individual contributions to
environmental problems was present in 1970, and remains today.  I was
disturbed about not facing both corporate greed and perversity and personal
culpability.  Washington teemed with expert finger-pointers always directed
towards distant people.  An elitism lurked slightly below the surface,
which ostracized the little people who littered and had fewer places to
throw their wastes than the affluent lifestyles which generated distant and
hidden pollutants.  

     The Career Decision.  My decision to go into public interest was not
mine alone.  I talked with Bob Harvanek, my Chicago Jesuit Provincial,
about options, and he said he preferred the academic route.  A few years
before, he had appointed me to an academic study committee as the student
representative.  However, Bob was an open person and said I could accept
this new ministry of public interest, but only on the condition that I
raise my own money and could do meaningful activities. I doubt now whether
he appreciated how tight the chemistry job market was in this country --
and I was not yet able to make an articulate case for a long-term public
interest science career.  I followed his instruction and took some small
salary from the Center for the Study of Responsive Law as well as what I
could earn on weekends performing Mass and religious services in nearby
Maryland and DC parishes.  I don't think I missed a single Sunday that year
in saying Mass as a substitute or auxiliary in parishes from my departure
in Austin to Washington, DC residence.

    Moving to DC.  After Mass on that first Sunday of June in Austin I
traveled northeast over I-35 and I-40 humming Spirit of God on the Clear
Sounding Waters.  The rare feeling was one of complete euphoria.  It was as
though the world of thirty years from first grade hard seats to the Towers
of Texas were behind me once and for all.  I traveled across country in a
little green Plymouth -- which a departing foreign student wanted to dump,
and we paid about what it would cost to go by public transportation.  I
went to live at the Jennifer House Jesuit Residence where I had made
contact with the superior, George Dennis, during my January visit.
However, in a short while I moved out to St. Peter's on Capitol Hill for
five years because I could get my room and board free.  In return I
accepted the assignment of saying many of the early Masses for people who
worked on Capitol Hill.

   Reflection.  Public agencies and corporate culprits associated with
environmental misdeeds are liberal concerns; reflections upon personal
misdeeds are usually the concern of conservatives.  The dilemma was that
exposing the need to attend to both corporate and personal misdeeds would
subject any of us to being disliked by both wings -- liberals and
conservatives.  This became more clear with time, especially when a
discussion with Barry Commoner (on live television) at Youngstown, Ohio in
the late 1970s moved quickly to a debate, even though we both shared basic
environmental concerns.  I never deviated from that first insight before
the University of Texas Tower, namely, the filter cigarette snuffed out in
the grass.   We have to address the environmental crisis on all fronts --
global, national, regional, local, corporate, and individual and personal.
Yes, at the ultimate grassroots I -- along with corporations and sluggish
regulatory agencies -- am also to blame.  

   A Prayer for Good Spiritual Hearing.  Oh God, You called Samuel,
Samuel.  But he was confused.  He did not know who called.  You, as Newman
expresses it, give us an ongoing call. I, like Samuel, have had the moments
of confusion.  This was especially true while at Texas.  When we don't know
where we are going we think others are doing the calling, when it is really
You.  Help me to listen and discern Your voice among the distressed and
voiceless of the Earth.  


39  (1971)     Founding Public Interest Science

     The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to
captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to
proclaim the Lord's year of favor.  (Luke 4: 18-19)

     The years of formal education from 1939 to 1970 along with farming
and other skill-enhancing activities were leading in one direction, to a
life's work in the public interest.  Perhaps this was why I was so anxious
upon arriving in Washington, DC and the Nader office.  Impatiently, I
wanted 31 years of preparation to be put to good use and in the shortest
possible time.  In what way could I be of service to others and would this
require a new mode of presentation, a type of popular education with a
strong scientific and appropriate technology flavor?    

     During the first year in Washington three of us scientists (Mike
Jacobson, Jim Sullivan and I) developed the term "public interest science."
The activities at Nader's Center for the Study of Responsive Law were at
full speed and were highly law-oriented as one might expect in the nation's
Capital.  We scientists had entered a lawyer's town but was thrust into the
scientific advisory role.  I worked with Harrison Welford, a bright young
lawyer at the Center.  We testified before a Congressional Committee on
pesticide issues.  I went to the Library of Congress and to the Georgetown
University Library to check on background materials, helped write position
papers, and accompanied Harrison on his trips to Capitol Hill to visit
Congressional offices.  We testified before that very kind Senator Phil
Hart of Michigan who was on the Senate Commerce Committee.  I later
concelebrated with four other priests his funeral Mass in Washington in the
mid-1970s.
 
    Broader Issues.   John Esposito, another talented person at the
Center, was writing a book on air pollution and Jim Turner, my first public
interest DC contact, was working one on water pollution.  I  explored the
possibility of focusing on land issues, which has intrigued me ever since
in areas of land stewardship and solid waste management.  Actually, there
was a plethora of good soil and land conservation literature such as the
well-written books by Charles Little on soil erosion and later forest
mismanagement.  I could not yet find any niche in the rapidly expanding
environmental pollution area that would be worth carving out and becoming
an expert.  Instead,  I looked at the greater theological issue as to why
we must save the Earth, both collectively and individually.  I did this
from a traditionally Christian perspective in The Theology of the Earth,
which I wrote in the evenings and in my spare time.  

   Educational Discernment.  Jesuits, as educators, have followed a long
tradition of teaching others in numerous fields -- but never public
interest science.  The environmental crisis offered non-traditional
educational opportunities because it was new, not recognized by traditional
funders, and arose apart from the academic institutions.  We had no
environmental training at a time when it did not exist.  The target
audience of students was to be the general population, the ordinary
citizens.  Environmental teaching could not yet count on the institutional
classroom; rather, our blackboard was the media -- print and electronic.
Money was scarce, and this was all the more reason for those vowed to
poverty should see these types of endeavors as inviting and potentially
fruitful.  A rare opportunity arose and needed immediate filling.  

   Science as Research.  I liked working in a laboratory, even though it
is a proven fact that life-long chemical lab workers live shorter lives due
to the toxic chemicals with which they work on a daily basis.  Even with
added precautions chemists can take a few too many shortcuts which is often
unhealthy.  I often dreamed of being in the lab and attempting to make the
same small-ring chemical compounds that I was working on in the early 1960s
in New York.  However, the dreams may have been residual guilt for
seemingly abandoning scientific research.  While at times this abandonment
to those far better in the finesse of organic chemical synthesis seemed
generous on my part, still the other side of me said that it would have
been a very satisfying life pursuit.  On the other hand, as I enter senior
years, many of those more talented (non-academic) scientists now retiring
spent years in research where they are now totally silent due to company
loyalty, trade secrecy, or pension agreements.  Those in academics came
through quite bruised by years of internal political battles, difficult
teaching schedules, never ending extracurricular activities, and ongoing
tenure battles. In retrospect, I affirm my personal public interest
choices.

   Advocacy Science.  What I have been able to do to some degree in public
interest science is to research practical applications of science and where
these impinge on the health and safety of the general populace and on the
environment.  The age was dawning when ordinary people no longer fully
trusted the words of commercial advertisements and corporate public
relations hype that their products were safe and harmless to the consumer.
Ralph Nader and his raiders had shaken the general public through his book,
Unsafe at Any Speed and a series of hard-hitting reports carried by the
media.  And focus extended beyond automobiles to the raw materials
extracted, processed and fabricated into the consumer products.  Sources,
production lines and markets were interconnected.

    Humble Beginnings.  Mike Jacobson, Jim Sullivan and I started the
Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) so that we could work on
specific public interest science issues related to our particular
specialties, Mike on biological ones, Jim on energy and I was working on
chemicals in the environment.  We started in the offices of Tony Mazzochi's
Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers at the AFL-CIO Building on Sixteenth Street
in DC.  We moved over to the DuPont Circle Building later when funds
started to come in.  Mike (an MIT biologist by training) focused on the
harmful effects of unreported food additives in the food system and stayed
with nutrition from then on -- establishing a national reputation in that
arena. I focused on chemicals in the environment (those in gasoline,
aerosol sprays, building materials and pesticides) and Jim (an MIT
meteorologist by training) looked into highway construction and energy-
related transportation issues.  He took over a co-project using our first
money to investigate the environmental effects of strip mining in
Appalachia.  

    Other issues I helped start included fluorides in water and the
environment with Ph.D.s Farley Fisher and Mike Prival, both of whom later
went to work at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  I obtained a
grant from the Consumer Federation of America to investigate additives in
gasoline and found interchanging of brands among major producers, which we
reported at a number of Congressional Hearings.  We found that some
additives were cosmetic and that lead was the real culprit.  This was some
of the starting salvos at the widespread use of lead in gasoline and this
was to emerge as a 70's struggle which we in the public interest obtained
a clear victory.  I did a piece for The New Republic on the dangers of lead
in gasoline which I took pains in writing, and they reproduced it word for
word as an editorial.

    Reflection.  The swirl of Washington activity and finding my place
took some time.  Likewise, the setting up of the Center for Science in the
Public Interest was time consuming.  I soon found out that I was a minnow
in a great pond (some called it a cesspool) of Washington, DC.  The slower
pace of research was a luxury that rapid-fire journalistic investigation
did not allow.  I began to withdraw with a degree of satisfaction into the
evening work at St. Peters Rectory on my little book -- The Theology of the
Earth (CLB Publishers, Washington, DC, 1972).  Everyday actions took tons
of psychic energy, whereas it became apparent that serious reflection must
take place apart from the hurried Washington scene, where hardly a deep
thought has ever been spun. Some can write satisfactorily under such
tension -- but it was fast becoming apparent that I could not.  While
organizing and certain administrative tasks could be achieved with ease in
the nation's Capitol deeper reflection requires a different setting.  But
I was not yet prepared to follow this through.

    Prayer for Insight and Steady Nerve.  Oh God, help us to come to know
ourselves for who we are.  Deflate our false egos.  Inflate that part of
each of us which means to do good things and is worthy of patient
encouragement.  Help us to choose roads least travelled by people but still
must be explored and mapped.  Public interest science, with an openness to
the issues as they surfaced, was a new field and one devoid of honor,
income, publicity, or power.  Help us to be satisfied with choosing these
less trod ways, and to do so with the full use of our talents, energy, and
enthusiasm.

                Pledge (Oath) by Scientists
  I promise to work for a better world where science and technology are
used in socially responsible ways.  I will not use my education for any
purpose intended to harm human beings or the environment.  Throughout my
career, I will consider the ethical implications of my work before I take
action.  While the demands placed upon me may be great, I sign this
declaration because I recognize that individual responsibility is the first
step on the path to peace.

    This ethical code or sort of "Hippocratic Oath for scientists"  is
favored by 1995 Nobel Prize winner Sir Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash
Conferences on Science and World Affairs.


40  (1972)      Going to a Global Forum

   "Give us some of your oil: our lamps are going out."
                               (Matthew 25:8)
 
    The year 1972 witnessed the first of two energy crises of the decade.
These crises served as wake-up calls for Americans and others of an overly
heavy dependence on non-renewable  gas, oil, coal and nuclear materials (in
contrast to renewable solar, wind, and hydropower) and to a need to move
towards renewable energy supplies.  These early scares were a little  
pessimistic and they could not predict recent natural gas discoveries, as
well as the industrial conservation measures in the production of a variety
of consumer goods.  The renewable energy commitment was not discussed in
earnest until the 1980s and is still not national policy in the 21st
century.  Conservation measures have included energy savings through
improved lighting, more efficient electric appliances, better insulation,
tighter fitting and  designed doors and windows, and more fuel efficient
vehicles.  Federally-mandated legislation for posting appliance energy
consumption and for better quality insulation and building practices has
helped greatly, as well as utility-sponsored energy auditing and
conservation measures.  However, the record has not been perfect.  Early
solar tax incentives were removed during the Reagan years.  Vehicle fuel
efficiencies worked for some time but loopholes such as SUV fuel use has
led to continued energy waste.
 
    Wake-Up Call.  The 1960s were really the first years that we began to
understand that toxic chemicals were entering into the environment through
such writings as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.  In the 1970's we saw the
connection between pure environmental threats from chemicals and the use of
non-renewable resources in all sectors of our economy.   Our society had
become hooked on gas, oil, and coal, especially in transportation and
electric generation areas, and there was not an easy way out of this energy
addiction.  Some argued quite convincingly that petroleum should be
reserved for future use in the manufacture of medicinal and other necessary
synthetic chemical products;  it should not be burned up on frivolous
consumer items, especially those made from plastics.

   Stockholm Conference.  A number of notable scientists and
environmentalists such as Rene' Dubos were instrumental in calling for the
United Nations to sponsor the first Conference on the Global Environment in
Stockholm, Sweden in June, 1972.  A subsequent follow-up conference was
held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.  It seemed to be a good idea to go to the
first conference and, through some gifts to fund the trip, I left in June,
stopping first in England to see Alan and Janet Brown. I had studied with
Alan at the University of Texas.  I travelled by ferry to the Netherlands
and from there through Germany and Denmark to Sweden on my one-month Eurail
pass.  

    At Stockholm, the non-governmental groups held a parallel conference
while across town the official one was occurring.  We were graced with the
presence of the Prime Minister Olaf Palme of Sweden, who was assassinated
in 1986.  I was so moved by his inconspicuous attendance that I went up
personally and thanked Prime Minister Palme for taking time to come, my
only such encounter with a head of state.  Few top leaders would have
slipped into a meeting and sat silently taking in the proceedings without
being announced.  One delegate from Brazil spoke of how the Amazon Rain
Forest was being systematically destroyed, a revelation to me.  A woman
from Kenya went up to an all white male panel and elbowed her way onto the
panel, declaring that she represented the unrepresented two-thirds of the
world (of color).  Half of the audience clapped and half booed.  For some
present she was a champion of the unrepresented; for others she was
impolite to some illustrious panelists.

   Conference Connections.  I began to see how ineffective a mere citizen
delegate could be.  We went to receptions and hobnobbed with some delegates
and notables. I talked with Rene' Dubos who was as gracious as ever and who
served on our Center for Science in the Public Interest Board of Advisors
from 1971 until his death.  At our morning Masses when the Vatican delegate
attempted to make out assignments, I said I was not there as an official of
any sort.  In fact, the only lobbying I had ever done for a personal
appointment had failed, when prior to the UN meeting I offered the Vatican
my little environmental expertise.  It went nowhere even through a personal
appeal to the Apostolic Delegate in Washington at his DC Delegation office.

   Conference Conclusions.  The official Stockholm Conference of 1972 was
the first recognition by the United Nations of the serious environmental
condition of our planet and the need to do something collectively about it.
Conclusions reached included:

    * The environmental crisis is a global one involving all people to
some degree and involving a global commons.  Pope Paul VI's message to the
Conference laid out basic distinctions about environmental commons, namely
that air (and oceans) belong to all people and not to a privileged few;

    * Governments would have to play a key role but any progress also
involves the non-governmental organizations (NGOs).  However, the
Conference proved a disappointment when the United States became one of two
nations which voted against the Law of the Seas and other such measures for
preserving the global commons;

   * The wealthy nations should not be overly represented by the ability
of delegates to come from the First World, but should also include Second
and Third World peoples.  However, international groups composed mostly of
western people such as Green Peace have a major international role to play;

    * The complexity of the task ahead would be far greater than naive
estimates during the 1960s of short duration environmental projects. It
would take many disciplines to deal with environmental problem areas,
testing monitoring, and technologies for solving problems.  No individual
would have all the answers, nor do we yet know all the problems; and

    * Conferences can raise problems but can do little without the consent
of the member United Nation states.  This became still more evident by the
time of the Rio de Janeiro Conference in 1992.

    Conservation Measures.  My trip home was a once in a lifetime three
week tour of twelve Western European countries mostly by a rather low-
priced railroad pass.  While gazing out at the pleasant summer European
countryside I tried to digest many ideas from the conference.  What was
emerging is the paramount place of a conservation ethic in the culture in
which we live.  I laid out the outline for The Contrasumers:  A Citizens
Guide to Resource Conservation, which I launched into in my spare time
immediately upon returning from Europe.  The parallel need for limiting
consumption by affluent countries to that of population limitations became
clearer, but how do we go about doing it?  After exhausting traditional
ways to conserve, is it possible to move to radical action?  

    The Affluent.  Those of us who went to Sweden had resources to make
the trip.  Was I associating with an elite who would tell others how to
conserve?  What about those who did not have a voice by their absence?  How
do we address their lack of necessary resources due to their powerlessness?
Would they be like us if they had the chance?  At that time I was unwilling
to admit that I was part of an elite composed of Americans and Western
Europeans.  Something was wrong.  I disliked the parading of the victims of
mercury poisoning in Minamata, Japan as a show of wronged human beings from
environmental pollution.  In fact, the prospects of future dealing with our
white power elite devoid of other representation was disconcerting to me.

    Reflection:  Global versus Local Actions.  Rene' Dubos is credited
with coining the phrase think globally, act locally.  As someone steeped in
Catholic social justice doctrine, I naturally regard global thinking as
important.  By ascribing to the Principle of Subsidiarity, I see the need
to act locally, for here effective work can be performed.  Some people may
contest "global thinking"  and prefer to champion only thinking and acting
locally.  However, I do prefer a modification for, as ecologically-
concerned people, we must think beyond our limited locality to the broader
world commons.  My preference for an expression is that we (local
communities) are to think and act locally so that we (as a larger
community) can think and act globally.  Of course such a modification
destroys the pithy bumper sticker-type character of the original phrase.  

     A Prayer for Proper Earthly Conduct.  Oh God, Creator of all the
universe, teach us the way to use the precious resources of this planet so
that there is enough for all and also enough for future generations.  Start
us on this sustainable process at the local level in which we live, but
don't let us stop there.  Expand our consciousness so that we see the needs
of people and all creation throughout the globe.  Make us aware of our
interdependence, and how we must share the commons inhabited by us all, so
that the quality of our life improves.  Teach us to bring these changes
about so that we may respect the integrity of all creation.


41   (1973)     Exposing Aerosol Sprays & Asbestos

    Set up signposts, raise landmarks; mark the road well, the way by
which You sent.  Come home, virgin Israel, come home to these towns of
yours.                (Jeremiah 31:21)

    During 1973, I reached the high water mark of my public interest
science career.  It was the year of the most interest in our work, the year
of greatest notoriety, and the year I would still be called an expert on
what was occurring in the environment.  After that the specialists and
larger organizations took over.  It was the start of environmental
bureaucracy and in order to attempt to comply we were all forced to
concentrate more on raising money and running operations -- and this took
a heavy toll in the coming years.  Not until I could encourage others to
get their own funding and take charge of their own projects did the space
open again to pure public interest work.  Raising money was to become my
greatest cross, and I would have gladly given it up many years ago.
However, for about three decades administrative duties tended to crowd out
this desire to do purely public interest work on my own.  I look back with
nostalgia at the asbestos and aerosol spray issues.

   Asbestos.  The use of asbestos in building materials and in insulation
had been known for many years.  It was mined from the earth with relatively
little processing.  It was durable, easily applied, possessing good
insulation properties and relatively low-priced.  However, it came at a
great price, and that was to the asbestos workers.  The small fiber clumps
were often what is termed friable or able to crumble; the resulting dust
could enter the lungs and could cause severe health problems such as
asbestosis and mesothelioma along with other problems such as cancer of the
stomach and other body parts.  Smokers are more prone than other workers to
these problems.  The asbestos-related illnesses were apparently known back
at the time of World War I, for about that time in South Africa asbestos
workers found insurance companies reluctant to insure them.  The health
mystery was not that deep, but health and safety issues rested undisturbed
and overlooked in this country for decades.  American shipbuilders and
asbestos miners had been subjected to years of assault and there was hardly
a word spoken in their defense.  

   Barry Castleman came to CSPI as a person with one dedicated purpose --
to develop materials to show how dangerous asbestos was, and to back it up
with the published health literature.  Barry had a story worth telling and
publicizing.  He went on to work for a graduate degree at Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore and eventually published a book on the subject.  In
the ensuing years asbestos was discovered by the legal tort community.
Victims were sidelined as lawyers and the companies battled over amounts --
with the losing companies going into bankruptcy.  All the while, the U.S.
Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OHSA) tightened governmental
regulations.  Other federal agencies required that asbestos insulation be
taken out of institutions serving the public, often at risk to the ones
taking it out and through quite costly procedures.

   Ironically, requiring asbestos removal, instead of coating it with an
impervious covering, often exposed abatement workers and occupants to
higher asbestos levels.  The high costs and dangers to people in asbestos
removable has brought pressure to leave the materials in place, if the
insulation is not crumbling and to use effective means of reducing
exposure.  Asbestos lawsuits are winding through courts;  asbestos
companies are going or are completely bankrupt; and strict environmental
regulations ensure today that no friable forms of asbestos are currently
used in construction.  With time the problem is being greatly diminished
thanks in part to actions undertaken in the 1970s.  

    Aerosol Spray.  During 1973, Barbara Hogan and I were able to launch
a study on aerosol sprays.  She developed a considerable list of people who
had health problems with ingredient inhalation and improper use of the
sprays along with safety problems from leaking, flammable and exploding
containers.  For instance, strong caustic oven cleaner was causing burns
and eye, throat and lung damage to consumers.  We began to find that there
were a number of other problems:  the high cost of the container, the use
of freons which would cause ozone depletion; the danger of disposed
containers exploding in incinerators and elsewhere, and the leaving of cans
around for misuse by children who were enticed to use them as toy weapons.
For both health and environmental reasons dispensing of many chemical
ingredients (except some aerosolizing medicinal needs which were not
sufficiently dispensed through pump sprays) through spray cans was called
into question.   The principal rational argument was that the cans were
convenient and could be used in rare cases to disperse medicines, paints
and other materials in a more uniform and highly aerosolized degree.
However, these were potential bombs and grounds for potential lawsuits --
and the movement against freons as propellants was rapidly gaining
momentum.  

    This issue was my only bout with the National Press Club weekly
meeting and it allowed widespread notice of our work on national news.
These were truly heady times.  The National Association of Container
Distributors (NACD) even asked me to speak at their annual meeting in New
Jersey, but cut the time to speak from fifteen minutes to half that time at
the last minute.  I said their respective companies could be the first to
stop using aerosols.  A little after that talk an unidentified person, who
we suspected was from Johnson & Johnson, came to talk about a potential
endorsement of their program to halt aerosol sprays.  I asked whether they
were going to dispose of their surpluses in other countries; the unknown
person hedged and said he would get back to me -- which he never did.  We
really won the aerosol spray battle -- at least in its most blatant forms
without legislation.  Part of the victory came as freons were banned as
propellants.  Not surprisingly, aerosols of highly caustic and toxic
ingredients were far less frequently found on the store shelves or were
removed for fear of possible lawsuits.  The container makers moved rapidly
to pump sprays and other means of dispensing materials and the trade
associations showed its caution by not giving prominence to aerosol sprays
on their web sites but rather stressed the pump spray.
   
   Beginning to part Ways.  Each of the three co-founders of the Center
for Science in the Public Interest were starting to go their own way.  The
pleasant and likeable Jim Sullivan went to work for the federal government
and later would set up his own consulting business.  The more methodic and
highly talented Michael Jacobson was quite able to balance science and
popularity by forming the Nutrition Action Newsletter, which finally
acquired a million readers and made CSPI quite prominent and profitable,
while being a non-profit organization that never took government or
industry funding.  My directional change was to consider taking government
but not corporate grants.  This would be coupled with launching a
regionally-based counterpart to CSPI which would take up specific problems
in Appalachia and offer practical solutions through a demonstration center.
The germinal idea of Appalachia -- Science in the Public Interest (ASPI)
was beginning to appear in 1971, even though it would take six more years
before it came to fruition.

    Reflection.  Being somewhat on top of the world did not bring true
peace, for the poor were absent.  I was not naturally drawn to Washington,
DC but rather to the Mountains where association with the name "Appalachia"
would cost one Washington respectability and relegate a person to a lower
rung on the ladder of expertise.  But what about the Jesuit prayer Suscipe?
We should not seek honors and be willing to take a more humble role.  Was
it right to pursue a career of public interest respectability?  How do we
identify with the voiceless when dealing with environmental concerns?
 
   A Prayer to be Humble.  Oh Great Rabbi, teach us to accept the lesser
place where powerlessness prevails, where resources are hard to get, where
scaling is downward, where the poor and voiceless will be better served,
and where You call us with greater urgency.


42  (1974)     99 Ways to a Simple Lifestyle

   Think of the flowers; they never have to spin or weave;  yet I assure
you, not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed like one of these.    
                     (Luke 12:27)

    In Washington, DC some of us were seeking to live more simply and to
find good information to pass on to others to do the same.  We researched
the data on appropriate technologies dealing with composting toilets, solar
energy applications, energy conservation, biking, and good gardening
methods.  After writing a more general searching book, The Contrasumers, it
became evident that we needed a compendium of techniques for living in a
simple fashion -- and this was before a number of works were published but
not well known in resource management and utilization.  It seemed fitting
to start at the seat of government where the media gives special
consideration to new ideas.

   Organization of Team.  I enlisted Barbara Hogan, a retired biology
teacher and homemaker who knew gardening techniques to do the home
economics and gardening sections of the book.  We also enlisted Dennis
Darcey, a recent Holy Cross College graduate and a Jesuit Volunteer Corps
person, to do the energy, waste and recreation sections.  Finally we
recruited David Taylor from North Carolina to gather, condense, and edit
materials under my direction for 99 Ways to a Simple Lifestyle.  This first
Center for Science in the Public Interest edition had several thousand
sales through our expanding in-house contacts, and so Anchor/Doubleday was
willing to publish it in a paperback edition.  Later University of Indiana
Press published this book in a hard cover as well.  

    Collecting the Basic Facts.  I was becoming fascinated with the
technique of living simply and harked back constantly to our gardens,
recycling of materials, and the cisterns that gave our family good water in
my youth compared to the ill-tasting urban chlorinated stuff. Likewise, I
realized that the past outhouses were not perfect but neither was the later
flush toilet which carried off wastes along with potable water.  In
municipal systems the carrying medium then requires added resources to
return that water to a potable condition again.  The Scandinavian compost
toilet was more environmentally sound.  Likewise non-renewable energy
resources such as coal and oil cause harm to the environment and/or to
human beings in extracting, processing, combustion and clean up of
emissions.  The solar and wind alternatives, which had been in use for
millennia and need to be adapted to our modern world's needs.  These types
of simple technology honor the local talents of people and still is
environmentally benign.  Far too little tax credit and attention is given
to what had not yet been coined "sustainable" practice.
 
    Our Research Approach.  It began to appear that the actual preparation
of a modern simple popular technology publication would be  very
instructive for the entire team and eventually our audience.  The process
involved a review of the practical knowledge of the time.  We collected
themes on ten subject areas, such as food, clothing, waste, and community,
and discussed them.  We then gathered accessible resources as to how to
delve deeper into the particular issue.  We conceived 99 ways including
"compost and mulch" and "cut hot water costs."  I have been astounded
throughout the following quarter of a century how accurate the 1970s
research approach was in predicting areas of concentration on simple living
technique and how valid it still is today.  Perhaps the only one of the
ninety nine ways discussed in the book that I would change is to take a
more lenient approach to having larger pets (dogs and cats) than the
alternative birds and gold fish we suggested.  Our argument then was that
larger pets take more resources and are harder to maintain.  After this
writing and when returning to Kentucky it became apparent that cats and
dogs have many advantages which were somewhat overlooked: security,
companionship and psychological health and well-being.  However, these
larger pets can still have detrimental effects on wildlife, cats on birds
and dogs on small mammals.

    Wildlife Protection and Control.  There were no sections on wildlife
in 99 Ways to a Simple Lifestyle.  One of the ten sections in our later
specific environmental resource assessment reports for non-profit
organization deals with wildlife management and control.  We have found
that many suburban and urban dwellers and organizations are deeply
concerned about wildlife issues.  Excessive wildlife (deer, rabbits,
groundhogs, geese and wild turkeys) have become major problems for those
seeking to garden or to care for ornamental plants around their homes.
Another addition to a needed wildlife section would be for the protection
of birds which have been seriously threatened by their declining habitat.

     Need for the Poor.  Only after further reflection did it occur that
affluent people are more easily able to implement certain simple lifestyle
suggestions because they have available money. They can buy nutritious food
or install home solar systems with ease, but this was a far greater
challenge for the poorer folks who do not have available information or,
more importantly, the financial resources.  Is a simple  lifestyle as we
were defining it beyond the reach of the American poor much less people in
other lands?  They often live according to their simple style because other
options are not available.  Would they behave as affluent people if given
the chance?  

   The challenge was to make the less privileged the models for the
future, not the affluent who are generally aware of certain simple
lifestyle alternatives.  What was becoming apparent was that without some
quantifying of resource use the affluent can mask their own wasteful habits
quite well through transporting to distant landfills or obtaining
electricity or building materials from distant places, thus crediting
resource depletion to the residents and not the distant users.  The local
poor always take a greater brunt of the blame and bear the immediate
environmental impact because they are forced to live nearer powerplants,
landfills and deforested areas.  Furthermore, these have more of the worn
out consumer goods and thus more pressing waste disposal problems.
 
    Need for Practical Demonstration.  A dream was emerging to return to
Appalachia and demonstrate simple technology methods for the poor people
who had no access to them.  Over time a majority of the ninety-nine ways
(gardening, renewable energy, housing and waste management) have been
gradually incorporated in our simple lifestyle demonstration center in
Kentucky.  Ideas and suggestions have to be actualized, otherwise we remain
idealists who expect others to do the dirty practical applications.  The
added benefit of application is that gray areas exist, where simple
technology application results in some environmental deterioration, if care
is not taken.  These were not expected without experimentation and real
world application.  And here there is an honest revelation of human
imperfection that becomes an opportunity to advance on the road to a deeper
spirituality.  
   
   Federal Friends.  The Carter Administration years (1977-80) which
immediately followed the publication of 99 Ways to a Simple Lifestyle were
well suited to incorporate simple lifestyle demonstration projects because
there were solar units on the White House and a conservation-conscious
administration.  This period could be called pinnacle of governmental
support for such demonstration work.  In the succeeding Reagan
Administration (1981-89) federal funding for demonstration projects
virtually ceased.  However, during those Carter years quite a number of
individuals and groups gravitated to the readily available federal money
because it was accessible, not because of their simple technology
commitment.  As soon as the funding ceased their projects which were not
self-sustaining petered out.
 
     Need for Accessible Up-to-Date Information.  Differences have emerged
since the publication of 99 Ways in 1975-77.  We, at our Kentucky
demonstration center, have essentially incorporated most of the practical
applications into a series of short highly specific technical papers, how-
to videotapes or a combination of information contained on our web site
www.a-spi.org.  Books of a generalized nature are still published, but
these are more costly, contain much material which is not of interest to
the particular reader, and the expanding area of Internet information is
considered more current.

     Reflection.  I was becoming uncomfortable with being in Washington,
DC during the Nixon/Ford years.  The pressure of the city and the massive
accumulation of wealth in the five surrounding counties were not conditions
ideal for simple lifestyle demonstration projects for and with the poor.
An acquaintance, Connie Ridge, who worked at the woman's Catholic Worker
House, predicted I would soon be back in DC because she said my type would
not be satisfied too far from Washington.  After I left for Kentucky in
1977 I did return once a month for the next three years because of pressing
project commitments. I also returned for two four-month intervals in 1980
and 1986, but these were not permanent stays. Living simply means that we
must enhance older practices that the affluent were distancing themselves
from, and we champion improving communication and transportation to remove
isolation and give people the chance to be connected.  Today, someone can
be at a greater physical distance from power centers and still have
connections and influence, though to a lesser degree than being physically
there.  This better connectedness is enhanced by the interstate and the
Internet systems.  In fact, greater distance from seats of power has the
added benefit of less congestion and less information overload.
 
   Prayer to the God of All Consolation.  Oh Consoler, teach us to be
simple in the way we pray, in how we live, in the manner in which we become
models to others, and in the aspirations of all especially the poor.  Teach
us to know ourselves and the hidden ways we consume scarce resources but
are unaware.  Allow us to see the need to enlist both rich and poor, if we
are to have a more stable world.  Make us see the value in living more
simply, even when it is the harder thing to do.  Finally, show us that
living simply brings about a higher quality of life.  


43  (1975)     Managing Solid Waste

    For thus says the Lord, the creator of the heavens, who is God, the
designer and maker of the earth who established it, not creating it to be
a waste, but designing it to be lived in... (Isaiah 45:18a)

    Our consumer culture's many highly disposable consumer products
results in an unexpected form of pollution, namely solid waste.  This junk
and/or garbage amounts to a ton per American per year, and has become a
waste disposal crisis among so-called advanced nations.  In poorer lands
people have used their junk in creative ways for basic human needs, though
these countries also have disposal problems.  Actually the poor are known
to hammer out tin cans for siding and roofing.  Advanced countries in
Europe with far less land and greater demands for social order have taken
a lead on implementing solid waste management practices.  In North America
disposal methods such as air polluting incineration and water polluting
landfills have their own ill-effects.  Waste prevention and recycling are
ways to curb the growth of this problem, but some regulations like bottle
bills which require consumers to pay deposits on beverage cans and bottles
are resisted by an industry that profits from ready disposable practices.

   The Wastewatchers.  Art Purcell became acquainted with our organization
and testified for us on solid waste legislation in 1972.  Art came to DC,
fresh from a doctorate in Materials Science from Northwestern University
and after working on the Chicago Earth Day Program.  He was and still is to
this day keenly interested in waste management and citizen involvement and
eventually summarized the work in a book called The Wastewatchers published
by Anchor/Doubleday in 1980.  In order to get around the CSPI policy of not
taking government money, we decided to start the Technical Information
Project, that later became the Resource Policy Institute.  In 1975, we
convinced Eileen Clausen at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Waste
Division that a grant to catalyze interest in solid waste management was
most important at a regional as well as local level.  We proposed and held
regional meetings all over the United States using influential people from
each region.  Our associates, Tom Conry and Ed Moss, assisted with
organizing meetings throughout the United States.

    Our first Citizens and Waste Program meeting was held at the Albany
Hotel in downtown Denver in August, 1975.  The keynote speaker was U.S.
Representative Tim Wirth, who later became a senator and then
undersecretary of State for Environment and Resources. In Denver, we became
acquainted  with Phil Stern, a chemical engineer and a strong supporter of
our Citizens and Waste Program.  He agreed to be a board member of our
Technical Information Project and has remained an advisor on environmental
assessment work up to the present.  Also at that time Phyllis Machta, a
biologist working at CSPI, agreed to join the board. Art, Fred Smith, and
I drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico from Denver to visit Art's parents and
to give interviews on a radio show.

     The second conference was at the Museum of Science in Boston,
Massachusetts in late October, 1975.  I stopped at Worcester to give a talk
at Holy Cross and it was one of those confusions that would happen once in
a lifetime, namely I put down the fourth Thursday and there was a fifth or
last Thursday in October that year which is when the sponsor thought I
would come.  The talk did not occur.  Boston was where some long-winded
person from the audience rose and in place of asking Governor Mike Dukakis,
the keynoter, a question, instead began to wax eloquent on his pet ideas
about waste management.  Art, the facilitator, wanted to be both fair and
responsible, and thus delayed in cutting off the monologue, and Dukakis
remembered the episode years later.
   
   The third conference in January, 1976 was in San Francisco with State
Assemblymen Charles Warren, later Chair of the Council on Environmental
Quality was keynote speaker.  In February, 1976 we went to Loyola
University at New Orleans, Louisiana for the fourth of the citizens and
waste meetings.  I gave a separate talk to the business students at the
University and a minority questioner said it took a long road to being a
modern consumer.  He did not want to hear about waste and conservation.
This was a basic question for me, for we would not be able to change public
policy on waste reduction and conservation unless we bring the entire
nation on board.  While these had been slated as awareness raising and
information disseminating events, we were starting to see that the solid
waste issue was quite complex.
 
   The fifth and final conference of the first 12-month series on May 10-
11, 1976 was held in Chicago, Illinois.  The bicentennial celebrations were
beginning in earnest leading up to the grand finale on July fourth and the
media was filled with up-coming events.  We stressed at this conference
that we could best celebrate the bicentennial by conserving our resources
and halt the mindless growth in use of energy and other resources.  The
series was teaching us, the promoters, as much as those coming to the
conferences.  A national growth more in keeping with the revolutionary
American spirit would move away from ever bigger cars, more appliances and
larger homes.  To be faithful to our traditions we should be the first
country to stress growth of spirit and focus our attention on better
services (education, health care and social security) for all the people.

    The second series of meetings included St. Paul, Minnesota (October,
1976), Atlanta, Georgia (May, 1977),  San Antonio, Texas  (May, 1977) and
Portland, Oregon (June, 1977).  Transactions at the various conferences
blur with time.  I remember that at San Antonio a television crew arrived
early and left before our conference coordinator, Art Purcell, arrived.  I
was forced to field the questions.  After the San Antonio meeting I rode
with Fernando Ortiz Monasterio who worked with the Mexican government's
environmental agency.  He mentioned at the 20-mile border checkpoint in
Mexico that I was a Catholic priest; that was the day a priest had been
killed near there.  The police kept me in a room and questioned me as to
why I was coming, and I insisted it was for a lecture for the class of
Professor Jesus Garcia (my friend and fellow collaborator at the University
of Texas) at the Technical Institute in Monterrey.  They let me through,
however, but gave me somewhat of a scare.  I continued to Saltillo and gave
the lecture on our public interest science work.  Students were polite but
as lacking in English as I was in Spanish.

   The last meeting of the second series was held at the University of
Portland.  Again, we experienced enthusiasm and good interchange along with
publicity.   On the long three thousand mile trip by auto back across the
country I began to reflect on what we had achieved in these ten
strategically placed series of talks -- truly a first on the solid waste
issue.  Certainly we had received good publicity and the country was
becoming aware that there were solid waste problems involving air, water
and land pollution and overuse of resources.  But we had to tap something
far deeper than just knowing what we were doing.  We had to move beyond the
knowledge level to the willingness to make profound change through resource
conservation.

    With our changing view of solid waste management we launched into the
third series of the citizens and waste meetings by leading off in Miami,
Florida in May of 1978, followed by Anchorage, Alaska in September, 1978,
and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in October of the same year.  The Alaskan
meeting was the best attended of the dozen to date and most enthusiastic.
Trash is a major problem in Alaska because in the winter pickup of trash is
hampered by the weather.  The habit of burying trash in the snow banks
during the long winter season is only a temporary solution.  When the snow
melts in spring, the populated countryside is somewhat messy and this makes
concerned citizens quite anxious to do something about solid waste.  The
folks were most friendly and while jogging on the street one morning
someone from the conference yelled my name.  How could I forget Anchorage?
After the conference Art and his wife Debbie and I went by car to see Mount
McKinley and the Denali National Park, where we camped out.  On our return
we were asked if we had taken a gun to grisly bear country, which had never
entered our minds to do.

    Waste Minimization.  The three years of conferences was making us
refine our own recommendations and we were no longer as naive to think that
mere information will change American and world current waste practices.
Truly solid waste is a complex national and global as well as a local and
regional problem, and must be addressed at all levels.  If nothing more,
people from various lands should gather and share ideas about emerging
solid waste management policies.  Art Purcell wrote about and spoke
informally to numerous people and it became apparent that a global
conference might be in order.  We went in the late 1980s to Geneva,
Switzerland to a conference that Art Purcell organized and was attended by
people from all over Europe.  ASPI helped with the proceedings and
logistical work, and I gave a talk.  Art had began to press issues that
affected the broader public that included industry's efforts at minimizing
wastes including innovative ideas from Germany and central Europe.  Some of
these included uniform packaging, appliance container reuse, innovate use
of industrial and agricultural waste materials, and extending the lifetime
of consumer products.  It became apparent to us that Europe was really
ahead of the United States in this area of waste minimization.

    Reflection.  It was during this period when we were conducting the
Citizens and Waste Program  that new thoughts began to arise.  We could
give citizens information on what is wrong with thoughtless discarding of
waste;  we could show that governmental agencies would have to do more to
require proper disposal;  we could alert the public to the need for better
waste disposal regulations; and we could show how Europe has taken a lead
in waste minimization techniques.  However, what about moral and ethical
considerations?  Isn't waste an effrontery to the all-good Creator who made
all things good and a world to be lived in with care?  Do our wasteful
practices involve stealing from future generations?  Are people who
continue to waste caught in an addictive situation that is not answered by
mere information but must involve strengthening of the will to use material
things properly?  What more can be done by the religious communities to
alert people to how wrong it is to generate waste?  It was becoming
apparent that we tell much about our inner attitudes in the manner in which
we generate, treat and dispose of our wastes.  
 
     Prayer.  O God, inspire us to proclaim all creation as good.  We are
to make our world a better place to dwell and we are to use the many goods
well.  Too often we toss away without thinking and we dump our wastes in
someone else's backyard.

The Latch String is Out -- Copyright © 2002 by Al Fritsch