The Nicholas Institute

Summit Speakers Focus on Need for Consensus, Collaboration and Action p.2

Wednesday’s keynote speakers at Geneen Auditorium in the Fuqua School of Business echoed Osborne’s call to action.

Russell Train, chairman emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund and former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, said, “It will be vital to engage as many constituencies as possible in an open, collaborative process of developing policy” if we hope to address the environmental challenges facing America today.

He chided the current White House for its failure to promote an open dialogue on global climate change and other key issues. “Cooperative private action,” Train stressed, “is not a replacement for firm government leadership.”

Jared Diamond, professor of geography at UCLA and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies, said that finding solutions to the problems facing society today “will require detailed scientific information.” The Nicholas Institute can help address this need by providing unbiased, timely analysis on key environmental issues, not only at the federal level but for individual states as well, he said.

Throughout the day Wednesday, scientists, policy analysts and corporate leaders took part in sessions in which they identified and prioritized key ecological and economic challenges facing society in six critical areas: energy, global climate change, environmental health, water quality, the health of oceans, and the health of forests and wildlife habitats.

The afternoon’s presentations concluded with a plenary panel, “The Corporate Role in Environmental Stewardship.” James E. Rogers, president and chief executive officer of Cinergy, and Linda J. Fisher, vice president and chief sustainability officer at DuPont, discussed changing attitudes toward stewardship in the corporate world and what their companies are doing to reduce their environmental footprints.

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