First they were exhorted to seek out careers that will help solve the challenges of developing clean energy. Then they received a quick lesson in some clean energy projects already under way.
The one-two punch was designed to inspire several hundred high school and college students who attended a conference Friday on environmental issues at Bergen Community College in Paramus.
The event included a panel of five environmental experts followed by a keynote speech by environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who reiterated the call by President Obama in his State of the Union speech last month for the United States to develop clean-energy technology.
Noting that the New Jersey Constitution makes clear that the state's rivers, including the Hackensack, are owned by the people and not corporations, Kennedy said the right of residents to go fishing and safely eat the fish they catch "has been stolen from the people by large corporations" who used rivers "as waste conveyance systems."
Corporate dumping into rivers not only violated the law but violated "virtually all principles of our democracy," he said.
Kennedy said the nation could invest in solar and wind energy today and reap the benefits of new jobs and cheap clean energy forever.
He said one stumbling block is the lack of an electric grid to get clean energy to urban zones from such locales as North Dakota for wind energy and the southwestern desert for solar.
Another stumbling block, he said, is the billions of dollars in federal subsidies in place to support old, polluting energy sources, including coal and oil.
During Friday's panel discussion, the experts fielded several dozen questions from the audience, many from the students, who asked for advice on how they could play a role in promoting environmental causes or how to turn their environmental interests into a career.
Gray Russell, environmental affairs coordinator for Montclair Township, said a career in the energy sector is a safe bet, given the needs of developing clean energy. "Energy is going to be the overarching issue of your time," he said.
Chris Obropta, a water resources expert with Rutgers University, said water is another field ripe for future talent. He said the United States' drinking water supplies are growing depleted. "We waste too much water; we don't reuse our wastewater," Obropta said.
Darren Molnar, a green building code expert with the state's Division of Codes and Standards, said the country will need more engineers and scientists who understand the dynamics of buildings and how to make them more energy-efficient.
Russell and Kennedy both talked about what they called the "false choice" between either a robust economy or environmental protections and clean energy.
"Energy issues are the solution to our economic problems," Russell said. Switching from foreign oil and polluting coal and investing instead in clean energy technology, such as wind, solar and geothermal, "will create jobs and develop new fields we haven't even thought of yet," he said.
E-mail: oneillj@northjersey.com
