PresidentÕs Corner

by Rick Anthes
UCAR president

This issue reports on ÒInherit the Earth: An Intergenerational  
Symposium on the Environment,Ó which was held in Boulder, Colorado, 
during the week of 14 July to commemorate the official opening of the 
Walter Orr Roberts Institute.

The week was full of celebratory public events, including several art 
exhibits, musical performances, and literary readings, all relating in one 
way or another to the symposium's theme.  Most exciting of all, however, 
were the discussions among the 70-plus symposium participants who 
ranged in age from 13 to 81 and whose professions ran the gamut as 
well--students, authors, lawyers, business people, philosophers, 
scientists, theologians, economists, and teachers.

The 48 hours of the symposium were split so that participants on the first 
day worked in age-homogeneous groups to discuss what the ideal 
condition of the natural environment 50 years from now should be, and 
what that condition might be if no changes in our present course are 
made.  The working groups on the second day mixed up the several 
generations of participants to discuss possible paths to achieve the ideal.  
The outcomes of these discussions are reported in this issue of the 
Newsletter.

As the kick-off event for the Walter Orr Roberts Institute, the symposium 
epitomized the themes that pervaded Walt's personal and professional 
lif--science in the service of society, education, interactions among 
usually disparate groups of people and fields of endeavor, and an 
abiding commitment to the future.  A quote from Walt, used during the 
symposium, sums it up best:  "To beings of distant starworlds it may 
matter little whether earth, destroyed by greed or war, becomes a dead, 
silent wandering planet of an unrecognized minor star feebly shining in 
the night sky.  But to us it is everything."

Radford Bylerly, the institute's first director, and I welcome your 
comments and ideas about the institute and its future.