I am not a preacher. I am not a minister. But I go around seeing too many dead young people.

I see little old men and little old women with no life in their eyes at ages 6 and 7 and 8.

I see too many people too concerned and too blase almost about death around them and I really believe this bill, if properly expanded, will refute those critics who denigrate the concern for the environment by labeling it political and all the things that go into it.

I think we must be concerned with the carbon monoxide from cars. I think we also have to be concerned with the slums in which the cars are sending forth the carbon monoxide.

I think we have to be concerned with mountains and with hills and with rivers and with fish, but I think we have got to be just as concerned with the children and with the people in our surroundings. It is nice for a child to dream of rolling hills and beautiful sparkling streams that he will never see.

So for me your bill represents something much bigger and much, much broader than the more pragmatic discussion around.

I may sound like an idealist, but I think the reading of history taught me a long time ago that the only people who have had immortality have been the idealists, because the practical people of their day died the day they died.

We remember Pontius Pilate only because of Jesus Christ and therefore I am not afraid to say that I believe constantly our task can be really doing the job of-and must be-creating a belief in children in themselves, in their own miracle of being alive.

And once we create a concern and wonder for the beauty of life, I think we will be in a position to take the kinds of action about which people are indifferent only because they are indifferent to life.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Monserrat. That's a most eloquent statement and I congratulate you on it.

It seems to me you have very well caught the fundamental purpose that caused Mr. Reid and me and some of our colleagues to introduce this bill and I might say to you on the first day of our hearing we invited both a theologian and an artist, a painter, to testify about the bill precisely because of the condition you were here talking about, the fundamental human values of which you have just spoken in such moving terms.

I have just one question. As president of the board of education do you find an increasing interest in the kind of educational programs we are talking about here in the New York City schools?

Mr. MONSERRAT. Yes, sir, I think there is a growing interest, I think there is a great deal of concern.

Part of the concern may not be described in terms of the bill, but certainly the fright from the so-called drug epidemic and all that surrounds it, has created a movement toward the kinds of things which would develop such a program.

I think that the concern with outdoor programs-again appearing to be critical, but not being really critical-I think projects in which I have seen children going out into the streets and into the highways and taking pictures of their environment and really beginning to understand something about garbage collection and dirt and detergents

and beginning to discuss these things are awakening them, in a different way, to the kinds of things that we are discussing here.

And I would say we would more than welcome the opportunity for being able to help to provide some of the resources to really enrich these programs and make them much more meaningful.

It is necessary, not just desirable.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you.

Mr Reid?

Mr. REID. I want to welcome you and thank you very much.

I was struck by the poignancy and force of your eloquent testimony, and I would submit, along with you, that many in the slum and ghetto areas of New York, the residents, never virtually see a tree or dream of a clear mountain stream, let alone a fish.

I think what you said about looking into the eyes of little old men and women aged 6 or 7 with no life in them is very accurate and a very devastating commentary on the failure of our society to provide real hope and freedom for many Americans.

What I would really like to ask you very simply is what kind of curriculum and materials do you now have in the New York City school system and what kind of things do you think would be helpful particularly in view of the fact that you would like to move our schools out into the countryside?

Mr. MONSERRAT. The New York City Board of Education has been described as the world's 12th largest corporation.

Mr. REID. My compliments to you.

Mr. MONSERRAT. To be specific, in terms of the details you ask me I would have to bring some staff people along because I wouldn't begin to attempt to think that I know the answer.

I have seen some of the material that was taught and is being taught in the health-education field, social science field. I have seen some material in relation to population and overpopulation.

I have seen some of the materials dealing with preservation and things of this sort.

But I still feel, you see, that somehow or other this material and the use of this material is secondary to what I believe is the basic lesson we must teach children, and I don't find that anywhere in any school system do we teach children anything about the wonder of themselves and we don't teach children to believe, as I say, that they are unique and that they are a wonder and that they are a miracle, and I believe that until we can do this, until we can really make youngsters believe in the importance of themselves, all of these other things which we attempt to do are sort of secondhanded.

And I think we've got to really come down to a much more simplistic concept of the meaning of life, and I believe that once we begin to understand that, then everything else that has a negative effect on it will begin to take on the kind of importance and meaning which many people have for many years been trying to tell us about as they tell us about pollution and population.

And you can go right down the list and somehow or other we hear but I don't think we really hear fully enough to be able to respond to in the way we should like to.

And it is in some of these areas that I personally would like to see more thought and more work done.

I am sure that our professional staff could outline very quickly and I would be more than willing to provide the committee with such information, a list of the kinds of materials we have and, more important perhaps, the kind of material that we would need and the kinds of programs that would be needed and which could come about as a result of this act.

Mr. REID. Well, I am sure the chairman and I would be very appreciative if you could supply that list and also if you would take a look at the bill and see if there are any technical additions that might be relevant from the curriculum standpoint and, finally, just to add, I agree with you on reverence for life and the wonder of being alive and the wonder of life, convincing children of this; George Wald has done something on this, and I was struck the other day in looking at the age of the earth and moon.

We have lived here really for a very short span and it takes 500 years even to produce an inch of good top soil, yet we are in a matter of months destroying life, destroying something that has really taken billions of years to develop, and the wonder of life and the wonder of the child.

Thank you very much.

Mr. MONSERRAT. Thank you.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Monserrat.

(Prepared statement of Mr. Monserrat to be inserted at this point.)

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH MONSERRAT, PRESIDENT, BOARD OF EDUCATION

Thank you for this opportunity to speak out on the need for education about the preservation and improvement of our environment. I want to start by expressing my complete support for the proposed Environmental Quality Education Act.

I hope that the current concern for our surroundings, both man made and natural is not merely a passing fad. It would be tragic if it were so. The way we have treated our natural environment and the way we have created our manmade surroundings reflect the fundamental ills of our society. I cannot agree with those critics who denigrate the recent popular concern for "environment" by labelling it "political" or who regard it as an attempt to turn our focus away from other pressing economic and social issues. Pollution, inability to handle natural and man-made wastes, over-population, urban blight, and the desecration of our nation's spectacular natural beauty are all symptom of other moral, social and economics ills. Educating our young as to the nature and future of our total environment is a forceful way to increase a needed awareness and understanding about the fundamental problems which face us.

I would like to speak to the issue before us from two perspectives: As President of the New York City Board of Education and as a member of the Puerto Rican community.

As President of the Board of Education, I think the passage of the Quality Environmental Education Act will help fulfill the following aspirations: First, adults, and perhaps more important, our children must learn what "environment" means. Much of the popular discussion stresses pollution and the need to preserve and use our natural resources with safety. However, this should be only part of the total focus. Environment consists of all that man does with nature and all that man has created for himself from nature. I think that in an educational program we should look at the environment from the standpoint of ecology as a whole. We should take as a model that which scientists have learned from their study of other organisms and how they provide for themselves in their natural habitat and how they survive in the niches they have created.

We must teach adults and children that houses, streets, stores, highways and machines are part of the environment; that poverty and the slums in which many of our urban children grow up and play, are symptoms of a failure to use what nature has given us, in a humane way. We must demonstrate that the

means we now use to get from one place to another, the use of cars and the misuse and collapse of public transportation, are all signs that man, with all his creative powers, has failed dismally to use his gifts to help his fellow men. Too many children respond to the issue of "environment" with a mental picture of rich rolling hills, lovely streams and stunning mountains-all fantasies to the many children who have never seen and will never be able to see or live near such splendor.

I think that a program of environmental education should be introduced on all levels and geared toward a systematic understanding of man's relationship, both biological and social to his surroundings in terms of the total human condition. This means teaching, as you have proposed, in the mass media, in the community and in the classroom, the old and the young, to understand the relationship between mountains and cities, air and cars, water and the food we buy the connection between resources and our use of them, between potential and failure, between healthy livable space and poverty stricken slums.

Second, education about the environment should inspire the young to solve those important problems beyond the more theoretical and all-inclusive scope I have just outlined. These problems are most familiar to us all and are the probable cause for the gathering here today. New ideas must be found to end pollution of air and water, and to dispense with the avalanche of man-made waste in a way that will not harm us. Environmental education should bring the young to an awarenes which we, in our generation, never had about the population explosion. New ways to help regulate and distribute the human part of the environment must be found, ways which avoid the political connotations which have continually plagued concern over the demographic future of man. Third, the increase in awareness about our environment should lead to the better use of our surroundings in the near future. Through the programs and materials which can result from the proposed legislation, the progress of decay may be halted sooner than expected. This goal may be best realized through the mass media and community and adult education.

To conclude, as President of the Board of Education, I support the Environmental Quality Education Act because it will help broaden and deepen the understanding of the patterns of man's existence and because it may help us solve the ominous problems which are before us in 1970.

But there is a further reason why I support this Act. I support the Environmental Quality Education Act as a member of a "minority group" which has been "disadvantaged". I grew up with personal knowledge of how an environment can crush a people's spirit, dash their hopes and reduce them to an object of hate, fear and pity. Unfortunately, nationwide concern for the environment comes only when pollution and decay threatens a larger portion of our nation: those who have not been confined to the urban slums which have existed since cities themselves. But it is not too late or too soon. As a Puerto Rican, I hope that the program for education about the environment will ultimately turn the concern of our citizens to the condition of their fellow men.

The environmental crisis before us reflects the failure to use our surroundings to benefit each other. Concern and understanding about the environment must lead to the solution of the problems of our cities and the problems of the poor. Concern for the environment cannot be separated from concern for men. The solution to the problems of our environment must, by definition, include the elimination of slums and the elimination of poverty because these are the most painful tragedies which have resulted from a misuse of nature and man, and they continue to destory our environment. If our nation really solves the environmental problem, it will have helped to solve the basic moral problem beneath all the crises we face in our nation at this time. This moral problem is the on-going struggle of men among and with themselves; the translation of hate, envy and greed into reality. As a Puerto Rican, I see the national concern for the environment as part of a movement which will eventually better the economic and social position of our national minority communities and improve the physical and emotional conditions in which they live.

In closing, I want to express my complete support for your Bill as a crucial step. Quality environmental education will be part of the groundwork behind a better environment and part of the total role that education must effectively and powerfully play in the creation and preservation of a pluralistic democracy in a nation as large as ours and torn by so many different currents. Environmental education, however, has its own special purpose: to help insure the future survival of our planet and of man himself.

Thank you.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Our final witness today is Mr. Neil Fabricant, general counsel of the Environmental Protection Administration of the city of New York.

Thank you very much for being with us.

STATEMENT OF NEIL FABRICANT, GENERAL COUNSEL,
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ADMINISTRATION

Mr. FABRICANT. At the outset, Mr. Chairman, I would render some apologies for my lateness and the absence of Xerox copies.

Mr. Kretchner had intended to testify but his legislative duties kept him in Albany and I was pressed into service rather late.

With that, I will be very brief. My only professional background is that of a civil liberties lawyer, and I would like to speak to your bill through that perspective.

I think we are at the beginning of a civil rights movement in the environmental area in this country, and, unlike that movement I think we are all environmentally oppressed.

While there may be angels and devils with respect to this issue, I don't think nature is going to draw that distinction.

If we are unable to reverse ourselves, there is going to be no escape to the suburbs for any of us.

Let me press the civil rights analogy further. Like the Federal Government which dissipates our resources on military spending and corporate welfare, civil rights and civil liberties organizations have misallocated their own resources.

Enormous sums of money have been spent on litigation programs which in the final analysis have accomplished very little. Relatively small amounts of money have been allocated toward sustained educational programs.

As a result of that I don't think we would have the constituencies to support a civil rights and civil liberties movement in this country and that tragic lack has undermined all civil liberties and civil rights pro

grams.

We have learned one thing, that a court that ventures too far beyond what the public has been prepared to accept educationally, that court will lose the broad base of support which will enable it to act and which underlies its very legitimacy.

That's why I think your bill and your approach is so very critical in this area.

Our environmental problems have only reached broad public concern within the last couple of years.

Until then I think we have operated under a mythology and that mythology is expressed in our history books, our philosophy, and in our art, and that is that man conquers nature rather than being an extension of nature.

And I think that is at the heart of some of our problems.

Just parenthetically, my wife pointed out to me one day that in oriental painting, for example, in Japanese painting, you see small men against a backdrop of huge mountains and churning seas, and it is quite the opposite with respect to our literature, our art, and our painting.