Breathe Easy
By Ricky Hayes- public relations intern
One day in summer, Dave Brown realized the beautiful orange groves of his youth were lost in the smoke of urbanization. The skies were covered in smog, diminishing the natural coloration of blue, and his lungs felt trapped in the weight of the polluted atmosphere.
While attending Notre Dame High School in Southern California, Brown took an interest in air and land preservation. The quality of air became so bad in Southern California that a member of his family began developing respiratory problems.
The family moved to Lake Tahoe in the late 1960s through the early 1970s, where the quality of air was healthier to breathe. There Brown learned the lake was becoming polluted from the surrounding landscape. Fertilizer from golf courses next to the lake, and septic tank leakage were believed to be polluting Tahoe. In the late 1960s, steps were begun to protect the lake, but the quality of lake has continued to decline.
Brown’s later master’s degree dealt with pollution processes near Tahoe and prevention. Most recently, scientists have learned much of the pollution comes from the west, from Sacramento and the Bay Area, where car exhaust ended up in the atmosphere and deposited in dry or wet form onto the landscape around Lake Tahoe.
“How do you tell people from the cities you can’t drive anymore?” Brown said.
Brown said the understanding of air and water pollution prevention has increased, but people who destroy the environment are not “sufficiently educated about what they’re doing.”
While working on his bachelor’s degree, Brown was an activist and lobbyist with the Sierra Club and other organizations for environmental preservation. Yet he grew tired of the conflicting debates about how much timber to harvest or whether golf courses should be allowed near the lake because of the use of fertilizer.
Brown decided he would start teaching to allow a greater chance of educating people about the harmful effects pollution has on the environment, and the way people treat the earth now has an enormous impact on what is left for future generations.
“People who profit from the environment’s expense will keep doing so,” Brown said. He said he believes that people can keep the environment in good condition and have a profitable business.
A team of other faculty and students has begun to place their focus on starting the Center for Ecosystem Research (CER), which allows students to learn in an environment surrounded by different disciplines of science “in a hands-on way.”
“They don’t have to be from the same department,” Brown said.
Brown has a vision that the center will also help bring a change in the general public’s attitude toward scientists. Brown said he would like to see the stereotype that “science-oriented students are wrapped up in their own curiosities” wiped out.
“Scientists can’t answer all the big questions alone,” Brown said. “CER should be open to all fields to help answer these questions.”
CER is a place to help find answers and solutions to a problem, which is why the center is focused on bringing all disciplines together, to work toward sustainability and have a learning environment where students can gain a better grasp on the importance of preservation, and how to find answers to living without destroying the environment.