Our Sustainable Future - CSU, Chico

A national and international environmental hero was in Chico this month to honor a local and international environmental hero—and just in time for Earth Day 2007.

Denis Hayes, who left his studies at Harvard to coordinate the original Earth Day in 1970, was California State University, Chico’s keynote speaker for Earth Month. Hosted by the University’s Rawlins Professor of Environmental Literacy, Hayes delivered the Rawlins Lecture on April 11 in Laxson Auditorium. His lecture, “Sunpower: How to Make Modern Industrial Civilization Sustainable,” was free and open to the public.

Often credited with being a “practical visionary” who has devoted his life to conservation and protection of the natural world, Hayes is still best known for having served as national coordinator of the first Earth Day, when he was 24, and for launching the first International Earth Day 20 years later. (Earth Day is now the world’s most widely observed secular holiday.) But as a seasoned environmental attorney and public servant he points proudly to many environmental, legislative, and litigation victories over the years.

Time magazine selected Hayes as one of its “Heroes of the Planet”; Look magazine named him one of the 100 most influential Americans of the 20th century; and the National Audubon Society included him in its list of the 100 Environmental Heroes of the 20th century.

Today Denis Hayes is president and chief executive officer of the Pacific Northwest’s Bullitt Foundation, a $100 million environmental philanthropy located in Seattle, and he still serves as chairman of Earth Day Network, the group that coordinates Earth Day activities worldwide. He has published more than 100 articles, books, and papers on energy and the environment.

During the Carter Administration, Hayes headed the federal Solar Energy Research Institute (now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory). From 1983 to 1988, he was an adjunct professor of engineering at Stanford University. He also has served as director of the Illinois State Energy Office, a visiting scholar at both the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Smithsonian Institution, and senior fellow at the Worldwatch Institute. He is currently a fellow of the American Solar Energy Society and co-chairs Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels' Green Ribbon Commission on Climate Protection, exploring non-nuclear climate solutions.

Among other awards, Hayes has received the Charles Greeley Abbot Award of the American Solar Energy Society, the national Jefferson Medal for Greatest Public Service by an Individual under 35, the Sierra Club’s John Muir Award, and highest honors from the National Wildlife Federation, the Humane Society of the United States, the National Resources Council, the Global Environmental Facility of the World Bank, and the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility.

Hayes is or has been a trustee or director of Stanford University, Greenpeace USA, the World Resources Institute, the Energy Foundation, the Federation of American Scientists, the League of Conservation Voters, the American Solar Energy Society, the Humane Society of the United States, the National Programming Council for Public Television, CERES, and Children Now.

Honoring a Local Environmental Hero
Hayes’s visit was timed to honor another environmental hero—Chico’s own Jack Rawlins, who was awarded an honorary doctorate that same evening.

A student at Chico State Teachers College (now CSU, Chico) from 1932 through 1935, Rawlins earned a degree in business from UC Berkeley. Successful in many ventures, from military flight instructor and founder of a fertilizer business to life insurance salesman, Rawlins and his wife, Liz, began traveling in Africa, where they developed a strong commitment to conservation. For years they worked with the Game Parks Department in Rhodesia on many wildlife research programs. In recent years he has devoted himself to promoting the idea that everyone has an obligation to ensure that we leave a viable planet for future generations.

Rawlins, author of several books and a film about conservation, has generously supported conservation and sustainability programs at CSU, Chico. He established the Rawlins Endowed Professorship of Environmental Literary to support the preparation of all students for dealing with environmental issues. According to Jim Pushnik, the current Rawlins Professor, he endowed the professorship “so that each of us realize we are part of the environment and part of the problem . . . and through education, can work as a whole towards a solution.”

The philanthropist also funds the Jack Rawlins Ecology and Conservation Awards (five annual scholarships of $2,000 each), the $10,000 Jack Rawlins Environmental Prize for student research in environmental sustainability, and the twice-annual $6,000 Rawlins Environmental Award to honor a student for their efforts in support of sustainability.

Rawlins is a founding member of the Northern California Natural History Museum Advisory Board and a generous supporter, currently a member of the museum’s Heritage Circle.

Rawlins’s own assessment of his contributions is famously wry: “I wanted to do something, and after a lot of thought, it seemed like saving the planet might be a good thing.”

 

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