CHRIS KELLY During Clean Ocean Action’s Spring Beach Sweep, volunteers will once again sweep local beaches to collect trash and other debris that litter the area.

"I have come to terms with the future. From this day onward I will walk easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill no living things. Live in harmony with all creatures. I will restore the earth where I am. Use no more of its resources than I need. And listen, listen to what it is telling me."

— M.J. Slim Hooey

In honor of Earth Day 2003, individuals who are advocates for the environment were asked to respond to the question:

What is the most important environmental issue facing us today and what are you, or your organization, doing to reach that goal?

Debris litters the bed of Troutman Creek in Long Branch.

Anne Roemmele

It’s important that people have awareness and take action because our environment, particularly in Monmouth County and the state of New Jersey, is under enormous pressure.

Part of the Clearwater mission statement is to touch other people and bring them to environmental awareness, and everybody needs to become informed about the impact of what they’re doing. When you buy a new car, for example, you need to think about what impact it has on the environment. When you buy an appliance, insist on an energy-saving appliance. When you put in a garden, think about what will grow well without using enormous amounts of water, fertilizer and pesticides.

We need to be really conscious of our consumption and the effect it has on the world around us. Just focus on what you can do in your life.

Old man winter blew hard in 2003, keeping a grip on the region until early April. Environmentalists fear that global warming will have an even harder impact on the Earth’s future weather patterns.

Anne Roemmele is president of Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater.

Amy Goldsmith

The primary goal of the New Jersey Environmental Federation for Earth Day 2003 is to get the maximum number of state legislators signing the Clean Car pledge. This means that legislators are pledging to support the Clean Car bill and vote on it by June 30.

The Clean Car bill says that a certain percentage of cars sold in New Jersey will be alternative fuel cars — electric, hybrid, etc. This is one of the most significant environmental bills currently before the state Legislature and could be one of the single largest mechanisms for reducing air pollution throughout the state. Individuals can write to their state legislators and urge them to sign the Clean Car pledge and vote for state Senate bills S121/S2351 and state Assembly bills A3393/A409.

Amy Goldsmith is state director of the New Jersey Environmental Federation.

Steve Knowlton

Reducing our dependence on finite energy resources, such as fossil fuel, is one of our highest priorities. We’ve been focusing on solar energy and encouraging people to add photovoltaic (PV) panels to their homes, businesses or schools.

The advantages of PV panels are that they produce energy, electricity, without emissions. They get energy from the sun, which for our purposes is inexhaustible, and there’s no smoke, no toxic fumes, no carbon dioxide, no sulfur emissions, so you don’t have any acid rain and don’t use fossil fuels which are dwindling.

Although it does take energy to produce, over its lifetime of 20-25 years, a PV system saves in excess of four times the amount it takes to make energy. So we’re talking about environmental balance. The economics have been improving because there are rebate programs in many states, and if you’re borrowing, the interest cost is a tax deduction.

The other thing about solar energy is that, as it gets hotter and hotter, that’s when the solar panels are producing electricity. You can get more information at www.njcep.com.

Steve Knowlton is chairman of the conservation committee of the Jersey Shore group of the Sierra Club.

Sister Suzanne Golas

What do I have to do within myself if I am to do what is most important for the Earth? Most of us have grown up in a culture that sees Earth and its gifts primarily as resources that exist for human use and the increase of material wealth. Gradually, as we realize how human beings are affected by a damaged environment, we are beginning to understand our interconnectedness within Earth’s systems. We are seeing that our abuse and exploitation of the planet comes back to haunt us in sickness, poverty and the destruction of beauty that nourishes and heals our spirit.

Once we understand that we are in a fundamental relationship with all the rest of Earth’s creatures and elements, we are more apt to pay attention to nature around us. Then, perhaps, a good starting point for action would be to do what we can, as individuals and with others, to protect and heal the waters, air and soil in our area, our town, our state.

To this end, Waterspirit offers programs focused on the water and water issues, and helps people understand their fundamental connection with water.

Sister Suzanne Golas is director of Waterspirit.

Andy Willner

The most important thing we can do for the Earth as individuals is to take more responsibility.

We’ve been working on the issue of the public trust doctrine. The idea behind the doctrine is that the people are both the owners and beneficiaries of the public trust for the waters and the creatures that live in them and fly over them. Therefore we have a legal responsibility to take care of the waters that goes beyond moral authority. We also have legal authority. If we believe the state and federal trustees, the people we put in charge of these resources, don’t do a good enough job protecting these common resources, we have an obligation to kick the scoundrels out.

So the message is that we have not just a moral responsibility to care for these waters, the air, the forests and the fowl and the fish, we have a legal responsibility to do so, and we’re trying to make sure people understand they have an unassailable right of access to the water’s edge. Where the water and land meet is land where the public maintains an interest, even if it is private property.

Andy Willner is executive director of the N.Y./N.J. Baykeeper.

Tom Mahedy

Everybody has an understanding of what has to be done and each is called to a certain path to restore the Earth. It really has to be our primary focus at this time in history.

The United States has a special responsibility because we [account for] 6 percent of the world’s population and we’re using 25 percent of the Earth’s resources. We are actually doing the most destruction to the Earth through the use of resources and through our foreign policies, which endorse economic policies that are plundering the Earth.

My personal experience is with the School of the Americas where the focus is on training the military to enforce economic policies which eliminate environmental protections throughout the hemisphere and make it easier to extract resources.

Corporate domination and use of the military to enforce this are major challenges. People are losing their rights to health and protection of the environment, and militaries are being used to silence people.

Domination, militarism and violence are embedded in U.S. culture and have to be transformed into compassion, nonviolence and a feeling of connection with all creation. We have to replace nationalism with a global outlook. Even our symbols have to be changed. The Earth flag has to become a symbol for us. All of our rituals, our ways of being, have to speak to the question, ‘Does this action I am taking help restore the earth?’

It’s important to denounce, but also to announce, that another way is possible. The faith traditions have a special responsibility for leading the way in this area, and people can go to www.envirojustnj.org to see what is being done.

Tom Mahedy is an environmental and political activist.

Bob and Mary Owens

We should celebrate Earth Day every day. There has been a lot of deterioration since the first Earth Day.

We feel population control is essential worldwide because we’re burdening the earth with all the people and their needs. It doesn’t require all that much to have fewer children.

That has to do with smart growth, too. If we want smart growth, we have to have fewer people. When they say 1 million people will move to New Jersey within the next 10 years, it’s mind boggling.

We should recycle everything we can, and try to save water and electricity. We urge people to join a group that is congenial to them, like Clearwater, the Sierra Club or the Audubon Society.

Bob and Mary Owens are residents of West Long Branch.

Dean John Tiedeman

The significance of Earth Day can’t be overstated because to many people it really is a celebration that marks the beginning of the modern environmental movement. It’s a special day that honors the dedication and determination of people involved in the environment for the last three decades. It also gives us a chance to look ahead at what needs to be done.

We all came to this area because we appreciate its natural resources, and then we see it jeopardized by too much uncontrolled growth. Act locally within the confines of your own property and your own community. A lot of people don’t realize they can have a positive impact on shaping the future of what their community looks like by preserving open space, or on water quality by wiser use of fertilizers, pesticides and by seeing who is proposing developments in their town. They should never forget they have a venue in the form of public meetings and hearings to let their feelings be known. How about voting? How many people don’t vote locally?

John Tiedeman is assistant dean of the School of Science, Technology and Engineering at Monmouth University, West Long Branch.

Judith Stanley Coleman

The greatest threat to our environment is overdevelopment and commercialization. In Monmouth County, we are projecting that all the land will be gone in less than 10 years, and that New Jersey will be completely built out in 15 years. I know that the governor and the Department of Environmental Protection have placed sprawl and overdevelopment high on their list of priorities, but it will take more than that to fight this battle. The real battle will be fought on the local level, and our towns and their planning boards will play a pivotal role in this effort.

As president of the Monmouth Conservation Foundation, chairwoman of the Middletown Township Planning Board and president of Save Sandy Hook, I view the problem from different perspectives but always with one focus — preserving our quality of life.

I hope that my participation will encourage others to become involved in the effort to save open space and protect our natural resources. Activism is still the only thing that gets the message to our elected officials. We must let them know that we treasure our quality of life and will fight to protect it.

Judith Stanley Coleman is president of the Monmouth Conservation Foundation.

Rep. Frank Pallone Jr.

One of the leading environmental threats to our country today is global warming. The United States is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, emitting 40 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and we should be leading the world in finding solutions to reduce emissions and the threat of global warming.

Unfortunately, President George W. Bush has introduced a plan that will ac­tually allow power plants to increase emissions of carbon dioxide and allow future development of power plants that don’t address emission reduction.

Not only is the president’s so-called "Clear Skies" program a cover to in­crease emissions, but the energy bill re­cently passed by the House of Representatives is a thinly veiled bill that will increase production of fossil fuels while doing little to embrace the alternative and renewable energy tech­nology that must be embraced in order to address global warming.

I will continue my effort to push for legislation that requires the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emis­sions and embrace renewable energy technology.

Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. is a Democrat representing the Sixth Congressional District.

Brian Unger

The most important thing we need to do in New Jersey to sustain our green earth, our ocean planet, is to change politics. The most important thing we need to do to change politics is to be very, very idealistic. We must regain and embrace a pure idealism that is not cynical and that answers to no cynicism.

There will be no green, open space in this state, and no open, unregulated beach access for future generations un­less we change the political system and wipe out the corruption of the "pay to play" crony system that lies at the heart of state and municipal government.

Politicians in our town, county and state governments are funded by devel­opers, lawyers, engineers, consultants, real estate executives and other insider cronies. It has got to stop. The number of local politicians who have enriched themselves, legally or otherwise, is as­tounding. Lawyers aren’t going to change laws. We have to.

What happens to open space and woods and marshes and what happens to the ocean access between the big con­dominium complexes they build? It dis­appears.

A brave citizen and patriot wrote a letter to the editor recently suggesting taxpayers vote every incumbent out of office for the next several election cy­cles, even though a few honest politi­cians may end up paying for their co­horts’ lack of integrity.

Up at Sandy Hook, praise to Judith Stanley Coleman on this Earth Day. God bless her and God bless idealism. It is so absolutely necessary. Praise to all who fight for the ocean and against the spe­cial interests and the narrow-minded [people] who think the answer to every­thing is money.

Brian Unger is an environmental ac­tivist and a member of the Green Party of Monmouth County.

Scott Barnes

New Jersey land tends to disappear quickly, and there’s a finite amount. Habitat preservation and stewardship are important and have to be an ongoing ef­fort. It’s something you never stop work­ing at — trying to preserve land and making sure there are still working farms and habitat for wildlife through conservation easements, purchase of land, and habitat restoration projects. All those things can help.

What can you do in your own back yard? You can plant native species of trees and shrubs that tend to have greater value for wildlife in terms of shelter and food. You can reduce or eliminate the use of pesticides and her­bicides.

I think dandelions are nice. I don’t look at them in the yard and have a fit because I know they hold more value than turf grass does. Butterflies will nec­tar at them. We’ve tried at many New Jersey Audubon centers to have some kind of model garden that highlights low-maintenance, native species that have food value for birds or butterflies.

Scott Barnes is a senior naturalist with the New Jersey Audubon Society on Sandy Hook.

Cindy Zipf

The most important element in pro­tecting the environment is individual recognition that the quality of life is in­extricably linked to the health of the smallest of the critters on the planet; that the survival of the weakest link is our responsibility.

The whole system is built on the web of life and even though we sometimes forget that, it really holds true — you’re only as strong as your weakest link. For example, global warming is affecting krill (tiny sea creatures) that whales are dependent on as a source of food. There is [an example of] the smallest and largest that are interdependent.

Part of our responsibility is holding elected officials and corporate leaders accountable. COA fights for standards that protect sensitive marine life. We seek accountability, standards that pro­tect the most sensitive species at the most sensitive life stages, and we seek permanent protections through legisla­tion.

Cindy Zipf is executive director of Clean Ocean Action.

compiled by Gloria Stravelli