Werbach's own rise to the head post at the age of 24 is considered by many environmentalists to be a positive step for the movement. To help reach more youth, the Sierra Club hired Daniel J. Boulton to run a public education campaign in Massachusetts. He focuses on bringing younger participants into the movement.

"Traditionally the environmental community has been made up of older, independently wealthy, well-educated people," Boulton says. "The stereotype is that those people have time to worry about these things."

Boulton says the role of women and residents of urban and rural areas in environmentalism has increased.

"I definitely feel that people are trying to help people empower themselves," he says. "They're introducing people who wouldn't fit that traditional environmentalist community to the environmental movement and helping them realize that they can make a difference. Half the battle is just showing them that they have the power."

Boulton says the trend appeared in the late-1980s, when researchers began looking into the effects of environmental hazards on the female reproductive system and on residents of lower-income, urban areas.

A Renewal Through Learning

According to Boulton, in the late 1980s a feeling pervaded environmentalism that it had accomplished all its goals, even though there was more work to be done. As a result, the movement suffered a drop-off in action, he says.

To recover, environmentalists began to work on educating the public about the issues, Boulton says. Grewal agrees, saying the environmental movement has taken on a more academic focus over the past year than had characterized it before.

Subcommittees of the EAC last year ran an environmental education program for Cambridge elementary school students and put together lectures on environmental issues and an environmental career forum. Organizers say they plan to do the same this year.

In addition, a national trend towards an increasingly academic approach can be seen at Harvard through the formation of the Environmental Studies and Public Policy concentration in 1993, according to instructors in the concentration.

"[Students] don't come in fired [up] with the idea that they want to become activists," says Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry Peter T. Ashton. "They are a very serious group who really want to learn hard science in the field of environmental studies and be better informed."

Some graduates of the concentration say the thorough knowledge of environmental issues they acquired informs their activism.

"Because I have an awareness of the issues, I plan my decisions more carefully," says Victor Chiu '95, an account manager at Proctor and Gamble.

Chiu says the concentration gave him more perspective on the negative impact people have on the environment and what legal, political and scientific actions can be taken to lessen that impact.

Increasing Involvement in Politics