Please click on photos to enlarge.
Visiting Japanese Journalist Kei Izawa (background, center) listens to longtime environmental advocate Joyce Hale of Fayetteville at a gathering of sustainable entrepreneurs, while, in the foreground, Fayetteville's sustainability coordinator, John Coleman, welcomes Steve Rust to the sustainability bandwagon.
Rust was master of ceremonies for an event designed to bring together people who are in the process of developing "green businesses" in Northwest Arkansas. After decades of being treated like pariahs, people such as Mrs. Hale have to appreciate finally getting the business community to acknowledge the importance of environmental sustainability.
Does this mean the business community will actually stop investing in inappropriate, unsustainable projects and adopt ALL the principles of low-impact development? Will the new acceptance that "environmentally friendly" industries can bring economic growth mean that there will be younger and richer horses pulling the wagon? Some of the old "hosses" have been taking one step up and being slapped down several steps for decades.
Fayetteville was a lot "greener" in the 1960s, and now is the time for the real conservationists to push harder and hope there is real help on the way. Judging by the amount of red dirt and concrete visible to air travelers coming to XNA, we appear to be in for a long process of getting back even close to where we already have been.
What do you think?
Are nonprofit volunteers finally getting support for environmental work?
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1 comment:
I think you are right to question the sincerity of the new hosses pulling the bandwagon and all the fat boys along for the ride.
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