Andrew Crighton
News Editor
Environmental issues and concerns don’t stop at borders. Whether they are borders between private and public lands, between states or even international borders between countries. That’s what the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Advisory Committee is developed for, to develop ideas from as many perspectives as possible to solve these issues.
Dr. Donna Lybecker, a professor for and chair of the Political Science Department at ISU was recently selected to be among the individuals who try to solve these problems.
The NAC was developed after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement to solve these types of issues between Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Members of the NAC meet four times throughout the year.
“[The NAC] looks at the concerns the three countries are going to have with environmental issues and then just give suggestions of how to move forward, how to look at these ideas” so that representatives from the EPA can discuss issues at the borders with Americans’ interests in mind, explained Lybecker.
Lybecker was selected to serve after she was nominated by members of the environmental community, such as Irasema Coronado. Coronado herself was a member of the NAC and was one of the individuals who nominated Lybecker into this position.
The first meeting will take place from Nov. 15 through Nov. 17. Tuesday will be an introductory day, followed by two days of discussion of the first two topics: food waste and plastics in water systems.
Lybecker explained that food waste, while not always thought of as an environmental issues, can play a big role when it comes to transport, distribution and how it’s disposed of.
To prepare for this upcoming meeting, members were given packets with some information and questions to consider for the next three days.
“It is very much a, ‘here are some things to think about’, but they do not direct your thinking in any way so that people will show up at the meeting with different perspectives and different ideas.”
Lybecker is most excited about learning the different perspectives of the same issues from multiple different avenues.
“I think a lot of people hear one narrative, or one perspective and they stick with it. But to truly understand the issue, you need to have a much broader idea of what’s going on and how people understand it,” she said.
These opinions come from industry, labor, academia and people who live in the areas, which are all represented among the members of the NAC.
There are also benefits Lybecker is looking forward to bringing back for her students.
Every fall, an environmental politics and policies class is offered, and this is just one class in particular that can benefit from Lybecker’s work with the NAC.
“When you can present a larger perspective you can peak the interest of more students” she said.
There is one main difficulty that Lybecker foresees, and that comes from the difference in ideas that are to come up.
She explains that it is very important that everyone on the committee is prepared to not be in an echo chamber and have active discussions and debates about the problems they are assigned to discuss.
She also believes that this is very likely, and that this will be a learning experience for everyone involved.
“No person is trying to destroy anything, people are trying to do what they believe is right,” and you have to be able to think about and learn what other people think is right and why, she explained.
