Green Hero...Robert Lane
A few months ago, we featured a small group working out of Hamden, Connecticut, called GrayisGreen. Based in the Whitney Center, a retirement community, GrayisGreen initially set out to make the Whitney Center a model for other communities in the USA, and around the world. From small acorns can sometimes, with the correct soil, weather conditions and careful nurturing, grow mighty oaks. Indeed, there has clearly been plenty of that around, for GrayisGreen is now spearheading the rolling out of standards for environmental management to any community that wants to be greener, as well as having even bigger plans in the pipeline (more later).
Responsible for a great deal of that careful nurturing is Robert Lane. At a mere(!) 90 years old, Robert continues to drive his environmental work forwards, just as he has driven himself all of his long and illustrious life.
Robert Lane was born August 19, 1917, the son of a school principal and a college professor. He received both batchelors degree and doctorate from Harvard before serving in the military between 1942 and 1946. For the next 40 years he taught political science at Yale, during which he was also the recipient of numerous fellowships from Cambridge University and the London School of Economics among others. He is a prolific author, having penned 75 articles and ten books including the highly influential The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies.
We asked Robert a few questions related to his work:
Do you think Retirement Communities are able to retain the real sense of community that has been lost in most of the industrial West?
“Not usually, because people enter these communities with the mindsets and values of the individualistic (and materialist) society that nurtured them. But, like the utopias that have dotted the landscape of history, I think those in faith-based retirement communities are more likely to create genuine community feeling.”
How much environmental anger and frustration is pent up in the people you speak to, and do you think this can be usefully turned into something that can change society as a whole?
“This is America. There is very little environmental anger and frustration to work with. I hope we can develop some anger and frustration as our movement matures.”
Can you tell us a little more about your plans for the future?
“The short future ahead will firstly be filled with finishing writing a book on the need to revise the Enlightenment view of human nature as autonomous, rational, materialistic, and primarily self-interested. Behavioral and especially neurological evidence daily falsifies that view of humankind. With a better understanding of human nature, we can make markets and democracies work more benignly.
“Secondly, the senior conservation movement I have been working on will be given a great boost by incorporation, tax-exemption, and an infusion of funds to create educational materials for seniors, stimulate the growth of senior green committees, arouse their interest, and make our website title (www.grayisgreen.org) come true.”
On March 7, 2008 Robert learned that his nascent National Senior Conservation Corps had been incorporated. Green Seniors are very excited with this news, as it marks another major step in the involvement of seniors in our environmental future. For this, and his unstinting efforts in trying to make the world a better place, Robert is undoubtedly a Green Hero.
I bought a Helmet for riding my bicycle, but I cannot put a cap under it so I cannot use the helmet when it is cold.
Posted by: Hans Oesau | October 12, 2008 at 12:43 PM