Environmental groups face declining membership
WASHINGTON (AP) — Just a* a new and more con*
sorvative Republican Congress threatens to roll bai k
environmental regulations, major environmental groups
are struggling to stern declining memberships and dwin
dling contribution*
The financial problems threatening many of the coun
try’s environmental organizations was dramatized last
week when the 102-year old Sierra Club, announced a it)
percent cut In staff after losing 9 million over the last
four years
The Wilderness S<« iety. National Wildlife Federation
and the National AudulKin Society also have faced mem
bership problems and disappointing revenues since the
booming growth that at companied the 20th anniversary
of Earth Day nearly five years ago
Hut spokesmen for the three t onservation groups said
the worst seems to f>e over with membership either sin
bilized or rebounding Hut even groups with continued
growth are uneasy and are reexamining their programs
with an eve toward cutting costs and getting the most out
of limited resources
The mironmenl il nili meiil’s memiM-i i rev
enue concerns come at a lime when environmentalists
are under some of the sharjiest altar ks in years from con
servatives in Congress. property-rights ndvie ales and
commercial interests that ms- environmental regulation
as the enemy of ei onoinii growth
Tins followed two years in which many environmen
talists have Ins ome complai ent, partly tea ause the Clin
ton administration had put card-carrying environmen
talist-. in mam kev positions of power For example
Vie* President AI Ciore and Interior .Secretary Bruce Bab
bitt.
But environment at ids found the roomily completed
103fd Congress anything but pro-environment And they
fear the new. dearly more conservative Republican-led
Congress may try to emasculate environmental laws
altogether by hamstringing regulators. A growing num
ber of legislators want to toughen risk assessment
requirements and protect property owners from intrustvt
environmental regulations
Some environmental leaders suggest the new hostility
in Congress may spur membership and contributions,
but others see that as little to cheer about
"It reminds me of a mortician saying it's great that
them's a big death wave," says Erik Olson, who follows
> congressional issues for the Natural Resource* Defense
Council, a leading environmental group.
)a< k Murray, the NR1X "s director of development, says
the apparent attempt by some leaders in the next Con
gress “to dismantle the* environmental laws of this coun
trv i an t help hut inc rease interest in environmental
organizations "There's no doubt our membership
income will grow "
The NRfK: with revenues of $22-3 million last year,
has had stead) growth since 1990 But In the tml
years we haven’t had strong growth." said Murray. "We
haven't been immune "
In recent \ears the National Audubon Society has
undergone both membership and financial shocks as it
:.-!(•< .ised ,!s interests In tin* d.sm.iv (if some longtime
members and felt the pressures of the faltering t*c ones
my. "But we've seen a real bounce hat k in 1994." said
Tom Martin. Audubon's chief operating officer.
Like the Sierra Club, both the Audubon Society and
the Wilderness Society have reduced staff at various
times in recent years because of budget difficulties
‘Our problems created a year or so ago whan we iaid
off sis people, says Wilderness Society spokesman Hen
Beach Nevertheless, since 1990 membership has
dropped from 400,000 to 275.0(H) and annual revenues
from nearly S18 million to SJ5 million.
The National Wildlife Federation's membership of 1.7
million is about what it was in 1085. but about 200.000
fewer than what it was in 1900 Membership in the Sier
ra (dub peaked at 610.000 in 1990, but fell by nearly
100,000 over the next three years before rebounding this
year to 570,000 member*
Carl Pope. exei uttve director of the Sierra Club, says
that white membership is rebounding, average contribu
tions are still down, requiring belt-tightening measures
He blamed the poor m onomy that has led to declines in
contributions to non-profit groups in general.
Pope said the Sierra Club will eliminate about 40 posi
tions from its 350-person staff and is reexamining its
agenda to focus on areas it can have the most impact
"It s been a very painful process." Pope said in an inter
view
Greenpeace, which boasts of having several million
members worldwide, also reports average contributions
down slightly. Rick Hind, a (Greenpeace spokesman, also
blamed the poor economy and said such fluctuations are
not unusual.
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Even cadavers available on Internet
(JIICACO (AP) - Sixteen months ago, a killer
was exec uted in Texas Today, his body is a teach
ing tool for the world, made available on the Inter
net at the first three-dimensional, c omputerized
cadaver
The "Visible Man' is a detailed atlas of the
human body. assembled digitally from thousands
of X-ray. magneto and photo images of cross sec
turns of tin* body
The National I.ibrarv of Medicine is unveiling
the "Visible Man" today at the annual meeting of
the Radiological Sot lety of North America
This is the first tune such detailed information
about an entire human body has been compiled.”
said Dr Donah! A B Lindberg, director of the
library, which is the equivalent of the Library of
Congress for medical matters
The digitalized cadaver will be available free to
anyone who gets permission from the library Hut
the data is so extensive that downloading it takes
up to two weeks of uninterrupted time on the
Internet, and up to 15 gigabytes of storage space,
enough to accommodate about 50 times the con
tents of The Knt ydopedia Britannica
The information would fill mote than 30 typical
personal computers and is expected to be sought
mainly by medical schools and researchers, said
Michael Ai karman. a computer specialist with the
library
The "Visible Xian" will fie an immediate teach
ing tiro! for medical students, and in the future, it
could be used to develop surgery simulators much
like the flight simulators used to train pilots today,
he said.
"We hold this out as an example of the future
of health care which more and more will
Ixxorne visual rather than textual." Ackerman said
in an interview. "It's a whole different way of look
ing at medicine."
Commercial ventures also hope to capitalize on
the "Visible Man." Ackerman said; one idea is
'T'untastii Voyage: The Game." based on the Isaac
Asimov book that was later made into a movie, in
which a group of scientists is miniaturized and
injected into the bloodstream of n dying man.
The library is spending Si -1 million to develop
the "Visible Man" and a "Visible Woman,” which
is still more than a year away, said Victor Spitzer,
a computer-imager and anatomist at the Universi
ty of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver,
where the imaging was done.
The work began on Aug. 5, 1993, several hours
after the execution bv injection of Joseph Paul
Jernigam 39, an ex-mechanic who killed a 75-year
old man during a burglary The body was flown
to Colorado ami underwent hours of CAT and MK1
scans.
Then it was sawed into four pieces and each was
frozen in gelatin. One at a time, each piece was
attached to a special table and slowly raised under
a sjiecial pinning tool called a cryoinac rotome
I he instrument, designed espec ially for cutting
cadavers, shaved away c ross-sec turns of the cadav
er 1 millimeter — a total of 1.H70 c ross sections
from head to toe Each newly exposed layer of
cadaver wus photographed and sc aimed into a
computer by a digital camera
The digital photos were stacked and pro
grammed into un imaging computer along with the
data acquired from the CAT and MRI sc ans
CotAvel! Anderson, an associate professor of
anatomy and cel! biology at the University of Illi
nois at Chicago College of Medicine, said the pro
ject "looks terrific."
Tile "Visible Man" probably will lie most useful
for surgeons and radiologists looking for new solu
tions to old problems — students may be over
whelmed with more information than they can
handle, he said
Operators reprimanded for mishandling calls
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Sov
«n oil operators who worked
the night a teenager was beaten
to death on the steps of a church
will he disciplined for mishan
dling the < alls, the mayor said
Monday
Transcripts of the 111 calls
made Nov 11. the day 16-year
old Kddiu Polec was beaten,
show operators grew impatient
with some callers and waited
about 40 minutes after the first
of about 20 calls to send police
Police responded within five
minutes.
Mayor Edward G. Kendell
said that of 11 operators on duty
that night, three will be sus
pended with intent to dismiss,
three will be suspended and
transferred and one will \w
referred to a disciplinary hoard
for a hearing
"They are being suspended
for abusive and rude responses
to callers." Kendull said "That
is unacceptable "
Polar was attacked by up to
20 teenagers swinging baseball
bats, and died in a hospital the
nest day of a fractured skull
Five young men have been
charged with murder.
The attack followed a false
rumor that someone from
Polec's neighborhood in
Philadelphia had raped a gir!
from suburban Abington.
The mayor has appointed a
committee to come up with rec
ommendations for improving
the 911 system And he sanl
more polioa supervisors will be
added to the operation.
Ronald Mauldin, a union offi
cial. said the operators and dis
patchers were being made
scapegoats
The mayor "is blaming the
equipment and the lack of super
vision. The real problem is a lack
of training." Mauldin said.
Mauldin said the call-takers
get five to seven days' training,
most of it on the job
"That 's not enough Years ago.
you had to know X amount of
streets, churchet and play
grounds. certain areas of the
city. Now. all you need is a
12th-grade education and be
able to type," he said.