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Christopher Gives Key Speech
on Environment
THE GREENING OF DIPLOMACY
By Janet Basu
 ORGET
TREE-HUGGERS. Think realpolitik. America’s
political and economic interests are directly linked to the state of the
environment in other nations and other regions around the world. When pollution
is bad enough to destabilize the economy of a key region like the former Soviet
Union, that hurts U.S. trade and potentially American national security.
That was the new foreign policy equation unveiled by Secretary of State Warren
Christopher in a major address at Stanford on April 9. He pledged the Clinton
Administration’s commitment to an initiative that will make environmental
issues
the daily bread of diplomacy, on the table with trade and human rights.
“Pollution respects no boundaries,” Christopher told a crowd of about
1,400
faculty, students and trustees at Memorial Auditorium.
Before the address, Christopher, a Stanford Law grad and former president of
Stanford’s Board of Trustees, met with 35 faculty and students of the
Global
Environment Forum of the Institute for International Studies.
The seminar quickly took on the flavor of a planning session, with academics and
politicians suggesting ways that institutions like Stanford might help the State
Department develop the tools for environmental diplomacy.
Among the faculty, the highest and hardest-won praise for Christopher’s
initiative came from renowned environmentalist Paul Ehrlich.
“I never thought I’d live long enough to see a Secretary of State
actually
communicate what is basically the scientific community’s view of the current
population-resource-environment problem,”
Ehrlich said. ST
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