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Walking down Bruin Walk this week, there was yet another set of signs in the grass. But unlike previous Undergraduate Students Association Council election signs or the Halloween “graveyard,” this California Public Interest Research Group display had a positive message: People can be a force for positive change.

Unfortunately, though, people don’t seem to be coming through when it comes to the concerns raised by the environmentally conscious CALPIRG. Still, the group’s efforts are commendable since it is becoming harder and harder to find real support for the environment, on either a local or national level.

When Republicans take charge of the Senate, the Environment and Public Works Committee will change more than any other. The incoming chairman is Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who once called environmental agencies “Gestapo bureaucracies.” The League of Conservation Voters has given him a zero, the worst score, every time they ranked him in the past ten years.

Inhofe is replacing Senator Jim Jeffords, a Republican turned Independent, who had a special affinity for environmental issues and was willing to make compromises to pass meaningful legislation.

Inhofe seems to favor economic gains over environmentally conscious decisions, and environmentalists are concerned that this will lead him to undermine important environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. He sees provisions in these laws, like reducing coal emissions, as economic burdens, not positive steps that help preserve the environment.

Inhofe has not put together a concrete list of his priorities for the committee, but a spokeswoman said he wants to “ensure that everything we do is based on sound science and cost-benefit analysis.”

It seems anti-environment politicians are always tossing around the term “sound science,” as if the evidence presented to them is somehow intentionally faulty. Although one must always approach scientific fact with a degree of skepticism, starting with the attitude that the data is going to be wrong can only lead to false conclusions.

And while cost-benefit analyses are important, they should not be the basis for environmental decisions. Making the case that an environmental policy is detrimental to the economy is easy because it generally will be – at first. The benefit comes later, and oftentimes cannot be measured monetarily.

Policies have already begun changing, even though Inhofe has not yet taken control in the Senate. A ban the Clinton administration placed on snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, which was to take effect in March 2003, has now been reversed by the Bush administration.

The new plan will allow a set number of snowmobiles to enter the park. Steve Bosak, from the National Parks Conservation Association, said of the decision: “If they can go in and meddle with a decision that was founded on years of scientific research and based on laws that defend our parks – and was well supported by the majority of the American public – who’s to say they won’t favor a special interest that will mess up another park?”

And who’s to say they won’t favor another special interest that will mess up the ozone? And the forests? And the air? And the ocean?

The park issue is one that hits close to home for many people. When park rangers have to wear respirators, work in kiosks that have fresh air pumped in and some even have to wear hearing protection, as they do in Yellowstone, there is something very wrong.

It is much easier to be pro-environment in a situation like Yellowstone than it is in one that is more amorphous, which most are. More environmental issues need to be addressed in a concrete fashion, though, in order to make the public, and thus the politicians, more supportive.

The best place to start learning to love the environment is with local activism. The CALPIRG campaign is a great example of a positive message and a positive direction for a cause that too often finds itself without either.