Across generations and professions, graduates work
for a greener future
By Rachel Dickinson K'78
JONATHAN OVERPECK '79 CAME TO COLLEGE IN 1975 WITH HIS FATHER'S Brunton compass on his belt and the thought that he might become a geologist. He just didn't know what kind of geologist. Today, with a piece of the Nobel Peace Prize as one of the lead authors of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report tucked into his collecting bag, Overpeck may well be the world's most influential paleoclimatologist — someone who studies climate changes in the geologic past. He is one of the scientists responsible for methodically documenting climate change and thereby thrusting the whole concept of global warming onto the world stage.
Overpeck, however, is just one of many graduates of Hamilton and Kirkland colleges who have risen to prominence in the fields of conservation, environmental action and climate change. They come from a spectrum of disciplines, interests and ideologies, and they work in widely different ways. One, David Blood '81, has teamed up with that other winner of the Nobel Prize, former Vice President Al Gore, to pioneer environmentally responsible investment. Another, Cara Lee K'74, now a program director with The Nature Conservancy, broke ground in the field of environmental studies itself, designing her own concentration in the discipline at Kirkland College more than three decades before Hamilton offered a similar major. Daniel Hayden '93, director of global operations for the conservation group Rare, knew even earlier in life — as a high school student involved in the Boston Harbor cleanup — that he'd eventually devote himself to the cause. Matt McKenna '72 has moved from corporate life to the helm of perhaps the best-known environmental group of all, Keep America Beautiful, to lead that prestigious service organization's recycling efforts. Scores of others have focused their careers or volunteer time on environmental science, "green" consumer affairs, corporate responsibility, grassroots organizing — even, through the group Graduates for a Greener Hamilton, on environmental commitment at the College itself.
Amid the differences, these alumni share a concern with the Earth's resources, with generations to come, and with the need to build a sustainable future beginning now.
