Committed to conservation By Jana Eisenberg; photo by kc kratt Walter Simpson has suddenly become a hero of mine. He is a man of commitment. Simpson is a man who lives by his convictions, firmly setting an example not just for his family, neighbors, co-workers, or even the broader community of academia where he has worked for the past quarter century, but for the world. And he does it all without a trace of self-righteousness or evangelism. Simpson, fifty-eight, grew up in what he calls a Leave It to Beaver neighborhood in New Jersey, a Boy Scout who developed an early love of nature and animals. Coming of age at the height of the Vietnam War, he basically expanded his love of flora and fauna to humanity, and thence to the entire planet. Vietnam was directly responsible for Simpson’s activism. In college, he started out studying engineering; learning more about the conflict, he refocused on philosophy and ethics. “While I was studying philosophy,” he says, “I also became active in the local peace movement. The more I learned, the more shocked, heartbroken, and outraged I became.” This led to volunteer work and eventually the executive directorship of the Western New York Peace Center. By then it was the late 1970s. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and there was suspicion that their actual goal was to invade the Persian Gulf and—gasp!—get our oil. In a 1980 speech, President Jimmy Carter said that he would repel such an assault “by any means necessary.” Simpson says he felt hit by a lightning bolt. “I realized what a huge connection there is between a nation’s energy appetite and the possibility for war,” he said. “So I thought I’d have to learn a lot more about energy, if I wanted to be an effective peace advocate.” He began a degree in environmental studies at the University at Buffalo. Eventually he was named energy officer of UB, a title he has held for the past twenty-six years, in the process saving the institution tons of energy and millions of dollars. “I tend to be a practical person,” Simpson says. “I didn’t want to just learn about it and be a mouthpiece. My years at UB have been focused on being a practitioner, experimenting with energy conservation, which I have also applied at home.” In addition to their commitment to energy conservation, vegetarianism, and animal advocacy, he and his wife Nan are two of the 1,000 Americans who have been personally trained by Al Gore as part of Gore’s Climate Project. Simpson is involved in the Western New York Climate Action Coalition and the WNY Sustainable Energy Association Trust, in addition to being a founding member of Clean Energy for Jamestown, opposing the town’s current plan to build a new coal plant. Actively involved in the campaign to stop the plan, Simpson and the thirteen-organization coalition he has assembled have outlined a cheaper—and much cleaner—way to do it. But in general, he says, “there is a tremendous resistance to doing the right thing, even when you show a better way. Scientists tell us that by 2050—only forty-three years from now, the lifetimes of some of us or our children—in order to avoid runaway climate change, our country needs to be producing eighty percent less carbon dioxide,” says Simpson. “My family and I have reduced our energy use, compared to some of our neighbors, by sixty or seventy percent.” With modifications to their home, forty percent of their energy is now produced by the sun. In fact, there have been times that their low usage of externally supplied power has caused them to sell back energy to National Grid. They frequently open their modest Amherst ranch home to visitors interested in seeing how it’s done. “We all need to do this—and more,” Simpson says, “if we are going to leave the planet in a good way for our children and future generations.” One of his goals was to “see what was possible to do with a conventional house and live a somewhat conventional life.” (I wouldn’t call this life conventional.) “As a society, we could either require a lot less energy or run the risk of nuclear war. Since the 1970s, we have gotten involved in two [more] oil-wars. What is the future going to be like if we keep up this incredible oil appetite? Another one of my trademarks is a real persistence. The kind of activist campaigns I’ve been involved in, you’ve got to put yourself out there and wage a battle that could literally take years.” Jana Eisenberg is a freelance writer living in Buffalo. SUBSCRIBE NOW Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top