Meet one of 'young green heroes'

Timothy DenHerder-Thomas has worked hard for years to bring people together. So why did he intentionally start a war?

It was all a part of the Macalester College senior's efforts to help save the planet. As a freshman, he launched "Dorm Wars," an energy-saving competition pitting residents of college dorms against one another to see who could save the most on utility bills. The idea has now spread to other campuses, and DenHerder-Thomas has even more impressive notches in his eco-activism belt.

Last week in San Francisco, he was one of six "young green heroes" nationwide to be honored by the Earth Island Institute as new leaders. Among his accomplishments: starting a revolving-fund pool at Macalester used for sustainability projects that save money and in turn replenish the fund, building social networks of young people interested in environmental issues, and working with a local group called ARISE to help create a green mixed-use plan for the Ford plant site in St. Paul.

Growing up in Jersey City, N.J., DenHerder-Thomas said that "my first attraction to environmental work wasn't from a nature perspective. I just noticed that the cities around me didn't function well."

He doesn't have a cell phone and gets around by bicycle. His attitude is "to be aggressive and ambitious, but not oppositional." When he speaks, he seems to combine the best attributes of Johnny Appleseed and a seasoned politician: "Ultimately, we have to organize people into corporate ventures and whole new social movements," he said. "We have to integrate society and the environment in a much more holistic way."

He also has at least one thing in common with billionaire eco-activist T. Boone Pickens -- the idea that you first must make people see sustainability as financially profitable.

"People have to be able to make a living, otherwise it's not sustainable," he said. "But you also have to create the social structure so they get what they need."

One group he's persuaded on the economic wisdom of green projects is Macalester's board of trustees. Through the money-pool program he started, CERF (Clean Energy Revolving Fund), the college is in the process of a $70,000 project -- replacing 19,000 4-foot-long fluorescent bulbs with more energy-efficient ones. The board is funding half the project because it will save the college up to $40,000 a year.

Also this year, DenHerder-Thomas set up a program called Summer of Solutions.

"I and a few other students have been talking about all these ideas around mass transit and wind energy and green industrialization," he said. "We invited students from around the country to join us for two months of training in leadership and being social entrepreneurs for community development. We raised about $13,000 last summer to create summer jobs for them."

Next year, he plans to expand the program nationwide.

"That's typical of him," said Prof. Chris Wells, who has taught and worked closely with DenHerder-Thomas. "He starts something small and then scales things up. In that way he's a macro thinker."

As for the ARISE Ford site plan, it has been submitted to city development managers in hopes it will be considered.

"I've been impressed with these Macalester students trying to jump forward to the next level," said Merritt Clapp-Smith, the city planner who oversees the Ford project. "They're not just focused on what's happening now."

Laurie Hamre, vice president of student affairs at Macalester, has worked with DenHerder-Thomas on his student initiatives, and gave this example of how far he'll go for his cause:

"From the moment he stepped on campus he was talking about our carbon inventory, which none of us had heard of yet. One day he and a few other students donned blue capes made of garbage bags and ran around the campus as climate crusaders, stopping people and telling them what we can all do to help. It was great to see this intellectually driven young man doing this goofy superhero thing."

So how does a 21-year-old environmental studies major get older people in power positions to listen to him?

"It can be a struggle getting them to take us seriously," he said. "We do have the edge of a lot of energy and a lot of vision, but it's more about being really good at what we do. This is a very different youth movement than the one we had in the '60s. We're looking for strategies that can support everyone, that can work culturally for all generations."

Kristin Tillotson • 612-673-7046