'flowers Needed For Health'

Despite a bizcare setting of children on roller skates, loose dogs, flying frisbees, freaky music and bubbles floating through the air, yesterday's "eco-rally" at the U-M Diag survived a stiff chilling wind and the absence of its main speaker to continue the university's ambitious teach-in on the environment. Hundreds braved the cold to listen to several talks against Ipollution interspersed with acid rock played by a local band, plthough Sen. Philip Hart was lunable to attend the rally as Ischeduled. I Dr. Hugh litis, ecologist from the University of Wisconsin, replaced Hart as the featured speaker and, waving fresh flowers as he spoke, called for art "eco-religion based on the evolutionary inherit anee of man." An avowed Darwinist and early student of Barry Commoner, litis warned that "man cannot become adapted to any other form of environment . . . if we destroy this one we destroy ourselves." He said that the present eco - system has "turned sour" and must be corrected before time runs out. "The environment has to be just right or else children will grow-up to show symptoms of the contamination in which they were raised," he stated, adding that even the simplest flowers were necessary for the "physiological and emotional health" of everyone. Calling this enyironmental health an "inalienable right" of all living organisms, litis related the ecological issue to democracy, equality and the entire political picture. Pollution cannot be ordered stopped by President Nixon, he said, but through legislative and court enforcement. "Whatever ecology says should be it." U.S. Rep. Paul McCloskey, R-Calif., followed litis to the improvised lectern and told the audience that he and a group of other Washington legislators had been on campus that day listening to student views on pollution warfare, instead of lecturing on them. He advised those present to go to the polls in the November congressional election and vote into office those men opposed to the Vietnam War so that "increased funds might be available to end the deterioration of the environment." Radical ecologist Murray Bookchin also spoke between musical numbers by the Leaves of Grass, and a large, green on green ecology banner was then i hoisted above a large tree alongside of the Diag, accom-l panied by a drum roll. i