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In 1973, Nay Htun, an Amagansett resident, was selling oil for Exxon Thailand in Bangkok when his life changed. He had given a lecture on the link between energy and pollution at his Rotary Club and one member of the audience, the president of the Asian Institute of Technology, asked Htun to give a similar lecture to the faculty and students at AIT. Htun gladly did. Afterwards, the president told him, “You seem to like teaching better than selling oil,” and offered him a job as a professor of environmental engineering.
“Without hesitation, I accepted,” Htun said, despite a significant pay cut.
Thirty-five years later, on the other side of the world, Htun is still educating people about the links between energy, pollution and environmental conservation. As a research professor at Stony Brook Southampton, Htun recently organized an “International Consortium for a Low-Carbon Society.” Its goal is to form international partnerships that will focus on lowering carbon production through the development of renewable energy—solar, wind, geothermal—technology and financing. Last Friday, the introductory meeting of the consortium was held on campus.
In Htun’s view, there’s been a lot of discussion of what will happen if mankind does not lower greenhouse gas emissions. Sea level will rise, the temperature will greatly increase and polar bears will be stranded. There is discussion on where it will happen, such as the polar ice caps, and on the science of why it’s happening—carbon dioxide’s role. But he said there is little discussion going on about how we are going to deal with these problems and that’s what he sought to address with last weekend’s consortium.
The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions depends on the idiosyncrasies of particular regions, which make forums like his consortium essential, Htun argued. People need to share knowledge and technology across the globe.
“We hope that this International Consortium will help form a network,” Htun said, “which will be linked together, virtually, through Stony Brook.” Members participating in the consortium include research centers and universities in Thailand, China, Switzerland, England, Japan, Sweden, India and South Korea.
Htun began life far from Amagansett. He was born in Yangon, Myanmar. He left in the mid-1950s to continue his studies at Imperial College in London. He obtained his Ph.D. in chemical engineering, doing research on combustion, which set the foundation for his life’s work.
In London, he met his wife, Sripach, who is an artist from Thailand. When they went to visit her home, all her family and friends begged them to stay, so Htun decided to take the job with Exxon.
Seven years later, after becoming a professor at AIT, his career took off. He eventually became a globe-trotting director for the United Nations, working both for the U.N. Environment Program and, later, the U.N. Development Program, in, at different times, Paris, Bangkok, Geneva, Nairobi and New York. He held the rank of U.N. assistant secretary general and regional director for Asia Pacific at both organizations. He was the program director for the 1992 Rio Earth Summit—the first global conference to address environmental and development concerns together. Somehow he also found time to be a visiting professor at several universities, including Harvard and Tufts.
Htun retired from the U.N. Development Program in Manhattan and moved to Amagansett nine and a half years ago. He and his wife had been coming out on weekends and holidays for years and decided to move here permanently, joining Htun’s brother, Htun Han, who works in real estate and is an EMT with the Amagansett Fire Department. Htun continues to work on the boards of several non-profit research centers, including the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University.
Serendipity struck again a couple years ago for Htun. He was reading the local newspaper and discovered that Stony Brook had purchased Southampton College and wanted to make it an environmentally green a campus as possible, with the help of local expertise. Htun got on the phone with the interim dean, Martin Schoonen, and soon had himself another academic post.
“It’s been fantastic here, as we all share the same vision,” Htun said.
Htun sees Stony Brook as an important player in the question of how society is going to address climate change.
“The government says it’s going to create thousands of green jobs and this is great,” Htun said. “But where’s the training going to come from? Education in sustainable development is needed. And that’s what’s happening on this campus.”
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