Debating McKibben
I read Barbara Moran’s "The Unstoppable Mr. McKibben" (January 22) with great interest. I must say that I found the portrait of the “old Bill McKibben” as “mild-mannered,” “low-key,” “boring,” and reluctant to speak publicly rather at odds with my experience. Anyone who was involved with the New England high school debate scene in the 1970s knew the Lexington High team of Bill McKibben and Robin Jacobsen as an articulate and well-informed powerhouse. In debate, one coaches and judges, so I knew them as both the opposition and as the most pleasurable team to watch. One of those years, the national debate topic was the preservation of scarce world resources. I suggest that the roots of the “new” activist Bill McKibben were well established in the “old, old” McKibben of high school debate.
