Lynton Keith Caldwell: An Environmental Visionary and the National Environmental Policy Act

3. Choosing a Different Path

71 As 1960 began, Caldwell had no premonition that events ofthecomingdecadewouldleadhimtomakeirrevocablechangestothe course of his life. In fact, some of the factors that would help diffuse his nascent ideas for environmental oversight and management had already started to fall into place. The success of the first two Sputniks in 1957 had left American scientists aghast at not being the first to reach outer space. The resulting “space race” between the United States and the USSR becameanintenserivalrythat ,besidesgeneratinggreatadvancesinscience and technology, also prompted new consideration of the uniqueness of Earth and humanity’s responsibility for its care and protection. At the same time, the Cold War and a growing fear of Communism contributed to immense upheavals in American society and values as a new war began in Vietnam–a conflict in which a majority of the public would eventually wish the country had never become involved. In the presidential election of November 8, 1960, forty-three-yearold John Fitzgerald Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard Nixon. Two weeks later, Caldwell celebrated his own forty-seventh birthday. The upcoming generation of Americans would turn out to be more mobile, more consumer-oriented, and increasingly more radical in thought and aspiration than their parents, and to them JFK and his wife, Jacqueline, with their youth, wealth, and good looks, represented wide-open possibility . The 1960s would become noted not only for expanding mobility, economic growth, and rapid technological development but also–perhaps more than any other decade of the twentieth century–for the tumultuous clash of culture and ideology that occurred during the decade Choosing a Different Path three 72 Lynton Keith Caldwell as the younger generation struggled to change American society. (WesternEuropeannationssawsimilarsocialturmoil .)Oneunexpectedresult of this drive for change was that Americans across the country–many of them for the first time–began to recognize the ill effects that careless growth and uncontrolled pollution could have on their environments and in turn on their own health and well-being. This recognition would have great significance for Caldwell. During the 1950s, especially with the construction of thousands of miles of highways and corresponding surge in car ownership, large numbers of people began moving out of major cities and into sprawling new suburban developments being built in previously rural areas. Richard N. L. Andrews notes that “between 1950 and 1970 the suburban populationdoubledfromthirty-sixtoseventy-fourmillion.”1 Suchrapid population shifts inevitably began to cause conflicts between different groups over the extent to which natural resources could or should be exploited to meet human demands or protected to stem pollution and preserve natural habitats. Moreover, many people began to realize that scientific and technological advances alone could not provide a cure for all of society’s problems and indeed could have devastating consequences . The Soviet Union and the United States, after all, continued to point nuclear missiles at each other, perpetuating fear among a public that already understood only too well the lethal power of the atomic bomb and the deadly effects of radiation. As a result, by the end of the decade sections of the growing middle class had begun to seek a certain “quality of life” that comprised more than a well-paid job, a growing bank balance, and a larger home filled with the latest domestic appliances . They felt a (rather amorphous) impetus toward the attainment of a greater sense of well-being that centered on living (and bringing up children) in clean and attractive environments that could nourish both mind and body. Values–social, moral, and spiritual–came to form an intrinsic part of the new thinking that was emerging concerning the links between environmental health and human health. In turn, as one result of rapid population growth, more people began to share the opinion that the Earth and its resources required far better management and stewardship in order to prevent commonly shared resources essential to Choosing a Different Path 73 life such as air and water from being irrevocably depleted and despoiled by individuals seeking to act in their own interest, a problem Garrett Hardin would later describe as the “tragedy of the commons.”2 Thus, just as Caldwell began to consider whether or not it would be worth his time to develop his budding concepts for environmental policy, a new movement began to emerge based on a new progressive ideology. Its platform differed from the agendas of established conservation organizations since it came to include (and link) such concepts as quality of life...