Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise

Introduction

Introduction My purpose in writing this book is simple. It is to pick up where we left off thirty years ago, when that first Earth Day served as a national call to arms for the environment. Where our planet’s health is concerned, I have always believed that a public armed with knowledge is a public armed with the means and the determination to find a solution. The first Earth Day demonstrated that when the public understands the urgency of addressing the planet’s ecological ills, it acts. I have faith it will act again. Sometimes we need a reminder, however. This is a reminder that the work on which we embarked in 1970 is not finished. Far from it. Many of the problems we faced as a nation back then remain with us today. Some have worsened. The intent of this book is to sketch a brief primer of some of the most serious environmental threats with which we as a nation are grappling today. Those who closely follow environmental issues and developments in the natural sciences are unlikely to find scientific revelations on these pages. Nor will readers find an exhaustive review of the research behind many of today’s most pressing environmental problems. That is not the purpose, though I have sought to include the latest studies where appropriate. Rather, this book is written in the same spirit on which Earth Day was founded: to call the public’s attention once again to our most urgent environmental challenges and reawaken in it the same sense of urgency that propelled the modern environmental movement. xix The book is divided into four sections. The first, “The Earth and Its Day,” examines in chapter 1 the forces that shaped that first Earth Day and presents in chapter 2 a report card on the health of the planet today. In part 2, “Imperiled Planet,” chapters 3 and 4 outline in greater, yet brief, detail the most serious of the environmental problems and their implications for the United States and the world. Chapter 5 characterizes the changing nature of pollution, discussing the influx of synthetic chemicals and chemical byproducts that now blanket the globe—and what scientists are learning about the risks they pose for humans and nature. Part 3, “Environmentalism: Then and Now,” revisits the environmental movement, assessing its accomplishments and its shortcomings . Chapter 6 looks at the environmental movement today and asks whether it is strong enough to tackle the problems we now face. In evaluating the movement, experts attempt to piece together why public fervor for action on environmental issues is lacking at the same time that overall public sympathy for environmental concerns is statistically as strong as ever. It is one thing to bemoan the unfortunate state of environmental affairs today and quite another to try to do something about it when many say it is hopeless. In part 4, I propose action on several fronts. “An Environmental Agenda for the Twenty-first Century” is an extension of some of the same principles I have espoused for the last thirty years, with some new twists for a new age. Some of what is said here will be controversial and is apt to rankle quite a few. That’s happened before, as anyone who is an environmentalist knows. However, if what is said or proposed provokes action and discussion, it is well worth the effort. xx INTRODUCTION ...