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

Epilogue: Leaving a Legacy

417 In the years that have passed since his death, just as Caldwellpredictedwouldoccurshouldworldgovernmentsfailtoestablish cooperative plans of action to better protect the Earth’s life-support systems, the global environment has entered an accelerated rate of decline . As human population growth continues its upward spiral and as morenationsdismissenvironmentalconcernsintheirrushforeconomic growth, the Earth’s remaining resources of water, forests, fish stocks, and productive soils continue to be wantonly depleted even as untold numbersofplantandanimalspeciesbecomethreatenedwithextinction. Theinsatiabledemandforenergytodriveourunsustainablegrowthpatterns has led to the increasingly intensive exploitation of ever more risky to extract, environmentally destructive, and highly polluting sources of coal, gas, and oil. At the same time, human-induced warming of the planet resulting from escalated burning of these fossil fuels is making alreadybadenvironmentalsituationsevenworse.Aroundtheworldduring the past decade intensifying episodes of disastrous flooding, violent storms, deadly droughts, and extreme heat waves have now started–as long predicted by the majority of scientists involved in global warming studies but consistently denied by self-serving conservative politicians and industrial entities–to wreak real, perhaps irreversible havoc on many of the Earth’s most important supportive marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The increasingly grave situation suggests that Caldwell’s oft-repeated call for transformative change through the emergence of an ethics-based global environmental paradigm now clearly needs urgent revival. “Whether he likes it or not,” Caldwell warned in 1972, “man is Epilogue: Leaving a Legacy 418 Lynton Keith Caldwell now responsible for what happens to the earth. If he poisons the earth, pollutes it, overpopulates it, he will become his own destroyer.”1 In 1978 Caldwell expressed the hope that in the long run the “shape of American politics may be altered by the emergence of an ecologically based,survival-conscious,politicalideology.”Giventheexponentialrate of human population growth that has occurred in much of the world during the past half century, including in the United States, Caldwell believed this new ideology essential to replace the old frontier era belief in the right of individuals to exploit the natural environment at will for personal profit, unconstrained by regulation and regardless of the pollution , health problems, or other ecological damage their actions inflicted onneighborsoronthelargerenvironmentalcommons.2Inthelate1970s Caldwell had reason for optimism. After a decade of expanding public concern about the harmful effects of runaway pollution and growing desire for improved environmental quality, the “environmental decade” had already achieved some notable improvements with the passage of NEPA and other important related legislation. In turn–due in part to Caldwell’s pioneering activism–awakening interest in the social, cultural , economic, biological, and behavioral aspects of environmental relationshipshadenabledwhatJohnRodmanhasdescribedasthescholarly “environmental awakening”–the emergence in universities across the nation of programs of interdisciplinary environmental studies and environmental policy studies as well as other important related areas of expertise, including environmental science, health, engineering, and law.3 Regrettably,theseprogressivedevelopmentssoonencounteredserious conservative opposition. Beginning in the mid-1970s, as Republican members of Congress joined with business and industrial interests in efforts to rid themselves of the unwanted “burdens” placed on their activities by increasing regulation, Caldwell gradually became more outspoken against those who, to serve their own ends, sought to dismantle the body of environmental policy thus far established. “Modern man,” Caldwell first warned in his 1971 book Environment, “has let himself into a game of ecological truth or environmental consequences. If he ignores or misreads the ecological facts of life, he must endure the consequences of existence in an environment that can no longer respond adequately to his needs.”4 Epilogue 419 Although he constantly advocated the need for high quality interdisciplinary education to provide better insight into complex environmentalrelationships ,Caldwellcametobelievethattherequirednational paradigmatic shift in public consciousness could, in the end, only be achieved through the emergence of farsighted, values-oriented political leadership willing to take the actions necessary to change corporate behavior and ingrained conservative belief in the right to pollute and degrade without constraint. Preparations for such action, he suggested, should involve the development of a rational integrative master plan for sustainableeconomicgrowthbasedonthevaluesandidealssoclearlyset out in NEPA. This must occur, he argued, in order to achieve the desired low polluting “green” economy and avert the otherwise very real potential for the future onset of a perhaps irreversible environmental “crisis of crises.”5 “We have the resources and technology to stop problems,” he said in 1970 as he argued that prevention–in this case, of chronic environmental degradation and pollution–is always better than later having topaytheheavyfinancial,social,andhealth costsinvolvedinrestorative efforts. “But the problem comes back to [political] will. We haven’t...