Today's activities, the tree planting in Nowa Huta and the reception for community leaders hosted by Consul General Scanlan, and similar activities all over the United States and around the world mark and celebrate the 28th anniversary of the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970.
The original Earth Day was an event in which about 20 million Americans participated. It was nationally coordinated, but almost all activities were organized on a local level, mostly at university campuses, but also at secondary schools and among various civic groups.
I was a participant that day, so this talk contains several personal recollections. My wife Jane's memories of the day are vivid. She remembers the excitement and sense of pride she felt as she and her ninth grade class worked for hours picking up trash in a nearby woods. She, and many others like her learned that day that every person is responsible for the quality of our environment, and that each individual has the power to do something to improve the environment.
I believe it is accurate to say that my involvement in the field of Environmental Studies began that day.
The issues of that time which prompted the event were:
The significance of the 1970 event lies in the fact that it was the first time that the attention of so many people was directed towards consideration of ecological problems. The lectures, speeches, films, and other activities alerted many of the participants for the first time to the extent of pollution in America and to the potential for future world-wide problems caused by overpopulation.
For me, it was a particularly significant event. I was in my first year of college. I was very impressionable, and I was beginning to wonder how I would direct my career. My university, Trinity of Texas, had a full day of activities, and I recall being thoroughly impressed by the great magnitude of the challenge that my generation would face if we wanted to keep our world suitable for habitation. In fact, I suppose my career began that day 28 years ago when I decided that I would apply my engineer's training to the solution of environmental problems.
Student Movement.
While the 1960's student movement provided the method and much of the energy necessary for the first Earth Day, the true origins of the environmental movement are found among a few small organizations such as the Sierra Club, founded in 1891, which were organized around the theme of protecting areas of natural beauty in North America, and professional groups such as the Water Environment Federation. These groups had already begun to focus on a variety of ecological problems caused by pollution, and they had ample literature for distribution at Earth Day activities.
I believe that another important occurrence of the 1960's which led to Earth Day was the successful completion of the Apollo mission to the moon. One of the most important products of this mission was simply a photograph showing the entire planet from deep space. We saw, for the first time, striking proof that we are passengers on a very special space ship. I believe this stunning view of the earth stimulated increased concern for protecting the life support systems of the planet. Also, the pictures sent back of our gray and lifeless moon showed us clearly how important and unique our life supporting environment on Earth is to us. Moreover, the tremendous success of our lunar landing mission gave us confidence that our nation could accomplish whatever we set out to do. We heard, and we still do hear, the phrase "If we can send a man to the moon, then we can ...." and at this point, you can fill in the blank with many great problems of society including preservation of the environment. Earth day ushered in the decade of the 1970's, and we can accurately label this period the Environmental Decade. Now, I will briefly summarize some of the laws created during this period which serve as important landmarks, and I will present some statistics and opinions regarding how successful these laws have been.
The first environmental legislation to be enacted as law during the 1970's was the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This act set the tone for the more specific pollution control legislation which would soon follow by stating that it would be "a national policy (to) encourage productive and enjoyable harmony between man and his environment."
The most significant feature of this law was the establishment of a requirement that all future projects of the federal government having a significant effect on the environment must have an Environmental Impact Statement written and made available to all interested persons. Note that there is no strict requirement in the law that the information contained in the statement be used in deciding whether or not to complete a project. However, in theory, the justification for the environmental impact statement is that better decisions will be made if the environmental effects of government projects are determined in advance and if this information is made available to all.
Federal agencies were not well equipped to produce environmental impact statements. However, a new industry of environmental consultants soon appeared to provide this service.
The requirements of this law are still in force today, and have, if fact, been strengthened by actions of the Supreme Court. Although the system certainly has its weaknesses, the requirement of an environmental impact statement for government projects has resulted in improved designs for projects such as highways and water reservoirs.
The National Environmental Policy act applies only to the activities of the federal government. A surprising number of projects have some connection to the federal government, so there have been an enormous number of environmental impact statements written. However, the law has no influence on projects which take place entirely in the private sector, and, more importantly, this law does nothing to regulate the discharge of pollutants.
A series of laws were passed during the 1970's to create new regulatory structures for controlling the emission of pollution and the Environmental Protection Agency was created to enforce the new laws. I will spend some time on two of these laws, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.
There are some particularly striking examples of the poor quality of the natural waters of the U.S. at the time of the first Earth Day. Lake Erie, was severely stressed by excessive nutrients and was declared by some to be "dead". Recreation was prohibited on Oregon's Willamette River. One day in the early seventies, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio actually burst into flames.
In 1972, Congress passed a Clean Water Act which set very high goals, and a very short time-table for achieving them. The ultimate goal was the total elimination of the discharge of pollutants into the nation's waters by the year 1985. An interim goal of water quality which could support aquatic life and human recreation in all of the nation's waters was set for 1983. This is often called the "fishable and swimable" goal. The time-table for these goals was similar to that set by President Kennedy in the early 1960's for sending a man to the moon before the end of the decade.
So, here, we have what I call the Apollo approach to environmental policy, which is to set ambitious goals and expect to achieve them in about one decade. If we can send a man to the moon in a decade, then surely we can eliminate water pollution in thirteen years.
By 1977, all "Point Sources", those currently discharging wastewaters and new ones, were to have applied the "Best Practicable" pollution control technology currently available.
By 1983, dischargers of water pollutants were to have applied the "Best Available Technology Economically Achievable"
So, for water pollution control, Congress decided to take a "technology based" approach to regulation. The best technology would be applied to point-source discharges of wastewaters in hopes that it would be adequate to achieve the water quality goals.
So what actually happened? Neither the 1985 nor the 1983 goals were met, and we may only just now, at the end of the century, be approaching the 1977 interim goal. It turns out that sending a man to the moon, a primarily technological endeavor, is a simple problem compared to the host of economic, sociological and political as well as technological problems involved in eliminating water pollution. However, I believe that the effects of the Clean Water Act have been enormous in spite of the fact that the lofty goals were not met. With the exception of some notable lapses that resulted in severe spills of pollutants in both freshwater and marine habitats, the quality of America's waters has improved in many cases, and in most cases, it has ceased to degrade, and this is in the context of significant growth in economic activity during the past 25 years.
Some statistics that quantify specific achievements include:
We hear very little these days about the original lofty goal of eliminating polluting discharges completely. Very recently, though, last October, on the 25th anniversary of the passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act, Vice President Gore announced plans to recommit the nation to the more realistic goal of making the nations waters safe for fishing and swimming. In President Clinton's State of the Union address, he announced a major new Clean Water Initiative. Then, on February 14 of this year, a new "Clean Water Action Plan" was announced for the purpose of "Restoring and Protecting America's Waters". The full report is currently available on the internet from the EPA's web site.
The main challenges remaining are listed below:
Future efforts to improve water quality in the United States will focus on the following measures:
In the Clean Air Act, also passed in the early 1970's, Congress took a very different approach from that used to reduce water pollution. Rather than requiring specific levels of pollution control technology, specific environmental quality levels were established for each of several different air pollutants. In the case of "stationary sources", State governments were required to specify emission limits on each polluter as necessary to achieve air quality standards which were specified as maximum concentrations of six major pollutants including as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, lead, and particulates (dust and soot).
In the case of vehicles, national standards were set for all cars and trucks sold in the U.S. State governments were also required to set up automobile emission inspection stations to assure that the pollution control devices installed by the manufacturer were actually working as designed. Furthermore, the use of leaded gasoline was required to be phased out.
These environmental quality regulations were established independently of the technological means to achieve them. It was the opinion of many in Congress that air quality was of great enough importance that the technology should be forced by the law to develop the means to achieve the air quality goals. Congress assumed that industry could develop the technology if it was pushed in this way.
In most cases, and particularly in the case of automobile pollution, this assumption was correct. The technology necessary for control was developed. The following table shows recent progress in reducing the concentrations of air pollutants, in the context of substantial increases in economic activity and population.
Air Quality Progress - Average Concentration Decreases, 1987-1996:
However, many large cities are still, in 1998, in frequent violation of the air quality standards set more than 25 years ago. The reason is frequent inadequate enforcement by State governments, and in States such as California with strict enforcement, the problem is the result of many small uncontrolled sources that were not previously considered to be important sources of air pollution such as dry cleaners and even outdoor barbecue pits.
The main challenges remaining are listed below:
Future efforts to improve air quality in the United States will focus on the following measures:
Risk Assessment for Long-Term, Low-Level Exposure: A Scientific Challenge
During the 1990's there has been much effort devoted to the development of new methods to help quantify the effects of pollution emissions on human health and on the environment. The calculation of these effects is most difficult when the exposure to toxic pollutants is received over a long period of time, and at very low concentrations, such as parts per billion or parts per trillion. This type of pollution affects only certain people: those who are susceptible to the toxin and who live or work in a place that is exposed to the pollutant or who eat food grown in such a place. The effects of the pollution are expressed as a risk factor, which is an estimate of the number of people that may be affected.
A risk assessment requires both a toxicity assessment and an exposure assessment. The toxicity assessment usually takes the form of a "dose-response" curve which shows how the number of persons who get sick increases with the concentration of the toxic pollutant in the environment. These are usually created using experiments on laboratory animals, although there is sometimes epidemiological data on actual human exposure. Dose-response curves suffer from great scientific uncertainties, especially when results from short-term exposure of laboratory animals to high doses is used to estimate the effects of long-term exposure of humans to low doses.
Exposure assessment requires identification of all exposure pathways, both direct to the person, and indirect, through the food chain. One approach is to base exposure calculations on the "maximum exposed individual". This is someone who lives his entire life at the point of maximum pollution concentration and who eats only food grown at the point of maximum concentration. Of course, this person does not really exist, but if the risks to such a person are determined to be negligible, then the risks to everyone else should surely be negligible. If these risks turn out to be significant, then it is necessary to obtain more information about actual exposure levels in the population and to calculate the exposure of the "reasonably maximally exposed individual".
The overall risk characterization is accomplished by combining the toxicity and exposure assessments. The result is a probability number indicating the likelihood that an exposed individual will develop cancer during his lifetime because of the exposure, or, similarly to evaluate the increased risks of non-cancer health effects such as liver or kidney damage.
The goal of these new risk assessment methods is to provide a rational basis for making decisions about protection of the public from toxic chemicals. This goal is laudable, but the large uncertainties remaining in the underlying science make the regulations based on risk assessments subject to challenges in court which will certainly limit their effectiveness.
The challenges of scientific uncertainty appear in other environmental contexts as well, particularly with regard to international and global problems. The sources of acid rain are hotly debated, particularly when the acid forming pollutants originate in another country. The question of whether human activities are causing global ambient temperatures to increase is confused by many uncertainties about the reliability of computer models and about proper interpretation of weather data. It is very difficult for the nations of the world to agree on policies to deal with a problem that may not even exist, particularly when the cost of implementing such policies would be very high.
The 1980's were for the environmental movement a period of reassessing priorities and evaluating progress. The strong coalition of political forces that achieved so much during the 1970's began to fall apart, and environmentalism fell on very hard times during the administration of Ronald Reagan.
Although President Reagan declared himself an environmentalist, the policies of his administration did little to support this claim. Environmental regulations were blamed for constraining economic growth. Research programs for the development of renewable energy resources, such as solar energy, were called "welfare programs for scientists" and were terminated.
Activity in Congress centered on preserving the goals established in the 70's rather than starting new initiatives. The time-tables were adjusted, but most of the requirements remained intact.
Some new issues gained prominence:
New forms of environmentalism began to appear in response to both the backlash of the Reagan Administration and the new evidence of human damage to the global environment. In support of fewer environmental regulations, Free Market Environmentalists appeared with the idea that the environment can be protected with greater economic efficiency by extending the concept of private property ownership to more of the natural world, such as the atmosphere. The idea is that people looking out for their own interests will do a better job of protecting the quality of their environment than government bureaucrats with their inefficient regulations. Some of this thinking has found its way into the mainstream in the area of air pollution regulation with the concept of emissions trading. This approach allows a company to reduce its emissions below the required level and then to sell its unused pollution allotment to another company that is faced with particularly high costs for pollution control. This approach can result in improved air quality at a lower overall cost to the economy, and it is being done in the U.S. today.
Another response to the global environmental concerns raised in the 1980's was the emergence of Radical Environmentalism, which has claimed many converts, especially among students, in the 1990's. Radical environmentalists are afraid that "the earth is dying" and that humans are killing it. Some have gone so far as to suggest that it is time for an armed struggle to protect the earth. A group called "Earth First!" was organized in the 1980's that openly advocates ecotage, which is sabotage to prevent damage to the natural environment. They have mainly targeted the forestry industry in the Pacific Northwest, and their tactics have included damaging lumbering equipment and driving steel spikes into trees to make it dangerous for loggers to cut down the trees.
Radical environmentalists have developed a philosophy called biocentrism that places first priority on the health of the "biosphere", that is, all life on earth, rather than on the health and prosperity of humans. A spiritual movement called deep ecology has emerged that is based on communion with the natural world and abandonment of most technology. Biocentrism and deep ecology draw heavily from the writings of Aldo Leopold whose book A Sand County Almanac, published in 1949 contains arguments for a "land ethic" which asserts that "a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community É it is wrong when it tends otherwise."
The emergence of widely different perspectives on environmental quality and environmental protection has generated much division among environmentalists. The "mainstream" environmentalists are labeled "anthropocentric" by the radicals because their environmentalism originates in concern for human welfare and public health. For example, the legitimacy of mainstream support for preservation of endangered plant and animal species is challenged by the radicals because the reason for the support originates in the potential benefits these species have for humans. By contrast, the deep ecologist's concern originates from the belief that every species has a basic right to exist, and that it is morally wrong for people to contribute to the decline or elimination of a species.
Another common component of the radical perspective is a mistrust of technology, particularly environmental technology such as pollution control equipment because it can only delay the inevitable collapse of industrial society, which, some believe, must occur if the biosphere is to be saved. Some advocate a return to the stone-age, hunter-gatherer existence without agriculture or technology and a greatly reduced human population.
As an engineer, I tend to be anthropocentric in my perspectives. Engineering is a people serving profession, not unlike medicine and social work. Engineers have always done their best to provide what society has asked for: clean water, warm homes, transportation, communications, and entertainment. Of course, engineers have also helped to supply the things demanded by the darker side of human nature: instruments of death such as hand guns, automatic weapons, and nuclear warheads.
I do not believe that technology has a life of its own, however, or that it is something evil, separate from life, and out of control. Technology is organized human ingenuity, and it does give people power: power to lead lives free from many of the things that shortened the lives of our ancestors and caused great fears and uncertainties, but also power to exploit other people and the environment.
So people need to have a sense of right and wrong regarding the use of technology that affects the environment, and it is necessary for us to develop an environmental ethic that will preserve the biosphere. I think that theologians and philosophers should be aware of the biocentric ideas emerging from the radical environmentalists, to critique these ideas from their moral and ethical perspectives, and, perhaps, to incorporate some biocentric thinking, especially where it helps identify how certain actions related to the environment can be judged as being right or wrong. But I also think that it is foolishness to think that humans can throw away their own humanity, their cultures, societies, religions, and technologies, and I do not believe that we will be forced to abandon these things because of some future collapse.
The 1990's have also witnessed a new "environmental justice" movement that has captivated many of my students, and I find this development very encouraging. At the heart of this movement is a concern that the burden of dealing with society's waste and garbage is falling on certain groups of people, mostly minorities and people of color, in economically depressed urban communities.
The City of Chester, Pennsylvania, not far from my home of Swarthmore, is a striking example of this phenomenon. Clustered on the south side of this small city are a sewage treatment plant, an incinerator that processes all of the garbage generated in our county, a plant for disposing of infectious medical waste, and another facility that burns contaminated soils to remove hazardous waste. These facilities were built on abandoned industrial sites and near to residential communities. The people who live in these communities know that the quality of their lives has been degraded, and they believe that they are victims, but they are having a very hard time convincing the environmental regulatory officials that these facilities are harming them. They do not have the political clout of the upscale suburbs (where I live) whose waste and garbage are being processed in these plants.
These facilities have obtained operating permits because they are using state-of-the-art pollution control technology, and, on the basis of measurable pollutants emitted from these plants, the government has little or no basis for stopping them from operating. Indeed, these plants provide very important services to society, including the people of Chester. The problem, of course, is the clustering of several such facilities in one part of town, not far from residences. Many of the problems relate to the transportation of wastes into the plants rather than anything done to them once they are delivered. Noise and odors caused by trucks as they drive near residences cause many of the problems. However, in order for the people in these neighborhoods to prove, most likely in court, that they are being harmed, an overall assessment of the risks imposed by these plants must be performed, and this brings us back to the scientific challenges of risk assessment I mentioned earlier.
The United States has been working now for more than 25 years to reduce pollution emissions and improve environmental quality. Great progress has been made, particularly in the areas of water and air quality, and in the public's level of awareness of environmental issues through requirements for environmental impact statements. We have set very ambitious goals that were impossible to achieve in the original time span allotted. Yet in spite of delays and set backs, we are still on essentially the same course that was set in the 1970's, and we are still powered by the energy and enthusiasm generated on the first Earth Day.
I think that other countries, including Poland, are benefiting from our experience with environmental protection in both the technical and political aspects of the problem. Direct links between the U.S. and Poland have been established by the 1989 SEED Act and other ongoing programs such as the Fulbright Scholars Program, which has brought me to Krakow twice in eight years to lecture on environmental topics.
I also think that we Americans have a lot to learn from environmental managers, scientists, and technologists in Poland as you struggle with some major environmental challenges of your own. I hope that the spirit of cooperation that exists today after almost a decade of working closely together on the problems of Krakow will continue for a long time.
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