Rachel’s News #613, August 27, 1998

Starting in the 1950s, awareness of environmental destruction developed slowly in the U.S.[1,2] Various events slowly shook the public awake: Atomic fallout from weapons-testing in the years 1956-1963; a nation- wide pesticide scare in 1959; birth defects from the drug thalidomide in 1961; Rachel Carson’s book SILENT SPRING in 1962; the discovery of cancer-causing food additives (such as the artificial sweeteners, cyclamates, in 1969); and other byproducts of corporate technology, contributed to a growing awareness of environmental degradation.[3] By 1965, the dangers of a deteriorating environment were acknowledged at the highest levels of government; the President’s Science Advisory Committee in 1965 published RESTORING THE QUALITY OF OUR ENVIRONMENT, a catalog of pollution problems and their effects on human and environmental health.[4] In 1969, Congress passed the Environmental Policy Act and in 1970 President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by exe cutive order.

Starting in the late 1960s, the modern “environmental movement” took shape as activist lawyers and scientists came to the aid of citizens who were trying to ban the pesticide DDT, prevent air pollution by stopping new highways, discourage nuclear technologies and curb obvious water pollutants such as foaming detergents. During the 1970s, Congress passed a dozen major environmental laws. Environmental groups hired professional staffs who were knowledgeable about technologies, pollutants, regulatory strategies, and politics.

In other industrialized countries, governments and citizens began similar efforts. The governments of Denmark, the Netherlands, Britain, Sweden, West Germany, Japan, France, and Canada passed a series of laws aimed at reversing the trends of environmental destruction. Here and abroad, universities organized seminars and conferences and eventually created whole departments devoted to “environmental studies.” A new industry developed, called “environmental consulting,” in which highly- paid specialists helped governments and private corporations respond to environmental concerns. The mass media began to devote significant space to environmental problems. In the U.S. environmental reporting became a journalistic specialty and a “Society of Environmental Journalists” was launched. Corporations with tarnished reputations devoted billions of dollars to environmentally-preferable technologies, and created a new public relations industry that specializes in “greenwashing.”

Now, after 20 years of intense efforts to reverse the trends of environmental destruction, the question is, are we succeeding?

So far as we know, only one study has tried to answer this question in a rigorous way. The study, called INDEX OF ENVIRONMENTAL TRENDS, was published in April 1995 by the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives in Washington, D.C.[5] In it, the authors measured trends in a wide range of serious environmental problems facing industrial societies. The study relied on the best available data, most of it gathered and maintained by national governments.

The study examined 21 indicators of environmental quality, summarizing the data into a single numerical “environmental index.” The index shows that, despite 20 years of substantial effort, each of the nine countries has failed to reverse the trends of environmental destruction. See Table 1.