-------
Earth Day
Earth Day special in its
first incarnation in 1 !)7():
special now as we approach
its 2Qth-anniversary
observance on April 22.
1990. This issue of EPA
JotirnaJ is (Indicated to Earth
Day and its meaning then
and now.
President George Bush
leads off the issue with an
article that reflects his
perspective on the
environment at home and
abroad. EPA Administrator
William K. Keilly follows
with a piece articulating a
goal that lie feels should
become a key focus of the
nation's environmental
init iatives: pollution
prevention,
An article by ]•',}'A /ounuil
writer Jack Lewis desc:ril)es
I!K! spirit and character of the;
first Earth Day. and an
accompanying feature
surveys a group of people
who were key environmental
players in 1070 and also
reports on what they are
doing now. Former U.S.
Senator Gaylord Nelson, the
founder of Earth Day.
outlines the legacy of Karth
Day as he sees it.
Next is a series of articles
looking back and looking
ahead, occasioned by this
20th anniversary of the "year
of the environment." For in
addition to Earth Day, other
environmental landmark
events helped to make 1970 a
special year: in particular.
the birth of EPA; the
establishment of the
President's Council on
Environmental Quality and
tin environmental impact
review program (both
mandated by the National
Environmental Policy Act of
1970); and the passage of the
Clean Air Act of that year.
The authors are EPA's first
Administrator, William D.
Ruckelshaus; the first
Chairman of the President's
Council, Russell K. Train:
former Congressman Paul G.
Rogers, who was involved in
the deliberations leading to
the 1970 Clean Air Act; and
two activists who figured
prominently in 1970 Earth
Day events—Denis Hayes,
who beaded the national
Environmental Teach-In
office that coordinated Earth
Day. and Edward W. Furia,
who directed Philadelphia's
Earth Week program.
Next, illustrating the
burgeoning activity that may
make 1990 another year of
the environment, an article
by Journal writer Roy Popkin
reports on the growing
commitment within the
entertainment industry to
promoting environmental
awareness.
Two articles report on
subjects that demonstrate
how dramatically the
environmental agenda has
changed since 1970. First.
John S. Hoffman and Robert
Kwartin from EPA's Global
Change Division write about
ongoing efforts to design
refrigerators that art: free of
chemicals that damage the
stratosphere and to make this
new technology available in
developing countries.
Second, Joel S. Hirschhorn. a
Senior Associate at the
Congressional Office of
Technology Assessment.
explains the steps needed if
American industry is to
adopt a preventive approach
to industrial waste rather
than the traditional effort to
control waste at the
"end-of-the-pipe."
Then Paul ami Anne
Ehrlich, a husband-and-wife
team of environmentalists,
describe the nature of the
environmental crisis in their
view and outline an
approach for dealing with it.
Next, providing an industry
perspective, Jerald terHorst,
Director of National Public
Affairs for the Ford Motor
Company, gives a rundown
on efforts to clean up a major
pollution source, the
automobile.
The phenomenon of the
"Greens" in West Germany
and other European countries
is explained in terms of its
political dynamics by Konrad
von Moltke. a senior fellow
at The Conservation
Foundation and former
Director of the Institute for
International Environmental
Policy in Bonn. In a related
article, Bowdoin College
professor John Rensenbrink
discusses the prospects for a
Greens movement in the
United States.
This issue of the magazine
concludes with a report on
the clean-up tasks
confronting another
industrialized society—the
Soviet Union—authored by
Alexei Yablokov, a key
environmental official in that
country. D
New York City's Fifth Avenue
was closed to motor vehicles
for Earth Day 1970.
The result was one of the
biggest people jams in the
city's history.
-------
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of
Communications and
Public Affairs
&EPA JOURNAL
Volume 16, Number 1
January/February 1990
20K-9001
William K. Reilly, Administrator
Lew Crampton, Associate Administrator for
Communications and Public Affairs
Leighton Price, Editorial Director
John Heritage, Editor
Karen Flagstad, Assistant Editor
Jack Lewis, Assistant Editor
Ruth Barker, Assistant Editor
Marilyn Rogers, Circulation Manager
EPA is charged by Congress to
protect the nation's land, air, and
water systems. Under a mandate of
national environmental laws, the
agency strives to formulate and
implement actions which lead to a
compatible balance between
human activities and the ability of
natural systems to support and
nurture life.
EPA /ournaJ is published by the
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency. The Administrator of EPA
has determined that the
publication of this periodical is
necessary in the transaction of the
public business required by law of
this agency. Use of funds for
printing this periodical has been
approved by the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget.
Views expressed by authors do not
necessarily reflect EPA policy. No
permission necessary to reproduce
contents except copyrighted photos
and other materials.
Contributions and inquiries
should be addressed to the Editor,
EPA Journal (A-107), Waterside
Mall, 401 M Street, SW.,
Washington, DC 20460.
What I Believe About the
Environment
by President George Bush
Pollution Prevention; An
Environmental Goal for the
90s
by William K. Reilly
The Spirit of the First Earth
Day
by Jack Lewis
The Legacy of Earth Day
by Gaylord Nelson 10
Looking Back; Looking
Ahead:
—EPA
by William D.
Ruckelshaus
—The Council on
Environmental Quality
by Russell E. Train ia
—The Clean Air Act of
1970
by Paul G. Rogers 21
—Earth Day: One View
by Denis Hayes 24
—Earth Day: Another View
by Edward W. Furia >_~
The Stars Take on the
Environmental Crisis
by Roy Popkin ;jt)
The Changing Agenda:
—Re-Inventing the
Refrigerator
by John S. Hoffman and
Robert Kwartin ;i2
—Preventing Industry
Waste
by Joe! S. Hirschhorn ;){>
Thinking About Our
Environmental Future
by Anne and Paul
Ehrlich 40
Cleaning Up the Auto: A
Rough Ride
by Jerald F. terHorst 43
The Greens of Europe:
A New Environmentalism
by Konrad von Moltke 4(i
Do the Greens Have a Future
Here?
by John Rensenbrink ~ut
A Perspective from Another
Country: The Soviet Task
by Alexei Yablokov 50
Front Cover: Earth Day 1970: A
scene in Washington, DC. Photo by
Dennis Brack, Black Star.
Design Credits:
Ft on Fcirrah
fames fl. Iiigrum
Robert Flcimijjan
The text of EPA Journal is prinfrj
on recycled paper.
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-------
What I Believe
About the
Environment
by President George Bush
Last summer, I took my 13-year-old
grandson on a fishing trip to Jackson
Lake, Wyoming. The memory of that
day lingers—the two of us casting our
lines, sinking long, flashy spinners deep
into the crystalline water. After some
effort, we caught a few Mackinaw trout
and let them go. But the real catch was
for our eyes.
From our small boat, we watched elk
warily emerge from the forest at dusk to
drink at the lake. And rising out of the
forest in the distance were the
Tetons—jagged, immense, snow-capped,
invincible. No words, no photo, no
painter could do them justice.
Of course, there was a time when all
of North America was as primitive and
pristine as Jackson Hole. But aside from
protected areas like the Grand Tetons,
the buffalo hunters and the settlers
changed the face of the land, forever.
We no longer enjoy the luxury
of leisurely action.
Environmental protection must
become a higher priority for
us all.
The exploitation of natural resources
was a natural way of life for the
pioneers. In fact, it was the only way of
life. So our ancestors did what they had
to do to build a great nation, simply
assuming that the land offered a
limitless bounty.
Today, of course, we know better.
And knowing better, we must act better.
President Teddy Roosevelt declared
80 years ago that nothing short of
defending this country in wartime
"compares in importance with the great
central task of leaving this land even a
better land for our descendants than it
is for us." He was one of the first to
perceive that nature is not an infinite
resource. Environmental destruction in
National Paik Service photo
one place on Earth can have serious
consequences for other, sometimes
remote, parts of our planet. In fact, some
scientists compare the Earth to a single
organism, a living system whose ability
to survive depends on its overall
well-being.
It is not possible to restore our
environment to a perfectly natural state.
Yet we've also learned that a growing
economy can only be sustained with a
healthy environment. This requires a
balance—trade-offs, tough decisions,
careful planning, exact studies, and
creative proposals.
Seeking that balance, environmental
leaders like Senators Ed Muskie,
Howard Baker, the late Henry Jackson,
and others put aside party differences in
the late 1960s to craft landmark
comprehensive environmental
legislation. On January 1, 1970,
President Nixon began the new decade
by signing the National Environmental
Policy Act into law. All the historic:
environmental laws of the 70s followed
this bold step: the Clean Air Act. the
Clean Water Act, and the laws
regulating pesticides, toxic: substances,
and hazardous wastes.
It was also roughly 20 years ago that
EPA began its historic mission under
the strong leadership of Hill
Ruckelshaus. And in this same tradition
Bill Reilly brings to EPA his own
distinctive brand of
leadership—leadership based on both
environmental expertise and real
commitment.
In the first year of this
Administration, we've taken on many
tough environmental problems. On June
12, I announced ways we can use the
market to reduce emissions of acid rain.
urban smog, and toxic air pollution—all
included in the first major overhaul of
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Tston National Park,
the Clean Air Act to be proposed in
more than a decade.
Later in the year, we called for $710
million for Clean Coal Technology: a
ban on nearly all uses of asbestos by
1997; and a ban on the export of
hazardous waste. In addition, we've
accelerated our leadership on global
change, proposing a 28-percent increase
in global environmental research and
offering to host an international
conference next fall to negotiate a
framework treaty on global change.
But the federal government is only
part of the story. Twenty years ago, the
environmental movement was gaining
strength in the city halls and state
capitols of our nation, as well as in
Washington. And the new commitment
to a cleaner, safer environment wasn't
just confined to government. It grew
from the bottom up—not just from
school boards, city councils, and state
legislatures—but from millions of
homes.
Americans came together as
environmental volunteers—
spontaneously, almost instinctively—to
save the Earth. And it was this
movement that created the first Earth
Day on April 22,1970. Earth Day began
as a spectacular movement of citizen
leadership. It has become an American
tradition, worthy of future generations.
A president quickly learns to see
policy in the broadest terms possible.
Urban and housing policy must he-
related to transportation, transportation
policy to energy, energy policy to
agriculture, and so on. Applying this
same perspective, one cannot fail to see
that deforestation, ozone depletion.
ocean pollution, and the threat of global
warming interconnect to challenge our
future. We no longer enjoy the luxury of
leisurely action. Environmental
protection must become a higher
priority for us all.
If our response is to be effective, then
all the nations of the world must make
common cause in defense of our
environment. This is a message I took to
Sierra C/uO photo
the peoples of Europe in May. In Main/..
West Germany, 1 said that my
generation remembers a world ravaged
by war. And, of course, Europeans have
rebuilt their proud cities and restored
their majestic cathedrals. But I told
them: "What a tragedy it would be if
your continent were again spoiled, this
time bv a more subtle and insidious
// our response is to be
effective, then all the nations
of the world must make
common cause in defense of
our environment.
danger—that of poisoned rivers and acid
rain." 1 told them of America's
environmental tragedy in Alaska. I
noted that countries from France to
Finland suffered after Chernobyl, and
that West Germany is struggling to save
the Black Forest, the bottom line is
this: Environmental destruction respects
no borders.
When I suggested that the United
States and Western Europe extend a
hand to the East, the people of Europe
on both sides of the Iron Curtain
responded with enthusiasm. Since then,
working with my counterparts in
Western Europe, we have readied
agreements to share our environmental
technical and regulatory knowledge
with Eastern Europe.
I hope these agreements become a
model not just for Europe, but for the
world. And I am determined that in the
1990s, the United States of America will
continue to assume responsibility by
President Theodore Roosevelt, an early
environmentalist, loved hiking and
camping. In this 1903 photo, he is shown
with John Muir, who founded the Sierra
Club.
providing world environmental
leadership.
At home, we've brought to my
Administration outstanding
environmental professionals, like
Michael Deland, who chairs the
important Council on Environmental
Quality. We've broken new ground by
declaring that pollution prevention is
our ultimate goal. For too long, we've
focused on clean-up campaigns and
penalties after the damage is done. It's
time to reorient our policies to
technologies and processes that reduce
or prevent pollution—to stop it before it
starts. In the 1990s, pollution
prevention must go to the source.
To save the Earth will require our best
efforts. Everyone must volunteer to
help. Business, labor, and consumers
must cooperate. Environmentalists and
industrialists must be partners, not
adversaries. Local communities, large
and small, must enlist. And so must
families—we all can learn to generate
less waste and to recycle the wash1 that
we do produce. In fact, those families
that do recycle have found it makes
economic, as well as ecological, sense.
Finally, there is one simple thing that
you can do on Earth Day, regardless of
your age or ability. I ask you to join me
in sowing a legacy of cleaner air and
more beautiful horizons. I ask you to
perform a simple act. 1 ask you to plant
a tree.
You don't have to be a poet or a
painter to appreciate a tree. Trees cuul
the Earth on a summer's day. They quiet
the noise of a freeway. They provide a
natural wind break in winter. And every
tree makes America a little greener, a
little more like the verdant nation the
Pilgrims knew.
I hope that Earth Day will once again
demonstrate that solutions to
environmental problems are emerging
from the good will, generosity, and
vision of the American people. We have
already given the world so much. Let's
give the world an example of
volunteerism and environmental
leadership on April 22, 1990, and in the
vears to come. Q
JANUARY FEBRUARY 1990
-------
Pollution Prevention:
An Environmental Goal
for the 90s
by William K. Reilly
Despite their popularity, national
celebrations of anniversaries often
turn out to be what the eminent
historian Daniel Boorstin has called
"pseudo-events"—long on hype and
nostalgia, short on substance.
Earth Day 1990 should be an
exception to that rule. The 20th
anniversary of Earth Day, like the first
Earth Day on April 22, 1970, marks a
turning point in the history of our
relationship with planet Earth.
In 1970, as a result of mounting
public concern over environmental
deterioration—rivers on fire, cities
clouded by soot, waterways choked by
raw sewage, automobiles pumping out
some 20 times the smog-producing
emissions of today's cars—we began as
a nation to address the most obvious,
most acute environmental problems.
The National Environmental Policy
Act was signed by President Nixon on
New Year's Day 1970. In short order,
the Clean Air Act of 1970 was passed.
In December 1970 EPA was created. The
Clean Water Act of 1972 soon followed.
Because these readily identified
environmental problems were so
immediate, so obvious, it was relatively
easy to see what had to be done and to
summon the political will to do it.
As more environmental laws were
enacted, they shared a common
approach: They authorized EPA to
develop rules and regulations that
dictated, to a large extent, how our
society would control its pollution and
other wastes.
The regulations defined treatments for
wastes, set discharge; limits, mandated
proper disposal methods, and provided
enforcement authorities. For the most
part, this command-and-control
approach achieved dramatic successes
in reducing discharges of pollutants
from point sources. In other words, the
substantial environmental investments
is Administrator of EPA.)
made by the American people paid off
handsomely.
Yet the achievements, as significant as
they are, have been overtaken by new,
growing environmental challenges and
expectations. As the technology
improved to detect ever-smaller levels
of contamination, and as we learned
more about the health and
environmental problems associated with
pollution, we found that deeper cuts in
pollution were necessary. True to the
theory of diminishing returns, reducing
the remaining increments of pollution
proved more difficult and more
expensive than the initial ones.
New problems also surfaced. Few can
forget the drama with which Love Canal
entered the public consciousness. The
tragic story of the Love Canal
community, built above an abandoned
hazardous waste dump, resulted in the
Superfund program to clean up
improperly disposed-of hazardous
An outfall. Despite progress in
controlling such point-source
discharges, we still face
massive pollution problems.
wastes. This program added a huge new
task to EPA's already ambitious
mandate. From the inception of
Superfund until now, EPA has devoted
tremendous effort to the regulation and
cleanup of hazardous wastes.
The big picture emerging from the
first two decades of environmental
protection is one of a nation investing
considerable money and effort in a basic
problem: how to cope with all the
wastes generated by our modern
industrial society.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
And now the entire world is
confronted by alarming new discoveries
of global environmental problems
urgently requiring attention. Despite our
best efforts at pollution control, this
country still faces a massive
accumulation of waste here at
home—and accelerating devastation of
nature abroad.
Global warming, stratospheric ozone
depletion, acid rain, deforestation, soil
erosion, species extinction, habitat
destruction: This daunting array of new
environmental challenges not only
could overshadow environmental gains
already recorded, it could destabilize
Garbage—one of the major challenges for
pollution prevention. Here, barges bring
solid waste from New York City to Fresh
Kills, the world's largest landfill.
the very natural systems which sustain
human life on Earth.
For all these reasons, I believe the
dawning of the third environmental
decade finds us at a historic turning
point—a time when we must find a new
approach to meeting our needs. If we
don't, we may seriously compromise the
ability of the poor to improve their
standard of living and of future
generations to meet their needs. We
must find ways to continue economic
growth and progress without irreversibly
depleting the natural capital of the
planet.
I am encouraged that today our
institutions and our people seem ready
to accept a new ethic, a new sense of
stewardship on behalf of the
environment. And right at the heart of
this is a new approach to managing
waste: pollution prevention.
Pollution prevention must become a
fundamental part of all our activities, all
our initiatives, and all our economic
growth. Increasingly, businesses are
recognizing that pollution prevention
can save them money. As the magazine
The Economist recently suggested, good
growth will be "green" growth.
Jim MacNeill, Secretary General to the
World Commission on Environment and
Development, recently laid out his
vision of sustainable development. It's
"not the type of growth that dominates
today," he wrote, "but growth based on
forms and processes of development
that do not undermine the integrity of
Pollution prevention must
become a fundamental part of
all our activities, all our
initiatives, and all our
economic growth.
the environment on which they
depend."
As MacNeill points out, an essential
condition for sustainable development
is that a nation's basic stock of
ecological capital not decrease over-
time; in other words, developed and
developing countries alike musl learn to
live on the interest of the earth's stock
of renewable resources, without
encroaching further on the principiil.
Doing so, MacNeill believes, will
require a significant reduction in llu>
energy and raw-material content of
every unit of production. And to
accomplish this, the nations of the
world will have to adopt far-reaching
strategies aimed at abating and. rumv
importantly, preventing pollution.
Finding creative approaches to
pollution prevention is a priority for
EPA; it's also the theme of EPA's Earth
Day 1990 celebration. My intent is that
as time goes by, the pollution
prevention ethic will work its way into
JANUARY'FEBRUARY 1990
-------
Envin first
dealt \
too vis
obvio: isxt
step
befon
envir:
the fabric of our society, becoming an
integral part of our way of life.
How can pollution prevention
contribute to sustainable development?
An obvious example, and one that is
close to home for all of us, is municipal
solid waste—garbage.
As the magazine The
Economist recently suggested,
good growth will be "green"
growth.
By now, most Americans are well
aware of the growing burden the garbage
glut is placing on the nation's landfills
and other disposal facilities. But along
with the disposal problem, we must also
pay attention to the supply side of the
equation—the insupportable drain on
natural resources represented by the
millions of tons of trash that we throw
away every day. Much of that waste
could be saved through pollution
prevention and recycling—preserving
resources at the front end and returning
expended resources to productive use at
the back end.
EPA has set a goal of achieving a
25-percent reduction in the nation's
waste by 1992. This is a realistic
national goal if everyone;
contributes—government, business, and,
especially, consumers.
Thus, in designing products, business
executives need to design for waste
reduction: to think not just about how a
product will be used, but also about
how long it can last and what will
happen to it when its useful life is over.
Manufacturers and distributors need
to eliminate unnecessary packaging.
And we all need to rethink the
wisdom of disposable, "use-once-and-
throw-away" products, however
convenient they may seem.
On the household level, we need to
start composting our kitchen garbage
and yard waste, if possible. At the very
least, each of us should begin to
separate our garbage according to local
recycling programs. The transition to
recycled materials is an important part
of limiting encroachment on natural
capital. It's no coincidence that
countries that have already made
considerable progress in recycling
aluminum, steel, paper, and glass are at
the top of the list of international
economic performers.
At EPA, we're doing our part by
looking for ways to encourage markets
for recycled and recyclable materials.
For example, we've issued federal
procurement guidelines that require the
federal government, as well as state and
local governments using federal funds.
to purchase recycled paper and building
materials, used oil, and retreaded tires.
We're also trying to set an example for
others by instituting our own
Agency-wide waste-minimization and
paper-recycling program.
But more is needed. The nation may
need new legislation to foster markets
and incentives for recycled materials.
We also may need new disincentives to
unnecessary waste generation, such as
excessive packaging of consumer
products. Several bills that would
address pollution prevention and waste
minimization are now pending in
Congress; and the Bush Administration
is drafting its own "Pollution Prevention
and Recycling Act," which will offer a
comprehensive approach to prevention.
In placing such strong emphasis on
pollution prevention. 1 am not calling
for a retreat from environmental
regulation or from vigorous
enforcement. Pollution prevention
complements and reinforces the
continuing efforts to ensure proper
waste treatment, disposal, and cleanup.
What I am saying is that until now,
our nation's laws and regulations have
concentrated almost exclusively on
waste treatment and waste cleanup. As
vital as these efforts are, they can
achieve only a limited amount of
environmental protection. In fact, the
biggest environmental gains we have
made have been in the handful of cases
when industry has phased out or found
substitutes for problem substances. The
banning of DDT in the early 1970s is
probably the best-known example.
Another is the drastic reduction of lead
in gasoline; since EPA began its efforts
to remove lead from gasoline, lead
levels in the ambient environment, as
well as in people's blood, have dropped
dramatically.
Borrowing from the late Rene Dubos,
EPA's slogan for Earth Day 1990 is.
"Think globally; act locally. You can
make a difference." The Agency is
thinking globally and acting locally by
applying the concept of pollution
prevention to its existing programs in a
number of very down-to-earth ways. For
example, the water program is
emphasizing pollution prevention and
conservation as it develops guidelines
for controlling industrial wastewater
pollution. EPA is also identifying and
incorporating pollution prevention
techniques in its permitting activities.
We have put together a state grant
program to support state and local
pollution-prevention programs. We're
changing our enforcement policies to
encourage defendants to make
fundamental alterations in products and
processes, in addition to coming into
compliance with end-of-pipe standards.
EPA is also establishing a Pollution
Prevention and Recycling Awards
program to honor the best national
EPA JOURNAL
-------
James Douglas photo Woodfin Camp, Inc
prevention and recycling efforts. And
the Agency has set up a Pollution
Prevention Information Clearinghouse to
help ensure that successful prevention
practices are shared as widely as
possible.
Finally, we're dramatically increasing
our support for environmental
education. Some of the most intractable
pollution problems confronting us are
from decentralized sources—pollution
that does not come out of a smokestack
or a pipe, but results from the activities
of millions of Americans going about
their daily lives. Car tailpipe emissions,
the use and release of CFCs, agricultural
and urban run-off, indoor air pollution,
the use and disposal of consumer
products containing toxic
substances—all are examples of big
pollution problems generated by
millions of small sources.
In a speech last fall in Spokane.
Washington, President Bush said that
The biggest environmental
gains we have made have
been when industry has
phased out or found
substitutes for problem
substances.
"through millions of individual
decisions—simple, everyday, personal
choices—we are determining the fate of
the Earth." We are all responsible for
the environment, the President said, and
"it's surprisingly easy to move from
being part of the problem to being part
of the solution."
Over time, the best way to help
people become part of the solution is
through education and information that
increases their understanding of the
environment and helps encourage a
national ethic of individual
responsibility. 1 recently created an
Agency-wide Environmental Education
Task Force to work closely with the
states to develop an environmental
education program. The task force is
charged with developing a strategic
plan, sponsoring an Environmental
Youth Forum, and participating in the
development of national environmental
education legislation. Environmental
education, when combined with
legislatively created market incentives.
could have a powerful influence on
millions of individual choices and
prevent a great deal of pollution.
EPA is also sponsoring the first
National Minority Environmental Career
Conference on April 9. 1990. at Howard
University in Washington. DC. The
conference is the lead activity in EPA's
Earth Day celebration and will offer
expanded opportunities to minorities for
education and employment in
environmental fields.
Through education, consumer
demand, and improved technological
innovation, 1 am convinced that we can
find ways to manufacture products and
provide services while using less energy
and raw materials, and while reducing,
if not eliminating completely, the
generation of waste. This will bring us
closer to attaining a sustainable
economy for future generations to enjoy.
My wish for Earth Day 1990,
therefore, is that this celebration will
help to bring about a national
commitment to pollution
prevention—through the actions of
millions of individuals finding ways to
prevent, recycle, or reduce waste.
The national goal for the 1990s and
beyond should be to push technology to
its limits, with the ultimate objective of
creating an efficient, sustainable
society—a society that will preserve the
environmental legacy ami productivity
of our nation and our pi,met for
generations to come. -
JANUARY FEBRUARY 1990
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The Spirit of
the First Earth Day
by Jack Lewis
April 22, 1970, a Wednesday,
was a glorious spring day in
most parts of the country.
In the waning months of the 1960s,
I environmental problems were
proliferating like a many-headed hydra,
a monster no one could understand let
alone tame or slay. Rampant air
pollution was linked to disease and
death in New York, Los Angeles, and
elsewhere as noxious fumes, spewed out
by cars and factories, made city life less
and less bearable. In the wake of Rachel
Carson's 1962 best-seller, Silent Spring,
there was widespread concern over
large-scale use of pesticides, often near
densely populated communities. In
addition, huge fish kills were reported
on the Great Lakes, and the media
carried the news that Lake Erie, one of
America's largest bodies of fresh water,
was in its death throes. Ohio had
another jolt when Cleveland's Cuyahoga
River, an artery inundated with oil and
toxic chemicals, burst into flames
by spontaneous combustion.
In a response commensurate with the
problem, an estimated 20 million
Americans gathered together on April
22, 1970, to participate in a
spectacularly well-publicized
environmental demonstration known as
"Earth Day." The rallies, teach-ins,
speeches, and publicity gambits almost
all went smoothly, amid a heady and
triumphant atmosphere that was further
enhanced by perfect spring weather. But
the months leading up to Earth Day had
been frantic, and the success of the
event had been unpredictable up to the
very last moment.
Such uncertainty is endemic when
volunteer effort is the driving force
behind any activity, let alone one as
ambitious as Earth Day 1970. Some of
the grassroots activists who coordinated
the work of thousands of Earth Day
volunteers had come to the
environmental cause rather late, after
(Lewis is an Assistant Editor of EPA
journal.]
cutting their teeth on other political
issues of the 1960s, such as civil rights
and the anti-war movement. Others,
however, had been intensely involved
in environmental causes for many years.
Whatever their background, these
activists were the driving force not only
behind Earth Day, but also behind many
smaller and less publicized
environmental reforms during the
closing months of the 1960s.
The term "Breathers' Lobby" was
coined by the Wall Street Journal in the
late 1960s to denote one of the most
prominent components of the grassroots
movement: the congeries of anti-air
pollution groups that had sprung up
over the previous decade in urban areas
across the country. GASP in Los
Angeles and Pittsburgh, the
Metropolitan Washington Coalition on
Clean Air, the Delaware Clean Air
Coalition, and other similar groups
started with sweat equity, then qualified
for grants and technical assistance from
the federal government. Groups focusing
on water-quality issues were also
making dramatic inroads: most notably,
the Lake Michigan Federation, and Get
Oil Out in Santa Barbara, California.
The anti-pollution stance of these
groups, after changing the climate of
political opinion at the state and local
level, quickly permeated editorials and
editorial cartoons featured in the
nation's leading newspapers. Even
Broadway picked up the environmental
theme when the smash-hit musical Hair
lampooned air pollution with a
hilarious song called "The Air," which
ended in a choking chorus of coughs.
Readers were sampling a range of
provocative books on the environment:
The Whole Earth Catalogue, John Sax's
The Environmental Bill of Rights, Paul
Ehrlich's The Population Bomb, and
Charles Reich's The Greening of
America. Students tuned into the
counterculture were picking up
environmental messages from rock
lyrics.
EPA JOURNAL
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Students at Cerritos Junior College in
Norwalk, California, near Los Angeles, gave
Earth Day a sendoff in 1970.
Julian Wasser;! 1Mb Magazine
Media coverage of the massive youth
rallies of 1969—as well as the ghetto
riots of 1965 to 1968—helped to impress
on the American public that the United
States had become an urban country
with complex problems compounded by
huge numbers of people. Early in the
1960s, most rhetoric about the state of
America's air, water, and other
resources had revolved around the word
"conservation," with heavy emphasis on
To countless participants,
Earth Day was a turning point
in their lives which they
remember to this day with
awe and reverence.
the preservation of parks and
recreational areas. The word
"environment" came into widespread
use only at the end of the decade. By
then, committed activists understood
that urban environments would be the
battlefield for years to come, but they
wanted the American public: and
American political leaders to
understand that as well.
One prominent politician, Gaylord
Nelson, then Senator from Wisconsin,
had been frustrated throughout the
1960s by the fact that only a "handful"
of his Congressional colleagues had any
interest in environmental issues. On the
other hand, during his travels across the
United States, he had been greatly
impressed by the dedication and the
expertise of the many student and
citizen volunteers who were trying to
solve pollution problems in their
communities.
It was on one such trip, in August
1969, that Nelson came up with a
strategy for bridging the gap separating
grassroots activists from Congress and
the general public. While en route to an
environmental speech in Berkeley,
California, the Senator was leafing
JANUARY "FEBRUARY 1990
-------
through a copy of Ramparts magazine
when an article about anti-war teach-ins
caught his eye. It occurred to him that
the teach-in concept might work equally
well in raising public awareness of
environmental issues.
In September, in a ground-breaking
speech in Seattle, .Senator Nelson
announced the concept of the teach-in
and received coverage in Time and
Newsweek and on the front page of the
New York Times. Several weeks later, at
his office on Capitol Hill, he
incorporated a non-profit, non-partisan
organization called Environmental
Teach-in, Inc. He announced that it was
to be headed by a steering committee
consisting of himself, Pete McCloskey, a
Congressman from California, and
Sidney Howe, then the President of The
Conservation Foundation.
The main purpose of the new
organization, he declared, was to lay the
groundwork for a major nationwide
series of teach-ins on the environment
early in 1970. The purpose of the
teach-ins was, in Nelson's words, to
"force the issue [of the environment)
into the political dialogue of the
country." Very quickly, Environmental
Teach-in received pledges from the
Senator himself ($15,000), from the
United Auto Workers and the AFL-CIO
($2,000 each), as well as from The
Conservation Foundation ($25,000) and
other organizations.
Early in December, Senator Nelson
selected a 25-year-old named Denis
Hayes, the dynamic former President of
the Stanford student body, as national
coordinator. Hayes, postponing plans to
enter Harvard Law School, immediately
set to work making plans for the
inaugural Earth Day.
Hampered from the start by an
extremely limited budget
(approximately $190,000), he rented an
office in Washington and gathered
around him an enthusiastic cadre of
volunteers, most of them students. The
most promising and the most dedicated
of these were named coordinators for
various regions of the country. Working
in an atmosphere Midwest Coordinator
Barbara Reid Alexander recalls as "mass
confusion," they were inundated each
day by torrents of phone calls and
overflowing mailbags.
Senator Nelson's Senate staff lent its
full support and guidance to the work of
Hayes and his assistants, only a few of
whom were salaried and those only at
meager levels. Nelson and Hayes had
already agreed that the teach-ins should,
wherever possible, be located not on
college campuses, but in public spaces
within the community, and furthermore,
that active participation should be
sought from labor unions, the League of
Women Voters, and other organizations.
The latter goal was realized, but not the
former, at least not to the extent
originally intended.
One masterstroke was the purchase of
a full-page ad that appeared in the New
York Times early in February 1970. The
advertisement announced that on April
22, 1970, at locations throughout the
United States, citizens would
demonstrate for a cleaner environment.
Immediately contributions started to roll
in, and better yet, the curiosity of
The Legacy of Earth Day
by Gaylord Nelson
We can get a rough measure of the
impact of Earth Day 1970 on
the nation by asking some key
questions:
• What changes on the political
scene did it bring?
• What has been achieved?
• How did it affect public
attitudes on environmental issues?
• Can we see some sprouting
seeds that might flower into a
national conservation ethic?
These questions can be
answered fairly briefly.
My major objective in planning
Earth Day 1970 was to organize a
nationwide public demonstration
so large it would, finally, get the
attention of the politicians and
force the environmental issue into
the political dialogue of the nation.
It worked. By the sheer force of
collective action on that one day,
the American public forever
changed the political landscape
regarding environmental issues.
(Nelson, founder of Earth Day
1970, is Counselor to The
Wilderness Society.)
By the sheer force of collective
action on that one day, the
American public forever
changed the political
landscape regarding
environmental issues.
The politicians got the message.
They responded with a series of
major legislative initiatives that
have begun to move us in the right
direction. There are even glimmers
of hope that we, as a society, may
be starting to develop a
conservation ethic and that the
next generation may turn out to be
the conservation generation so
vital to our future.
Another important change has
occurred in the past decade or
so—a change that now makes it
likely that Congress, regulatory
agencies, industry,
environmentalists, and the public
can cooperate to make
environmental controls more
effective and less costly. For years
every major legislative initiative to
control pollution was opposed by
the affected industries on the
grounds that the proposals were
unnecessary, too expensive, or
10
EPA JOURNAL
-------
unworkable. The result was
constant confrontation. Endless
amounts of time and energy were
wasted on political maneuvering,
delay, and debates over whether it
was necessary to do anything.
Witness the 10 years of debate
over acid rain.
That kind of deadlock has
passed. The business community
now generally acknowledges that
there are serious environmental
problems that need to be
addressed. A recent statement by
Chrysler Corporation President
Robert A. Lut/, reflects the change:
"The party's over. We are making a
mess out of our environment, and
the sooner we clean it up, the
better."
Most confrontations in the future
will not be over the need to do
something but rather over how
much needs to be? done, how fast,
and how to use market forces to
help achieve the goal. Many
environmentalists will have to
re-examine their attitude toward
the use of market forces. It is a tool
too valuable to overlook.
There remains, still, an
important question. When; does all
of this leave us?
! think the answer to that
question is that we, as a society,
finally understand that human
activities—many of them careless,
irresponsible, or unnecessary—have
created a global environmental crisis
that urgently demands our attention.
This is a giant leap forward.
We have come to recognize that
right now. and into the next
century and the centuries
thereafter, no other issue is more
relevant to the condition of human
life than the status of our
resources: air, water, minerals,
soil, scenic beauty, wildlife
habitat, forests, rivers, lakes,
oceans.
If we agree that this an issue of
fundamental consequence to us all.
we must very soon respond to
some important, pragmatic
questions:
• How rapidly can we make the
necessary conversion from a
throw-away society to a
preserve-and-recycle society?
• How do we launch a global
movement that will begin to work
changes in the way we treat the
planet Earth and its resources?
Global cooperation is the key.
The most important objective of
this 20th anniversary celebration
of Earth Day is a worldwide
demonstration of concern so
overwhelming that it galvani/es
the political leadership of the
world into a monumental
cooperative effort to stop the
deterioration of the planet and
begin its restoration.
The time has come to stop the
arms race and begin the race to
preserve the planet. Q
Magnolia blossoms encountered through a
gas mask. On Earth Day 1970, this Pace
College student in New York City used this
symbolic gesture to warn of pollution
dangers.
network broadcasting giants was piqued.
April 22, 1970, a Wednesday, was a
glorious spring day in most parts of the
country. Newspapers such as the New
York Times and the Washington Post
had given front-page coverage the day
before to the roster of scheduled events,
and the television networks also had
provided enough coverage to give the
impending day something of the aura of
a national holiday.
Perhaps the most impressive
observance was in New York City,
whose mayor, John V. Lindsay, had
thrown the full weight of his influence
behind Earth Day. For two hours, Fifth
Avenue was closed to traffic between
14th Street and 59th Street, bringing
midtown Manhattan to a virtual
standstill. One innovative group of
demonstrators grabbed attention by
dragging a net filled with dead fish
down the thoroughfare, shouting to
passersby, "This could be you!" Later in
the day, a rally filled Union Square to
overflowing as Mayor Lindsay, assisted
by celebrities Paul Newman and AM
McGraw, spoke from a raised platform
looking out over a sea of smiling faces.
In New York, as elsewhere, self-policing
demonstrators left surprisingly little
litter in their wake.
In Washington, the focus of events
was the Washington Monument and its
adjacent Sylvan Theatre, where
thousands of Earth Day demonstrators
congregated to hear speeches as well as
songs by Pete Seeger and other
performers. One of the most noteworthy
statements, by Denis Hayes, made it
clear that Earth Day was a beginning,
not an end in itself: "If the environment
is a fad, it's going to be our last fad ....
Wear*; building a movement, a
movement with a broad base, a
movement which transcends traditional
political boundaries. It is a movement
that values people more than
technology, people more than political
boundaries, people more than profit."
There was no point in marching to
Capitol Hill, for Congress—at the behest
of Gaylord Nelson and others—had
recessed so that members could return
JANUARY FEBRUARY 1990
1 1
-------
Paul M Schmick photo Copyright Washington Post, reprinted by permission ol the DC Public Library
to their constituencies and address
Earth Day rallies. Interestingly, many of
these; politicians had to borrow prepared
texts from Nelson and Environmental
Teach-in, Inc. Philadelphia, Chicago,
Los Angeles, and most other major
American cities were also scenes of
Karth Day rallies; in fact. 80 percent of
all observances were urban affairs.
To countless participants, Karth Day
was a turning point in their lives which
they remember to this day with awe and
reverence. "It was something magical
and catalytical," remarked Denis Hayes.
"touching a huge cross-section of
Americans." Byron Kennard, then a
grassroots coordinator with The
Conservation Foundation, was also
impressed by "one of the largest
peaceful demonstrations in human
history, [an event] sacred in my
memory." "A charmed evenl." "a joyous
occasion." "a public-relations
masterpiece," "foundation of a national
environmental consciousness" were
words of praise conjured by other
participants.
Earth Day was also the foundation of
many environmental careers. Denis
Hayes and Ed Furia, who are heading
the 20th anniversary celebration of
Earth Day, are typical of many
individuals who built environmental
careers on the momentum generated
that day. One former participant. Tom
Jorling, is today the Commissioner of
New York's Department of
Environmental Conservation: another,
John Turner, is Director of the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service. The list goes on.
Public opinion polls indicate that a
permanent change in national priorities
followed Earth Day 1970. When polled
in May 1971, 25 percent of the U.S.
public: declared protecting the
environment to be an important goal—a
2500 percent increase over 1969. That
percentage has continued to grow, albeit
more slowly, so it is fair to say that the
ideals espoused on April 22, 1970,
however naive and simplistic: they were
in many ways, have left an enduring
legacy. They are, in the words of Barry
Commoner, "permanently imbedded in
our culture." Sam Love, who was
Southern Coordinator for Environmental
Teach-in, fully agrees: "What has
surprised me, is the staying power of
1970 Earth Day participants were so
alarmed about the environment that some
thought the world couldn't survive another
20 years. But we did. What happens in the
next 20 years?
the environmental movement. A lot
people were saying this was a flash in
the pan. History has proven them
wrong."
With the founding of EPA in
December 1970, the history of the
environmental movement entered a new
phase. The Agency was fused together
from 44 organizations scattered in nine
departments, and it gave a much
stronger profile to the federal effort to
curb environmental decay across the
nation. Also during the 1970s, in
keeping with the stepped-up pace of
environmental reform, conservation
organizations began to take more active
stances on urban environmental issues.
These private lobbying groups soon
found that they needed lawyers,
scientists, and economists to make their
voices heard. The whole tenor of
environmental activism increasingly
took on an aura of "professionalism"
that was a far cry from the bold and
sometimes simplistic generalities
debated on Earth Day 1970.
Yet today—despite the rise of
specialists and experts—grassroots
emotions still boil over in the face; of
clearcut local issues, such as defective
landfills or ha/.ardous medical waste,
which can quickly galvanize a
community of homeowners.
The signs are promising that Earth
Day 1990 will suffer from no dearth of
volunteers or money. Its budget of
$3 million is 15 times greater than the
budget of the 1970 event, and its scope
will be worldwide, rather than strictly
confined to the United States and
Canada. In fact, there is every reason to
expect that Karth Day 1990 will be an
appropriate legacy of that April day 20
years ago when, even if only for 24
hours, people really did seem to matter
more than profit and more than
technology, o
12
EPA JOURNAL
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Earth Day 1990 Viewpoints
What are some of the most
important issues Earth Day 1990
should emphasize? EPA Journal
asked seven people ivho were
leaders in the 1970 Earth Day
observances to respond to this
question; each was a/so asked
what he or she is doing 20 years
after the first Earth Day. Here are
their answers:
Ruth Clusen: Former national
environmental chair for the League of
Women Voters, she sees Earth Day 1990
as a time for reflection on how far we've
come and how far we've got to go.
Although her primary interest today is
serving on the Board of Regents of the
University of Wisconsin, she is still
active with the Lake Michigan-oriented
Clean Water Coalition and local Green
Bay area environmental groups. Ruth
Clusen says, "Solid waste is the major
public concern at this time," but even
more than that, Earth Day 1990 "is a
time to look at how far we have come
and whether we have met the promise
of the first Earth Day. We need to look
backward and forward at the same
time."
Barbara Reid Alexander: Lifestyle
changes and environmental education
are the most important issues facing us
on Earth Day 1990, says Barbara Reid
Alexander, who 20 years ago was
Midwest coordinator at national Earth
Day headquarters. Now associated with
the Maine Public Utilities Commission,
she urges 1990 Earth Day observers to
focus on "educating a new generation to
be environmentally concerned and
active. Having taken the first steps over
the past two decades, we must move on
to the next level of hard
issues—creating a new lifestyle that
frees us from dependence on toxic
materials, plastics, and the like, and
promoting conservation. Earth Day
should help each individual learn what
he or she can do to make a difference."
WT
Sam Love: The onetime southern
regional coordinator of Environmental
Teach-in, Inc., Love is now a
Washington film-maker with the Public
Production Group, which produces
films, public service announcements,
and television releases for
environmental groups. Like Alexander,
Love stresses lifestyle changes: "The
most important issue for 1990 is
encouraging lifestyle changes, including
conservationism. We have to move
beyond the 1970s' general concern about
the Earth to more specific targets, and
we need to be more informed to do
that."
Lee Botts: Pollution prevention is the
key issue today, says Lee Botts, a 1970
founder of the Lake Michigan
Federation (and still a Board member)
and currently a consultant to the
Chicago Department of Streets and
Sanitation, where she is grappling with
the problem of how Chicago can recycle
plastic wastes. "In 1990, we need to
concentrate on pollution prevention,"
she says. "We need to take advantage of
a major change in the attitude of
industry. In 1970, industry was the
enemy; now many industries are
working with environmentalists, as in
our Chicago project. In 1990, we need to
concentrate on pollution prevention. We
are still hung up on the contamination
that's already there. Instead, we need to
focus on giving up sources of pollution.
and on prevention. We need a new law
like the National Environmental Policy
Act to provide a pollution-prevention
incentive."
Jack Sheehan: World-wide
environmental issues should be the
focus of Earth Day 1990, believes this
labor-union environmentalist. Twenty
years ago, he was involved in
environmental programs for the United
Steel Workers of America, on the Board
of the American Lung Association, and
Chairman of the Clean Air Coalition.
Now legislative director for the Steel
Workers, he is still active in both groups
and is leading the union's efforts in
relation to pending Clean Air Act
legislation. "Earth Day 1970 was
directed at our piece of the earth—the
United States," Sheehan says. "We
didn't even know what we meant by our
own problems: we weren't ready to look
beyond them. In the intervening years,
we have seen that we have to deal with
environmental problems on an
international level. In 1990, we need to
use the word 'Earth' in a broader sense."
Michelle Madoff: She sees dealing with
solid waste and protecting the water
supply as key issues for 1990. In 1970,
she was President of Pittsburgh's Group
Against Smog and Pollution (GASP).
Today, as a Pittsburgh City Council
member, her main concern "is and will
be solid waste and recycling it. With
landfills filling up and waste from
outside of Pennsylvania coming into the
state, the city government is faced with
being mandated to have a plan for the
city by next September. By Earth Day,
we have to be well along the way to a
solution, so that's our Earth Day
priority. The second most important
issue—here and throughout the
nation—is protecting our water supply
against pollution."
Jack Winder: Individual action in
environmental matters should be Karth
Day 1990's focus, says attorney Jack
Winder, 20 years ago executive director
of the Metropolitan Washington
Coalition for Clean Air and today an
enforcement attorney for the EPA. "The
1990 focus should be on individual
participation ... on the simple concept
that everyone can make a difference,
whether it be by recycling household
waste or by filing a lawsuit against a
polluter. The second major priority is
water pollution and related issues,
particularly protection of the water
supply."
JANUARY FEBRUARY 1990
13
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Looking Back; Looking Ahead
Retrospectively dubbed the year of the
environment, 1970 saw not only the
first Earth Day, but also a number of
other environmental landmarks: the
birth of EPA, the enactment of the
National Environmental Policy Act, the
creation of the President's Council on
Environmental Quality, and the passage
of a new Clean Air Act establishing
national air quality standards for the
first time.
hi the following five articles, these
landmark events are respectively
considered from the vantage point of
their 20-year anniversaries; the authors
all played prominent roles in the year
of the environment and continue to be
actively involved in environmental
issues.
EPA
by William D. Ruckeishaus
As we observe the 20th anniversary of
Earth Day, it may be constructive to
look back to the origins of EPA 20 years
ago in order to gain perspective on the
nature of the environmental issue today
and to explore what the future may hold
for EPA and the country.
Born in the wake of the first Earth
Day, EPA opened its doors in
downtown Washington, DC, on
December 2, 1970. For the first time,
concern about environmental pollution
was elevated to a national issue. The
causes of this sudden escalation of the
environment to the national scene were
many and varied.
For one thing, color television
saturated American living rooms, and
the visible effect of a yellow outfall
flowing into a blue river, or brown smog
against a bright blue sky was far more
impressive than those same images in
black and white. On our newly colored
TV screens, we saw spaceships heading
for the moon, and the subsequent
photographs of our planet—looking so
small and vulnerable in the
firmament—gave us a sense of our
limits and a concern about exceeding
them.
It was no accident that our heightened
environmental concerns coincided with
an unpopular war in Southeast Asia.
The impact of the Vietnam War on
America was dramatic and tore at our
spirit and our sense of ourselves. Many
became persuaded that a country that
seemed to care so little for life in a
far-off land might also ignore the
environmental underpinning of life here
at home. Modern environmentalism in
America has always had a certain
spiritual quality about it. ! believe tin;
coincidence of its rise with the Vietnam
War both defined and contributed to
that quality.
Certainly in the 1960s. America had
environmental problems. Cross
pollution problems abounded. Raw
sewage and industrial discharges
spoiling our rivers were more the rule
than the exception. Air pollution from
(Ruckeishaus, KPA's first Administrator,
is currently Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer of Hroivning-Ferris
industries, Inc.)
mobile and stationary sources was far
more intense on a per-capita basis than
today. The toxic waste issues that have
dominated the headlines in the last
decade were there in the 60s, but we
were focused on the problems we could
smell, touch, and feel: the problems that
television loved and our senses attested
to on the way to work every morning.
In the late 60s, the public reacted to
these problems by organizing and
putting pressure on the political system.
and as always, the politicians
responded. What ensued was the
creation of the Council on
Environmental Quality and EPA at tin:
national level. Similar agencies were
created in states all over America. A
cascade of environmental laws and
regulations followed.
The turmoil of the early 80s
left some deep and abiding
scars on the Agency.
Like few other public issues in our
history, the environment has drawn a
high level of public awareness and
commitment from the day EPA began to
the present. Public: opinion polls over
the years have shown the consistency of
the public's concern for a safe and clean
environment. Events in the hitter half of
the 1980s have served to raise that
concern to even higher levels. And
today, once again, we are experiencing a
strong, predictable political response.
The resurgence of public concern for
the environment resulted from the
emergence ot new environmental issues
during the 1988 presidential election.
Publicity about global warming in the
summer of 1988, coupled with intense
heat and drought, followed by the
television-recorded images of medical
waste closing beaches from coast to
coast was more than the public or the
politicians could bear. For the first time
in the history of this country, the
environment became a key issue in a
presidential campaign. In 1988, the
environmental records of the two major
candidates were debated throughout the
country—from a heaving ship in Boston
14
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Harbor to an abandoned Superfund site
in New Jersey. Both candidates made
major speeches about the environment
and featured one another's
environmental past in their television
ads.
Nor is the environment strictly an
American phenomenon. Green politics
have emerged from minority status and
become a political movement to be
reckoned with in countries throughout
Europe. (See article on p. 46.) Such
events as the massive destruction that
resulted from a chemical spill on the
Rhine River and the nuclear disaster at
Chernobyl only served to bolster the
emergence of the Greens. Even in the
Soviet Union and the rest of newly
enfranchised Eastern Europe, the public
has demanded more environmental
protection, and the leaders are
beginning to respond.
EPA sits in the middle of this new
awareness and increased demand for
action. Like it or not, EPA is the
repository for this nation's hope,
concerns, and frustrations about the
environment. How can and should EPA
respond to the new forces that buffet it
on all sides reflecting the ever-changing
concerns of the public, the Congress, or
the special interest groups? What are its
responsibilities in the decade to come?
What are the responsibilities of the
other institutions in our society that
affect environmental policy? The
answers will determine how effectively
our country and the rest of the world
respond to the increased demand for
action on the new environmental
agenda.
Without question, today's EPA is far
different than it was in 1970. It is more
mature. It is more focused on public
health than it was 20 years ago. EPA is
more seasoned, more bureaucratic, but
in my view, no less committed than it
was in the heady days of the early 70s.
Despite that commitment, I have
concerns about the future of EPA. The
turmoil of the early 80s left some deep
and abiding scars on the Agency. It
affected EPA's ability to interact
effectively with Congress in defining its
mission and goals. The scandals broke
the fragile ties of trust that must exist
between an entity like EPA and the
public if the Agency's judgments are to
be trusted and the Agency itself is to
remain self-confident. Both public trust
and a self-confident EPA are necessary
ingredients for true environmental
progress.
In addition, the turmoil—and the high
degree of politicization attendant to
it—has resulted in a stridency and
bitterness in the environmental debate
that was unheard of in the 70s. Too
often the focal point of public and
political rancor is EPA. Congress,
environmental groups, and industry,
pursuing their own agendas, have
engaged in "EPA bashing" on a wide
scale. That has contributed to the
further erosion of trust in the Agency,
and in recent times has led to highly
dedicated civil servants leaving
government service.
As the Agency became an inviting
and vulnerable public target, it attracted
the inevitable legislative response. The
history of environmental legislation in
the 80s is characterized by a singular
lack of trust in EPA by Congress. That is
manifested in increasingly prescriptive
legislation that strips away
administrative discretion from EPA
managers and often sets impossible
goals for the Agency. These goals may
gain political mileage, but their extreme
nature ensures practical failure. The
result has been missed deadlines,
unfulfilled promises of purity, failure to
achieve goals, another round of EPA
bashing, followed by even more
stringent goals; and the spiral of
mistrust continues.
What is so remarkable about all this is
that EPA, when given well-defined,
realistic goals and adequate resources,
performs as well as, if not better than,
other institutions of government. If you
look back over the 20 years of EPA's
existence, the progress made in cleaning
up the gross pollution problems of the
past and addressing the more difficult
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990
15
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issues of toxic pollution of today is
quite impressive. Of course, there have
been missteps; certainly not every
reasonable goal has been achieved, but
overall the record on the environment
in America is as good as. and probably
better, than anywhere in the world.
Just imagine the condition of our
harbors and rivers had we not embarked
on the sewage treatment program of the
70s and the vigorous enforcement of the
Clean Water Act in the 80s. Imagine the
skies over our major cities had we not
aggressively implemented the Clean Air
Act, controlling both smokestack
emissions and severely restricting
automobile pollution. One of the major
health threats to our society—airborne
lead—has now been virtually
Like it or not, EPA is the
repository for this nation's
hope, concerns, and
frustrations about the
environment.
eliminated. We should take pride in the
fact that we have been able to achieve
these gains. These precedents should
give us confidence that the new issues
that confront us—toxics and acid rain,
and the planetary problems of ozone
depletion and global warming—can be
effectively addressed by our
government, given proper direction and
incentives.
Any doubt concerning America's
progress on the environmental front
may quickly be erased with the
purchase of a few plane tickets. My
travels as a member of the United
Nation's World Commission on
Environment and Development during
the 80s took me to any number of Third
World countries where the
environmental problems make ours pale
into insignificance. In Latin America,
Africa, and Asia, the pollution problems
are so fundamental, so massive, and so
pervasive in every aspect of human life
as almost to defy description. While that
should not deter us from addressing our
continuing environmental problems in
this country, it should show us how
much we have achieved and provide us
with the confidence to allocate more
wisely our resources for environmental
improvement in the future.
To achieve that wise allocation, and
consider what to do next, we need to
lower the decibel level of environmental
rhetoric in this country. The bitterness
and anger that have characterized the
debate in recent years represent
something new, something we didn't
have in the late 60s and early 70s, and it
ought to end. There must be room in the
America of the 90s to debate these
issues and disagree about solutions to
problems without the participants being
dismissed as "tree-huggers" or "industry
stooges."
We need to address the increasing
inability of our political processes to
make final decisions about needed
facilities for the disposal of waste in our
society. Regardless of the merits of
public participation in environmental
decisions, the "not-in-my-backyard"
(NIMBY) syndrome is here to stay. We
need to institute processes that come to
an end, that provide closure, that ensure
the finality of decision-making without
sacrificing the quality of decisions. To
maintain the status quo is to ensure
gridlock.
EPA must re-enter the fray: EPA must
re-assert itself and help define the
environmental agenda for the future and
set realistic goals. This alone could lead
to a far more efficient allocation of what
necessarily will be inadequate
resources, and ultimately a
re-establishment of trust in EPA by the
public.
The process of setting these goals
needs to be based on a solid scientific
understanding of the problems we face,
a thorough and objective review of the
solutions that are available, and a
realistic assessment of the costs of each
of those solutions. A very open
goal-setting process will lead to a
greater public understanding and
acceptance of the goals that are set and
the solutions chosen.
Right now the Agency, according to
its own analysis, is spending an
enormous amount of its precious
resources to control environmental
hazards that pose relatively small risks
to our society. At the same time, many
known environmental hazards are
barely being addressed because of the
low priority for them dictated by
Congress. Some would say the answer is
to give EPA more money. The Agency
may need increased resources, but the
fact is there will always be problems
waiting when those of higher priority
are brought under social control.
As with all problems facing our
society, today's reality in Washington is
one of limited resources, and choices
must be made by EPA, like everyone
else. Congress, working with the EPA
comparative risk analysis already
available, must thoroughly re-examine
the existing allocation of resources in
terms of real health and environmental
priorities. Surely the current disconnect
between Congressionally allocated
resources and priorities to be addressed
can be remedied. It is in the best
interest of EPA, the environment, and
the country to do so.
As environmental demands increase
in breadth and depth, allocating
resources will become an increasingly
larger challenge for all our elected
leaders. Let me give you an example. A
major chemical company, as a result of
its SARA Title III chemical emissions
report, has decided to reduce those
emissions by more than 90 percent by
1992. That decision will cost the
company almost $200 million. The
company has estimated that if all
industrial concerns in this country
undertook the same control program,
the total cost would approach $20
billion.
Recently, when I asked the senior
scientists and engineers of the firm
whether they honestly believed that a
significant public health improvement
would result from that action, they
answered no. Their action stemmed
from a combination of public
spiritedness, enlightened self-interest,
and a desire to be out of the line of fire.
The point was not whether reducing
those emissions of chemicals is a good
or bad thing. In a world of limitless
resources, it is probably something
worth doing. But in a society faced with
real and hard choices about resource
allocations, is this the best way to spend
$200 million or $20 billion to serve
public health? I doubt it.
These kinds of choices are being
made by institutions and individuals in
our society every day. The choices often
involve the commitment of resources
against one devil at the expense of a
more formidable one. The dynamics of
the choices made are driven by a
combination of public opinion,
Congressional legislative reaction, and
EPA implementation—the process that
generates public policy. EPA cannot
escape responsibility for the human
health or environmental implications of
the policies or the choices made as a
result of that process. The failure to
help society understand where its best
interests lie is no less because "Congress
made me do it."
This is where EPA's role as educator
is important. More knowledge about
public health or environmental risks
exists within EPA than anywhere else.
That knowledge must be shared. It
16
EPA JOURNAL
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should be shouted from every podium
or forum available in the hopes that
wiser policy will result.
People need to know what their
Agency is doing and why. and what the
intended or expected result will be.
That shared knowledge builds trust and
leads to real environmental
improvement. One of the most useful
Agency initiatives in recent years took
place in Tacoma, Washington, in the
mid-1980s. EPA undertook a massive
educational effort to make sure that the
community understood the risks
associated with the continued operation
of a local copper smelter, how those
The question for us really isn 't
whether humanity will survive
our environmental assaults. I
think we will. The question is
whether free institutions will
survive.
risks would be reduced by various
control options, and what the true
impact of those various options would
be on the continued operation of the
smelter—and thus on the community
itself. That exercise proved, very
dramatically, that when fully armed
with all the facts of a situation, the
public can and will make rational,
intelligent decisions about the
environment and the future course of
human lives.
At the end of the educational
process, people from all sides of the
debate—environmentalists, smelter
workers, community leaders—were all
sporting buttons that read "BOTH." The
buttons meant that the environmental
risks inherent in the operation of the
smelter could be controlled to
acceptable levels, and the community
would still have the economic benefit of
that smelter. In other words, they could
have "BOTH."
We must constantly strive to make
our process of dealing with
environmental risks more realistic.
efficient, and effective. If for no other
reason, let's do it to celebrate the 20th
anniversary of Earth Day. Our nation
and the world are faced with major
environmental challenges for the future.
There is broad and intensified interest
in the environment. There is increased
demand to achieve greater levels of
cleanup of the problems we know
about. At the same time, there is
scientific evidence of new and
potentially serious environmental
problems yet unaddressed.
Increased public pressure is not
restricted to the industrialized world.
Certainly, it is very intense and
immediate here in the United States, but
in the future, the greatest pressure on
the developed world and on the
environment is going to come from the
IT ISN'T
NICE TO FOUL
MOTHER NATURE,
IS IT?
four-fifths of the world's population in
the underdeveloped and developing
countries yearning to approximate the
standard of living now enjoyed by us.
Unchannelled and uncontrolled, that
inexorable push to economic
development will create an assault on
our environment the likes of which we
have never seen.
How the developed nations, and how
we as a leader of those nations, respond
to our own challenges—and the path we
set for the rest of the world—will say
much about what kind of world will be
left to coming generations. Ultimately.
what is at stake in free societies and
those now throwing off the shackles of
40 years, is the ability of free
institutions to solve these difficult.
complex, and emotionally wrenching
problems. The emerging democracies
are watching us, as are the vast
populations in the underdeveloped
world. They want to see if we can cope
with our own complexities and do it
within the context of freedom. If we
can. our dedication to freedom will
seem increasingly attractive to them as
they struggle for an enhanced standard
of living.
The question for us really isn't
whether humanity will survive our
environmental assaults. I think we will.
The question is whether free institutions
will survive.
When confronted with a choice
between authoritarianism and chaos.
people will always choose the former.
Whether we can address our
environmental problems within a
system of political and economic
freedom is an open question in the last
decade of thi.s century, is freedom
indeed the banner to which all should
repair? Certainly that is the world's
question and our challenge. At the next
observance of Karth Day, perhaps in 20
years. 1 hope we can celebrate the
success of attaining a livable
environment, enhanced development,
and expanded freedom.
Reprinted by permission Inbuftc Media Services
JANUARY FEBRUARY 1990
17
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Looking Back; Looking Ahead
The Council on
Environmental Quality
by Russell E. Train
Today, CEQ clearly needs
more staff and an augmented
budget to go with it.
(7'rain, the first Chairman of ifie
Council on Environmental Quality ami
a former Administrator o/EPA, is
currently Chairman of the Hoard of
World Wildlife Fund and The
Conservation Foundation.)
The environmental movement came of
age in the 1970s. Fittingly, President
Nixon's first official act of the decade
was to sign into law the National
Environmental Policy Act (NKPA). one
of the most far-reaching and innovative
pieces of environmental legislation in
our history.
A key element of NEPA was the
creation of the Council on
Environmental Quality (CEQ) in the
Executive Office of the President to
serve as a focal point for environmental
policy development. I became the first
Chairman of the Council shortly after
President Nixon signed NEPA, but my
involvement with the legislation goes
back to my tenure as president of The
Conservation Foundation.
In the late 19(i()s. The Conservation
Foundation began to focus on building
ecological principles into development
activities. The Senate Interior
Committee, then chaired by Senator
"Scoop" Jackson, had similar concerns,
and with the help of The Conservation
Foundation hired Dr. Keith Cahhvell. a
professor of political science at the
University of Indiana, as a consultant.
Caldwell originated and developed the
concept of environmental impact
analysis, which became an integral part
of NEPA. Together with the creation of
CEQ, environmental impact analysis
requirements—obliging federal agencies
to consider environmental factors in
their decision-making processes—were
really the heart of NEPA.
In 1SKJ8. President Nixon asked me to
chair a task force on tin; environment to
advise him on environmental issues.
Our principal recommendation was to
create a mechanism for developing
environmental policy within the White
House—a forerunner of the CEQ
concept. In 1969. the administration
acted on that proposal by setting up. by
executive order, an intoragency
Committee on Environmental Quality.
chaired by the president's science
advisor. In short, the committee worked
imperfectly and took little leadership on
environmental matters.
Once NEPA was signed, the Council
replaced this interagency committee and
was vastly more; effective. The Council
had the enormous task of developing
and promulgating guidelines for federal
agency compliance with the
environmental impact statement
requirement of the act. The
environmental impact statement was a
revolutionary concept in government. It
brought about a radical change in the
way government decisions were made
because it required bureaucrats to look
at alternatives to proposed
actions—including the alternative of
doing nothing—if a planned course of
action would damage the environment.
We had many interagency struggles
and controversies because some
agencies were extremely reluctant to go
along with the process. But in fact the
environmental impact statement opened
up the process of decision-making for
input by other agencies and the public
in an unprecedented way.
Early on, the Council made; the
decision that each individual agency
had to act as its own implementing
authority for NEI'A requirements. That
was important because there had been
some suggestion that CEQ would
oversee all government actions and
make its own determinations concerning
environmental impacts, alternatives, and
so on. First of all. this suggestion was
impractical from a workload standpoint
and secondly, it would have; meant that
individual agencies would not have felt
responsible for addressing
environmental considerations in their
programs. They would have perceived it
as someone else's job, namely CEQ's. So
from the beginning, the Council tried to
delegate authority to the agencies
themselves, focusing the Council's own
role on developing guidelines.
overseeing NEPA implementation, and
reacting when a poor job was being
done. The Council stressed that the
agencies themselves must keep lull
responsibility for their own
environmental performance.
The Council had some dramatic
successes. For example, in 1970. we
recommended that the President halt
work on a barge canal across northern
18
EPA JOURNAL
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Reviews of the potential environmental
impacts of federally aided highways were
one of the innovations of the National
Environmental Policy Act. This a.erial view
shows construction of an interstate
highway in Wisconsin.
Florida, although one-third of the work
had been completed. I sent (he
President a memorandum slating that
the environmental costs of the canal far
outweighed the benefits because it
threatened to destroy a unique scenic:
area, a major wildlife habitat, and a
large sport fish population. Other
adverse effects, such as pest infestation
and water pollution, also were feared.
The President ordered work stopped
on the canal, despite strong protests
from the shipping industry and local
developers. This controversial decision
dramatically demonstrated the new
force the environmental ethic had in
government decision-making.
Within a few years, the staff of CKQ
numbered about 54, the same si/.e as tin:
Council of Economic: Advisors. It was a
superb staff. The environment was a hot
issue at the time, and since young
people graduating from college and law
school were anxious to get into the
environmental area, we had the pick ol
the crop. Bill Keilly came in as a young
attorney and played a major role in
developing the National Land Use
Policy Act that President Nixon
submitted to Congress.
But that legislation was too far ahead
of its time and never seriously
considered by Congress, It would have
required states, as a condition for
obtaining federal financial assistance, to
assume responsibility for land-use
decisions that have impacts beyond the
local jurisdiction where the decision is
made. The hill would also have required
states, for the first time, to: protect areas
of critical environmental value such as
coastal wetlands and historic districts:
control land use around public facilities
such as airports, highway interchanges,
and major recreation areas: and assure
Mike Bnsson photo
that regionally needed development,
such as water-treatment plants or low-
am] moderate-income housing was not
excluded by local governments. Though
many of these principles were
incorporated into other laws, many
others—such as wetland
protection-- were long neglected and are
only now being given their full due.
The Council quickly adopted the role
of developing an annual environmental
message for the President to send to
Congress. This message became the
repository for a wide range of legislative
initiatives as well as executive actions
in the environmental area. The Council
had a great deal of clout through having
responsibility for putting together this
message. Under CEQ staff direction.
various interageney committees were
working on environmental problems
involving drinking water, strip mining,
and air pollution, for example. Through
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1990
19
-------
Acting on the recommendations of the newly created Council on Environmental Quality.
President Nixon called a halt to construction of the Trans-Florida Barge Canal in 1970.
this interaction, we wen: able to shape
an enormous number of
recommendations. The series ol
environmental legislative proposals of
the early 1970s represented the greatest
outpouring ol legislation in any single:
subject area in the nation's history.
The creation of EPA in December
1970 might he construed to indicate that
CEQ no longer had an important role to
play. That was not the case in 1970, nor
is it true today. CEQ, because of its
location in the Executive Office of the
President, has the unique opportunity to
work in the realm where environmental
responsibility overlaps with the
jurisdiction of other agencies. This is a
crucial role, because the environment by
its very nature cuts across the entire
fabric of government. Agricultural
policy, transportation policy, and energy
policy all have enormous environmental
implications. It is not easy lor one
agency to effectively interact with
another in this kind of situation. EPA
has a strong working relationship with
(he other agencies, but it is not always
welcomed with enthusiasm. Often it is
perceived as interfering in the exclusive
jurisdiction of another bureaucracy.
This is a hard row to hoe.
CKQ is better able to operate in that
situation by virtue of its position in the
executive office, assuming it is given
adequate authority by the President. It
has the potential to revive the
cooperation and coordination that it
built to put together the comprehensive
environmental messages it sent to
Congress in the early 1970s, That is
where CEQ's real role lies, and it is an
extremely important one.
Today, CEQ clearly needs more staff
and an augmented budget to go with it.
Currently, it has a staff of only about
CEQ should not try to operate
as the Administration's voice
on the environment.
ten. one-fifth what it was in the early
1970s. This is simply inadequate to
meet the challenges ahead. On the issue
of global warming, for example, the
interaction between energy and
environmental policy will be critical.
CEQ could help implement an
environmentally sound energy policy by
ensuring that federal agencies are aware
of and abide by energy anil
environmental guidelines. EPA need not
abdicate any authority in the area, but I
would recommend a close working
relationship between CEQ and EPA,
with CEQ coordinating interagency
responses. Such a relationship,
however, will be extremely difficult to
implement without a major commitment
to CEQ by the current Administration.
CEQ should not try to operate as the
Administration's voice on the
environment. Such a role for CEQ
became unnecessary when EPA came
into existence—especially when EPA is
headed by a strong environmentalist
like Bill Reilly. Michael Deland is an
outstanding choice for Chairman of
CEQ. He is a strong environmentalist,
with a lot of experience in the field. He
has dealt in the past with many
controversial issues, and he is
intelligent and tough but fair-minded.
With talented environmentalists at EPA
and CEQ, and with a renewed
commitment by the President, the
United States will be ready to confront
the difficult environmental problems of
the new decade, £
21
EPA JOURNAL
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Looking Back; Looking Ahead
The Clean Air Act of 1970
by Paul G. Rogers
[Rogers served as Chair of the House
Subcommittee on Health and the
Environment during the 1970 Clean Air-
Act deliberations. He is currently a
partner in (he Ian' firm of Hogan and
Hartson in Washington/DC.)
David F. C-rady assisted in the
preparation of this article.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990
Shortly after Earth Day 1970,
Congress enacted the landmark Clean
Air Act amendments. Progress has
been made on air quality, but much
more needs to be done. This 1963
photo shows a massive smog episode
in New York City.
Historians of the environmental
movement are likely to peg Earth
Day 1970 as a key turning point in the
American public's consciousness about
environmental problems. I believe that
Congress' enactment of the 1970
amendments to the Clean Air Act a few
months later was an equally significant
landmark. For the 1970 amendments
moved environmental protection
concerns to a prominent position on
Capitol Hill, where they by and large
have remained ever since.
It seems appropriate, as Congress is
considering new amendments to the
Clean Air Act, to assess what lessons
might be learned from the events of two
decades ago.
The juxtaposition of Earth Day and
the 1970 amendments was no accident.
As a representative body, Congress was
responding to the heightened public.
concern about environmental pollution
that was symbolized by the Earth Day
demonstrations. Some have said that
Congress reacted to public pressure too
quickly and rushed through clean-air
legislation that was not up to the task of
responding to real air-pollution
concerns. I disagree.
While the 1970 amendments may
have been the first time that
pollution-control efforts obtained such a
high profile in Congress, they were not
Congress' first effort to address
air-pollution problems. On the contrary,
we drafted those amendments to correct
previous pollution-control strategies that
had failed. With the passage of the 1970
amendments, Congress adopted new
approaches to regulation such as
national air quality standards and
statutory deadlines for compliance that
are commonplace today, but represented
a significant turning point in 1970.
To put the 1970 amendments in
proper context, one needs to look back
at Congress' prior efforts to control air
pollution, particularly the Air Quality
Act of 19(J7. That statute authori/ed the
Secretary of Health, Education, and
Welfare (who then hail chief
responsibility for federal environmental
protection programs) to designate
so-called air quality regions throughout
the country; the states were given
primary responsibility for adopting and
enforcing pollution-control standards
within those regions.
Some of us involved in the enactment
of the 1967 statute had significant
doubts us to the viability of the regional
approach to air-pollution control: after
all, air contamination does not stop at
-------
neatly defined regional boundaries.
Nevertheless, Congress as a whole and
American industry were not yet
convinced of the need for a national
strategy for pollution control; therefore,
as a first step, the 1967 statute's regional
approach became the law of the land.
The approach was a notable failure.
By 1970, fewer than three dozen
air-quality regions had been designated,
as compared to an anticipated number
in excess of 100. Moreover, not a single
state had developed a full pollution-
control program.
This unsatisfactory record, coupled
with the public pressures created by the
Earth Day movement, provided the
necessary impetus to convince Congress
that national air quality standards were
the only practical way to rectify the
United States' air-pollution problems.
Similarly, the record of inaction under
the 1967 law led Congress to impose
statutory deadlines for compliance with
the emissions standards authorized
under the 1970 statute, in the hope that
those deadlines would spur action.
Thus, the two key provisions in the
1970 act were not a frenzied reaction to
public pressure, but instead were a
deliberate response aimed at correcting
the demonstrated failures of previous
regulatory efforts.
Of course, no one would argue that
the 1970 statute achieved all of its
objectives; the deadlines were extended,
and for the most part, the national
standards were not attained. Yet 1
believe that history, on balance, should
judge the 1970 amendments as a major
and positive turning point in the
national environmental-protection effort.
The 1977 Clean Air Act amendments
confirm this judgment.
For just as important as its deadlines
and innovative nationwide
standard-setting approach was the 1970
statute's underlying purpose: to raise
the consciousness of the American
public and American business regarding
the importance of pollution control. In
enacting the 1970 statute, Congress
knew that a centra! element in any
successful approach to air-pollution
control (and, indeed, environmental
protection generally) would have to be a
change in attitude about the value of
environmental protection.
During the House floor debate on the
amendments, one of my colleagues
quoted a small town mayor, who (in
expressing the previous conventional
wisdom that environmental protection
and economic growth were not
compatible) is reported to have said: "If
you want this town to grow, it has got to
stink." Before 1970, there were still
many persons and companies
throughout the United States who
agreed with the mayor that pollution
was the inevitable price of progress. In
the 1970 amendments, however,
Congress signalled its firm belief that
The 1970 amendments moved
environmental protection
concerns to a prominent
position on Capitol Hill, where
they by and large have
remained ever since.
economic growth and a clean
environment are not mutually exclusive
goals.
In order to change these previously
entrenched attitudes, it was necessary to
get the attention of industry and the
American people. By taking the
then-bold step of making air-pollution
control a national responsibility, with
strict deadlines for compliance,
Congress accomplished that purpose in
the 1970 statute. Even though the
deadlines originally imposed in the
1970 amendments ultimately were not
met, the amendments unquestionably
succeeded in fostering a profound
attitude shift in this country.
A consensus has emerged from the
experiences gleaned under the 1970
amendments that environmental
protection and economic growth can,
and must, be accomplished
hand-in-hand. Indeed, I suspect that if
the mayor quoted by my colleague were
to seek election today, he or she would
be soundly rejected at the polls. This
attitudinal change in American society
is itself a significant achievement for
which the 1970 Clean Air Act
amendments deserve a share of the
credit.
But a positive change in attitude and
assumptions about environmental
protection does not in itself clean up
dirty air. Congress is still struggling
with the difficult question of how to
achieve that goal. Thus it is fair to ask
what lessons the 1970 amendments
might hold for Congress as it sets about
revising the Clean Air Act once again. I
believe several lessons may be drawn.
• Strike while the iron is hoi. While the
1970 amendments gradually evolved to
correct previous statutory initiatives that
had failed, their actual enactment by the
full Congress was accomplished with
unaccustomed speed. This was made
possible because of the high priority
assigned to environmental issues on the
public agenda following Earth Day.
Today's political climate is similar.
Rising public concerns over
well-reported environmental problems
such as acid rain, global warming, and
fouled beaches, coupled with the high
profile that environmental issues took in
the 1988 presidential elections, provide
this Congress with one of the most
promising opportunities for legislative
initiatives on clean air in recent years.
Since this positive combination of
events is likely to have a somewhat
limited life span, Congress should seize
the opportunity—as it did in 1970—and
act now to revise the statute.
• Avoid artificial limits on
pollution-control efforts. Just as the
1970 amendments demonstrated
Congress' acknowledgment that air
pollution could not be effectively
addressed on a regional level, the
current effort to amend the statute
should take into account the increasing
emphasis on the international nature of
air-pollution problems. The recent
Montreal Protocol on reducing use of
chlorofluorocarbons and our ongoing
dialogue with Canada regarding acid
rain are but two examples of the
growing recognition that air pollution
22
EPA JOURNAL
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Pal Matrtn cartoon
does not stop at state or regional
boundaries; it crosses national
boundaries as well.
Just as in 1970 Congress took the
ground-breaking step of making
air-pollution control a national effort,
Congress today should not hesitate to
lay the groundwork for international
approaches to environmental issues.
• Take; advantage of improved
knowledge. Striking developments since
the 1970 amendments have been the
explosion of knowledge about the
nature of air pollution, and the
advanced new technologies available to
control that pollution. The study of
pollution and the design of
pollution-control techniques were in
their infancies in 1970. Congress did not
have the benefit of the wealth of
additional knowledge at society's
disposal today. This expanded
knowledge; base should permit Congress
to adopt compliance deadlines that are
better pegged to technical feasibility
than in 1970.
» Follow through irif/i oversight and
enforcement. One of the reasons the
1967 Air Quality Act failed and thus
spurred Congress to enact a tough
national air quality program in 1970
was the almost complete lack of
enforcement of the earlier statute. A
similar fate heft; 11 the 1970 amendments
A consensus has emerged from
the experiences gleaned under
the 1970 amendments that
environmental protection and
economic growth can, and
must, be accomplished
hand-in-hand.
and has continued to plague
implementation of the Clean Air Act
ever since (although enforcement
activity has increased somewhat in
recent years).
Congress, of course, can only pass
laws; it is up to the Executive Branch to
enforce them. It is imperative that
Congress follow through on the
upcoming amendments to the Clean Air
Act with a stringent oversight role. It
will be critical to keep the pressure on
in order to see to it that those who are
covered by the statute obey it—or pay
the requisite penalties for violations.
Overall, the concepts set forth in tin:
1970 Clean Air Act amendments and
revised and strengthened in the 1977
amendments are still valid. A national
approach to air-pollution control
remains the only practical way to
respond to this problem. Indeed, as 1
mentioned earlier, the real question
today is not so much whether more
efforts should be ceded to more
localized governments, but the extent to
which international cooperation is
needed to fight air pollution.
Similarly, the use of statutory
deadlines to force compliance with air
quality standards is, if anything, more
appropriate today, given our greater
information base and technological
capabilities upon which to base such
deadlines. What is needed is not so
much a change in approach from the
framework of the 1970 amendments, but
a reinvigorated commitment on the part
of government, industry, and the
population at large to meet the new
compliance deadlines that are likely to
be part of the Clean Air Act expected to
pass later this year.
As our environmental problems
accumulate, and as our concerns about
air pollution grow broader and more
complex, we cannot afford to let the
current opportunity to amend the Clean
Air Act go by without success. The 1970
Clean Air Act amendments were a
watershed that paved the way for the
widespread consensus in our country
today that air-pollution control must be
a top priority of the federal government.
Those of us who had a hand in drafting
the 1970 amendments therefore can take
satisfaction because that legislation has
had a positive impact on our nation's
environmental protection efforts. It is
now up to our successors to build on
that foundation and make further
progress in improving air quality in the
United States, rj
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1990
23
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Looking Back; Looking Ahead
Earth Day: One View
by Denis Hayes
Little more than a year ago. in an
article for EPA Journal, I proposed
that someone seize the initiative and
organize a global Earth Day to coincide
with the 20th anniversary of the first
Earth Day. As "luck" would have it, a
year later that someone turns out to hi;
me. Two months after the article
appeared, a dozen national
environmental leaders asked me to take
a leave of absence from m\ legal
practice to coordinate tin; Earth Day
1990 campaign.
At this time last year. Earth Day 1990
was nothing more than a concept. Now
it is a staff of 30 in Palo Alto, California;
a National Board of Directors well over
100 in number, with representatives
from every sector of American society;
an International Board of Sponsors
spanning every continent; and a field
organization with 18 regional offices. In
little more than a year, Earth Day 1990
has gone from the drawing board to
being a huge, global coalition
determined to turn the tide in the battle
to pull the planet back from the brink of
ecological destruction.
In 1970. the goal of Earth Day, as
articulated eloquently by then-Senator
Gaylord Nelson, the true "father" of
Earth Day, was to demonstrate to
corporations, politicians, and our
somnambulant neighbors that nobody is
immune to the threats posed by
environmental pollution and no one can
avoid culpability. Twenty years later,
some of the symptoms have changed,
but the problem remains the same. Us.
Sure, there are lots of villains to point
fingers at: uncaring corporate monoliths;
sleazy businessmen out to make a quick
buck regardless of the damage left in
their wake; and politicians too
dependent upon polluters' contributions
and more than willing to turn a blind
eye.
However, no one is holding a gun to
our heads as we merrily drive ourselves
into the greenhouse age. Nothing short
of a society-wide commitment is needed
if we are to turn our backs on the
"disposable society" and move toward
realizing the vision of a society that
lives in harmony with the environment.
The 20th anniversary of Earth Day is an
auspicious time to remind corporations,
politicians, and ourselves that such a
profound shift is needed. The
alternative is catastrophe.
The Concept
The concept of Earth Day was American
in its origin. However, the problems that
Earth Day addresses are global in
nature. Whereas Earth Day 1970 was the
catalyst for the creation of the modern
American environmental movement,
Earth Day 1990 is designed to catalyze a
truly global environmental
movement—and to make the 1990s a
decade of striking environmental
achievements.
In 1970. the focus was on air, water;
and noise pollution. Thousands of
schools, universities, and communities
staged Earth Day events. In the past two
decades, endangered species have been
protected, once-dead waterways have
been cleaned up, and air quality in
some areas has improved. However,
despite notable local improvements, the
health of the planet has declined
precipitously.
(Hayes served us National
for Earth Day )!)/()
-------
largest metropolitan areas. Individuals
involved in local Earth Day 1990
coalitions are a study in diversity.
Participants range from members of
neighborhood improvement associations
to city council representatives, from
environmentalists to civil rights
activists, from students to senior
citizens. Many have never been
involved with an environmental
campaign before.
Supplementing our field-organizing
activities. Earth Day 1990 has developed
public-education programs to reach
people in their homes, their workplaces,
and their recreation centers. These
programs are designed to change how
people shop and affect how they vote
and raise their children. Some are
aimed at primarily a U.S. audience
while others have been adapted for use
in other countries.
Education
To reach the next generation of leaders
with lessons that we have yet to learn.
Earth Day 1990 has developed formal
educational materials including a
Lesson Plan and Survey for students in
grades K-12 and a Campus
Environmental Audit for colleges and
universities. At the K-12 level, students
will work with their parents to complete
NYT Pictures
a survey which they can use to measure
the environmental soundness of their
homes. The campus audit will help
students, faculty, and administrators to
gauge accurately the impact their
college has on the community's
environment through the generation of
solid, medical, radioactive, and
hazardous waste as well as air and
water pollution, procurement policies.
and dangers in the workplace.
Investment
Drawing on the examples of
anti-apartheid activists and other social
justice movements, the environmental
movement has launched an ambitious
campaign to apply environmental
concerns to decisions in the corporate
boardroom. 1 co-chair the Coalition for
Environmentally Responsible Economies
(CERES), which includes environmental
organizations and financial institutions.
In the fall, CERES unveiled a new
10-point corporate code of ethics, the
Valdez Principles, which address the
damaging impacts of products and
production processes on consumers,
employees, communities, and the global
environment,
Already, the Valdez Principles have
been endorsed by state, city, and
religious pension funds totaling over
$150 billion in assets. In conjunction
with other coalition members, Earth Day
1990 is working with corporations, state
treasures, portfolio managers.
universities, and cities to urge the wide
adoption of the Valde/ Principles as an
effective gauge for corporate
t /*
f
Concern about pollution and other forms of
environmental degradation spread across
the United States in 1970. A goal of Earth
Day this year is planet-wide environmental
commitment.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990
-------
performance and a guideline for socially
responsible investing.
Global Cities
Responding to an upsurge of municipal
environmental activism, Earth Hay 1990
lias developed the Global Cities Project,
which offers practical assistance to city
and county authorities in expanding or
creating programs that fulfill the maxim,
"Think globally. Act locally."
Under the Global Cities Project, Earth
Day 1990 will help cities and counties
to develop or augment existing
programs in areas such as ride-sharing,
recycling, energy and water
Making a point on Earth Day 1970.
conservation, hazardous waste
reduction, and tree planting. Gities
participating in the project also will
receive an "Earth Day Project Planning
Guide" and will be eligible to attend
project-planning seminars held
throughout the country. The response
has been enthusiastic, witli participants
ranging from Newark, N'ew Jersey, to
West Hollywood, California, to Atlanta,
Georgia.
International Earth Day
(-n the international level. Earth Day
19^90 has a growing International Board
of Sponsors, which spans every
continent and includes two heads of
state and the leaders of 10 international
organizations, including two United
Nations agencies. Over 120 countries
have Earth Day coalitions representing
more than 1,000 non-governmental
organizations, universities, and
government agencies. Planned activities
range from an "Indigenous Peoples
Consultation on Bio-Diversity" in the
Phillipines to a "Green Train" bearing
Earth Day 1990's logo on its side as it
travels through 21 major Italian cities
testing pollution levels with its
on-board laboratory.
The Global Challenge
International Earth Day is a concept that
has come due. Global environmental
issues exemplify the interdependence of
communities around the world. If we
truly want to develop solutions to global
warming, ozone depletion, ocean
pollution, and the rest of the global
ecological horrors that we've created,
world leaders need to take the
pragmatic steps of setting aside
parochial priorities and focusing on
threats to the global commons. Earth
Day 1990's global campaign will
provide the politicians of the world
with compelling evidence that there
indeed exists an informed and angry
constituency that considers the health of
the planet an issue second to none.
If You Want To Get Involved
If you want to be a part of the Earth Day
1990 process, contact our main office in
Palo Alto. Wherever you live, our field
staff can put you in touch with a local
grassroots coordinator. For further
information, contact:
Earth Day 1990
P.O. Box AA
Stanford University
Palo Alto, California 94309
(415) 321-1990. n
EPA JOURNAL
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Looking Back; Looking Ahead
Earth Day: Another View
by Edward W. Furia
So the summer of '88 was a
kind of last straw for a lot of
people, including me.
Copyright ?989 C/jns Benmon photo
Staunch efforts art: under way
to make the upcoming
observance of Eat Mi IX-iy as full
of in,pact as Earth Day 1970.
Here, one of the lead
organizers, Ed Furia, stands by
his group's lo*
Recently I experienced a sense of deja
vu when I gave an address about
Earth Day at the Threshold National
Student Environmental Action Coalition
(SEAC) Conference. I spoke to 1,600
student leaders of campus
environmental organizations from 43
states who had converged at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill for this conference.
A little more than 20 years before. I
was among a group of graduate students
at the University of Pennsylvania City
Planning School who met to discuss the
famous 1969 Seattle speech of Senator
Gaylord Nelson calling for the first
national Earth Day. We responded by
organizing the first Earth Week, a
convocation on environmental issues
that cut across racial, economic, and
political boundaries and, for the first
time, got ordinary people involved in
environmental issues.
(Furia was Project Director of Earth
Week 1970 in Philadelphia, jfc; is
currently President and Managing
Director of Earth Day 20'h'arfh Week
1990.)
The recent Chapel Hill SEAC meeting
was not just another conference. It was
a historic event that marked the rebirth
of environmentalism on college
campuses. It may also have been the
first real evidence since the 1960s of a
rebirth of student political activism.
Unlike the budding "yuppie"
stereotypes 1 expected to
encounter—with ambitions consisting of
an MBA, a job on Wall Street, and a
BMW—these young people wanted to
change the world. They seemed every
bit as idealistic as their predecessors on
2,000 college campuses and in 10.000
high schools who, in 1970, took up the
challenge of Earth Day and helped drive
environmentalism into the mainstream
of American consciousness.
What were the goals of the first Earth
Week, and how do they compare to the
goals of Earth Week 1990V
The most widely recognized goal in
1970 was to "raise consciousness" on
college campuses about environmental
problems, but the group of students in
Philadelphia who developed tin;
original Earth Week also wanted to
involve the general public. 1 was hired
as Earth Week 1970's project director,
partly because of my city planning
master's thesis, in which 1 bad argued
that no meaningful national policy shift
could be achieved without motivating
ordinary people through messages
embedded in riveting events tb.it the
mass media could amplify. In other
words, if you want to change the world.
it's not enough to be rnnicsf. you have
to be interesting.
The literature on communications and
behavior provided an additional insight:
Even it you succeed in getting people to
listen to your message and begin
changing attitudes, actual changes in
behavior usually don't occur unless the
message is accompanied by reinforcing
action. In other words, it your goal is to
change the world, after you reach
ordinary people with your message, give
them a way to participate.
Thus, to promote Earth Week 1970,
we literally developed a marketing
strategy that sold environmentalism like
Proctor & Gamble sells soap.
Philadelphia's Earth Week program
involved every major public and private
JANUARY FEBRUARY 1990
27
-------
institution in the region. At scientific
symposia, experts from universities,
corporations, and state and local
governments met to discuss the most
pressing air and water pollution and
waste disposal issues of the day. The
events attracted Clean Air Act author
and then-likely Presidential candidate
Senator Edmund Muskie, Senate
Minority Leader Hugh Scott, biologists
ReneDubos, Luna Leopold, and Paul
Ehrlich, Nobel laureate George Wald,
consumer advocate Ralph Nader,
sociologist John McHale, poet Allen
Ginsburg, Dune author Frank Herbert,
nuclear physicist and former Atomic
Energy Commission Chairman and
critic, Ralph Lapp, urban planners
Lewis Mumford and Ian McHarg, and
ecologist Kenneth Watt. Also in
attendance were several rock bands and
other performers, including the entire
Broadway cast of Hair.
The strategy worked. The
Philadelphia Earth Week program
became a major subject in the national
media. It was featured twice on the
Today Show, for a full hour live on
PBS, and in the CBS Special Report that
aired at 7 p.m. on April 22. The CBS
crew arrived two weeks early, and when
host Walter Cronkite opened the
program, he was sitting in front of a
blow-up of our logo. One-quarter of that
one-hour news special was devoted to
the Philadelphia program.
The nexv environmentalism also
worked for other organizers in Berkeley,
New York, Washington, Boston,
Madison, Wisconsin, and thousands of
other American cities and towns. On
hearing of the Earth Day idea, civic
groups, college and high school
students, garden clubs, and others began
organizing their own spontaneous
events, each marked by a local vision
about the environment. Earth Day was
spontaneously organized and pluralistic,
and it was apparently the largest public
demonstration in U.S. history, involving
an estimated 20 million people.
Earth Week and Earth Day's
implications were not missed by
national policy-makers. And for a while
during the 1970s, it appeared as though
the United States was well on its way
toward reversing the most troubling
environmental trends. A newly created
EPA had shown it intended to enforce
the new environmental laws, billions of
dollars were being spent to reduce
municipal and industrial water
pollution, and the catalytic converter
and unleaded gasoline seemed to be
We need to move
environmentalism an order of
magnitude beyond where it
has ever been.
making a dent in urban air pollution. So
in 1979, when the prospect of
organizing a national lOth-anniversary
Earth Day was suggested to me, I said I
didn't think the need existed the way it
did in 1970. Laws had been passed,
state, local, and federal environmental
agencies were hard at work on the
problems, and hundreds of new
environmental organizations had been
formed. Finally, I said 1 just wasn't
interested in putting together what
would amount to a birthday party for
Earth Day.
By the summer of 1988, things had
changed. Every day, headlines seemed
to bring news of a new environmental
catastrophe: Holes in the earth's
protective ozone layer were confirmed
by scientists; experts spoke of global
warming from the Greenhouse Effect;
and there was the news of medical
waste washing up on east-coast beaches.
Other evidence of ocean pollution
damage continued to mount, including
the widely reported incident of dead
seals washing up on North Sea beaches.
Each day brought fresh news of species
extinction, deforestation, toxic-waste
contamination of food and water
supplies, and other insults to the
environment. It was becoming clear that
despite a 20-year effort to improve it,
the global environment was
deteriorating at an accelerating pace.
So the summer of '88 was a kind of
last straw for a lot of people, including
me. As a result, when I was asked to
organize an international 20th Earth Day
program, I agreed. Something had gone
terribly wrong since the first Earth Day,
and it had happened in spite of all the
new legislation, and the creation of the
federal, state, and local regulatory
agencies and international bodies. It had
occurred in spite of the proliferation of
environmental organizations in the
United States and the Green parties in
Europe.
To develop a meaningful program for
the 20th Earth Day, we felt we needed
to look both at the way governments
were dealing with environmental
problems and at how the environmental
movement itself was addressing the
issues.
As Barry Commoner pointed out in
his recent article in EPA Journal, the
pollution-control approach that
governments have been using hasn't
worked. We have failed to improve the
environment in a really significant way
with the black boxes we have attached
to wastestreams that still end up
depositing pollutants from our oceans,
rivers, air, and land. Only pollution
prevention seems to have worked. Only
when we have removed pollutants in
the production process have we
succeeded in dramatically improving
the environment: The cessation of
atmospheric testing of nuclear warheads
reduced traces of strontium 90 in
human tissue by over 90 percent; taking
the lead out of gasoline has had similar
dramatic success. Dr. Commoner put it
humorously—but perfectly—during the
address he gave at the recent Chapel
Hill SEAC conference: "The first rule
about pollution is this: if you don't let
the pollutant into the environment, it
isn't there."
Getting governments to acknowledge
the importance of pollution prevention
is a major goal of Earth Day 20 and
Earth Week 1990. On April 18, 1989,
just before last year's Earth Day, the
Earth Day 20 Foundation delivered
letters to President Bush, USSR Premier
Gorbachev, China Premier Li Peng, and
UN Secretary General De Cuellar. The
letter, signed by Gaylord Nelson, Barry
Commoner, Elliot Richardson, John
O'Connor (National Toxics Campaign),
Gene Karpinski (U.S. Public Interest
Research Group), Peter Bahouth
(Greenpeace), Cordelia Biddle, and me,
28
EPA JOURNAL
-------
called on the leaders of the superpowers
to convene an environmental summit
under the auspices of the UN and
immediately begin the process of
implementing a five-point
pollution-prevention program:
• A total ban on the production and use
of chlorofluorocarbons and other
chemicals that destroy the ozone layer
and the establishment of a program to
use safe alternatives.
• Introduction of energy-conserving
power systems, such as cogenerators,
fuel-efficient vehicles, and others as
well as the use of solar-energy sources
in order to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions—the chief cause of global
warming.
• Progressive reduction in the excessive
use of pesticides, which are responsible
for serious health hazards, by
introducing integrated, biology-based
pest management systems and other
non-chemical techniques.
« Steps to eliminate toxic chlorinated
chemicals—which are responsible for
serious environmental hazards (for
example, a phaseout of the use of
chlorine in. paper production).
• A global ban on production processes
that threaten the extinction of species.
To address these environmental issues
effectively, national and bilateral
strategies will not be enough. Nothing
will work short of unprecedented
multilateral treaties and accords in
which the rich nations of the Northern
Hemisphere and the poor nations of the
Southern Hemisphere agree to prevent
environmental degradation and reverse
the deterioration that has already
occurred.
Something else has gone wrong over
the last 20 years. In spite of the
achievements and numbers of the
environmental movement (some
estimates are that 10 million Americans
belong to some kind of environmental
group), environmental
organizations—without meaning to do
so—have become primarily a group of
elites; ordinary people tend to remain
on the sidelines. "Environmentalism,"
as John O'Connor of the National Toxics
Campaign likes to put it, "needs to
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990
become the issue of the hamburger and
Budweiser crowd, not just the issue of
the Brie and Chablis crowd." We need
to move environmentalism an order of
magnitude beyond where it has ever
been.
In some ways, we are already
as advanced in our planning
as we were a few weeks
before the first Earth Day, and
there are still a couple of
months to go.
As we began planning our 1990
program, the basic strategy we used
during the first Earth Week seemed to
make sense as much as ever. In other
words, first create Earth Week 1990
events so riveting that the newsstands
and airwaves become saturated with the
message of pollution prevention and
multilateral cooperation to reverse the
environmental deterioration of the
planet. Second, provide opportunities
for ordinary people not merely to hear
the messages and witness the events
electronically, but also to participate
directly in their communities.
This mass media/grassroots dual
approach is the essence of the Earth Day
20/Earth Week 1990 program:
• An Earth Week Expo at the Columbia
River Gorge will provide a full week of
visually exciting exhibits, addresses by
major political and environmental
leaders, and appearances by scores of
international celebrities, musicians, and
performers. Many communities will
hold their own local expos and use
satellite dishes at local shopping centers
or theaters to receive daily broadcasts of
the addresses and performances from
the Columbia Gorge site.
The national media are also expected
to broadcast news of the Mount Everest
Earth Day 20 International Peace Climb,
in which American, Soviet, and Chinese
climbers will rope together and attempt
to reach the summit of Everest on Earth
Day as a metaphor of international
cooperation to ensure survival. These
events in combination with the
thousands of local Earth Day
observations will attract millions of
viewers and participants.
• Grassroots community organizations,
led by National Toxics Campaign
chapters in 1,000 communities will join
with college, high school, and
elementary school students and their
faculties and get involved in
community-focused programs and
events that will reinforce the messages
broadcast on the national media. The
centerpiece of the local programs will
be the "Good Neighbor" agreement
program, in which private and public
entities will be encouraged to sign
agreements to reduce toxic-waste
production. In addition, local
newspaper-sponsored high-school essay
contests as well as elementary school
poster and letter-writing contests will be
held; Girl Scout, and Boy and Cub
Scout Earth Day merit badges will be
awarded.
In some ways, we are already as
advanced in our planning as we were a
few weeks before the first Earth Day,
and there are still a couple of months to
go. The national media—the major
magazines as well as the TV and radio
networks—have already devoted an
unprecedented amount of coverage to
environmental issues; political leaders
here and abroad are vying with each
other for the "Who's the greenest public
figure?" award; our mailbox bulges and
the phones ring off the hook every time
there is a new article about Earth Week
or Earth Day.
It would be nice to think that this
attention is somehow the result of the
work of the various national Earth Day
organizations, including ours, but 1
think it is not. Instead, it is obvious that
this is finally an idea—this idea of
survival—whose time has come. D
Editor's note: Readers who wish to
obtain more information on Earth Day
20/Earth Week 1990 activities should
contact:
Earth Day 20
30020 Main Street
Suite A-1990
BelJevue, Washington 98004
(20(5J 462-1990.
29
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The Stars Take on the
Environmental Crisis
by Roy Popkin
Spurred by growing concerns about
global environmental problems, the
entertainment industry is in the midst
of a massive consciousness-raising effort
on a variety of environmental issues.
The environment is not the first social
issue to be adopted by show business,
but it may well be the catalyst for the
most far-reaching public interest
campaign yet launched by the industry.
Show business has had a long history
of involvement in public affairs, dating
back to World Wars I and II, when
Hollywood actively promoted
home-front activities. More recently,
especially since the advent of television,
the industry has fought illiteracy and
drunk driving and taken on other social
causes. TV images have aroused
widespread concern for the starving in
Africa, called attention to the homeless
and hungry here at home, and helped
the Red Cross raise $100 million for aid
to the victims of Hurricane Hugo and
the California earthquake. The
entertainment business has a proud
record of supporting civil liberties.
Until recently, entertainment industry
environmentalism was associated
largely with a small group of stars such
as Robert Redford, Paul Newman,
Joanne Woodward, Meryl Streep, and
Judy Collins, the Ted Turner
broadcasting interests, and occasional
news or educational TV specials. But
now Hollywood has gone green in a big
way. Says Andy Spahn, president of one
of the two major Hollywood
organizations focusing on environmental
issues: "We're in it for as long as it
takes. They tell us we may have as little
as 10 to 12 years to correct or reverse
some of the most serious threats. You
might say that length of time is our
minimum commitment."
One indication of this commitment is
a two-hour ABC-TV Earth Day special to
be aired on the evening of April 22,
starring Barbra Streisand, Kevin Costner,
Bette Midler, Robin Williams, Michael
Keaton, and others. Still other
(Popkin is a writer/editor in EPA's
Office of Communications and Public
Affairs.)
performers may be expected to appear at
various Earth Day functions around the
country.
Two Hollywood groups, the
Environmental Media Association and
the Earth Communications Office, are
spearheading the entertainment
industry's approach to creating national
and international environmental
awareness.
In general, their goal is to create a
steady stream of environmental
messages written into plot lines of
regular programs and motion pictures,
entertainment specials, and other outlets
The communications industry
is in a unique position in its
ability to reach millions of
people around the world....
such as special events and new music
and songs. These messages are intended
to complement ongoing public service
announcements, occasional news
specials, and science programs on cable
or public television. Stars and other
industry leaders are also being asked to
take the kinds of environmental
leadership roles that Redford and Streep
have assumed in recent years.
The EPA Office of Communications
and Public Affairs has staff assigned to
act as liaison to producers and writers
working on scripts or treatments who
need quick information about
environmental problems related to the
plot lines they are developing.
The burgeoning interest in
environmental concerns is already
reflected on the air and in current
production plans. For example, a recent
episode of "Murphy Brown" was
devoted to recycling. From September to
December of last year, CBS ran
one-minute "Earthquest" reports during
prime time. "Thirtysomething" is
planning to deal with environmental
problems on several programs. Several
episodes of the ABC series "Head of the
Class" will have environmental
messages. There will be environmental
themes on "ALF," "Baywatch," "LA
Law," "My Two Dads," and other
shows.
Turner Broadcasting System, long
heavily into environmental
programming—owner Ted Turner in
1985 co-founded the Better World
Society to produce documentaries and
air a weekly documentary,
"Earthbeat"—is working on an animated
cartoon series named "Captain Planet."
Puppeteer Jim Henson is working on a
children's series about nature entitled
"W.I.L.D.," and the Children's
Television Workshop, already doing
special educational material on natural
disasters, is also working on
environmental programming. Olivia
Newton-John is doing a special called
"A Very Green Environment." Musical
stars like Streisand, Quincy Jones,
Belinda Carlisle, and Newton-John are
having environmental messages printed
on their records, tapes, and compact
discs.
The Environmental Media
Association—described by the New
York Times as the brainchild of Norman
Lear and his wife, Lyn—was formed in
June 1989 by a group of industry leaders
to complement the work of
environmental groups by encouraging
the creative community to incorporate
environmental themes into its projects.
Its Board of Directors includes top
executives of major studios and other
parts of the industry. According to its
President, Andy Spahn, the organization
"hopes to generate a climate of concern
about our environment and give creative
expression to the vision of a healthy
future for the planet."
The aim of the Environmental Media
Association, says Spahn, "is to do for
the environment what the Entertainment
Industries Council did for seatbelts and
what the Harvard Alcohol Project is
doing for designated drivers. Roseanne
arguing with her family about the
importance of recycling or the
characters on 'thirtysomething'
discussing cloth versus disposable
diapers can have a tremendous impact.
Hearing their favorite characters discuss
environmental issues and watching their
favorite shows grapple with
environmental themes can encourage
individuals to think about changing
their lifestyles and becoming actively
involved in environmental issues."
The association plays a coordination
role—networking and outreach—by
contacting hundreds of writers,
producers, and others who may be
interested in anything from endangered
30
EPA JOURNAL
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Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment world are taking a stance on
behalf of the environment.
species to air, water, and land pollution.
For instance, environmental experts
have been brought to meet creative
staffs at major motion picture and TV
studios to give writers a sense of tin;
environmental crisis and to help
generate ideas for environmentally
conscious characters or dialogue that
could be written into plot lines.
The Environmental Media Association
has also sponsored a variety of forums
and other events where participants
have included EPA Administrator
William K. Reilly, U.S. Senators Al
Gore, Tim Wirth, and Alan Cranston,
Dr. Michael Oppenheimer. expert on
global warming and senior scientist
with the Environmental Defense Fund.
Dr. Amory Lovins. co-founder of the
Rocky Mountain Institute. Dr. Noel
Brown of the United Nations
Environment Programme, leaders of the
10 leading national environmental
organizations, and the international
representatives of tin; World
Commission on Environment and
Development.
This coming spring, the association
will co-sponsor a day-long symposium
on the environment with the Academy
of Television Arts ami Science's. Tin;
group is also creating an environmental
resource library for the creative
community and will give annual
Environmental Media Awards honoring
exemplary television and film
productions that deal responsibly and
effectively with environmental themes.
Recognizing that preservation of the
environment is a global problem, both
the Environmental Media Association
and the Earth Communications Office
are encouraging the film and television
industries in other countries to emulate
their efforts. The International Council
of the National Academy of Television
Arts and Sciences has formed a new
committee to serve as liaison with the
Environmental Media Association. The
Earth Communications Office is starting
offices in Australia, West Germany.
Brazil, and the USSR, hoping to
organize media people in industrial
countries around the world.
The Earth Communications Office was
founded by Bonnie Reiss, who gave up
her entertainment law practice to form
the organization after attending a
three-day global warming conference.
The conference, she says, "transformed
my perception of the world in which we
live. I learned that we have an estimated
10 years to change our present course
toward the irreversible destruction of
our environment and its ability to
support life. This shocking information
led me to give up my entertainment law
practice to form the Earth
Communications Office, a non-profit
organization dedicated to getting out
environmental messages through the
mass media.
"It is evident that the crisis at hand
demands world attention, and action
[must be] be galvanized. Scientific
studies ami political action are
obviously necessary to the
environmental movement, but education
on a grand scale is just as crucial.
Whatever the issue—global warming.
deforestation around the world,
poisoning of our water, acid rain, waste
disposal, off-shore drilling,
overpopulation—people must learn that
they can make a significant difference as
individuals," says Reiss.
This is where Hollywood comes in,
Reiss and Spahn believe. The
communications industry is in a unique
position in its ability to reach millions
of people around the world with
environmental messages conveyed
through TV, film, and radio, they point
out.
The Earth Communications Office is
an industry-wide grassroots,
non-partisan organization. Its core is a
Board of Directors made up of about 100
creative and concerned leaders from
film, music, radio, art, literature. TV.
and advertising. Says Reiss, "They are
people of conviction who understand
that our planet is critically threatened
and that our industry can effectively
educate people and get them to
reexamine their values."
The organization's advisory board
represents a broad spectrum of
environmental leadership from the
United Nations, major environmental
organizations, and national, state, and
local governments; the board is chaired
by Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, Assistant
Secretary for External Affairs at the
Smithsonian Institution. The Earth
Communications Office's hundreds of
members channel their efforts through
committees dealing with research and
education, children's outreach, music
and radio, literary and fine arts, events
and fund raising, film and television, a
newsletter, and industry action. The
group has offices not only in Hollywood
but in New York and Nashville.
"At the core of our philosophy," says
Bonnie Reiss, "is the understanding that
we in the communications industry
must examine and change our own
lifestyles before we have any real
credibility in asking others to do the
same. The Earth Communications Office
is focusing initially on recycling and
energy conservation, in which
quantifiable progress can be measured.
We are proud that in just K) months all
those involved in the Karth
Communications Office; are recycling,
reducing energy consumption, and
buying environmentally sound products.
We hope the industry can get millions
more Americans doing the same, thus
benefiting the environment and
creating a nationwide atmosphere of
environmental concern and awareness."
Both organizations report a
tremendous industry response. Spahn
notes that when environmentalists sen
their favorite film and television
characters involved in carpooling,
recycling, reducing their use of
chlorofluorocarbons and reliance on
fossil fuels, and, in some instances.
warring against polluters, they will
know that the entertainment industry is
right there with them. :.:
JANUARY FEBRUARY 1990
31
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The Changing Agenda:
Re-Inventing the
Refrigerator
by John S. Hoffman and
Robert Kwartin
home in Anytown, USA. The
refrigerator is an unremarkable
appliance in an American household:
quiet, reliable, camouflaged in its
exterior of white or hurnt-almond.
Virtually every household in the United
States has one. Once it's plugged in, its
owner barely spares the machine a
thought. Who thinks about the careful
engineering that makes the modern
refrigerator so easy to take for granted?
Now change the scene to a small town
in Guangdong Province in southeastern
China. Here the arrival of a refrigerator
is an event worthy of celebration, It
means fewer trips to the market and less
spoilage of the leftovers from a major
holiday feast. And it symbolizes the
wealth and status of a family that has
made its way in the new economy of
China. China produced 32,000
refrigerators in 1979; in 1987 it
produced over 4 million, and
production continues to grow. There are
still several hundred million households
in China that don't have a refrigerator.
Yet.
But neither complacency nor
celebration will greet the arrival of a
refrigerator in the 1990s, in China or the
United States. In the past few years the
box in the kitchen corner has been
implicated in two potential
environmental catastrophes:
stratospheric: o/,one depletion and global
climate change.
The refrigerator will have to he
re-invented within five years. The new
refrigerator will have to maintain the
quality that American consumers have
come to expect, at the; low price that
Chinese consumers can afford.
(Hoffman is the Director of EPA's
Global Change Division, and Kwartin is
an Environmental Protection Specialist
in the division.)
To meet these challenges, EPA has
formed a partnership with the U.S.
refrigerator industry and other federal
agencies to massively increase
investment in refrigerator research and
development. In an offshoot of this
program, EPA is working with the
Chinese refrigerator industry to involve
the Chinese in the research program so
that they will be able to successfully
adopt the progressive technology of the
1990s.
CFCs and the Refrigerator Industry
Before the 1930s, household
refrigeration was either cumbersome
(during ice deliveries), somewhat
dangerous (where potentially hazardous
refrigerants such as sulfur dioxide (SO^)
or methyl chloride were used), or
non-existent. The invention of
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) was the
technical breakthrough that helped
make household refrigeration possible
on a wide scale.
CFCs are a group of non-toxic and
non-flammable chemicals, one of which,
CFC-12, has thermodynamic properties
that closely match the requirements of
household refrigerators. Another CFC,
CFC-11, is an excellent agent for
producing insulating foam for the
refrigerator's shell; CFC-11 foam is a
much better insulator than the fiberglass
and mineral wool insulation previously
used. With better insulation, less heat
invades the refrigerator, yielding better
energy efficiency.
The Refrigerator Takes Two Turns for
the Worse
As refrigerators changed from a
household luxury to an everyday-
appliance, their use boomed, And as the
technology matured, reliability and
convenience increased with no
appreciable increase in price. But new
concerns forced refrigerator
manufacturers, governments, and
consumers to take a new look at the
refrigerator.
The first jolt came in the 1970s, when
energy prices soared in response to the
Arab oil embargo. To help the nation
use energy wisely, the federal
government mandated that refrigerators
(which use 19 percent of the electricity
consumed in the average household)
carry labels to inform potential buyers
about energy consumption and
operating costs. Consumers were eager
to avoid high electricity bills, and
manufacturers responded by improving
energy efficiency by 44 percent between
1972 and 1987."
Energy prices declined in the early
1980s, but new concerns kept public
attention focused on the refrigerator. In
1974, two scientists—F. Sherwood
Rowland and Mario Molina—proposed
that CFCs were destroying an important
constituent of the Earth's atmosphere,
stratospheric ozone, which screens out
certain kinds of harmful ultraviolet (UV)
radiation from the sun. Enough UV
radiation passes through even a normal
ozone layer to induce millions of cases
of skin cancers and cataracts. If the
amount of ozone in the stratosphere
were appreciably reduced, they
proposed, dire consequences might
follow: millions of additional skin
cancers and cataracts, damage to crops
and ecosystems, and possibly
suppression of the human immune
system.
Rowland and Molina's predictions
eventually proved accurate. By 1987,
CFCs had reduced the ozone over the
Northern Hemisphere by 2 to 4 percent
and torn a gaping hole in the ozone
layer over Antarctica.
Hovvever, before this depletion was
revealed through monitoring data, the;
United States, under the leadership of
former EPA Administrator Lee Thomas,
had proposed a phaseout of CFCs. Thus,
as evidence of ozone depletion and its
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Chinese villagers, like the rest of us, want
modern refrigerators. The challenge is to
develop a product that will satisfy demands
without damaging the environment.
expected consequences accumulated, it
was possible to replace words with
strong action. In September 1987, a
landmark treaty was signed in Montreal
(the Montreal Protocol) that bound its
members to reduce their production and
consumption of CFCs by 50 percent by
1998. The United States and every other
industrial country joined the Protocol,
which is being renegotiated to mandate
a complete phaseout of CFCs by 2000.
A second global environmental
threat—climate change—poses an even
greater challenge for household
refrigeration. A variety of gases in the
atmosphere—such as carbon dioxide
(CO-2) and water vapor—are transparent
to the visible light energy that reaches
the atmosphere from the Sun but art;
partly opaque to the infrared energy
reradiated by the Harth. This
phenomenon traps heat in the
atmosphere (like the glass in a
greenhouse), causing the Earth's surface
to warm.
Greenhouse gas emissions have been
increasing since the Industrial
Revolution and threaten to substantially
warm the planet to potentially
dangerous levels. Two greenhouse gases
are closely connected to refrigerator use:
CO2 (which powerplants release; when
fossil fuels are burned to generate
electricity), and, yet again, CFCs. Pound
for pound, CFCs are thousands of times
as potent as COv in causing greenhouse
warming.
Although energy prie:es are low at the
moment, we must locus public attention
notv on the energy efficiency of
refrigerators. If future refrigerators use
electricity more efficiently, then future
powerplants will have to burn less fuel
and will release smaller volumes of
greenhouse gases. But it will take: five to
eight years to reinvent a refrigerator that
uses much less energy than existing
models. Fortunately, the process has
begun.
Copyright Audrey Topping Photo Researchers photo
By 1988, several states and the federal
government had set minimum
energy-efficiency standards for
refrigerators (and for several othe;r
categories of household appliances).
These standards will be revised before
1998. With increasing concerns about
the greenhouse effect, energy-efficiency
goals will inevitably become more and
more stringent. Now is the time to start
research and development of
super-efficient refrigerators.
Furthermore, given the enormous
growth expected in the refrigerator
markets of developing countries such as
China, it is critical that new
technologies be transferred to them as
expeditiously as possible.
The Research Challenge
Refrigerator manufacturers now face two
formidable challenges: They will have
to completely eliminate the use of CFCs
by the year 2000, and they must
upgrade the energy efficiency of their
products. Research and retooling time is
short. Because CFC-based technologies
are so well-established, basic: refrigerator
research and development have been
thin in the United States over the past
decade. Marketing has been dominated
either by the sales-floor price or by
attractive new features, not by energy
efficiency or new refrigerator cycles.
Consumers have come to expect an
appliance that they could ignore lor its
15-year lifetime.
EPA recognized the industry's nt-i-d
and also saw an opportunity to prevent
vast quantities of pollution: This
once-in-a-generation re-invention ot a
ubiquitous technology could reduce the
Greenhouse Effect expected over the
next 100 years by almost 2 percent. (By
comparison, increasing the fuel
efficiency of new cars in the United
States from 27 to 40 miles per gallon by
the year 2000 and increasing the tuel
efficiency of cars worldwide to 50 miles
per gallon by 2050 would reduce;
Greenhouse warming by about 7 percent
over the next century.)
Some manufacturers wanted to use an
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1990
•;:•:
-------
alternative to CFC-12 known as
HFC-134a, which would have led to a
Joss in energy efficiency. EPA and other
manufacturers saw things differently;
together we recognized that a more
deliberate investigation of many
alternative chemicals and system
designs could produce a refrigerator
with far superior energy efficiency.
Consensus on the best replacement
chemicals has not yet been forged, but a
framework for research and cooperation
is in place. Recently, the Association of
Home Appliance Manufacturers, EPA,
and the Department of Energy organized
an industry-wide research consortium to
undertake joint research on alternative
refrigerants and foaming agents. By
coordinating research among refrigerator
companies and government agencies,
the consortium eliminates wasteful
duplication of effort and ensures that
research results are disseminated
rapidly.
The combined resources of the
consortium allow exploration of ideas
which no single manufacturer would
have considered pursuing alone. For
example, the use of HFC-152a, a
refrigerant, has been limited due to
concerns about its slight flammability.
Recent tests demonstrate that HFC-152a
would improve refrigerator energy
efficiency by up to 10 percent, which
would make it an attractive near-term
option in the transition away from
CFC-12. Since the amount of refrigerant
used in refrigerators is very small (only
4 to 8 ounces), it is possible that the
flammability of HFC-152a can be safely
managed.
The consortium has organized
manufacturers, Underwriters Laboratory,
EPA, U.S. government safety agencies,
and consumer groups to investigate the
feasibility of using HFC-152a in
household refrigerators. If HFC-152a
turns out to be a viable refrigerant, the
investment of consortium resources
could have outstanding rewards. If 100
million U.S..refrigerators cut their
electricity use by 10 percent, 10 billion
kilowatt-hours would be saved every
year. This would put $700 million back
into consumers' pocketbooks and
prevent the emission of 8 million tons
of C02 and 60,000 tons of SO2.
EPA and the Department of Energy
have also invested millions of dollars in
longer-term fundamental research on
refrigerants and refrigerating systems.
These investments are pushing the
limits of refrigeration science: Old ideas
long-buried have been dusted off and
new ideas given a chance in the
laboratory. Among the ideas being
tested:
• "Non-azeotropic" refrigerant
mixtures: Today's refrigerators all use a
single refrigerant, CFC-12, which boils
at exactly -30 degrees Celsius. (The
boiling point of water, by comparison, is
100 °C.)
Most early discussions of replacing
CFC-12 focused on finding a single
"drop-in" replacement. However, certain
mixtures (termed non-azeotropic
mixtures) of non-CFC refrigerants boil
over a range of temperatures. This
property provides a number of
thermodynamic advantages in designing
a refrigeration system.
• The Lorenz cycle: The modern
refrigerator/freezer has its evaporator in
the freezer where a fan blows air over it.
(See illustration.) This cools the air
below the freezing point of water, which
removes moisture from the airstream.
The cold, dry air circulates through the
freezer and then into the refrigerator,
where it is likely to desiccate the
vegetables.
A better system would use a
non-azeotropic refrigerant mixture and
have two evaporators (one in the
How Refrigerators Work
Simply put, refrigerators soak up
heat from the inside of the box and
squeeze it out into the kitchen.
(See illustration.) Starting at the
compressor, gaseous refrigerant at
low pressure is compressed to a
high pressure and passed into a
heat exchanger outside the
refrigerator (the condenser). The
condenser transfers heat from the
refrigerant to the kitchen, and the
refrigerant changes from a hot
high-pressure gas to a cooler
high-pressure liquid.
The high-pressure liquid
refrigerant then passes through a
tube into the refrigerator and into
another heat exchanger (the
evaporator). The refrigerant is
allowed to expand during this leg
of the cycle, so that it absorbs heat
from the interior of the box and
boils into a low-pressure gas. (It
may seem odd that a boiling fluid
would be cold, but think of how
rubbing alcohol feels as it
evaporates from your skin, and
you get the idea.) The gaseous
refrigerant then passes through the
compressor, where the cycle
begins anew.
A refrigerator doesn't run
continuously, only long enough to
remove the heat that entered the
box through the walls and during
door openings. The refrigerator's
walls are insulated to slow the
passage of heat; better insulation
means that the compressor runs
less frequently and for shorter
periods of time, reducing
electricity consumption.
Different refrigerants have very
different thermodynamic
properties. The freezer should be
kept around 5° Fahrenheit, so
ideally, the refrigerant in the
evaporator should boil at a
temperature somewhat lower than
that to ensure thai heat will flow
from the (relatively) warm interior
of the freezer to the cold
refrigerant.
However, only a few chemicals
boil within the proper temperature
range. Additionally, some
chemicals absorb large amounts of
heat per unit volume as they pass
through an evaporator, while
others absorb only a little (this is
the measure of a refrigerant's
capacity). A compressor has to
pump a large volume of
low-capacity refrigerant through an
evaporator to achieve the same
cooling effect as pumping a
smaller volume of high-capacity
refrigerant. Balancing efficiency
and capacity makes the job of
selecting refrigerants more
difficult. There are also a number
of safety considerations: even
though the refrigerant is confined
to a sealed system, in ideal
circumstances it would be
non-toxic, non-flammable, and
non-corrosive. In reality,
non-flammability ma}' not be a
crucial attribute; many of us use
gas stoves and aerosol cans that
contain much larger volumes of
flammable materials that are not
confined.
34
EPA JOURNAL
-------
refrigerator, one in the freezer). Each
compartment would be designed to chill
to the correct temperature. This design,
named after the German scientist who
proposed it in 1975, could reduce
electricity consumption by 20 to 23
percent and provide a "vegetable-
friendly" refrigerator section.
• Superinsuiation: The foaming agents
that have been proposed as
replacements for CFC-11 are likely to
produce a foam with slightly poorer
insulation properties, which will either
degrade energy efficiency or require
thicker refrigerator walls as
compensation. A totally different
approach, however, may work better:
vacuum insulation.
Vacuum insulation has insulating
properties far superior to foam (even
CFC-11 foam), but manufacturers have
not yet perfected a technique for making
vacuum panels that will last for 30
years. One European manufacturer has
been producing a commercially
available vacuum insulation that, if
adapted-to refrigerators, could reduce
electricity consumption by as much as
30 to 40 percent.
• Advanced design concepts: There are
many other possible design technologies
under investigation at EPA-supported
facilities: machines with totally
independent refrigerator and freezer
loops; two-loop refrigerators with two
compressors and one compressor motor;
and others.
Theoretical predictions and computer
simulations indicate that the next
generation of refrigerators could use less
than half the energy that the most
energy-efficient model sold today uses.
EPA's and industry's research programs
have identified a number of tantalizing
possibilities, but years of research.
product testing, and product
development are still required to
determine which ideas are practical,
and to retool production lines for the
new products.
What Will China Do?
And what about the Chinese? The
Chinese have not yet signed the
Montreal Protocol, believing themselves
too poor to afford major investments in
research or alternative technologies.
Many Chinese refrigerators are built
with older technology. As a result, these
refrigerators have low energy efficiency.
What will happen if every household in
China buys a CFC-filled refrigerator that
uses two or three times more
Refrigerator Design Options
Current Design
Dual-Loop Two Compressor Design
Compressor
Compressors
Motor
Motor
coal-generated electricity than it needs
to? Fortunately, the Chinese recognize
the consequences and want to explore
alternatives.
EPA has opened negotiations with
several Chinese institutions to explore
the possibility of integrating the Chinese
refrigerator industry into the U.S.
research effort. In 1988, contacts were
established with the Beijing Household
Appliance Institute (a quasi-
governmental body that conducts
appliance research and sets appliance
standards), refrigerator factories, and the
government ministries responsible for
refrigerators and CFC production. And
in October 1989, a U.S. mission to
China began hammering out the terms
of cooperative projects, training
missions, and sharing of research
results.
It appears likely that the Chinese will
contribute greatly to the process of
inventing a better refrigerator; already.
VVanbao Company is testing refrigerators
with HFC-152a. And the Beijing
Household Appliance Institute has
indicated a desire to take the lead in
investigating options like the Lorenz
cycle. Since Chinese refrigerators
usually have the two evaporators
characteristic of the Lorenz cycle (but
not some other design requirements),
they may be easy to adapt.
Conclusion
Stratospheric ozone depletion and the
greenhouse effect are dangerous
environmental problems, but solving
them does not have to bleed U.S.
industry and consumers of billions of
dollars. In fact, through judicious use of
government and private research funds,
it is likely that the consumer will be
able to buy a refrigerator (perhaps as
early as 1995) that is ozone-safe,
extraordinarily efficient, and does not
dry out vegetables. The nation will
benefit from lower electricity bills, and
the refrigerator industry will improve its
competitive position in the world
economy.
And by pursuing a cooperative spirit
with China during this difficult
transition, the groundwork has been laid
for hundreds of millions of Chinese
families to participate in a better way of
life at a lower cost to themselves and
with a much smaller impact on the
environment. In Chinese, the character
for "crisis" also implies "opportunity."
So it does in English too. Q
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990
35
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1 111
longing Agenda:
Preventing Industry Waste
by Joel S. Hirschhorn
Pollution prevention offers industry
an enormous opportunity, hut its
exact costs, benefits, and risks cannot be
fully identified or quantified. The
general proposition is this: By practicing
pollution prevention, industry can
obtain improved environmental
protection and increased industrial
efficiency, profitability, and
competitiveness. But praising something
is not the same as doing it.
Preventing pollution at its source,
through changes in manufacturing
processes or product design, is an ideal.
At issue is not llie ideal, hut its
practicality, the scope of its application,
and the pace of its implementation.
'There are numerous examples of
successful waste-reduction initiatives
and a smattering of impressive data,
usually on a vvaslestream or plant basis.
Mut no comprehensive company,
industry, or national data demonstrate
broad success at cutting industrial-waste
generation. Indeed, enormous amounts
of wastes, pollutants, and discharges
continue to he generated.
It is not a matter of choosing between
the traditional end-of-pipe or
pollution-control approach and
pollution prevention. Preventing
pollution is like preventing disease by
changing eating habits and lifestyle;
pollution control is like using medicine
and surgery to minimi/.e ill effects.
Moreover, pollution control has often
simply shifted pollution around. Air
and water pollution-control equipment
extracts harmful substances and
generates enormous amounts of solid,
ha/.ardous waste for landfills, often
resulting in ground-water
contamination. Regulatory loopholes,
regulatory noncompliance, the difficulty
of responding to newly identified
environmental problems, threats from
very small residual levels of pollution,
and continuing global population
growth and industrialization: All these
provide even more reason to pursue
pollution prevention.
(Hirschhorn is
-------
A national commitment to pollution prevention will restyle our industrial economy.
because there are always risks when
waste is handled and processed.
Corporate and government policy
statements on the importance of waste
reduction can effectively focus people's
attention on waste reduction. Slogans,
campaigns, speeches, buttons, and all
the other paraphernalia of motivating
and selling ideas to people are critical.
People who have never considered
waste generation their responsibility—
which is most people—need
to understand that waste is
not something that someone else,
such as environmental engineers or
waste haulers, will take care of. Moving
from the end-of-the-pipe mentality to
pollution prevention will mean making
waste reduction an intrinsic; part ol
everyone's everyday thinking and
responsibility, much as preventive
health care is an individual
responsibility.
Slage Two: Obtaining Information on
Wastes and Reduction Techniques
The danger is that people and
companies may not move beyond the
first stage of waste reduction. To make
further progress, it is necessary to have
detailed information to assess
opportunities that are more subtle and
sophisticated. However, as with stage
one, in stage two there are no major
technological obstacles or major capital
investments, and quantum reductions in
waste generation are possible. The
problem lies in discovering exactly
where to use technology and deciding
what technology to use.
A full range of information is needed
on all wastes (e.g., on their quantity,
chemical composition, hazards and
liabilities, regulatory status, and the
relationship between generation and
production levels). Information on
waste-reduction techniques from many
external sources is also needed, such as
information about new raw materials or
manufacturing techniques available
from vendors. More and more people
are discovering that they can replace
traditional chemical solvents with water
or biological solvents.
Although costs and benefits are
self-evident or easily calculated at this
second stage, companies must build a
framework for implementing waste
reduction, including getting and
distributing information and measuring
progress. Getting detailed information
on waste-generation and reduction
techniques can cost millions of dollars
for large facilities. Large companies
typically are better able to handle this
second stage than small- and
medium-size firms, which may find it
difficult to devote people and money to
this kind of effort. Even in some large
companies, maintaining interest in
waste reduction may be hampered
because costs of waste management and
pollution control may seem relatively
low. For example, automobile,
aerospace, and electronics companies
have intrinsically lower environmental
costs than chemical companies.
The role of government becomes more
evident at this point. Government
agencies can distribute information
about successful waste-reduction
techniques in many different industries;
state agencies can provide on-site
technical assistance, which has been
shown to be very effective and low-cost.
Some government requirements for
information on waste generation, as
under the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act, help drive companies to
obtain detailed information on waste
generation. Information required of
companies for the Toxic Release
Inventory, under Title III of the
Superfund Amendments and
Reauthorization Act, provides a strong
incentive to focus attention on waste
JANUARY FEBRUARY 1990
37
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reduction. Many such requirements do
not apply to small businesses.
Stage Three: Overcoming Concerns
About Investment and Risks Through
Analyses
Passing through the first two stages may
take from one to five years for
individual plants or companies. The
next major obstacle to waste reduction
is economic uncertainty associated with
substantial changes in technology and
equipment. For such changes may
involve core process technologies and
require an interruption in production.
At this stage, greater involvement of
senior production people probably is
necessary. The environmental impacts
of changes made for waste-reduction
purposes have to be analyzed. Major
capital investment becomes necessary,
and risk increases. Investment payback
periods become longer, and capital
needs compete with more traditional
uses for capital. Testing and
development needs increase. The
imperative to consider changes in
products—either to minimize
manufacturing waste or to reduce
post-consumer waste generation or
toxicity—also increases. In other words,
waste reduction is no longer simple and
self-evidently feasible or profitable.
All of this leads to the need for the
kind of formal analyses which are being
called waste-reduction audits or
assessments. These analyses must
capture and identify costs, benefits,
uncertainties, risks, schedules, and
relationships to other company plans
and programs, such as R&D, expansion,
diversification, and marketing of new
products.
For example, General Electric Medical
Systems replaced a paint-stripping
operation using methylene chloride
with sand-blasting and mechanical
sanding. The company had found that
methylene chloride material and
waste-management costs were $2,525
annually, whereas the sand-blasting
replacement would cost only $2,000,
offer a 0.8-year payback, and lower the
company's liability. There are hundreds
of such examples in the literature on
waste reduction in virtually every
industry.
Without formal analyses, people may
incorrectly conclude that they have
exhausted their waste-reduction
opportunities or that the costs of
implementing waste reduction are too
high. On the other hand, they may
pursue projects which are technically,
economically, or environmentally
ill-advised. Or they may miss
opportunities to reduce non-regulated
wastes or relatively small wastestreams
which nevertheless pose substantial
costs and liabilities.
Experience has shown that an
important obstacle to success is the
"feeling" of many engineers that they
have already optimized their processes
and products. Formal analyses can
overcome such unintended prejudices
against change.
Finally, a continuing problem, even
when formal analyses are done, is that
many economic benefits of
waste-reduction options are not
captured because they are difficult to
quantify. Examples include reductions
in future liabilities associated with any
form of hazardous-waste management,
spin-off technological innovations and
businesses, and improvements in the
public image of a company which could
reduce public opposition to new
company activities.
Small businesses may find this stage
particularly difficult because it requires
much more time and money than the
previous two stages and because it is a
continuing activity, at least for the next
decade or two. The use of outside
consultants becomes increasingly
necessary. But even large companies
may find this stage so burdensome that
interest in waste reduction may wane.
At the highest levels of corporate
management, there may be less interest
in pursuing uncertain, high-cost
activities even if they are labeled waste
reduction. Seasoned technical
professionals and managers may feel
that they have reached the limits of
improving or fine-tuning processes.
The potential for this stage to become
the "wall" that brings an end to a
company's or plant's waste-reduction
effort means that the role of government
becomes more critical here. Government
policies, national goals, jawboning, and
performance requirements can maintain
pressure on companies to maintain their
commitment to waste reduction. Special
economic incentives such as tax breaks,
for example, may be useful to spur
capital investment which may seem less
attractive than other uses of capital
(such as expansion and diversification).
Government small business loans for
waste reduction could be given special
preference. And much more attention
needs to be given to offering flexibility
in compliance with current regulations,
so that companies can channel their
capital investment into pollution
prevention instead of more
pollution-control facilities.
Stage Four: R&D Creates New
Technology and Products
Eventually, for both process and
product changes, new technical
solutions must be sought through R&D.
Indeed, from the previous stages, many
needs will have been identified.
Completely new manufacturing
processes and products can be
considered, with waste reduction a
primary goal. Designing, making, and
marketing new consumer products pose
the greatest challenge.
The idea of gaining competitive
advantage through selling products
which appeal because they offer
environmental benefits is only now
emerging, but it could be the major
marketing breakthrough of the 1990s.
Products free of toxic chemicals and
products that generate little household
waste could have the same kind of
appeal to consumers as foods that help
prevent disease and products which
have higher quality. Conversely, more
conventional products which contain
hazardous substances and generate lots
of garbage could be increasingly seen as
being as dangerous as cigarettes and as
unattractive as defective and short-lived
products. U.S. manufacturers need to
see international market opportunities
for what are being called safe
substitutes, toxic-free products, and
"green" products.
But large-scale product change will
require major R&D programs by
manufacturers of consumer products,
and eventually these efforts will affect
38
EPA JOURNAL
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producers of primary chemicals and
materials which are used by those
manufacturers. For example, Polaroid
Corporation spent years developing a
battery for its film packs which does not
contain toxic metals. In addition to
helping reduce Polaroid's own
hazardous waste, this is a real
environmental benefit for municipal
wastestreams.
Other industries have also developed
new industrial processes. Union Carbide
found a way to use carbon dioxide to
replace between 30 and 70 percent of
current organic solvents for spraying
paints, particularly in large industrial
operations; it took four years of research
and millions of dollars for Union
Carbide to develop the innovative
process.
Clearly, many small, medium, and
large companies will face problems in
committing resources to R&D. Some
industries already have problems with
low levels of R&D, and others aim R&D
at other objectives that have little to do
with concerns about waste or pollution
generation. Government could play a
major role ;it this stage by funding R&D
programs that could benefit large
segments of industry, by providing
assistance through tax breaks for
company R&D. and by working with
industries to establish R&D priorities to
benefit all companies within them.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990
s photo
And of course government has
sometimes applied the greatest pressure
of all by banning chemicals or products.
This is a potent tool to spur research
and one which may be used with more
frequency. The rapid apparent success
in finding substitutes for CFCs is
impressive. To spur development of
new consumer products, the
government could help develop special
labeling to identify environmentally
beneficial products for consumers. This
is happening already in Canada and
Europe.
Charting the Future
Maximizing pollution prevention is
comparable to a national commitment to
landing on the moon or limiting the
spread of AIDS and finding a cure for it.
Serious commitments of human and
financial resources over the long term,
accurate measurement of progress, and
development of government policies
and programs to assist and guide
private-sector activities are necessary.
And as with other major national
efforts, pollution prevention requires
understanding and willingness to
change on the part of many individuals.
For example, engineering education
could change so that every engineering
effort automatically includes pollution
prevention as a criterion for success.
Pollution prevention does not
threaten our quality of life or standard
of living, but it does ultimately require
. ;-i now electrical circuit board
:) system that recovers virtually all
copper from rinse water and process
solutions, General Dynamics' Pomona
Division no longer sends sludge to landfills.
Instead, the byproduct, shown here, is a
30-pound slab of copper to be sold as
scrap.
changes in the style of American
industry and consumerism. Nations
such as Japan and Switzerland, which
generate much less waste than the
United States, demonstrate that a high
standard of living is possible without
producing so much waste. For years, the
American public has expressed
idealistic positions in polls, such as a
willingness to pay more for more
effective environmental protection.
Clean and low-waste manufacturing
technologies and products require
consumer actions in the marketplace.
Similarly, American corporate leaders
have said that they have a commitment
to environmental quality. The degree to
which they embrace and implement
pollution prevention and give
consumers real alternatives will test that
commitment.
This is just the beginning of a social
experiment in pollution prevention.
Public policy and government programs
on pollution prevention have barely
begun. If the technological personality
of American industry changes for the
better and American consumers
translate their beliefs into actions, then
the per-capita generation of hazardous
and municipal waste in the United
States will decrease demonstrably. and
the waste that is generated will be easier
to manage.
This is definitely a case where the
United States should give up its
number-one position—as the planet's
leading generator of waste. We will have
collected more than enough data to
know in five years whether we are
making progress and certainly to know
in 20 years whether we—industry,
government, and consumers—have
made a serious commitment to pollution
prevention. Success will depend more;
.on genuine leadership than on
technology. Leadership is needed now,
especially to overcome inevitable
anxiety and resistance to change as
people correctly sense that there will be
winners and losers as industrial
processes and products change to
prevent pollution.
Finally, if U.S. industry does not
respond quickly, then foreign industries
may begin selling clean technologies.
and products here, adding another
dimension to the competitive threat. Q
39
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Thinking About Our
Environmental Future
by Anne and Paul Ehrlich
It seems fortuitous that the
far-reaching changes taking
place now in the international
arena coincide with the 20th
anniversary of Earth Day ....
(Anne H. EhrJich is a senior research
assistant, and Paul R. Ehrlich is Bing
Professor of Population Biology in the
Department of Biological Sciences at
Stanford University. Their latest book is
The Population Explosion (Simon &
Schuster, New York, 1990).)
The 20th anniversary of Earth Day
finds us facing a daunting array of
environmental problems of global
dimensions—problems linked more
clearly than ever to unchecked human
growth. The problems of 1990 are not
only larger in scope and scale than
those we confronted in 1970, but much
more complex and entangled with our
way of life. Moreover, the time and
resources available to deal with them
are much scarcer.
The responsibility of people in rich
nations to help developing nations
grapple with these problems is
inescapable. Why? The answer is partly
because we have the lion's share of
resources and partly because much of
the trouble can be laid at our doorstep.
This is not to say that people in rich
countries have purposely brought on
planetary degradation. Rather, we have
failed to perceive the consequences of
our actions and ignored warnings by
those who did. But our purpose here is
not to assign blame, but rather to shed
light on causes and reveal ways to
reduce or prevent impacts.
The environmental damage a society
causes can be summed up in a simple
equation: Impact (1) equals the number
of people (P) times per-capita
affluence, or consumption of
resources (A), times the technology (T)
used to create each unit of affluence. In
short, I = PAT. This is an
oversimplification, of course.
Nevertheless, it is a useful
approximation.
A rough measure of the
environmental impact of each
individual (A x T) in a society is
average per-capita commercial energy
use. Energy is closely connected to
numerous environmental problems,
from air and water pollution to acid
precipitation and global warming.
While the affluence or consumption
(A) factor is a major component of
environmental impacts associated with
energy, the technology (T) factor is also
important. All energy technologies have
environmental impacts, but these
impacts differ widely in kind and
degree. Just consider, for instance, the
differing environmental risks of mining,
transporting, and using coal, oil and
natural gas, as compared with those
associated with hydroelectric facilities,
passive or active solar technologies, or
nuclear power.
People in industrial nations comprise
about 20 percent of the global
population but account for about 80
percent of the world's commercial
energy use today. By this measure, the
average American has some 33 times the
impact on the environment as the
average Indian and more than 200 times
that of a Tanzanian.
Moreover, the environmental
consequences of rich nations' activities
are global in scope. We obtain resources
from around the world and emit huge
amounts of industrial pollutants to the
atmosphere and oceans. Human
activities in poor countries usually
cause only local environmental
degradation—horrendous though that
may be for the people affected. In short,
developed nations tend to create global
environmental problems, whereas the
burgeoning populations in poor
countries mostly impoverish their own
resource bases and themselves.
Sometimes a technical (T) factor is the
principal source of a problem, as in the
depletion of the stratospheric ozone
layer and significant contributions to
global warming caused by the
production and release of
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCsJ. In such
cases, focusing on that technological
factor may be the most effective
'strategy. Indeed, the decision made by
the United States to stop using CFCs in
aerosol cans in 1977 may have delayed
global warming effects by as much as 20
years, according to atmospheric
scientists.
Opportunities to solve environmental
problems through straightforward
technological changes are rare, however.
Much more common and difficult to
resolve are dilemmas arising from all
40
EPA JOURNAL
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three factors acting in roughly equal
measure, such as the contribution of
carbon dioxide (COv) emissions to
greenhouse warming. Because
developed nations are responsible for
tour-fifths of the CO.) injected into tin;
atmosphere by fossil-fuel burning, the
role of population in generating the
problem has been largely overlooked.
The vast potential for worsening the
situation by industrial development in
poor countries has also received
insufficient attention.
To illustrate the impact of population
(P) on total COv emissions, consider the
results if China were to use its abundant
coal reserves to double energy use per
person. Their per-capita energy use
would thus increase from the equivalent
of 7 percent of U.S. energy use to 14
percent of the U.S. level. For the
purpose of this illustration, let's assume
Ken Andrdsko photo
no further growth of the Chinese
population (now approaching 1.2
billion)—an unrealistic: assumption. The
resultant increase in COL> emissions
would completely offset an emissions
reduction that the United States could
achieve by ceasing to burn coal—which
now supplies nearly a quarter of our
energy—without increasing the use of
other carbon-based fuels.
Or consider the case ot India. The
current Indian population of 940
million is still growing fast, and
demographic projections indicate that it
could reach two billion before growth
can be stopped—even if India's
now-languishing family planning
program is revitalized. India also
possesses rich coal deposits. India's
per-capita commercial energy use today
is less than half of China's. But if it
were doubled per person, using coal, as
the population increases to two billion,
Can the planet endure the impact of the
human race? Pictured is the peak known as
Annapurna South in the Himalayas, one of
the few relatively untouched areas of the
Eartn.
India also would produce as much
additional CO2 as the United States
could save by giving up coal.
These examples suggest the power of
very large and fast-growing populations
to amplify the effects of quite moderate
increases in development. Even if rich
countries do not reduce their fossil-fuel
use, the expansion of both population
and energy consumption in developing
nations guarantees that their
proportional share of atmospheric CQ>
emissions will rise substantially in the
next few decades. (This does not
include the 25 to 35 percent of global
CO2 releases estimated to result from
tropical deforestation.)
Dozens of other greenhouse gases are
being released to the atmosphere
besides CO2 and CFCs. Within a few
decades, methane may overtake CO2 as
the leading component of global
warming. It is 20 to 30 times as effective
in heat absorption as CO;., and its
atmospheric concentration is rising
much faster. Methane comes from
diverse sources, but several are closely
tied to population size—notably
emissions from rice paddies, flatulence
of cattle, deforested soils, and garbage
dumps. Again, technological
adjustments may ameliorate some
aspects of the methane problem, but
affluence and population must also be
factored into any long-term solution.
It is now widely recognized that
population growth has played, and
continues to play, a large role in the
deepening human predicament. The
economies of more and more poor
nations are faltering. Food production
has failed to keep pace with population
growth in many regions. Agricultural
land is deteriorating around tin; world.
All these are persuasive clues. Each year
it becomes more evident that continuing
with business as usual means pursuing
an increasingly unsustainable course.
Humanity in the last century or so has
moved from depending predominantly
on "income" (energy from the sun,
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990
41
-------
When the time is ripe, social
changes can occur with
breathtaking speed.
which warms the planet, drives climate
and weather, and is the source of all
food energy) to increasing dependence
on "capital." The capital we are
consuming today includes our Earthly
inheritance of minerals (metals and
fossil fuels). More critically, it also
includes our ground-water supplies,
agricultural soils, and the vastly diverse
lifeforms that share this planet with us
and are part of Earth's life-support
system.
Human beings now occupy or use
over two-thirds of Earth's land surface.
As recent analysis has shown, human
beings consume or somehow divert
about 40 percent of net biotic
productivity on land (the solar energy
captured by green plants through
photosynthesis and not used for their
own life processes). This huge fraction
includes a sizable and growing portion
of potential production that is being lost
as more productive systems (such as
forests) are converted to less productive
systems (such as farms and pastures),
degraded through overcultivation or
desertification, or simply destroyed by
being paved over.
If capital accumulated over hundreds
of millions of years must be depleted to
sustain 5.3 billion people today, what
are the prospects for supporting the 10
billion or more projected by
demographers for the next century?
How much more of Earth's biotic
productivity can humanity co-opt
without severely damaging the capacity
of natural ecosystems to support us?
The trends just mentioned are grave
enough, but the consequences of
greenhouse warming will surely
intensify them. If global warming causes
flooding of coastal areas, disruption of
once-dependable agricultural weather,
and accelerated degradation of natural
ecosystems, to what extent will Earth's
carrying capacity for human life be still
further diminished? What, if anything,
can we do about all this?
The short answer is, human beings
caused the problems, and human beings
can solve them if they apply their
collective wisdom to doing so. But it is
essential to understand all interacting
factors and to deal honestly with them.
While the global warming calculations
cited above throw a spotlight on the role
of population in the current human
dilemma, they also glaringly display the
disproportionate consumption and
waste of resources in rich nations. Also
revealed is the scale of change that will
be required to avoid the worst
consequences of global warming and
still permit modest economic
development for the poor majority of
humanity.
Compared to what will be needed in
the decades ahead, past efforts to reduce
environmental impacts in developed
nations, including the United States,
have amounted to tinkering around the
edges. This holds true despite seemingly
endless arguments over economic
disruptions and costs of pollution
control.
In the 1970s, the environmental
movement and the "energy crisis" led
many Americans to re-examine our
wasteful, resource-intensive way of life.
In particular, alternatives to the
prevailing urban/suburban lifestyle
based on automobile commuting were
seriously considered. But the "crisis"
faded—partly because successful energy
conservation programs reduced global
demand, creating a temporary oil
"glut"—and Americans resumed their
old, bad habits. Between 1975 and 1985,
the U.S. population increased about 9
percent, while the number of cars and
trucks increased by 30 percent.
If anything, automobile commuting is
more entrenched than ever today,
despite some attempts to improve
public transportation. Indeed, the
vulnerability and inefficiency of auto
commuting were spotlighted by the
earthquake in California last October,
but few noticed. While modestly
increasing automobile fuel efficiency
and curbing some emissions after 1974,
Americans acquired tens of millions
more cars and are driving billions more
miles a year.
Small wonder air pollution is worse
than ever. The population factor was
ignored; consumption was addressed
briefly, then forgotten; and most effort
went into regulation through
technology, sometimes making
consumption worse by reducing energy
efficiency. Until we tackle the difficult
population and consumption questions
in a serious way, we will make no real
headway in solving the global problems
now looming over us. And because the
dilemma is global, solutions must be
globally agreed upon and implemented.
Until very recently, such a course
appeared politically impossible. But
when the time is ripe, social changes
can occur with breathtaking speed. The
latest demonstration of this potential is
the dramatic lowering of political
tensions between East and West in the
past year.
For two generations, the East-West
confrontation has overshadowed and
soured virtually all other international
relations, including those between the
rich nations of the Northern Hemisphere
and the poor ones of the Southern
Hemisphere. The recent transformation
should bring profound changes in the
economies of the two superpowers and
their allies. If nothing else, it is likely to
render their huge military
establishments largely unnecessary and
obsolete and free resources to address
more compelling aspects of global
security.
The political transformation of the
Eastern Bloc nonetheless may hold rich
irony, as 400 million Soviets and East
Europeans rush to adopt the West's
profligate consumerist lifestyle. While
we wish them success in seeking
political and economic freedom, as
environmentalists we view with some
concern the possibility that their
economies will come to mirror ours. We
hope they will embrace, along with free
enterprise, a conservation ethic.
It seems fortuitous that the
far-reaching changes taking place now
in the international arena coincide with
the 20th anniversary of Earth Day and a
renewed commitment in the West to
environmental goals. The economic and
political shifts that will be demanded by
the new relationships offer an
unprecedented opportunity to make the
sorts of changes in economic structure
that are needed if civilization is to
survive the challenges ahead. The way
is open. Every day, the world is
becoming more closely knit
economically. We need only recognize
that we are united in our problems as
well. If 5 billion people tackle (hem,
how can we fail? D
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EPA JOURNAL
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Cleaning Up the Auto
A Rough Ride
by Jerald F. terHorst
When President Bush sent his Clean
Air bill to Congress early last year.
one of the surprises came from the
oft-maligned automobile industry.
"The automobile industry will do its
share to help clean up the nation's air."
said a joint statement by Detroit's Big
Three.
"Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors
support, and are willing to meet, the
objectives of President Bush's clean air
program. We support tighter tailpipe
standards for cars and trucks, tighter
controls on the evaporation of fuel
when cars are parked or running, and a
clean fuels program."
The industry's critics first were
surprised by the statement, then turned
suspicious and skeptical. What was
Detroit up to? No less than this:
America's automakers were openly
acknowledging that clean air is
something everyone needs to care about;
not just parents concerned about the
world their children will inherit, or
biologists working to save forests in
Brazil or New England, but also
engineers designing motor vehicles. Isn't
this what Earth Day 1990 is all about?
The skeptics and the cynics were
caught off guard: You mean the Big
Three auto companies and the hundreds
of thousands of their U.S. employees are
allies in the battle to clean up the
environment? Naw, you can't be serious.
(Hey, if they're not the enemy, who is?)
That's been the history of the clean
air battle involving autos: lots of
rhetoric but precious little reasoning.
Or, as has been said, improving air
quality has been more a political
struggle for supremacy than a calm
judgment based on scientific or
technological evidence.
This Ford Taurus has been modified to run
on methanol, ethanol, gasoline, or any
combination of these fuels. Flexible-fuel
cars may be a near-term means of
alleviating the nation's air-quality problems.
Shown is Roberta J. Nichols, who heads
the company's Flexible Fuel Vehicle team.
(terHorst is the Director of Notional
Public Affairs (or flu; Ford Motor
Company.)
JANUARY FEBRUARY 1990
It's a fact that motor vehicles
contribute to smog. With 150 million
cars and trucks on American roads.
being driven almost 2 trillion miles
annually, it's no wonder motor vehicles
account for about 44 percent of the
primary ingredient in smog—
hydrocarbons. That's the bad news.
The good news is that clean-air
equipment is standard on all cars sold
today in the United States. Indeed, the
That's been the history of the
clean air battle involving
autos: lots of rhetoric but
precious little reasoning.
auto industry has done more than any
other to clean up America's air.
Statistics from EPA prove it: Compared
with cars built in the early 1970s or
before, today's new cars eliminate 9(i
percent of the hydrocarbons. (Mi percent
of the carbon monoxide, and 76 percent
of the nitrogen oxides that come out of
the tailpipe. Can any other segment ol
the industry—or any government
agency—claim a better record':'
Because emissions control systems on
vehicles already are so effective, not
much more can be accomplished by
further tightening tailpipe controls,
although even hero the American
automakers are willing to try. It won'l
be easy, technologically, to wring out
the last few percentage points. And it
won't be inexpensive for American car
buyers either.
Senator David Duronburger. a member
of the Senate Environmental Protection
subcommittee, put it this way during a
November 1989 session on even-tighter
tailpipe standards proposed for the turn
of the century: "There is no one who
testified before the; Committee who can
tell us how these standards will be
achieved. The Office of Technology
Assessment says they are not
technically feasible. The California Air
Resources Board can't tell us how it will
be done. The EPA can't identity any
technology that reaches these levels."
Even if such superstringent vehicle
controls were achievable, Durenberger
went on to say, "It is doubtful that they
43
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would be the most cost-effective way to
clean up air." Also, he said, it was
obvious that state and local
governments are not doing enough
under existing enforcement provisions
of the federal Clean Air Act to ensure
that stationary sources of air pollution
are doing what's required to clean up
their operations.
"The; auto industry has achieved more
to realize the goals of the Clean Air Act
than almost any other sector of the
American economy. I think the auto
industry can do more. And I think they
can do more than they think they can."
Durenberger declared.
"But 1 won't vote for those; standards
to make life easier for state and local
governments. For the Congress to now
insist that the auto industry make; up for
the; failures of governments of all kinds
at all levels over the past 20 years just
doesn't seem right to me."
What more can be done? We at Ford
have identified some useful targets.
For example, air quality could be
improved by 25 percent by reducing the
evaporative emissions from millions of
vehicles, new and old. Evaporation of
hydrocarbons is a primary cause of
smog.
Only recently has anyone in
government or in environmental circles
begun to pay serious attention to the
fact that fuel evaporation from vehicles
stalled in heavy traffic e>r parked on the
streets and in shopping mall lots
represents a heavy contribution to urban
smog in Los Angeles and other
metropolitan areas.
How to curb evaporative pollutants to
achieve this potentially huge; gain in air
quality? Several methods are available.
One obvious way is to improve
America's road network so that cars and
trucks don't have to sit in daily
gridlock. Environmentalists should rally
behind public and auto industry efforts
to eliminate clogged roads, because the
payoff not only would help expedite
traffic but would also improve air
quality by a quantum leap.
Another avenue for reducing harmful
evaporative emissions is to reduce the
volatility of fuels that exude from
parked and grid locked vehicles. The
petroleum industry could help
significantly by finding ways to lessen
fuel volatility. American and foreign
auto manufacturers are working on ways
to reduce evaporative emissions, and
the research is promising.
But let's face it. The greatest
automotive progress in cleaning up the
air will not come from exotie: new
technology or tougher federal legislation
but from the marketplace. It will be
achieved as new cars and trucks with
today's sophisticated emissions-control
systems replace older cars currently in
use.
Just from normal vehicle; turnover in
the next 10 years, average vehicle
tailpipe emissions will decrease by
General Motors' Impact is a futuristic, electrically powered car. It is not yet in
production, but may be within the next five years. Pictured is Roger B. Smith,
chairman of the corporation.
about 38 percent, even assuming a
normal 2-percent annual growth in total
vehicle miles traveled.
There would be even greater
improvement in air quality if older cars
were replaced more quickly. The reason:
Older cars, built to less stringent
standards, account for 54 pi;rce;nt of all
the cars on the road—but emit inon;
than 80 percent of America's
smog-producing exhaust! Clearly.
upgrading America's vehicle fleet by
eliminating older cars and trucks would
result in tremendous improvement in
the air we breathe. Yet the; rate; of
vehicle turnover may in fact be slowed
if a punitive mandate by Congress forces
tomorrow's car prices even higher than
the price tags of today's already
air-friendly vehicles.
Despite the gains made in reducing
automotive pollution in recent years.
there still are some large urban areas of
the country that can't meet national air
quality standards every day of the year.
That's why the industry has supported
the objectives of President Bush's
clean-air plan. It not only calls for
tighter emissions standards for vehicles
but also for sales of vehicles that can
operate on less-polluting, alternative;
fuels in sprawling metropolitan are;as
with major smog problems such as Los
Angeles. Chicago, Baltimore. New York
City, San Diego, and Philadelphia.
Why alternative fuels? Precisely
because the auto industry has maele so
much progress on reducing tailpipe
pollutants that ever-tighter standards
will result in scant improvement in air
quality.
What comes out of the tailpipe is
directly relateel to what goes into the;
fuel tank. In other words, the type; of
fuel can make; a difference in reducing
smog.
"Ford engineers see; this |Bush| plan
as an innovative and challenging move."
according to Helen O. Petrauskas, Ford
vice president for environmental and
safety engineering. In a recent article in
the Environmental Forum, she said:
For the first time; we would be;
looking at the vehicle and its fuel
as an integrated system. This is a
concept that expands engineering
horizons and olh;rs ne;w potential
for improving air e|iiality. While
there are; many questions to IK;
answered, such as what in(:i;ntive;.s
are require:el to induce; customers
tei buy cars that use new fuels, the
concept provieles a real
opportunity for progress toward
-i:
EPA JOURNAL
-------
these ambitious environmental
goals through cooperative
industry/government research and
action.
Methanol, ethanol, natural gas,
electricity—possibly other alternative
fuels like reformulated gasoline—are
prospects because emissions from these
fuels are less likely to form smog.
Ford's research in this area has
accelerated in the last 10 years. We have
placed about 700 Ford demonstration
vehicles in service since 1981, and they
have provided valuable knowledge in
resolving some of the technical and
functional problems with alcohol and
gaseous fuels as well as with electric
cars. Each has advantages and
disadvantages when compared with
present-day gasoline. But achieving
widespread public acceptance remains a
conundrum until problems of limited
driving range, fuel availability, and
vehicle convenience can be solved.
Ford can commit to producing
vehicles capable of operating on
alternative fuels. Ford engineers have
developed a "flexible-fuel vehicle" that
is capable of using ethanol, methanol,
gasoline, or any combination of these
fuels with one common fuel tank. The
driver isn't required to make any engine
adjustments—the process is
automatic—no matter which fuel or mix
of fuels is in the tank. These vehicles
have demonstrated excellent road
performance in the last three years.
In those urban areas where clean fuels
would help reduce the smog problem,
such as in Los Angeles, a driver could
use one of these alternative fuels, but
use gasoline on a cross-country trip.
Flexible-fuel vehicles are one possible
solution to the problem of assuring an
orderly transition while a new fuel
delivery system is developing. It would
be up to government, however, to create
an environment that encourages the
public to purchase and use such
vehicles and fuels.
Electric vehicles are another prospect
for improving air quality. Ford has been
involved since 1982 in a $20-million
research program with General Electric,
several battery manufacturers, and the
U.S. Department of Energy. Similar
efforts have been launched by the
Electric Power Research Institute in
conjunction with Chrysler and General
Motors.
What makes electric vehicles
attractive, environmentally, is that there
are no noxious motor emissions to foul
the air. However, one has to take into
account that electric cars must recharge
their batteries by plugging into electric
sockets. And smokestack emissions from
electricity-generating plants fueled by
coal, oil, and gas already have been
targeted as major sources of air
pollution, particularly acid rain.
Electric vehicles, advocates agree, will
have only a modest impact for the
foreseeable future (perhaps 100,000
vehicles in a 15 million annual vehicle
market) and would mainly be used as
delivery trucks and service vans
required to travel only short distances
each day. The batteries require six to
eight hours recharging time during
every 24-hour period, assuming 8 to 10
hours of daily vehicle operation. At
present, the driving range of Ford's
experimental electric Aerostar is 100
miles; the maximum speed is 65 miles
per hour.
In all electric vehicle prototypes,
major vehicle redesign is required to
accommodate batteries and to power
such things as power steering, brakes,
and air conditioning. And the price of
an electric vehicle, mainly due to
battery cost, will be well above
comparable vehicles using internal
combustion engines and conventional
fuels.
What the United States, indeed the
world, must face is that correcting any
single environmental concern, such as
urban smog, hazardous waste disposal,
or global warming, often creates a
backlash that has a negative impact on
other environmental concerns. This is
not theory, but a conclusion based on
the auto industry's experience of some
20 years during which well-intentioned
environmental goals sometimes turned
into inflexible mandates that proved
costly and ineffective.
For example, the federal requirements
to rush newly developed
emissions-control systems into
production in the late 70s resulted in
serious degradation of vehicle
performance and driveability. That, in
turn, prompted customers either to
disconnect their catalytic converters or
to delay purchase of improved but more
expensive new vehicles. Either way, air
quality suffered.
Improvements in fuel economy can
also affect safety and consumer
preferences. Federal statistics show that
large cars are safer than small ones in
accidents. This is a simple matter of
kinetic physics: Large cars are heavier
and longer, so they offer more occupant
protection against fatal or serious injury.
Americans like safe cars, even if this
means greater fuel consumption. Yet
today's largest cars have better fuel
mileage than the smallest cars 10 years
ago. This is true across the auto
industry.
Additionally, millions of people
purchase large vehicles to accommodate
their families or to meet particular
business needs. An obvious question:
Which is better for air quality—one
large car capable of doing what a
customer needs or two small cars? For
environmental and safety reasons, one
large car is preferred.
Let's consider both national and
personal costs. Currently, clean-air,
fuel-economy, and safety legislation
under consideration in Congress would
add as much as $1,200 to the price of a
car or truck. And if some of the
environmentally driven provisions
affecting the auto industry become law,
the result could signal the demise of
family-size cars, farm-to-market trucks,
and commercial vehicles across
America.
Thousands of workers would face
unemployment, surely a matter of social
concern for state and federal welfare
agencies, plus heavy tax losses for the
U.S. Treasury, states, and cities—not to
mention the degradation of America's
vital transportation system.
Such prospects should be of
tremendous concern to policymakers,
lawmakers, and labor and business
leaders worried about the nation's
economic future. For one thing, there is
no substitute national plan to offset this
problem by providing adequate mass
public transit systems or expanded
railroad service to keep America
working, moving, and competing in a
very tough global market.
Many critical choices confront the
U.S. government, industries, and
workers in this laudable national
campaign to improve the quality of the
air we breathe. Much can be done and
should be done. Ford Motor Company
concedes that autos are part of the
problem and it wants to be part of the
solution: "At Ford, Quality Air is also
Job One." The rest of the auto industry
shares this objective.
The 20th anniversary of Earth Day,
therefore, is a good time to note that
tremendous air quality improvement
already has been achieved by the auto
industry, and the industry is willing to
try to do more. But it is also time to
note that there are complex, global
interrelationships among differing
environmental goals that require careful
balancing and judicious tradeoffs by
lawmakers, federal regulators,
environmental crusaders, industry, and
the public. D
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990
45
-------
The Greens of Europe:
A New Environ mental ism
by Konrad von Moitke
In all Western countries, the growing
environmental movement has been an
important political development over
the past 20 years. Numerous
environmental organizations have been
created. Indeed, not just Western
nations but virtually all countries now
have indigenous environmental
organizations that are helping to shape
the perspective of governments on
environmental issues.
While environmental organizations
have become nearly universal, it is
nevertheless important tu recognize the
differences among these organizations in
different countries. Indeed, the structure
of the environmental movement in the
United States, France, or West Germany.
for example, often more closely reflects
the specific political system within
which these organizations operate than
the common agenda that unites them.
As environmental organizations have
developed, they have faced the question
whether to work with existing political
parties or to create their own. While
American organizations generally work
through existing structures, in West
Germany a new political party, the
Greens, has emerged which is closely
identified with the environmental
agenda. As distinguished from
environmental organizations, the need
for a "Green" party is not evident in
every country. Nevertheless, the West
German Greens have been emulated in
many countries, so that it is possible to
speak of a "Green phenomenon."
Yet the rise of the Greens in West
Germany is first and foremost a
reflection of the West German political
system. In assessing the Green
phenomenon, it is important to keep the
specific West German components
versus the more universal issues in
perspective. In Germany, political
parties have programmatic identities:
They are "Christian," "Social
Democratic," or "Liberal." Traditionally,
(Von Moitke is d senior/eJ/oiv (it The
Gmisi'ivntion Foundation and (ui/unct
professor of environmental studies nt
GoJlcge.)
parties have also been associated with
colors: Conservatives are black;
socialists are red. But in the past few
years, the West German political scene
has been rocked by a political party
which turned tradition around: it called
itself Green before it had any clearly
defined political identity.
Green has long been associated with
environmental, and the new party
sought identification with
environmentalism. By taking a color for
its name rather than a more traditional
programmatic label, such as
"progressive ecologists," it acquired a
'jig !S
rnan
Greens. m
West German parties considered the
environment no more than an irritant in
the quest for continued economic
growth. The West German government.
for example, led the resistance against
international measures to reduce acid
rain in Europe.
The West German environmental
movement was severely fragmented
throughout the 70s; government policy
tended to foster that fragmentation in
the misguided belief that a divided
movement would protect the authorities
from public pressure. The structure of
the West German political system
APlWide World photo
more traditional political advantage:
The founders could avoid difficult
choices between an "ecological" wing
which rejected traditional ideologies
and a "socialist" wing which came to
environmentalism via traditional
left-wing politics. Avoiding that choice
was important because the Greens began
life as a marriage of convenience
between groups that had been neglected
by West German politics of the 1960s
and early 1970s.
During the 70s, being an
environmentalist in West Germany
meant being on the periphery of the
political system. Official policy reflected
a belief in technology and the
assumption that the environment could
be adequately protected without
fundamental changes in social or
economic practices. The traditional
reinforced this idea. While it is superb
in representing major social and
economic interests, it is also remarkably
ineffective in articulating the views of
small minorities. A complex system of
apportionment of seats at all levels of
government ensures that no party
receiving less than 5 percent of the vote
will be represented in any elected body.
Votes cast for such a party are
effectively "lost," creating an additional
disincentive for voters to support
marginal groups.
The most visible part of the
environmental movement in the 70s was
a loose coalition of local activist
initiatives, the Bund Burgerinitiativen
UmweJtschutz (BBL'j. The Mill!
organized some of the most massive
public demonstrations in West German
history. Many of these demonstrations
46
EPA JOURNAL
-------
AP Wide Wo'ld photo
West German Greens were elected to the
Frankfurt City Parliament in 1981. Their
poster translates, "Green protection against
disasters inside and outside Parliament."
opposed nuclear power, and some of
them degenerated into violent
confrontations with the police. Most
other environmental organisations were
almost invisible compared to the BUU.
and all of them were poorly funded and
severely understaffed. Hut the HHU was
the practical breeding ground of the
environmental faction of the Greens,
even though it was a non-partisan
organization,
In the West Germany of the 1970s, the
environmental movement and political
parties on the far left of the political
spectrum had something in common:
Both had little or no representation in
the West German political system. The
Greens began as an electoral alliance of
these groups to overcome the minimum
requirement of 5 percent. Their initial
program was consequently more than
just an ecological manifesto; it focused
on the concerns of the peace movement,
which had not succeeded in stopping
the introduction of cruise missiles on
the continent, and other interests of
these marginal groups. So the Greens'
first success in the West German
political system was getting elected at
all.
Over the past decade, the; West
German Greens have struggled with
their divisive legacy. For several years a
dehate raged between "realists" and
"fundamentalists" concerning their
willingness to assume executive
responsibility in coalition with other
parties. This question has now been
settled in favor of participation,
involving acceptance of the inevitable
compromises this will entail. Kven
participation in the West German
national government is no longer
inconceivable. It appears possible that a
future West German government could
he formed by a coalition of Social
Democrats and Greens.
Thus the Greens have made important
contributions to West German politics
in promoting broad opposition to
nuclear energy and in achieving
acceptance of the peace movement or in
identifying more sharply the; dangers of
nationalism and racism in West German
society. They forced the traditional
parties to confront rampant abuses in
their fund-raising. Paradoxically, the
Greens have had less impact on West
German environmental policy than most
outside observers might expect.
And while public support for
environmental protection is now
broadly based in West Germany, as in
all other Western countries, it can
hardly be attributed to the Greens.
Instead, the foundations for this support
were laid by the environmental
movement of the 70s—the same
movement the Greens have drawn upon
for support.
In the 80s. environmental policy
became a major item for both
conservative and left-wing parties in
most countries—later in the United
States than elsewhere. In West
Germany, this shift occurred in 1982
following recognition of serious forest
damage widely attributed to acid rain.
Forest owners and forest managers,
traditionally a very conservative part of
the electorate, may ultimately have had
more to do with the change in
government policy than the Greens.
The Greens are an outgrowth of
unique West German political
conditions. They have, however, been
emulated in other countries, taking on
new forms all across Europe as the
advantage of the non-ideological color
label—Green—continues to allow a
wide range of interpretations, depending
on local conditions. Thus the Green
phenomenon in Europe is a
heterogeneous mix of fledgling political
parties whose future is tied closely to
their ability to articulate issues which
go far beyond the environmental
agenda.
The small West European countries of
Denmark. Sweden, and the Netherlands
are widely known for their strong
commitment to environmental
protection. All three have Green parties,
but they have fared differently. Perhaps
most striking is the weakness of the
Greens in the Netherlands, the country
with arguably the most environmentally
aware electorate in Europe. Even in the
most recent elections, which were
fought in large measure on
environmental issues, the Dutch Greens
emerged with only 4.1 percent of the
vote.
Hut this does not mean environmental
issues are not represented, The Dutch
political system is based on pure
proportional representation; any group
which attracts 1 percent of the vote will
also receive 1 percent of the available
seats. As a result, traditional Dutch
political parties are highly sensitive to
minority interests and much more open
to the issues which provided a focus for
the Greens in West Germany:
disarmament, minority rights, and
environmental protection.
Similarly in Denmark, a country
where aggregate membership of
JANUARY FEBRUARY 1990
47
-------
environmental organizations exceeds the
total population (due to overlapping
memberships), the local incarnation of
the Greens has not had a major impact
because the political system is sensitive
to minority interests.
In neighboring Sweden, however, the
Greens emerged from recent elections as
a major political force despite the
government's vigorous and
long-standing commitment to
environmental protection. The reasons
presumably lie not in environmental
policy but in voters' desire to protest
against a consensus-oriented,
policy-making process in which
traditional parties did not appear to
offer realistic alternatives. Sweden
illustrates the extent to which the Green
phenomenon may be divorced from
specific environmental issues.
Three other major European
countries—Italy, France, and the United
Kingdom—have tended to approach
environmental issues with more reserve
than the smaller countries. In these
three countries, Greens have been
having an impact on the political scene,
but in ways that differ widely from one
country to another.
In Italy and France, the Greens have
been remarkably successful in local and
regional elections but have not yet
penetrated at the national level. In Italy,
this is presumably a matter of time,
provided the relationship with the
Radical Party—a traditional forum for
protest voters and a long-standing
champion of Green issues such as
disarmament, women's rights, and
pro-choice positions on abortion—can
be worked out. In France, the electoral
system creates serious impediments to
small-party representation without prior
electoral alliances with the large parties.
Such alliances risk limiting the ability
of the Greens to attract protest voters.
Thus, the French Greens were more
successful in the European Parliament
elections, which use a different form of
seat apportionment than the national
elections.
No electoral system is harder on
minorities than the one shared by the
United Kingdom and the United States,
in which elections are based on
electoral districts in each of which a
plurality elects an individual
representative. Yet the outcomes in the
two countries are quite different. U.S.
Congressional representatives find it
necessary to cultivate their electoral
districts and to respond to minority
interests at that level; such an
imperative exists to a much lesser
extent in the United Kingdom, where
party-line voting in Parliament is an
accepted fact of political life.
While Greens exist in both the United
Kingdom and the United States, there is
little sign that they will be able to elect
representatives in significant numbers.
They are ultimately victims of the
political system within which they
work. In the recent European Parliament
elections, the British Greens obtained 15
percent of the vote nationwide but
failed to elect a single member because
they could not muster a majority in any
one electoral district.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of
the Green phenomenon is the role
environmental interests have played in
the current transformation of Eastern
Europe. For many years, environmental
concerns were under-represented in
official government policy.
Paradoxically, this created a vacuum in
which informal environmental groups
could form since they did not conflict
with official structures. In many
instances, both inside the Soviet Union
and its republics and in Eastern Europe,
these nascent environmental groups
have found themselves at the very
center of a transforming political
system. They are one of the few
organized groups which are not
identified with the previous regime, not
only because the environment is a
severely neglected policy area but also
because they are politically neutral.
Environmentalists have been a
moving force in the Baltic provinces, for
example, and were organized in
Hungary at a time when citizen
participation was still officially frowned
upon. In Poland, representatives of the
ecological movement sat at the
roundtable negotiations which led to the
transformation of that country's political
system. And in Bulgaria, small
environmental demonstrations triggered
the process of change.
Ultimately, the Greens are a visible
incarnation of a challenge to
governments around the world. Electors
are seeking more energetic protection of
the environment, and traditional parties
are struggling to accommodate this new
interest.
The message of the Greens in this
situation is quite simple: If you do not
succeed in adopting vigorous
environmental policies, your voters will
turn to new parties. In West Germany
the result may even be a change of
government, a
Is there room for specifically Green
politics in the United States? At first
sight the outlook is cloudy. Unlike those
European countries where Green parties
flourish on small percentages of the
popular vote because of proportional
representation, the United States has a
simple-majority, winner-take-ali system
of elections. This tends to freeze out
third-party projects.
Also, the need for a specifically Green
party is arguably less here than
elsewhere because of a strong American
tradition of freedom of association and
the correspondingly characteristic
American knack for forming pressure
groups. Thus, environmental issues are
pushed by a veritable throng of local
pressure groups and by strong
environmental lobbies centered in
Washington and state capitals.
Nevertheless, there are organized
Green political formations all over the
country. Perhaps the best organized and
the most ambitious of these are the
Green Committees of Correspondence,
which operate in the tradition of the
committees of correspondence that
helped build momentum for the
American Revolution. Organized in 250
local communities, in 34 regions, with
an Inter-regional Committee
headquartered in Kansas City, the
Greens are serious about building—from
the grassroots up—a strong, locally and
regionally based national political
movement. In addition to supporting
citizen actions on a range of issues,
such as anti-incineration and
pro-recycling campaigns, save-the-forest
campaigns, and various conservation
projects, Greens have run for political
office in many localities and state
legislative districts—getting as little as 1
percent and as much as 44 percent of
the popular vote.
(Rensenbrink, a political scientist,
teaches courses in ecology and politics
and in political theory at Boivdoin
College in Brunswick, Maine, and is
active with the Green Committees of
Correspondence. He is writing a book,
due to be published this fall, on the
Greens and the transformation of
American politics in (lie 90s.)
-------
Do the Greens
Have a Future Here?
by John Rensenbrink
Walt Bresettc, above, is a founder of the Lake Superior Green Party
successfully to elect an environmentally sympathetic Commissioner of P
Wisconsin. Most U.S. Green groups focus their energies o:
rather than elections
Yet the question remains: What is the
rationale for these Green groups over
and above what they as individuals
might be doing as members of
already-existing organizations and
lobbies?
An answer may be found along the
following lines. If, as argued elsewhere
in this issue of KPA journal—by
Administrator Reilly, for example—a
major aim of environmental action is
prevention of pollution, and not just its
cleanup or reduction, then there may he
a need for a more coherent and
multi-faceted social and political force
in this country than is presently
available.
Pollution prevention requires a
comprehensive capacity to think ahead
and a steady political will. Hut local
pressure groups tend to locus on single
issues: they usually react to problems
only after-the-fact. In many cast's, they
are driven by an attitude of "not in my
back yard," tin; NIMBY syndrome.
NIMBY feelings are easily stirred up,
but they also dwindle fast.
The big lobbies often possess a
forward-looking capacity and may be
more comprehensive than local pressure
groups in their approach, but they are
immersed in particular legislative
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990
politicking, and they are unable to focus
effectively on the larger, long-term
issues. They don't have the steady
political clout for a comprehensive
program of pollution prevention because
their social and political base is weak or
non-existent. Basically, they are as
effective as the direct-mail money
raisers and wealthy donors they depend
on enable them to be.
As for the Republican and Democratic
parties, their politics are very short-term
oriented and have become exercises in
brilliant sloganeering and ingenious
negative campaigning via
ever-more-expensive TV advertising.
They seem therefore to lag in their
capacity to formulate and follow
through on broad-based and long-term
policies of prevention.
Furthermore, environmental problems
are very likely to get worse. The effects
of gradual global warming, for example,
could be a series of continuing disasters.
Swift, sure action will be necessary—a
kind of action that does not come easily
to large, ponderous institutions like the
federal government or large
corporations, where relative inertia
often prevails over efforts to deal
effectively with ecological problems.
The present extra-governmental
response mechanism—NIMBY-minded
local groups, centralized lobbies, and
political parties whose anxiety for
money to pay for costly TV propaganda
overwhelms even their strongest and
best intentions—seems insufficient.
What is needed is something they can't
supply: the goad and vision to stir
government, business, and citizens to
more effective action.
There may well be, therefore, a niche
for the kind of movement and party the
Greens are trying to develop. A Green
movement would point public policy in
a problem-solving direction, as distinct
from problem-tinkering and
crisis-management politics. It would be
a catalyst for translating knowledge into
actual policy. It is not as if Greens
would have to displace the Republicans
or Democrats, or the central lobbies, or
the NIMBY-minded local groups. But
they are needed as a creative, catalytic
force.
The Greens I rub shoulders with are
dedicated, practical visionaries who
have committed themselves to being a
steady force for the prevention of
pollution and the development of
sustainable communities, for a
sustainable country and world based on
efficiency, justice, and freedom.
They are a minority, of course. But
suppose their numbers were to incivasr
by a factor of throe or four (as I think
they will). Suppose they were able to
supply just that degree and kind of
vision, wisdom, and will without which
the government and society at large
probably would not respond effectively
to the dire threats of ecological and
economic disintegration. Wouldn't that
be a boon?
I believe such a catalytic force is
needful and that it has already taken
root in our society and politics. Thus
then; is good reason for concerned
Americans from all quarters—
government officials, business
men and women, labor leaders,
grassroots organizations, big
environmental lobbies, and worried
citizens—to contribute their help and
support to an indigenous Green
movement. D
49
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A Perspective from
Another Country:
The Soviet Task
by Alexei Yablokov
As the Soviet Union moves toward
the year 2000, Soviet
environmentalists and ordinary citizens
are becoming more and more active.
They have no choice. The natural
resources in our rich country are being
wasted and misused to an extent that
the country now faces ecological crisis.
Problems of toxic and radioactive
wastes, polluted air and water, and
agricultural pollution have reached
extremely serious levels.
The policy of giasnost is allowing us
to learn more and more about
environmental disasters in the USSR.
but more must be done. As members of
the Supreme Soviet, my colleagues and
I are committed to making perestroifca
permanent in the environmental sphere.
The problems cannot be
underestimated. In nearly every area of
the environment, Soviet citizens are
facing real threats to their health and
the health of their children:
• Last year the release of harmful
substances into the atmosphere reached
100 million tons. In 103 cities, with a
total population of about 50 million
people, at least 10 times the permissible
concentrations of harmful substances
were emitted.
• Much of our water is extremely
polluted and violates sanitary and
ecological norms. In 000 cities, normal
purification of water sources is not
provided. At installations of the present
Ministry of Water Works, up to 21
percent of the water being gathered in
reservoirs for consumer use is wasted.
• More than 5 million hectares of the
most productive land have been
removed from agricultural production
(Yablokov is Vice-Chairman of the
USSR Supreme Soviet Committee: on
Environmental Protection and Rational
Use of Natural Resources. He is also a
Corresponding Member of the USSR
Academy of Sciences, Environmental
Advisor to the Internationa] Foundation
for the Survival and Development of
Humanity, and President of Greenpeace
USSR.)
—Translated by Edward B. Hodgman
due to water-logging and salination.
About 10 million hectares of the most
valuable farm land have been flooded as
a result of newly built reservoirs and
hydroelectric projects.
• For each unit of production, several
times more raw materials, energy, and
water are used in the Soviet Union than
in Western nations.
• The pesticide problem is also acute.
Dangerous levels of pesticides have
been found in 42 percent of children's
milk products, and residues can even be
detected in mother's milk.
• Declining environmental quality lias
fostered a rise in illness. We share the
47th or 48th place in average life
expectancy and occupy 44th place in
infant mortality in the world.
• We now have "ecological refugees."
The Aral Basin, the Caspian Basin, the
southern Ukraine, the Ku/.bass region.
many areas of great natural beauty, and
a series of other regions are at the edge
of ecological catastrophe.
This alarming ecological situation is
one reason for the rise in social tensions
in the country. We are also losing
immense economic potential. Many of
these environmental problems are, in
fact, the result of incompetent economic
management.
This is quite a catalogue of problems.
The most difficult matter to face is that,
as we begin our efforts to clean up the
environment, we cannot expect to see
real improvement in the situation in the
next year. In the immediate prospect,
we cannot expect to achieve noticeable
improvement in the quality of our water
or air.
The Supreme Soviet—An Organ of
Change
Nonetheless, we will not lose hope.
Both the new Supreme Soviet and the
public are devoting new energies and
resources to solving these problems.
During the most recent Supreme Soviet
session, we worked from morning to
night analyzing the draft Government
plan on economic and social
development and the 1990 national
budget.
We held hearings with all national
agencies dealing with environmental
protection—first of all Goskompriroda
(the State Committee for the Protection
of Nature) and Goskomhydromet (the
State Committee on Hydrometeorology).
We heard testimony from all national
industries which pose the greatest threat
to the environment: metallurgical,
lumber, and chemical and
gas-processing industries. We even
brought in the USSR State Planning
Commission (Caspian), the USSR
Ministry of Finances, and the State
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Lake Baikal in Siberia is one of the deepest in the world. U.S. and Russian s
Committee on Science; and Technology
to get their views on what should be
done to improve the environmental
situation.
In order to save the health of the earth
we must change our legislation. An
"ecologization" of thinking has already
taken place among the majority of
Soviet people. The laws must become
"ecologized" just as quickly. After all.
the laws reflect the interrelationship
among people, and also between people
and property. All these
interrelationships must now be
examined through the ecological prism.
The environment has become a burning
political issue, a problem of health and
life itself.
Environmental activism is a healthy
reaction to the technocratic
development of civili/ation. In essence,
environmental action has sprung from
the worldview of all people who are
worried about the present
environmental situation.
At the Congress of People's Deputies.
every second or third Deputy spoke
about ecological disasters. Several
candidates for ministerial posts were
rejected by the Supreme Soviet in part
because their pas} activity had been
marked by. to put it mildly,
environmental "shortsightedness."
The Supreme Soviet must be the
legislative guardian of our environment.
JANUARY'FEBRUARY 1990
In the first session, our committee
demanded (and our demands were
satisfied) an accounting of the potential
environmental danger of the techniques
and technology purchased and used in
the Soviet Union. It is no secret that
many foreign firms would like to use
our country as a testing ground for
ecologically harmful production. Many
are succeeding at the present time.
Independent Environmental Groups
The growth of independent
environmental groups in the USSR is
inspiring. We are "turning green"
quickly. In our country, the mass
ecological movement is very young, but
it is growing and maturing.
There are real "Greens" in Lithuania,
Latvia, Estonia, the Ukraine, and a
number of areas of Russia, and
numerous ecological clubs, groups,
organizations, and societies. Not long
ago, the Soviet division of the
world-renowned organizat ion
"Greenpeace" was founded. It is best
that, for now. all these different
environmental groups are working on
their own. The ecological movement
must have a whole range of colorations
and directions.
But there must also be joint actions,
combining the efforts of all these groups
for specific, concrete actions. There are
examples of such actions in our country
and around the world. Here in tin-
USSR we have battled to stop a canal
planned to connect the Volga and the
Chograi rivers. Around the world we see
the efforts to save tropical forests and
the Indian Tiger, the efforts to stop the
slaughter of whales, seals, and other
marine mammals. All groups must join
together to stop the threat to our
seas—the widespread use of plastic nets
and the release of plastic and toxic
wastes into world oceans.
Economics and the Environment
Protecting the environment depends, in
large part, on economic policies ami
incentives. Proper use of economic
incentives will allow us to implement
new technologies.
A weil thought-out system of taxation
is crucial. Prohibitive taxes must be
levied on any firms that an; using
dangerous technology or releasing
harmful wastes into the environment.
This "polluter pays" principle must be
introduced into the Soviet system. This
means the polluter pays for the full
extent of harm inflicted: not only a fine,
but the total sum necessary for the
restoration of full health to the
environment and the citizens affected.
This principle has not been applied in
our country thus far. Conversely, firms
using environmentally safe technologies
should be given some relief from
taxation. 51
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Flowing through
the Moscow River carries discharges from many industries.
Goskompriroda—the Soviet EPA
Last year, the government ruled that
more than 500 million rubles should be
confiscated from industries that caused
environmental destruction. But this
money did not go for the restoration of
the destroyed environment; it was
simply swallowed back into the budget.
This situation must change, so that the
conservation of natural resources
becomes advantageous for government
on the local level; these funds must be
used for specific environmental projects.
We will not be able to manage
without economic mechanisms for
improving the environment. These
mechanisms must be part and parcel of
the laws on regional economic
management, on local self-government
and self-financing, on property, and on
taxes. Goskomprirodu must search out
and support types of production that are
good for the environment.
In developed countries, industry is
actively moving toward waste-free
technology (in which the waste from
one type of production becomes a raw
material for another type of production).
This means increased production and
economic: benefit. For example, one-
cubic meter of lumber in Canada or
Sweden ends up producing five to six
times more products than in our
country.
What Is to Be Done?
All citizens of the country must be
involved in plans for protecting the
environment. New environmental laws
must be based on a nationwide
discussion.
The Supreme Soviet and
Goskompriroda can take concrete steps.
For example, in the future, cars must
use only two to three liters of gasoline
per 100 kilometers instead of today's
eight to nine. It is time not only to
reduce, but to stop completely the
release of chlorofluorocarbons in order
to stop depletion of the protective ozone
layer. And it is time to reassess the
necessity of the immense amount of
energy now being produced.
We must endorse extraordinary
short-term programs for quick repair of
the environment in regions of ecological
disaster. This is the first step. Following
this, we must simply stop the
construction of huge industrial and
energy projects that are environmentally
irresponsible.
Among other things, it will be
essential to develop a mobile ecological
assessment capability; to register
ecological "passports" for existing
industry in order to define the degree of
danger to the environment of various
technologies in use; and to develop
concrete measures for replacing
dangerous technologies with new, less
dangerous ones.
Complete glasnost about and access to
information about the condition of the
environment and all forms of
pollution—including radiation—are very
important and will help us concentrate
on the most urgent problems in every
region. In general, the plan of action is
clear. We must bring it to life.
Unfortunately, we still face the problem
of ignorance about severe problems on
the part of people who are making
decisions. At the first Congress of
People's Deputies, a group of
deputies—dozens of them—demanded
the passage of a special resolution about
the environment. It did not work out.
Finally, with enormous effort, it was
possible to include in the agenda of the
present Supreme Soviet session a
discussion of the draft decree entitled
"Urgent Measures for Improving the
Country's Environment." Even if it was
the 34th and last question on the
agenda, it was an enormous symbolic
victory all the same.
It was a legislative victory as well, as
the Supreme Soviet passed the decree
on the last day of its session in
December 1989. This decree is vitally
important: It gives the government a
plan of action, supports the people who
are desperately trying to save the
environment, and shows the rest of the
world that the Soviet Union is serious
about improving its own ecological
record and the health of nature around
the world, o
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EPA JOURNAL
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WHAT BEAUTIFUL
MOUNTAINS!
L WISH W6 COULP
SEE THEM JNTH&
PAVTIM6
Back Cover: Spring, a time of
hope. Photo by Bill Weems,
Woodfin Camp.
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xvEPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Washington D.C. 20460
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