What is needed now is a transformation of the major systems of production more profound than even the sweeping post-World War II changes in production technology.
In nature, no organic substance is synthesized unless there is provision for its degradation; recycling is enforced.
For that reason the simple test of the slogan ‘Consume Less’ as a basis for social action on the environment would be to tell it to the blacks in the ghetto. The message will not be very well received for there are many people in this country who consume less than is needed to sustain a decent life.
In certain ways, I’m not very different than I was when I was a teenager.
Environmental quality was drastically improved while economic activity grew by the simple expedient of removing lead from gasoline – which prevented it from entering the environment.
The methods that EPA introduced after 1970 to reduce air-pollutant emissions worked for a while, but over time have become progressively less effective.
I see no reason to have my shirts ironed. It’s irrational.
World War II had a very important impact on the development of technology, as a whole.
It is simply economically impossible to require controls that even approach zero emissions.
It reflects a prevailing myth that production technology is no more amenable to human judgment or social interests than the laws of thermodynamics, atomic structure or biological inheritance.
In every case, the environmental hazards were made known only by independent scientists, who were often bitterly opposed by the corporations responsible for the hazards.
After all, despite the economic advantage to firms that employed child labor, it was in the social interest, as a national policy, to abolish it – removing that advantage for all firms.
If you ask what you are going to do about global warming, the only rational answer is to change the way in which we do transportation, energy production, agriculture and a good deal of manufacturing. The problem originates in human activity in the form of the production of goods.
By adopting the control strategy, the nation’s environmental program has created a built-in antagonism between environmental quality and economic growth.
Recycling is a good thing to do. It makes people feel good to do it. The thing I want to emphasize is the vast difference between recycling for the purpose of feeling good and recycling for the purpose of solving the trash problem.
What is new is that environmentalism intensely illuminates the need to confront the corporate domain at its most powerful and guarded point – the exclusive right to govern the systems of production.
We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.
Earth Day 1970 was irrefutable evidence that the American people understood the environmental threat and wanted action to resolve it.
The environmental crisis is a sign that the ecosphere is now so heavily strained that its continued stability is threatened. It is a warning that we must discover the source of this suicidal drive and master it before it destroys the environment-and ourselves.
Science is triumphant with far-ranging success, but its triumph is somehow clouded by growing difficulties in providing for the simple necessities of human life on earth.
The gap between brute power and human need continues to grow, as the power fattens on the same faulty technology that intensifies the need.