The Morning After Earth Day

A Brookings Institution Press and Governance Institute publication As we approach the 30th anniversary of Earth Day (the first of its kind was April 1970), congressional debate about environmental protection often remains paralyzed and polarized. But across the country, environmental pragmatism is gaining ground. The Morning after Earth Day explores how policymakers, business executives, and citizen groups are fighting novel political battles and sometimes making peace with surprising compromises. After a generation of progress in reducing large sources of industrial and municipal pollution and in improving management of public lands, today's environmental conflicts are more complex. They involve controlling pollution caused by farmers, small businesses, drivers of aging cars, and homeowners, as well as minimizing ecological threats on private land. Remedies often lie in politically treacherous territory--persuading ordinary people to change their daily routines rather than ordering big business to adopt new technology or government officials to manage land differently. As Mary Graham shows, practical approaches are resolving immediate disputes and providing clues for future policy. But core dilemmas remain. They include how to reconcile environmental protection with respect for private property, how to balance federal and state authority, and how much to rely on behavioral versus technological change. Only by reclaiming the debate about these dilemmas from extremists and confronting them head-on will the nation build a solid foundation for the next generation of environmental policy.

A Brookings Institution Press and Governance Institute publication As we approach the 30th anniversary of Earth Day (the first of its kind was April 1970), congressional debate about environmental protection often remains paralyzed and polarized. But across the country, environmental pragmatism is gaining ground. The Morning after Earth Day explores how policymakers, business executives, and citizen groups are fighting novel political battles and sometimes making peace with surprising compromises. After a generation of progress in reducing large sources of industrial and municipal pollution and in improving management of public lands, today's environmental conflicts are more complex. They involve controlling pollution caused by farmers, small businesses, drivers of aging cars, and homeowners, as well as minimizing ecological threats on private land. Remedies often lie in politically treacherous territory--persuading ordinary people to change their daily routines rather than ordering big business to adopt new technology or government officials to manage land differently. As Mary Graham shows, practical approaches are resolving immediate disputes and providing clues for future policy. But core dilemmas remain. They include how to reconcile environmental protection with respect for private property, how to balance federal and state authority, and how much to rely on behavioral versus technological change. Only by reclaiming the debate about these dilemmas from extremists and confronting them head-on will the nation build a solid foundation for the next generation of environmental policy.

Issues. They are the conflagrations, the bonfires, the burning controversies so profound, so personal they move people to take action and generate the momentum to change the political system and the course of history. Be it the Boston Tea Party of 1773, Jacob Coxey's Army, the Bonus Army March of June 1932, the National Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, the Women's March of January 2018, or March for Our Lives to end gun violence in America in March of 2018, all came about because of Americans motivated by issues so much so they took their message of change to the street. Driven by issues which galvanized public opinion, people protested, demonstrating public solidarity for a cause. Earth Day: America at the Environmental Crossroads is a political history focusing on the issues which generated the first Earth Day in April 1970. It is about the people who brought about this momentous political turning point during a period in American history of unprecedented turmoil and political protest. Open its cover, and you will learn about the agents of change. Some have risen to take their place in the pantheon of environmental history; others are all but forgotten in the collective public mind. It begins with herbicide contamination and the Cranberry Scare of November 1959 then explains the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam and its impact on the environmental movement. Though the use of two nuclear weapons by the United States military ended World War II in the Pacific, the inevitable arms race with the Soviet Union during the Cold War led to the testing of these weapons of mass destruction. The second chapter explains how nuclear contaminated fallout became a health threat and a concern for environmentalists and the general public. Overpopulation seems to be a nonissue today. During the decades prior to Earth Day in 1970, the world's population numbers were a concern of monumental importance. This is the focus of chapter three. No credible treatment of the twentieth century environmental movement would be complete without addressing the contribution of Rachel Carson and her book Silent Spring. Unlike pesticides, the effects of which oftentimes surface years after exposure, deteriorating air quality burned the eyes and made it difficult to breathe. Polluted air particularly in the country's urban areas not only left an indelible impression in the minds of environmentalists, but it also threatened public health. And clean water, taken for granted today by most Americans, is the subject of chapter six, which describes the extent to which the country's waterways were part of a multibillion-dollar restoration project on the part of the states mandated by the federal government. The seventh chapter is a retelling of the oil spill disaster in Santa Barbara, California, and the radical fringe of the environmental movement which manifested itself before Earth Day, a fitting precursor to the event itself the subject of the final chapter.

Archaeologists and anthropologists have long studied artifacts of refuse from the distant past as a portal into ancient civilizations, but examining what we throw away today tells a story in real time and becomes an important and useful tool for academic study. Trash is studied by behavioral scientists who use data com­piled from the exploration of dumpsters to better understand our modern society and culture. Why does the average American household send 470 pounds of uneaten food to the garbage can on an annual basis? How do different societies around the world cope with their garbage in these troubled environmental times? How does our trash give insight into our attitudes about gender, class, religion, and art? The Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste explores the topic across multiple disciplines within the social sciences and ranges further to include business, consumerism, environmentalism, and marketing to comprise an outstanding reference for academic and public libraries.

A timely, new resource on the history of the U.S. government's approach to environmental policy. At a time when changing the nation's environmental policy is a top presidential priority, with a new global climate change treaty deep in negotiations, and with the country itself weighing the need for action against concerns over too much government regulation, this exhaustive new reference work could not be more welcomed. Encyclopedia of the U.S. Government and the Environment: History, Policy, and Politics explores the interaction between the federal government and environmental politics and policy throughout the nation's history, from the earliest efforts to preserve lands and regulate pollution to the 1960s emergence of the modern environmental movement, the landmark legislation of the 1970s, and the seesawing back-and-forth of policies between alternating Republican and Democrat administrations of the last three decades. Authoritative, unbiased, and informed by the latest available research, the hundreds of entries cover the full range of issues, events, laws, institutions, and key players that shape federal environmental policies, incorporating viewpoints from across the ideological spectrum.

The Spirit of Sustainability helps readers navigate the moral worlds and ethical concepts, and social and religious practices related to sustainability. In collaboration with the Forum on Religion and Ecology, an established network of leading scholars, it explores a wide range of topics and perspectives, from the promise and problems of approaching sustainability through global and indigenous religions, to major theories in philosophy and environmental ethics, and professional practices and social movements. This volume presents the various goals of sustainability - ecological integrity, economic health, human dignity, fairness to the future, and social justice - and provides a framework for reasoning through many interrelated environmental challenges for both current and future generations.

Environmentalism has become a hot button political topic. When leadership teams create an impression, one way or the other, that the Earth is in trouble, we need to pay attention. This valuable resource presents simple facts about the history of environmentalism in America, and why it exists. It examines the science behind certain assertions, and teaches readers about new issues, and new solutions.

The Encyclopedia of Environment and Society brings together multiplying issues, concepts, theories, examples, problems, and policies, with the goal of clearly explicating an emerging way of thinking about people and nature. With more than 1,200 entries written by experts from incredibly diverse fields, this innovative resource is a first step toward diving into the deep pool of emerging knowledge. The five volumes of this Encyclopedia represent more than a catalogue of terms. Rather, they capture the spirit of the moment, a fascinating time when global warming and genetic engineering represent only two of the most obvious examples of socio-environmental issues.