The 1950s:
Environmental issues heat up
Earth, Wind, and Fire
“Environment”
Ecologist
Paul Sears, Deserts on the March, 1935
Dust
Bowl; desertification worldwide
Ecologist,
ornithologist, conservationist William Vogt, The Road to Survival, 1948
International
bestseller
A
history of the planet
Too
many people abusing the land
Globally
interconnected problem: “environment”
Biologist
Fairfield Osborn, Our Plundered Planet, 1948
Too
many people abusing natural resources
International
scientific cooperation
1948,
United Nations Scientific Conference on the Conservation and Utilization of
Resources
Truman:
real or perceived shortages or declining living standards a source of conflict
and war
1948,
UNESCO founds International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)
Conference
in Lake Success, NY, 1949; first Red List of endangered species
1951:
President Harry Truman creates commission about resources
1952,
Resources for the Future established, funded by Ford Foundation; market-based
solutions
1955
conference: “Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth,” Princeton, New
Jersey
1957:
International Geophysical Year
Remarkable
precedent for international and interdisciplinary research about global
environment
The “Fifties
Syndrome”
The
shift to petroleum from coal
Consumption and Waste
New synthetic
chemicals
Wartime
expansion of production and number of synthetics, 1941-1945
Search
for peacetime uses
Farm
chemicals
DDT and
other powerful pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers
Made
from petroleum
Plastics
Made
from “cracked” petroleum
Number
of new plastics rises
Production
of plastic skyrockets after 1950
Water pollution
increases
Chemicals
& synthetics
Use
more energy (oil) to produce
Produce
more durable wastes
Synthetic fibers
Aluminum & plastics
Inorganic fertilizer
Pesticides &
herbicides
Detergents, not soap
Air Pollution Crises
Donora,
Pennsylvania, Halloween 1948
21 die
One-third
of city ill
London’s “Killer Fog”
December
1952: 4000 dead
The Good News
Coal
smoke declines after 1950
Railroads
switch to diesel
Power
plants to natural gas
Now the bad news
New
synthetics put worse chemicals into air
Automobile
transforms American environment
Air
pollution, roads, urban sprawl
High
compression engines need leaded gasoline, 1920s
Cars on
leaded gas pass factories as polluters
Smog
noticed, LA, 1943; traced to autos, 1957
Surgeon
General: air pollution & lung cancer, 1959
Los
Angeles County: alert system, 1955
Atomic weapons
Building
the bomb
Oak
Ridge, TN; Hanford, WA; Los Alamos, NM
Atomic
Energy Commission
Atomic
atmospheric testing, 1945–63
Barry
Commoner, Washington U. biologist
1953
Troy, NY, incident vs. AEC secrecy
Committee
for Nuclear Information; Science and Citizen
Baby
Tooth Project: strontium-90 and milk
Atoms for peace
Getting
public support
Promoting
peaceful uses of the atom
Clean
power, “too cheap to meter”
Late
1950s: First civilian nuclear power reactors
Trust
science to solve problems
Rise of nature
recreation
Growing
interest in preserving nature
Skyrocketing
attendance of national parks
Nature
writing: frequent bestsellers
Dams: The “Go-Go
Years”
Colorado
River Compact, 1922
Bureau
of Reclamation’s
Colorado River Storage Project, 1950
10 dams
— $1,000,000,000
2 dams
in Dinosaur National Monument
Test case
Threatened logging of
Olympic peninsula
Dams in Glacier, Grand
Canyon, Kings Canyon, Adirondacks?
Development stopped
Dinosaur:
battle for congressional funding
100%
support of Western Congressmen
Control irrigation &
reclamation subcommittees
Sierra
Club, Wilderness Society lead resistance
David Brower, Howard
Zahniser
Publicity blitz:
Articles in major newspapers and magazines
New tactic: scientific
argument: bad place for a dam
Dam
deleted from 1956 bill; last proposed park dam
Dinosaur’s high price
Glen
Canyon dam
Brower:
The Place No One Knew (1963)