The 1950s:
Environmental issues heat up
Nature and Americans
The “Fifties
Syndrome”
The
shift to petroleum from coal
Consumption and Waste
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)