Environmentalism
on the Defensive

Earth, Wind, and Fire

Ronald Reagan

Career in radio, movies, TV

Move to politics: twice California governor

1980 election: Reagan, Carter, & John Anderson

Return to certainties & pride

Actor-President: appearance vs. reality

Government is the problem

◦ Cut taxes for upper incomes, deregulation

Ronald Reagan vs.
“environmental extremists”

End of bipartisan environmentalism

44-member Council on Environmental Quality fired

Business & right-wing think tanks in charge

◦ OMB gets veto over new regulations

◦ Citizen participation limited or avoided

Energy policy: cheap oil

Foreign nations take lead in alternative energy

◦ Solar Energy Research Institute dismantled

Secretary of Interior James Watt

Pentecostal

◦ Rise of conservative evangelical anti-environmentalism

Commercial development of Western public lands

◦ Excludes environmental organizations, 1981

◦ Halt to any further parks or wilderness

◦ States, Congress block offshore oil development

◦ Congress blocks oil leases in wildlife refuges

◦ Court blocks strip mining & coal lease changes

Fired 1983 for offensive remarks

Weakening the EPA

EPA administrator Anne Gorsuch Burford, 1982

◦ Demands for cost-benefit analyses

◦ Opposition to “burdensome” regulations

◦ Proposed budget 1/4 of Carter’s

◦ Dismantled enforcement division

◦ Plans to weaken clean air standards

◦ Resigned in scandal and under investigation, 1983

Backlash

1,000,000 sign Sierra Club petition against Watt

◦ Watt & Burford resign amid scandals, 1983

◦ Congress renews, expands regulations

Radicalization

Rise of the radicals

◦ Greenpeace, 1971

◦ Sea Shepherds, 1977

◦ Earth First!, 1980

◦ Dave Foreman: ecotage

◦ Rainforest Action Network, 1985

Environmental Justice Movement

Warren County protests, 1984

◦ Rev. Benjamin Chavis and the UCC Report, 1987

◦ “Environmental racism”

Spreads across the country

“Chemical Corridor” or “Cancer Alley”?

◦ Louisiana’s petrochemical industry

New ideas
of the 1980s and 1990s

James Lovelock’s “Gaia hypothesis,” 1979

◦ Life, oceans, air, soil: a self-regulating system for optimum environment for life

New ideas
of the 1980s and 1990s

Arne Naess, “Deep Ecology,” 1973 (in US, 1985)

◦ Anthropocentrism vs. biocentrism

New ideas
of the 1980s and 1990s

E. O. Wilson, Biodiversity, 1986

◦ The trouble with “islands”

New ideas
of the 1980s and 1990s

UN Brundtland Report, 1987

◦ “Sustainable development”

New ideas

1967 “Lynn White thesis”

◦ Christianity caused the ecological crisis

Development of “ecotheology”

◦ Pope Francis, Laudato Si’: On Care For Our Common Home, 2015

Environmental concerns of
the late 20th and early 21st centuries

Agriculture

From family farm to agribusiness

◦ Changing government policies: “Get big or get out”

Loss of farmland: urban sprawl

Compaction & erosion

Excess fertilizer and the Gulf’s “Dead Zone”

Bioengineering (GMO’s) & exotic aliens

Global Warming

1896: Svante Arrhenius: theory of global warming

1950s-80s: Data accumulates

◦ Roger Revelle & Mauna Loa CO₂ measurements

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 1988

1992 Rio Earth Summit calls for voluntary action

1997 Kyoto Protocols: stronger reductions

Worse than expected

◦ Heat, extreme weather, sea rise, polar ice caps, glaciers, ocean acidification, coral bleaching

2015 Paris Climate Change Conference

◦ Real commitments for the first time: 2°C goal

International Victories for the Air

Acid rain: an international problem

◦ Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution, 1979

◦ Clean Air Act, 1990: Cap and trade

1974: CFCs and the stratospheric ozone layer

◦ 1985: discovery of Antarctic ozone hole

◦ 1987: Montreal Protocol

Ocean decline

Overfishing

◦ Factory ships, bottom trawlers, deep-sea trawling, ghost nets

◦ Bycatch of birds, fish, and sea mammals

◦ Finning sharks

Marine debris, plastic waste, and pollution

◦ Entangled whales, dolphins, and turtles

◦ Huge patches of floating plastic

◦ Microplastics

Acidification and warming oceans

The “Anthropocene,” 2000

Humans a factor on geologic time scale

The “Sixth Extinction”

◦ Humans & Pleistocene extinctions

◦ Post-Columbian extinctions

◦ Contemporary crises

◦ Amphibian disappearance

◦ Mass bat deaths

◦ Pollinator decline

The fading of environmentalism?

Decline in hunting and fishing

“Nature deficit disorder”

◦ Youth of the 1980s: first generation raised mainly indoors

◦ Fearful parents keep kids from unstructured outdoor play

◦ Lure of video and electronics

Corporate opposition gets better

“Merchants of doubt”

◦ A few scientists against all government regulation

◦ Funded by corporations & libertarian groups

◦ Heritage Foundation, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Marshall Institute, Heartland Institute

◦ Attack dangers of smoking, secondhand smoke, ozone, acid rain, pesticides (Rachel Carson), global warming

◦ Tactics: discredit the science (“junk science”), disseminate false information, spread confusion, and promote doubt

◦ Major funders: Koch brothers, Exxon

◦ #ExxonKnew, 2015

1990s: Marking time

George H.W. Bush, 1989–93, “environmental President”

◦ 1992 Rio Earth Summit: U.S. obstruction

Bill Clinton, 1993–2001

◦ VP Al Gore’s campaign book, Earth in the Balance, 1992

◦ Little leadership on environmental issues

◦ 1997 Kyoto Earth Summit: no leadership; Republican Congress

Another right turn

George W. Bush & Dick Cheney, 2001-2009

◦ Former oil company executives

◦ Secrecy and exclusion of environmental groups

◦ Silencing of scientists, reluctance to regulate, leadership vacuum

◦ Rejects Kyoto, 2001

◦ Boycotts Johannesburg Earth Summit, 2002

◦ “Clear Skies” and “Healthy Forests” initiatives

◦ Focus on hydrogen exclusively

◦ Energy Policy Act of 2005

◦ Subsidizes nuclear & oil, exempts fracking from Clean Water Act

Progress on other fronts

Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, 2006

◦ 2 Academy Awards; 2007 Nobel Peace Prize (with IPCC)

Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007

◦ Fuel economy, hybrids, biofuels, lightbulbs (leaves oil subsidies)

Mainstreaming of organic food

◦ Whole Foods and other organic grocery stores

◦ Industrial organic: Cascadian Farms, Earthbound Farm

Spread of renewable energy (solar and wind power)

Development of batteries and electric cars

Back and forth

Barack Obama, 2009-2017

◦ Attends 2009 UN Climate Change Conference: Copenhagen Accords update Kyoto

◦ 2015 UN Climate Change Conference attended by every country: Paris Accords

◦ Success at setting greenhouse gas goals and goal of no more than 1.5 degree rise in global temperature

◦ Republicans block climate action in Congress

Donald Trump, 2017-2021

◦ Withdraws from Paris Accords and rolls back all Obama executive initiatives

Joe Biden, 2021-2025

◦ Rejoins Paris Agreement

◦ Major initiatives in climate, pollution, and environmental justice

Trump II

◦ Rolls back all Biden initiatives, leaves Paris Accords, puts oil and gas in charge of environmental policy