Earth Day: The History of A Movement

[MachineGhost]

Each year, Earth Day -- April 22 -- marks the anniversary of what many consider the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970.

The height of hippie and flower-child culture in the United States, 1970 brought the death of Jimi Hendrix, the last Beatles album, and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”?. Protest was the order of the day, but saving the planet was not the cause. War raged in Vietnam, and students nationwide increasingly opposed it.

At the time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans. Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. “Environment”? was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news.  Although mainstream America remained oblivious to environmental concerns, the stage had been set for change by the publication of Rachel Carson's New York Times bestseller Silent Spring in 1962.  The book represented a watershed moment for the modern environmental movement, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries and, up until that moment, more than any other person, Ms. Carson raised public awareness and concern for living organisms, the environment and public health.

Earth Day 1970 capitalized on the emerging consciousness, channeling the energy of the anti-war protest movement and putting environmental concerns front and center.

http://www.earthday.org/earth-day-history-movement

[Mountaineer]

Mostly my opinion, some facts:

The Good:  The atmosphere smells much better in my locale even though the mortality rate trend is approximately  the same; drinking water is arguably cleaner.

The Bad:  The EPA transformed into a bureaucracy interested mainly in its own survival and growth instead of its original mission.  Many industries (and subsequent jobs) have moved off-shore.  Way too many snail darters and spotted owls cluttering the earth  Millions more human malaria deaths due to banning of DDT.

The Ugly:  Squander of untold billions of dollars as the EPA forgot the law of diminishing returns applies to environmental "do good" programs; resources have been put toward efforts that make little, if any, improvement - those resources are not available for other uses.

[doodle]

The Bad:  The EPA transformed into a bureaucracy interested mainly in its own survival and growth instead of its original mission.  Many industries (and subsequent jobs) have moved off-shore.  Way too many snail darters and spotted owls cluttering the earth  Millions more human malaria deaths due to banning of DDT.

I'm sure the spotted owl's feel the same about humans. If you ask me, there are too many of our species cluttering the earth. :-)

[doodle]

I realized that that comment probably just put me on the FBI watch list 

[Pointedstick]

I'm sure the spotted owl's feel the same about humans. If you ask me, there are too many of our species cluttering the earth. :-)

Would you count yourself among them, out of curiosity? Or it is all other people who are "cluttering the earth"?

[doodle]

I'm sure the spotted owl's feel the same about humans. If you ask me, there are too many of our species cluttering the earth. :-)

Would you count yourself among them, out of curiosity? Or it is all other people who are "cluttering the earth"?

Hahaha...how do you know I'm not a spotted owl? 

Anyways, assuming I'm a human, then yes, I feel that the species I belong to (including me) are way over represented.

Sometimes its a fun exercise to try to view the world in a non anthropocentric manner. When you do so, there is little to distinguish our collective activities and behaviors from those of a busy anthill.

[doodle]

If you want to get weird though... in reality we humans are nothing but verbs or processes, so it is difficult to speak about us in material terms as "entities". We are forced through language and syntax to assume that there is such a thing as nouns because without it we wouldnt have a subject to put a verb into action. In fact, you cant even utter a complete sentence without a subject. However, the truth is that we are just cosmic material dancing the human dance. We are all like little individual whirlpools, who forget that they are just movements within a greater unified body of water. 

[Pointedstick]

I'm sure the spotted owl's feel the same about humans. If you ask me, there are too many of our species cluttering the earth. :-)

Would you count yourself among them, out of curiosity? Or it is all other people who are "cluttering the earth"?

Hahaha...how do you know I'm not a spotted owl? 

Anyways, assuming I'm a human, then yes, I feel that the species I belong to (including me) are way over represented.

Why don't you become a part of the solution and commit suicide? Serious question. No offense intended, because you're a cool guy, but if you believe your very existence is part of an environmental issue that I know you care deeply about, wouldn't suicide be a responsible decision?

I ask because the radical anti-human attitude is one that I truly do not understand and I seek to understand it better. From my perspective, it seems contradictory for any human who holds your view to avoid advocating or practicing either suicide or homicide.

[rocketdog]

The Bad:  The EPA transformed into a bureaucracy interested mainly in its own survival and growth instead of its original mission.  Many industries (and subsequent jobs) have moved off-shore.  Way too many snail darters and spotted owls cluttering the earth  Millions more human malaria deaths due to banning of DDT.

I'm sure the spotted owl's feel the same about humans. If you ask me, there are too many of our species cluttering the earth. :-)

Reminds me of a line from one of my favorite movies:

I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.

"Agent Smith", The Matrix

[doodle]

Would you count yourself among them, out of curiosity? Or it is all other people who are "cluttering the earth"?

Hahaha...how do you know I'm not a spotted owl? 

Anyways, assuming I'm a human, then yes, I feel that the species I belong to (including me) are way over represented.

Why don't you become a part of the solution and commit suicide? Serious question. No offense intended, because you're a cool guy, but if you believe your very existence is part of an environmental issue that I know you care deeply about, wouldn't suicide be a responsible decision?

I ask because the radical anti-human attitude is one that I truly do not understand and I seek to understand it better. From my perspective, it seems contradictory for any human who holds your view to avoid advocating or practicing either suicide or homicide.

I dont hate humans at all. Just because I think the world would be a better place with less people doesnt mean Im anti human. If you are so pro human why dont you just birth as many little miracles as possible and spread them around for the world to enjoy? 

Luckily I dont think that the problem is so intractable. This could be solved over two generations of proper education and birth control. No need for anyone to commit suicide or have some massive war.

[doodle]

I think my main bone of contention with modern man is his view that he is above and beyond nature rather than a part of it. This view puts us in a clash with our environment as we struggle to subjigate it and bring it under our will. I would prefer a more harmonious approach where we seek to fit within nature and work with it rather than against it. I feel it is important to recognize the interdependent nature of ourselves and our surroundings. I feel it would be beneficial to have a complementary relationship with nature, not an opposing one.

[moda0306]

I think we can see things as societal problems and have discussions without having to commit to an individual solution.

doodle could kill himself to prevent over population, or I could pay more in taxes to prevent Peter Schiff's eventual debt collapse, or Ralph Nader could never drive a car again to prevent global warming.

And you know how successful we'd all be by committing our lives to misery?  0%.

I don't ask anyone as an individual to prevent over-population, global warning, or fiscal meltdown.  In fact, to the degree that there's an actual risk, I'd suggest people take potentially problem-worsening steps to protect themselves and their loved ones.

However, I'd ask my federal government to act differently, and therefore the direction of some of our policy discussions can be different than our individual "SHTF Disaster Plan" discussions.

Let's try to keep that in mind before we talk about suicide for anyone that thinks the world is overpopulated.

[Pointedstick]

I disagree, moda, and I think you tend to over-focus on macro. You seem to believe that micro solutions are practically worthless for macro problems, but forget that macro is composed of individual micros. And most macro solutions wind up advocating micro-scale policies that become macro-scale by virtue of everyone having to conform or obey.

If a problem is serious enough, then those who worry about it should have an easy time convincing enough people to take their own micro pills, rather than advocating that the government produce one giant macro pill, chop it up into micro-sized bites, and require that we eat them. What if it's wrong? The stakes are much higher with macro. If the government mis-targets the problem or identifies the wrong solution, it can do terrible damage.

[moda0306]

PS,

Of course we have to make sure government is taking prudent actions and not grossly ignoring human rights.  However, the sole purpose of government, no matter how small, is to be some sort of solution that is either inefficiently or ineffectively solved by people acting on individual motivations.  If the agents of government were to operate under the premise that there are no such problems, they'd completely disassemble government.

Of course, this is what you'd prefer . So it's hard for me to argue against it than to say that if we're going to have government do something, whether it be roads, currency, military, or environmental externality cost accounting, the very existence of that role is either illegitimate or unwise, or as a result of some failure of individual decision making to result in a positive outcome.  If individual decision making DOES in fact result in the an adequate outcome, then government shouldn't simply act like its dictating to one individual... It shouldn't even have said role in the first place.  But if they are doing something, they should do it knowing that they are affecting a relatively closed system.

For instance, we could debate until we're blue in the face whether governments should run our freeway system... However, if government is going to run it, it should run it for the intertwined closed system that it is.  Speed limits, lines, right of way laws.

So you can try to argue that "gubmint shouldn't do that," but most conversations are built on the premise that this beast will exist, and we simply have to decide how to get it to result in the most productive, prosperous, fair, and free society possible (each consideration having its limitations).

I can have strategic discussions on how to beat traffic, avoid taxes, survive an economic collapse, survive a global warming event, etc, but the mere existence of government is due to a race to the bottom of private players.  Do you really think the manager ofthe subway system in Manhattan should be an ardent anarchist who believes government is evil, and carries that belief into how he manages his work?

Or maybe we want him to know how a subway system works and the limitations of a closed system...

[Benko]

  Do you really think the manager ofthe subway system in Manhattan should be an ardent anarchist who believes government is evil, and carries that belief into how he manages his work?

\
Moda I shouldn't bud into your conversation with PS, but there is one relevant point you might consider:

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

This is one huge problem with gov't agencies. 

[Pointedstick]

For instance, we could debate until we're blue in the face whether governments should run our freeway system... However, if government is going to run it, it should run it for the intertwined closed system that it is.  Speed limits, lines, right of way laws.

Here is probably the root of my disagreement, and it's actually not an anarchist one: these systems are not closed, no matter how convenient it would be for the government to pretend it is. Everything affects everything else. I believe doodle would actually agree with me on this!

Consider roads; yes, they can make speed limit laws, determine the number of lanes, set gross weight and speed limit requirements and so on and so forth... but all of these things have an effect beyond roads! Adding more lanes increases speed and noise. Making highways non-elevated divides the land on either side (having an often very negative effect on surrounding ecosystems and neighborhoods). And so on and so forth.

Without the intermediating influence of prices, competition, and other market forces, these simply become externalities of their own--the very kind of externalities that the government attempts to deal with in other contexts! By using fiat to make these choices outside of a market system, errors can only be corrected through politics and bureaucracy, never the more agile and responsive forces of competition and exchange. As a result, most errors are never corrected, remaining permanent fixtures.

Case in point: the interstate highway system. We had a strong, well-functioning network of railways, municipal streetcars, and subways in this country until the government subsidized the creation of a massive roadway system to reward the automobile manufacturers for their industrial contribution in WWII. This error (in my view) resulted in the dramatic overconsumption of automobiles, destroying mass transit, resulting in air pollution, and indebting the people who bought new cars.

Now those problems themselves were undertaken by government, by creating a regulatory body (the EPA) to moderate the impact of the pollution problem caused by the government upsetting the transit market, subsidizing unprofitable mass transit projects that cannot compete in the market against the government-subsidized road infrastructure, and suppressing interest rates to reduce the burden of loans on consumers.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

[moda0306]

  Do you really think the manager ofthe subway system in Manhattan should be an ardent anarchist who believes government is evil, and carries that belief into how he manages his work?

\
Moda I shouldn't bud into your conversation with PS, but there is one relevant point you might consider:

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

This is one huge problem with gov't agencies.

Benko,

Not an interruption in the least.  Valid point.  I definitely have a hatred for unnecessary bureaucracy.  Problem is, most bureaucracies are simply a result of groups of people working together.  This is very prevalent in the private sector as well.  Medical insurance is going to be a bureaucracy no matter what, for instance.  It's just a mess of a market no matter how you look at it.  The fact that several "socialist" countries can deliver care that results in a healthier society at far lower a cost should give us at least some pause about gov't vs private sector bureaucracies (though ours obviously contains plenty of government as well). 

[Pointedstick]

I would also like to invite anyone else to participate if they wish. This isn't some kind of private conversation between Moda and I!

[doodle]

For instance, we could debate until we're blue in the face whether governments should run our freeway system... However, if government is going to run it, it should run it for the intertwined closed system that it is.  Speed limits, lines, right of way laws.

Here is probably the root of my disagreement, and it's actually not an anarchist one: these systems are not closed, no matter how convenient it would be for the government to pretend it is. Everything affects everything else. I believe doodle would actually agree with me on this!

Consider roads; yes, they can make speed limit laws, determine the number of lanes, set gross weight and speed limit requirements and so on and so forth... but all of these things have an effect beyond roads! Adding more lanes increases speed and noise. Making highways non-elevated divides the land on either side (having an often very negative effect on surrounding ecosystems and neighborhoods). And so on and so forth.

Without the intermediating influence of prices, competition, and other market forces, these simply become externalities of their own--the very kind of externalities that the government attempts to deal with in other contexts! By using fiat to make these choices outside of a market system, errors can only be corrected through politics and bureaucracy, never the more agile and responsive forces of competition and exchange. As a result, most errors are never corrected, remaining permanent fixtures.

Case in point: the interstate highway system. We had a strong, well-functioning network of railways, municipal streetcars, and subways in this country until the government subsidized the creation of a massive roadway system to reward the automobile manufacturers for their industrial contribution in WWII. This error (in my view) resulted in the dramatic overconsumption of automobiles, destroying mass transit, resulting in air pollution, and indebting the people who bought new cars.

Now those problems themselves were undertaken by government, by creating a regulatory body (the EPA) to moderate the impact of the pollution problem caused by the government upsetting the transit market, subsidizing unprofitable mass transit projects that cannot compete in the market against the government-subsidized road infrastructure, and suppressing interest rates to reduce the burden of loans on consumers.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

I agree that everything affects everything else. However, I think it is tough to tell ahead of time whether the outcomes of government subsidation or interference into the market place are going to be "good" or "bad". Maybe they will be both at the same time. And down, the road who knows how the twists and turns of fate cause us to reinterpret that history.

Im reminded of this Zen story when I think about that. I think it shows how the outcomes of events and their influence on future events is unknown.

Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,”? they said sympathetically.

“Maybe,”? the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,”? the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe,”? replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“Maybe,”? answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe,”? said the farmer.

And on and on it goes...

[Pointedstick]

It's a nice parable, but it doesn't support or refute my argument, so I don't think it has much bearing on the discussion at hand. But it does suggest that you agree with me that there are no truly closed systems. My next point is apparently something you also agree with, which is that it's hard to predict the outcomes of actions in interconnected systems.

That goes for government as well as individuals and firms, of course. But the market participants are more agile than the government; both function in complex systems, but the market is more organic; participants behave more like living organisms in an ecosystem. Some thrive, some die, some form symbiotic relationships, but change is rapid and constant. Government, by contrast, remains eternal, rarely evolves, and has the capacity to wipe out other organisms at will. It's the bad player in our ecological metaphor.

Nobody is very good at predicting the result of an action. But government is slower to correct its mistakes, which tend to be larger.

[moda0306]

For instance, we could debate until we're blue in the face whether governments should run our freeway system... However, if government is going to run it, it should run it for the intertwined closed system that it is.  Speed limits, lines, right of way laws.

Here is probably the root of my disagreement, and it's actually not an anarchist one: these systems are not closed, no matter how convenient it would be for the government to pretend it is. Everything affects everything else. I believe doodle would actually agree with me on this!

Consider roads; yes, they can make speed limit laws, determine the number of lanes, set gross weight and speed limit requirements and so on and so forth... but all of these things have an effect beyond roads! Adding more lanes increases speed and noise. Making highways non-elevated divides the land on either side (having an often very negative effect on surrounding ecosystems and neighborhoods). And so on and so forth.

Without the intermediating influence of prices, competition, and other market forces, these simply become externalities of their own--the very kind of externalities that the government attempts to deal with in other contexts! By using fiat to make these choices outside of a market system, errors can only be corrected through politics and bureaucracy, never the more agile and responsive forces of competition and exchange. As a result, most errors are never corrected, remaining permanent fixtures.

Case in point: the interstate highway system. We had a strong, well-functioning network of railways, municipal streetcars, and subways in this country until the government subsidized the creation of a massive roadway system to reward the automobile manufacturers for their industrial contribution in WWII. This error (in my view) resulted in the dramatic overconsumption of automobiles, destroying mass transit, resulting in air pollution, and indebting the people who bought new cars.

Now those problems themselves were undertaken by government, by creating a regulatory body (the EPA) to moderate the impact of the pollution problem caused by the government upsetting the transit market, subsidizing unprofitable mass transit projects that cannot compete in the market against the government-subsidized road infrastructure, and suppressing interest rates to reduce the burden of loans on consumers.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

PS,

I'm the first guy to have a certain amount of curiosity and sympathy for arguments like this.  It all really depends on the overall goal.  I think the freeway system expanded productve capacity of our nation, but with plenty of negative, sprawling side effects over the long term.  However, in the short-to-medium term, it's a closed system.  One person's liability is another person's asset, and we can't all just move to the left lane to get to work faster.  The "MRist" in me wants wider roads, the environmentalist and ecologist in me sees it as just another stepping stone to larger ecological problems and sprawl.

[Pointedstick]

That sorta sounds like, "Darn it, I think you're right, but I reeeeeally want to believe otherwise!" 

Expanding productive capacity is important. But IMHO, it's not the most important thing. There are many things the government could do to expand productive capacity that we would find totally unacceptable, such as bulldozing national parks for strip-mining, enslaving foreigners, and the like. That fact that we don't let it do these things implies that we all see trade-offs in government efforts to expand productive capacity.

If you agree with my overall premise that the government must always be slower and less agile than the private sector due to its responsiveness to political forces rather than market forces (IMHO this is pretty uncontroversial), then it doesn't matter that these trade-offs exist--clearly they do. What matters is that the balance between interests and overall social preferences can change based on many factors, but the government is incredibly insensitive to them, while the private sector isn't.

This ultimately leads to the government mis-allocating the scarce resources it controls, which has the strong potential to actually reduce productive capacity. You want to talk about left lanes and getting to work; imagine how many billions of collective hours people spend stuck in traffic could be prevented if mass transit weren't priced out of the market by free highways. I don't know what traffic is like in Mineappolis, but try driving in LA or the San Francisco bay area some time. It's appalling how much wasted time these tax-supported transit nightmares cause.

[MachineGhost]

Why don't you become a part of the solution and commit suicide? Serious question. No offense intended, because you're a cool guy, but if you believe your very existence is part of an environmental issue that I know you care deeply about, wouldn't suicide be a responsible decision?

I ask because the radical anti-human attitude is one that I truly do not understand and I seek to understand it better. From my perspective, it seems contradictory for any human who holds your view to avoid advocating or practicing either suicide or homicide.

+1.  Here we'll see the hypocrisy of Progressives in action.  Even Tibetian monks set themselves on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of their country.  What do Progressives do other than flap their pie hole endlessly?

[doodle]

Why don't you become a part of the solution and commit suicide? Serious question. No offense intended, because you're a cool guy, but if you believe your very existence is part of an environmental issue that I know you care deeply about, wouldn't suicide be a responsible decision?

I ask because the radical anti-human attitude is one that I truly do not understand and I seek to understand it better. From my perspective, it seems contradictory for any human who holds your view to avoid advocating or practicing either suicide or homicide.

+1.  Here we'll see the hypocrisy of Progressives in action.  Even Tibetian monks set themselves on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of their country.  What do Progressives do other than flap their pie hole endlessly?

What do libertarian anarchists do other than rant and rave?

[doodle]

Even Murray Rothbard cant explain what the hell a libertarian actually is...This article still leaves me confounded http://mises.org/daily/2801