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The history of modern environmentalism.

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if we do what is right now in 1963 we must set aside substantial areas of country all the people who are going to live it by the year 2004 180 million Americans now live by the year 2000 there will be either we stop the poisoning and I are are we become a nation and gas mask roping our way through these change cities and a Wilderness of ghost towns that the people have evacuated the great question of the 70s shall we surrender roundings we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our hair choir land and to our water or this and future Generations if we failed assume we will face and you can on it social and political crisis what's threaten a prayer to tutions we must and will be sensitive to the delicate balance of our ecosystems the preservation of endangered species and the protection of our Wilderness Wayne's it's been said that the Earth from our ancestors we borrow it from our children when are children look back on this time and this place they will be grateful  deadly coastal areas will flood and economies will be disrupted that is going to happen unless we at can you hear we have a serious problem America is addicted to oil I'm hating seven years old barbers in child during the Depression  the Great Depression had an enormous influence on my life all of those things. I lived in the country I'm a Country Boy small town kid we didn't have electricity we learn to live simply and good party sustenance from the Earth Legend old car until I was 27 I threw up with conservation  because it was important for our lives then after the war everybody's boxing on should have a chance to be rich there was an enormous economic boom going on after the war there was this progress is our most important product feeling to the 1950s  and I was one of many relatively spoiled hope that compare to the people who grew up in the depression when I was a kid growing up in Rockford Illinois  I was reading outdoor life and I took the conservation pledge  book a flight American to save and Faithfully to defend from waste the natural resources might country of soil and minerals it's for us Waters and Wildlife  ask me at age 10 play like that rubber stamps that I put on all my books in and I guess like a lot of that generation is I saw pieces that childhood destroyed one way or another you couldn't go back to when you get that sensaphonics to how much of this process of loss I grew up in a beautiful Midwest town you drove around and it was a green peaceful relatively intact system I really never was confronted with issues of scarcity pollution man's impact on the plan you think Justin come up for me those days environmental problems in running press themselves on you wasn't clear that we had any serious problems Americans want to believe in a future that is expensive that's better than the past when I was a kid the year 2000 was 40 years in the picture  and the sort of thing that the futurists were all laying out almost unimaginable but never seem to me to be a particularly interesting way to live I always thought and held a mental that somehow we would all find a way to live in something more like of New England Village we would know our neighbors we would have genuine say in decisions that were made that would impact always seemed to me a far superior future for the interstate highway program which I see now is a great mistake  I was a freshman congressman you went along for the ride the vision we had was super Evelyn's  there was no discussion of how much oil we had there was just an assumption that it would always be there are only finding more oil and oil would be cheap and saw the automobile culture that we're not began to gain strength  learn the trains in public Transportation the most Parts in the country wrestle Grimm Evangel free automobile California has been the heart of much of the environmental leadership in America every day we see something that we grew up with our youth treasured it is lost Southern California was a beautiful place small towns strange gross mustard fields in the Metropolis of Los Santos  we had the finest transportation system in the world electric trains do any work  San Bernardino to Santa Monica my dad committed to work from South Pasadena every day Whose Line  Tweed head Sunny development since the end of World War II in 1945 and 1950 when I was up at stand they had to close down High School baseball games because of your income so small as resulting automobiles in the vanishing of the great electric trains what happened to Los Andes in my lifetime was it at the came when huge suburb ecology means the study of organisms in combination with their environments will you take groups of organisms put them in an environment and try and understand what's happening my original interest in human population develop When I Was An undergraduate at Penn in the 50s  as a bio just the thing that I saw first was when I was in high school they were doing so much building of subdivisions for more and more people in New Jersey and spraying so much DDT around that the butterflies I was interested in studying with disappearing that tied very directly to population that is due almost over other environmental problems  I was born into a Paper Mate family so my youth was surrounded by the felling of trees  buy paper mills that produce vest please have uncontrolled sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide I think I probably have a bit of diminished lung capacity thinker out of breathing all of that acid for all of those years there's probably some Freudian Rebellion against my father that was part of it  so I was intensely aware that there were these destruct things going on to the land around me but guess as I was growing up it wasn't something that I thought of this as a question in this was just progress there's something that's much more Insidious in the things that are not so Humboldt never-the-less have dramatic impact like nuclear fallout from atmosphere clear test when I was born  strontium-90 didn't exist by the time I was a teenager every living creature on the planet at strontium-90 units bones are shells  what's a profound change and we done it it felt to me like the preciousness of life who was imperiled  subconsciously I may have understood that my way of life you know the Serta middle-class American way of life was imperiled I couldn't have articulated it cuz I didn't understand all the connections bear in mind that  is a child I was you know ring to hide under my desk in the event of a nuclear explosion living with the possibility of the bomb is foundational to this idea that human extinction has been put within human grass the mushroom cloud was the icon of my generation  that image was in every classroom I went to as as a child  it was the epitome of human creation and creativity to have developed this incredibly destructive thing and then of course there was the the light pause of The Shadow  can you know that there was this idea that was out there that the atom was going to be the salvation of humanity this was the first generation that had acquired the power of a geophysical force that could cause brand new radioactive substances to be disseminated throughout the entire planet the kid drives not just a few species as we always done but now literally thousands of species into it liquid change the climate on this planet for several hundred thousands of years  and two remotes that time anybody who looked far into the future didn't have much survival value  I mean if you're in the midst of a battle with a mammoth or something you don't sit there and say well let's think about 3 years from now you you run and so for a long period of time the advantage went to those who focused on the immediate situation then I think is a consequence of that now that we are faced with issues which will really unfold over centuries were genetically and it's douchey yelled at for it the concept that the planet is very fragile really came out of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring sound of the alarm that we were destroying the life support some of the planet the book was The Simpsons in  Dylan Brandon been over 30 languages Rachel Carson nice to get the main credit for the modern environmental movement she was the first one to point out one of the really serious environmental problems that was the overuse of pesticides  it was the right the right book and the right personality of a pesticide industry tried the demon eyes are Rachel Carson didn't demonize easily under better control we are certainly headed for disaster balance of nature is built of a series of interrelationships between living things and between living things and their environment you can't just step in with some brute force and change one thing without changing a good many others now this doesn't mean of course that we must never interfere but we must not temptu to balance of nature in our favor but when we do make this attempt we must know what we're doing when the snow the consequent there was an ugly backlash after the book came out the chemical Industries calling her hysterical woman know what she was talking about bring a gross distortions of the actual fast completely unsupported by scientific experimental evidence and general practical aliens in the field Wisconsin maintains that the balance of nature is a major force in the survive that was the modern chemist the modern biologist the modern scientist believes that men is steadily lonely nature  something that we all thought of prior to her is Better Living Through Chemistry in a sense you're you're pouring the stuff on y crops in your producing more crops and it really was not something that you thought in my goodness people are intentionally poisoning the environment and it's those places might not be as selective as they're telling us Rachel Carson was incredibly scrupulous in the creation of Silent Spring she understood add we are organisms as much as the birds who songs were being silenced  She Wrote only tremendously informative book and Incredibly moving book she did it while she was suffering from cancer there was a controversy that raged until her death it was Trail going on and that was kind of sad because she was a shy person she was not a crusader she was sign this growing concern among the possibility of dangerous long-range side effects from the widespread use of DD me another pesticide science Advisory Group reported that Rachel Carson's method of research with sound and her findings and conclusions were generally correct President Kennedy backs Rachel Carson play the latest on the defense I truly believe that we in this generation must come to terms with nature but I think we're challenge does mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and are Mass not of nature love ourselves how many profound difficulty that we confront decree and no West is the degree to which people came to equate the accumulation of material Goods with success and happiness it has been like the things we have to do to accumulate more goods and to deteriorate the quality and social system so that's what get lots of us satisfaction from the social side of Our Lives we actually tend to put more emphasis on YouTube Malaysian of material glitch 19 night I took off and hitchhiked around the world for a few years in I was just profoundly depressed by the  the many ways that Americans was falling short of the American dream that I've been taught in my younger years in January 1965 I find myself in Namibia in the middle of a desert I was hungry I was tired and been alone for a couple of years and had an Essence art of the vision the things that came together in my mind at that point where the human problems we were facing and the principles of ecology that literally everything honor its ecology is in some large measure the study of how populations obtain and use RG efficiently energy from the Sun through their food supplies and because humans had divorce themselves and some large measure from the inflow of solar energy by tapping into fossil energy resources we been able to seemingly for a period of time for a century there so make some of these basic principles of ecology  the by and large they let us into some really unfortunate consequences the idea here is what do you really do to try to bring the carbon cycle back into balance it occurred to me that we need to begin to apply the principles of ecology to the way we build our cities to the way that we manager system to the way that we make industrial processes  that was literally awake all night excited with this thing then got up the next morning with knowing what I was going I'm going to come back to the United States I'm just going to be coming gauged and political activity and it was going to be trying to see if I could somehow insert this into the body politic there were no environmental laws when I became sector of interior the rivers of this country essentially where sewers there was a small Grandpa sold in New York City in a large number of people air pollution that killed people Rheem during the 1960's the first list of endangered species and what was at the top of the list the American do long our national symbol like lots of Butters in my generation I thought that all the beauty was going to be destroyed I thought that cheesy suburbs would overrun the fields and the Hills it was a sense that we were finalizing our alienation from nature and in poisoning the planet I didn't want to live in the world like that when I was growing up progress was defined by growth in gross national product that you can what's the gross national product grow ever hired at the same time that there was as growing recognition that life was and some very important ways getting worse as we progressed our air and water were polluted  Carlos beautiful natural places were being destroyed cities are becoming increasingly unlivable food was becoming increasingly process to the point where I was neither nutritious nor enjoyable and on and on all of which contributed to this sense of address  but at the same time people had a mounting discontent  didn't some sense was one of the Great underlying engines of launching the environmental movement environmental movement that Drew town of Rachel Carson's book on the foundation the conservation movement there were businesses like preserving the Everglades and not putting an airport there the National Wildlife Federal right in the Forefront of this  there was a bid proposal for dams in the grind play me Imagine Germany the Grand Canyon  Avengers ready to turn into a big national issue perfectly by the Sierra Club and I was persuaded a sec of interior that's it project are you abandon the environmental movement then the large the conservation move enlarged and Beyond concern for the management of United States resources to the future of the planet itself put play alarm to me about the state of the planet's ecology was a book by Paul Ehrlich on repopulation  it just made perfect sense to me that that human population was driving the degradation of the quality of life when I was born there were two billion people on the planet but I wrote the population bomb in 1968 there were three and a half billion people on the planet that number has now almost doubled over 6.5 billion and people say what population growth is slowing down billion people what billion people is more than there were on the entire planet when I was born the population situation is bad beyond what any demographer even dreamed of 25 years ago what about the resource situation the world of the most important resource lower some courses food population bomb in late 60s he was instantly famous he was instantly controversial sometime in the next 15 years the end will come and by the end I mean and utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support Humanity Adam student of of Polo Lakes at Stanford  I trusted in like Tim I bought it completely it was a Global Perspective which was interesting because many of the things that are most will doing up with them or not so Boerboel everybody who's look into the overall population resource environment picture comes up with the same kind of estimate of what would be required if we're to have a 50-50 chance of getting through the couple of decades with civilization intact  he grabbed the thorniest thistle of all which is human reproduction I was totally galvanized and I add to my dorm room and just sort of blasted out a draft of the speech to deliver at commencement titled the future is so cruel hoax it was pretty drastic rhetoric I said to you know Mankind's moved across the face of the Earth make a crate unthinking unfeeling cancer and that the most Humane thing for me to do would be to have no turn it off I was a medium figure overnight it was personal I said I'm not going to have a child this is very serious and animus a woman saying it alright I went around and gave speeches in a year  does more than two children then within five years the population growth Curve will begin to draw  so the future is in our hands in a very very real did this way just recently become available so this is something I can do is an act of conscience we had a lot of illusions Stoppers  one of them was it was basically flat and infinite with no finitude to our resources and we had very stereotyped ideas of what the Earth look like from space look at all the images that people made before we had the photographs almost another I'm have clouds  weather climate  there's such a thing as icons and icons help frame people's thinking my sense was that a photograph of Earth from space would be different in every possible way from a painting the Earth from space play the 1966 I took some LSD Rooftop in San Francisco notice of the buildings of downtown or not parallel to one another as if you were looking with a fisheye lens they had this a slightly Divergent quality to them so basically I'm mentally elevating myself higher and higher and higher until the play some closes around the in a circle  what I'm looking at as the surface of the sphere I was just trying to call for that reality that's always going to taking my 100 Mike's ability on a rooftop I know the just make a button  back him up for the phrasing that I like why haven't we seen autograph in the horse yet  distribute the buttons for the world and everybody will understand we need to see a photograph of the whole earth and when we do everything will be different turn it up a bunch of these buttons and I want around to various universities sold the buttons for $0.25 a piece I sent them the Buckminster Fuller and Marshall mcluhan and all the Senators that and their secretaries that I can find a synonym to various Professionals in NASA and Paula members in Russia I just uploaded this stuff out there see what would happen that time you know in the late sixties the whole earth catalog became line of the Sears catalog of the back the land generation with this Intel when's behind at Stewart's Stewart's motto was we are as gods and we might as well good addict Ward catalog basically appropriate technology is our contribution photovoltaic things you can put on your roof they would get 12 volt power out of that was deemed appropriate technology putting something at a creek pump water was appropriate technology geodesic domes in in solar equipment organic gardening in that sense was appropriate technology  before going back to the land Back to Basics reinvent civilization get it right this I'm in the sense was that was on those going to blend with nature the idea of going back to the land is to become more capable of providing bring your own subsistence and to reduce your impact and your complicity in long chains of Supply  what was saying our way of life has to change  and love all that because it was Radical buy large the people who were starting Burl communist people who are going quote back to the land in the 1960s and on into the 70s we're pretty much liberal educated college students the naive K that was carted from what college campus is out to these places in the bush was breathtaking people try to Garden imagining that they could just put seeds in the ground Berwyn heavy nobody charge to put all your money into the pot kind of social economic environment in that crash and burn the women would leave men would leave laughter  although she went out and tried to live together totally a Gala Therrien mode got over it because we had noses rubbed in our fondest fantasies took a couple years how we did no great harm in the process it was tempting to try to throw out everything and start over I thought about that and tried various efforts at it lived on kommune and thought about play retreating back to the hill spend some time in the mountains of Virginia way up on a Mountaintop  none of that seemed to be an answer can you around us is pretty much the world we're going to have we're either going to work with that  Corwin what purity of the counterculture in the 60s was who is inherently really anti-technology  I think it's thought technology came from government came from corporations and we're going back to basics we don't need to check my acceptor Hi-Fi scores are drugs the more technically find those were the better but by and large technology was supposed to be bad  show much of the counterculture disapprove the space program those military guys with crew cuts it was the government wasting money let's take care of things here on Earth before we leave it all this kind of rhetoric was out there except for one guy chakra still the oceans guy  peanut butter sent to the the spirit city of the Earth please in any other surface bound person at that time  but he knew was that the oceans 2/3 3/4 of the planet you could not monitor Indian terrible things were happening to it so his sense was that you had to have satellite imagery and people looking down on the Earth from outside in order what are the oceans they just said we got to get out there identified with it  whole world identified with it  in whole world was proud of it once you got Pride when does the Army who bunch of things that seemed impossible stretches seen only possible but let's get on with it  there is chance of engineering accomplishment of being able to set a **** near impossible goal  can riches haul off in and do it as an astronaut I was really emotionally invested in what was happening with the planet being who I was and not just blessing my little pink body up into space but be able to look back with my human eyes in my brain and my heart and see this planet below me to me you know technology has literally both good sides and bad sides it's how one uses it  power plane was the first flight that flew the lunar module and I was the first lunar module pilot and I also went outside the lunar module and it would be the first time that a human being went outside a spacecraft without an umbilical Dave's on the Command Module hanging out the hatch with a movie camera when all of a sudden he says hey hold on my camera just jammed play High  so Jim says well I'll give you five minutes Rusty just stay right there  unjust loading they're almost as if I'm naked in space  and all all the starts coming into my mind  volume here because life is evolved on this planet weave developed brains which enable us to invent machines in combination with those machines were able to extend our environment and here I'm on the frontier of this evolutionary process what am I I'm a representative of Life moving out into the universe so the idea of Mother Earth that freeze has real meaning  from the outside you can look the child now sees its mother we human beings we this life form on this incredible planet  discounted life where are we going photographs of the Earth from space a different kind of mirror than we had ever looked in before the clipse you from the world that were in to a planet Network on the image I think was maybe the most reproduced in American history we suddenly realize that the Earth was a very small thing much is if you live on an island you are much more acutely aware of the limitations on your resources and on your ability to poop photograph of the earth send this vast sea of space and I did pretty much the same thing for the whole planet if the people really understood that in the lifetime of their children they're going to have destroyed the quality of air in the are all over the world and perhaps made the globe unlivable and a half-century they do something about it but this is not well understood Nelson was one of my very best friends and he was a great governor of Wisconsin Lorraine conservationist he was the one that said the environment all over the country this is what became the first Earth Day in 1970 you learn turd passionately about conservation issues throughout entire career who decided to set up a can actually make this begin to happen even listed already Pete McCloskey Republican congressman from California who is Ardent environmentalist to coach with him the preservation of the environment is going to have to be a very top item for that reason is the light of the support it Advent and environmental party but then why 1970 it was hard to find Republicans that put the environment anywhere in their top five list of pro where is  but they wanted to be bipartisan so you should be coaching that I wanted to do in the world  so I think it was in December January 1970 we hired Dennis Hayes to be the dentist comes to wash in about 20 or 30 kids that are about 18 to 22 or the oldest then they send out newsletters all over the Debra Sue muddy present 10,000 High School's couple of thousand colleges would you like to have an Earth Day on April 22nd what we were trying to do is to create a brand-new public Consciousness that would cause the rules of the game to change somewhat ironic for something called her today to be entirely focused on the United States but remember virtually no money we had mean will aspirations but there was no World Wide Web there was no internet to renew blogs or is no email and does not instant messaging there's  none of the kind of web activism that is possible today the newsletters that were sent to people across the country were all printed for us for free by the United the United Auto Workers were the largest single contributors financially and otherwise to Earth Day  I've been noticed that even on a clear New York is a dark cloud hanging over your head  set and carbon ever take a good look at the Hudson River and you like to drink it  after the New York is cut out by the carbon from cars for using comes right through your air conditioner and you inhale more than a pack a day even if you don't smoke that are already more rats in New York and people my 1980 you're probably going to need a gas mask and a flashlight to get to the office and won't be any are bees for trees unless we stop what we're doing we're going to kill ourselves open 22nd is Earth Day maybe the beginning of the end of pollution or the beginning of the end mr. McCarthy is just really a math to cover up the major problems of Vietnam and civil rights in this country and collect people Vietnam as a cause why environmental what's the point of putting more money down the drain this kind of stuff might involve cutting back on things air conditioning movements is there anything concern your mind that this might just be a bad there are practically no black people involved  okay we're out of time thank you very much at all month Mayweather's here today on Facebook by and large we created a juggernaut that that everybody was willing to embrace at least stylistic Lee and superficially though a great many of them could not begin to understand the depth of the changes that we so we were not particularly shocked by the fact that in his 1970 State of the Union speech Nixon brought up Environmental restoring nature to its natural state is a cause Beyond party and Beyond factions it has become a common cause of all people of this country it is of particular concern to Young America because they more than we will reap the Grimm con princes of our failure to act on programs which are needed now if we are to prevent disaster later  I know from some of his aides I talk to there was a big argument and then said look this is a powerful movement it's going to get more powerful there's an Earth Day tell me up in a few weeks Proclaim that you want the 1970s to be the environmental decade Nixon theater your three officers were wiretapped why do you have to be I  an interesting lady also by military intelligence knows what they thought we were doing do you consider yourselves revolutionaries is it the Revolutionary movement what are you talking about a new form of government religion and out-of-control the sort of thing that what's you know that you've really got something big happening  the White House invited the national organizer the first day to drop by for a chat they refuse set the Fordham you the president twenty-three-year-old equipment for environmental Affairs coordinator birthday saying that he was more interested how did Nixon publicity that ensuring that the observance would truly nonpartisan did the time that it all happened I think Nixon Coupe by all accounts did not have an environmental nerve ending anywhere in his body view this as a political chess moves play a little bit moving around here as we go along cuz she'll use it okay I have sent to the Congress today a sweeping set up a posals to clean up our nation's air and water this is the most far-reaching and comprehensive message on conservation and restoration of our natural resources ever committed to the Congress by a president of the United States  we are taking these actions not in some distant future but now because we know that it is now or never time to Gannon first day with a sunrise ceremony in Washington DC then I slept to New York Maryland need to shut down Fifth Avenue and we basically filled it all up  the fact that we manage to have our largest in what was then the center of all media coverage was advantageous  Earth Day demonstrations began in practically every city and town in the United States is in the first massive Nationwide protests against the pollution of the environment dr. j marie Mitchell said pollution and over pollution unless checked could so warm the Earth in 200 years as to create a greenhouse effect melting the arctic ice cap and flooding vast areas of the world nationally birthday was the largest demonstration American history  some events to add half a million people in them  and we have an estimated 20 million across the country  some quarters so I'm more than coincidence in the fact that Earth Day occurred on the sunroof anniversary of the birth of Lenin the father of Soviet communism The Controller General of Georgia James Bentley shut out $1,600 worth of telegram wanting the first day might be a communist plot there were certainly people who had their pet causes impounded Vehicles apart was sledgehammers as a protest against the internal combustion engine  others wore gas mask to protest air pollution but also there was almost celebratory thing as though suddenly we were Awakening to a new set of opportunities  they are Tech what about emission control devices on automobiles while we are talking about Ben's on automobiles we are challenging the ethics of a society that with only six percent what's the world's population accounts for more than half of his utilization of resources our country is stealing from the poor countries of the world and from Generations Evan Bourne  to me Earth day was life changing there were around the country millions of people engaging in some Act of caring for the Earth I realized that there was a massive group of people who care very deeply about the Earth and if organized could be a viable at that point by cease to be an activist and became an environmentalist Live iPad and three of these gatherings today let me say this to you but your kind stand in front of a group right dance without feelings of power which can flow from it so what we must do is to make everyday Earth Day  it was from Washington at 25 Giro Dennis a father to organize this Nationwide thing and it is here he is returned tonight to say that this thing is now a movement and like Vietnam unbeatable equipment in the end genuinely change things before the people that opposed freeway so where people are opposed clear-cutting or people worried about pesticides they didn't themselves as having anything in common After Earth day that they were all part of an environmental movement some people have a deep abiding respect for the natural beauty was one big country some people don't . Pollution people dying immediately after Earth Day we chose to get involved in what's in the we really haven't paid any attention to before Earth Day organized formal politics elections we came up with a campaign called The Dirty Dozen targeted 12 members of congress with terrible environmental records  arastadero of Indiana William list of Ohio William cowger of Kentucky David Dennis of Indiana George Fallon of Maryland John Kyle of Iowa Earl then rape of Indiana online of Minnesota Byron Rogers of Colorado Henry shot aberg of Wisconsin Lawrence win of Kansas and Rogers Island set India  we beat seven of the 12 members of The Dirty Dozen including the trim of the house Public Works committee a guy named bridge fell in 02 Baltimore who was funding all kinds of environmental monsters  people are saying you took out and George Fallon who's clearly one of the three or four most powerful members of Congress  doesn't Congress reconvene in January everybody at a time now on environmentalist I'll be there Force out there that it taken out seven and Company proposed senate committee on the environment turn the Congressional capacity to deal with environment brightening variety of Hazards and environmental offences over which we have had little up to this time a little in the way of control president of the nation's environmental problems and how to solve them he sounded I made you a warning of echo logical disaster but counseled against Panic all his stereo  the next for your 71 through 74 we we passed clean water and clean air dangered species that screen protection coastal zone protect Marine Mammal protection and a lot of that went through my little subcommittee  arson President Nixon's was looking forward to the next door turn  what was he going to veto this cleaner clean water bill no he's signing with a florist and then proposed the creation of what is now seal the Environmental Protection Agency to enforce pollution laws organic environmental impact statements  do hands look resume side as well as the upside of any technological project loans revolutionary because it gave people the power to challenge unlimited technological directions to First Credit for what he did and I'm not sure you fully understand that buddy gun behind in in the 70s in United States we did clean up quite a few legs and we did reduce the air pollution in quite a few cities I sent you know progress on the global problems things like climate change depletion of the marine fisheries ocean fisheries population growth and so forth there has always been the notion that we be able to sustain our current trajectory in living standards in material consumption and moreover that all the poor people in world are going to be able to catch up with us the entire discipline of economics macroeconomics is based on the assumption that output is going to continue to grow living standards going to continue to grow and so forth the economy can't keep growing forever  the idea that somehow the gross domestic free product of the United States to double in the next fifty or a hundred years or something is Jets nutty  Economist of clearly shown that once you have your big needs fulfilled that further economic growth in consumption doesn't Supply any more satisfaction  Americans already happier today or more satisfied than word 1950 despite the growth we've had in our economy most of us don't have an experience gross the way hits impact Planet because you get off every morning and look around and see if to be pretty much the same as it was yesterday our species just naturally tends to assume that change happens more or less linearly  1 2 3 4 5 6 tack the problems that are causing a farm alliteration arrives out of exponential growth which is where I'm going up by a constant amount over sometime. It goes up by a percentage over sometime.  I've tried to a straight what does bees with very simple example  I bring out a tablecloth  a short everybody I folded four times so I'm doubling the make this to the tablecloth for x good night let everybody see it and I say suppose that that is  half an inch thick stopwatch  if I were to fold it another 15 16 times how thick would it be now I can't actually but suppose I could do that  when you keep doubling the tablecloth of course it's growing exponentially and after 21 Folds it'll be about a mile thick if I double another five or six times it extends out past the edge of space continuing that process set a quick Pikachu amazingly big numbers  was just 39 Folds already shooting past the mode that's how quickly you get very large numbers of when a process grows exponentially are booking limits to growth was the first increte effort using a computer to look at Transit on fold over decades even a century  we were quite understand long-term physical demands on the planet and in the 70s we were thinking that probably in the period 2010 to 2030 the plant would start to encounter limits and out when you hit the limits the tendency is to overshoot them and collapse not to even out in a nice orderly fashion the book was officially released in March of 1972 and the inaugural event was a press conference in Washington DC to have this opportunity to the kavorka was rather quickly translated into 35 languages and sold Millions it was a phenomenal here is what dr. Meadows computer shows since the year 1900 the Earth's resources there at the top of the chart have been steadily used up population food consumption and production of goods have soared ahead of us sometime after the Year 2006 computer study for sees calamity resources drop more Stapley and food and production follow suit population continues to expand for perhaps one more generation then collapses calamitously as deprivation tank hold I remember the first time I saw that NASA picture Earth taken over the moon  that picture somehow had the capacity to just wrench your mind around so you thought about things a different way are curves to debt for a lot of people  the first time they could start to see the future sequential support they were doing now and for many people that was really shocking  I want to see the first president shroom are Salvatore's powerful Nexus Limited for sure the quality of the environment is the quality of life  sensation when I still agree with today there are limits to growth and we're bumping against them right now civilizations have crashed repeatedly what pants Egypt Mesopotamia shake my head  Greek civilization pencil  the thing it's so scary today is we have first time hey Global civilization that is doing what many of those other ones did  building a huge population and abusing its environment without any thought to the consequences  there can be no doubt what one subject is a rose most comfortable say among Santa's doing the past 12 months I mean of course the prospect of Doom for mankind because of pollution overpopulation overuse of resources what is being cold to Eco crisis what efforts to discredit limits to growth and to discredit Polaris work and indeed much of what they said could come to pass does not come to pass well does that mean they're wrong know what it means is all we've done is push off is challenges that a very rightly identified my see you again lower and I remember the first time you're on the show we talked about the population bomb and we talked about the geometric progression of the number of people litter doing to this planet every day and remember that time that you said and many other population biologists and sociologists said that the time is going to come when people are going to have rude awakening around the world and especially in the United States where they've been used to so much affluence or we're going to run out or there's going to be going to come to a head sooner or later because the source of the world or not finite in all of the sudden people for I think one of the first times in history in this country really realizing Spanish Elmo gas that's going to last for 2 hours America has grown and prospered in recent years our energy demands have begun to exceed available Supply  unfortunately Play Patience by the recent conflict in the Middle East search art reproduction and cut off their shipments King Faisal of Saudi Arabia announced an embargo of oil to the United States which was quickly been embraced by the other Arab members of OPEC and so it became the Bodum code Arab oil in will adequan cost $4 a barrel hard to remember that America was really built on oil that cost between 2 and dollars a barrel  the price rapidly shot up getting up over $16 a barrel of 400% increase the price of gasoline quadrupled within 2 months there was a degree of desperation because of pictures of supplies people couldn't get gasoline  gas lines with stretch on for half a mile sometimes we were driving these big cars absolutely Reliant upon them and you couldn't find gasoline so they started rationing  I can't see the United States run how do I do that way I just like the United States should be able to have plenty of anything United States recognized for the first time that our stand what was living could be held hostage by people have ways around the world with good policy this could have been the initiation of a transition to a four renewable society that in itself was not a New Concept  in the early 1950s a government commission commission transition as rapidly as possible to renewable energy to solar energy to can you fish in sea as a matter of National Security  course we ignore them  United States of America as the greatest in dust power of the world with 7% of the world's people and using 30% of the world's energy shouldn't have to depend on any other country for energy that provides our cops and transportations in our life and our heat we can become self-sufficient this is a great project and I'm going to push it thank you very much I guess that's the rest I remember is when Nixon stood up and announced project Independence  every president after him announced some sort of energy Independence program and of course they all had more or less the same result  but this room  Leisure peripheral responses they didn't get to the heart of it and I never did the inter play market that time was a market that was a combination of guaranteed monopolies cartels and insurance in price subsidies favoring the largest the most powerful the most wealthy and I will say the most ruthless corporations in America and I had just a Stranglehold on Congress  Electric utilities are the largest monopolist in the country there was only one way to buy Power  so historically you have one set of hugely powerful interest defending preeminence then on the other hand a bunch of solar entrepreneur's operating out of their garages with with virtually nothing it's like me going into the boxing ring with Muhammad Ali it's not a contest development and economic progress has been at the heart of the election of congressmen and there's no reason a lot more money from the energy open using the Developers  the environmental movement may be viewed by most of the public as important but to the politician who was elected who gives them there's no benefit to them and looking at the solution of long-range problems like global warming or the conservation of energy it's a short-term problem that he's got to address to get reelected follow the money not a fan they concern for environment is a variable if you just elected the right people and they passed the right laws if you could bring a case to court and get a ruling then everybody would have to good  well no people said you can't make me do anything and that in part set up a a conflict that to some extent in yours to this day a case in point in the 60s and 70s was a people went to logging area City people want to shoot your fingers at the loggers and said stop clear-cutting and the loggers look at these folks I was a logger so I'm on their side on this one they just said you're not from here you don't know what you're talking about and your entire effort seems to be making sure that my life it goes away why don't you just go away and all lands going in the parks in the parks in add long-term burn jobs will go housing will go sky-high this area become Factory Ghost Town issues resolved what you got was instead of some engagement that might have led to better for his practices right away you got a standoff that lasted decades then you have to ask yourself is the thing that we want to make a big fuss and feel right for something that we want better for us practices which is a completely arguable thing for people who Nolly like to keep their job as loggers but they have these world which keep going cuz logging is what they do  just to watch them like a good thing put in those terms I put in the terms of stop at you're doing you bad person you that doesn't fly the environmental move who was becoming more professionalized and Washington Centric and and to a certain extent environmental movement develop Some Cloud through the big National organizations but it also became comfortable to being overpowered by bigger organizations with deeper pockets I began to nice that much of what the early environmental movement was trying to do to litigate to legislate to Bobby in a top-down fashion could buy time it could hold off the worst but it could never Implement true sustainability whole Cadre of I hung out with wanted to solve problems right now directly with minimal resources in maximum ingenuity Adobe room Outlaw designers  get a sense that there were design solutions that could be brought to bear on everything from SAE lower technology to energy conservation and efficiency  you wanted to take the engineering approach and say just fix that there's not a political fix for it but there is a technological fix for it just do it don't try to change Human Nature turn the change don't try to change politics it's too clueless you can change technology and that will fix things human where to stay right where is the politics can catch on 20 years later but meanwhile you fix the problem many American companies within them individuals and small groups desperate to innovate in the same way example 60s I know I've talked to them like electricity hybrid electric or even hydrogen Jeff Senior Management I think had a lack of imagination and a resistance to change there was a sense that if you just keep doing what you've always done probably the biggest shift in perspective I've ever had was going from being a someone libertarian Grassroots fringy Outsider to working in the center of power in California which is the governor's office for a guy was exactly my age who's now elected governor of the state he was appointing my friends to freeze positions of power um like Airport turn the volume setting around you just talking Governor Brown head office of appropriate technology which I want up being part of  we brought in people like the astronaut Rusty shrike who is totally Anaconda cultural frame of reference even though he was an astronaut set a time and I was growing a mustache and growing hair long you know and you know I was I was the astronaut hippy  well you know Jerry Brown here he is Rachel Carson and people like Paul Ehrlich and the you know everybody who's part of this revolution why principles are simple check the Earth Serve the People and explore the universe play ultimately became the chairman of the California energy Commission fits right in biggest impact on the environment is volume which we use energy the California energy commission lead the way into that  revolution in moving the efficiency with which we control and use and generate energy Department of energy California has been the most intelligent energy conserving I think governmental body probably in the world now they set in motion the bill for people who had solar collectors or are wind generators to run their meter backwards in and put their locally-made electricity back into the grid and get paid for it very early on the shoes mid-1970s Jimmy Carter had a terrific energy they had to go love getting at least 20% of the nation's energy from renewable energy resources by the year 2000 and a series of proposed policies had they been implemented actually would have gotten us there add solar water heaters installed on the White House roof going to racian from now this solar heater can either be a curiosity  a museum piece and example of a road not taken or I can be just a small part of one of the greatest Ventures ever undertaken by the American people give me the best job of my life running the federal Solar Energy Research Institute and a budget that increased in doubled every year that I was there and then the opportunity to really do some important the crisis is not yet overwhelming but it will if we do not act let your problem that we will not be able to call in the next few years and it's likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century remind me to pay Joe timid if we hope to have a new world for our children and our grandchildren  beautiful balance sand for energy  learn acting now we can control the future instead of letting the future controlla Carter I think made a fundamental mistake  which was that he saw the transition as one of constraint and one of privation and of giving up and of lowered lifestyle can a period from 1973 to 1980 the price of oil went $4 a barrel to $30 a barrel  and I clearly was enough to cause the public to support things like fuel efficient standards for automobiles and other things that would have been inconceivable unless you had a crisis are the fuel shortage we all have to do our bit to conserve energy wasted we have to discover a new Alaska or Texas every 6 months they are real and they're serious they're not going to get any better unless play all help is not just a Band-Aid solution they tell us we must learn to live with less and teach our children that their lives will be less full and prosperous than ours have been at the have the coming years will be a place where because of our past excesses it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true I don't believe that and I don't believe you do either that's why I'm taking the presidency I cannot and will not stand by see this great country destroy itself our leaders attempt to blame their failures on circumstances beyond their control on false estimates by will not identify Apple experts who rewrite modern history in an attempt to convince us are high standard of living the result of thrift and hard work I'm a selfish extravagance which we must renounce As We join in Sharing scarcity  I'm I'm more aware now than I was earlier of the role of personalities who you elect as president of the United States and frankly president of a dozen other countries really matters  what's the right president and the right policies queued up and ready to be put into place we could have done something significant it was a major failure in my generation that we didn't get that done and you go again  for reasons that I just cannot begin comprehend Reagan did his very best to completely shut down the renewable energy effort in the instance of vegans did today lead he reduced our budget by more than 80% fired half of the staff and fired all of our contractors two of them subsequent turn on to win Nobel prizes it was just devastating but for one year we did have within an element of a very good energy policy it's morning again in America and under the leadership of President right now our country is prouder and stronger can better  why would we ever want to return to where we were the Reagan White House have finally dismantled the last vestiges of the Carter Administration water heating system installed on the White House roof in 1979 we lost thirty years we lost thirty years because both sides ossified into the Radiology if we've learned anything it's that we're in this together we still have a lot of options if we haven't passed the Tipping Point this is where the science starts getting a little scary no external force is imposing these environmental problems on us they have risen because every morning 6 billion people get up and have breakfast and go to work and do their thing and come home at night Marvel problems emerge out of daily life and the solutions for the environmental problems are also rooted in daily life  we need 6 blame people to get up and have a different Consciousness and do things differently is that realistic not  what it's at least the whole over the believe I have Yo which is been able to stay in 45 years of work on his effort that's the one I'll keep for the next 10 or 20 years song and I be able to keep working well I've always been a call myself in trouble. I'm hopeful for the future despite the recent past it in the sense that I believe that you are a responsibility to your children your grandchildren their children  wrestling Bargain Pawn Shop to the environmental movement that will always be there deeply engrossed with all of our little weekly issues if we deal with him in this larger perspective or engaging set of act goodies which go Way Beyond individual lifespan Way Beyond children grandchildren Way Beyond parents that's great grandparents to the whole frame of at least human civilizational life which get comfortable with that thing jail for the rot still to three and a half billion years back of Life Earth and maybe we'll do another three and a half billion years that's pretty interesting to try to hold in your mind  and watching held in your mind what do you do on Monday hello I'm Ray Suarez from the PBS NewsHour now you've had a chance to see the American Experience film birthdays we thought we'd spend a few minutes taking a look at where the environmental movement finds itself today and where it may be and joining me for that are Dennis Hayes National coordinator of the original 1970 Earth Day he's now president of the Bullitt Foundation a nonprofit organization that supports environmental projects in the Pacific Northwest Paul who started ecological businesses he's the author of several books including the Ecology of Commerce James Rogers president and CEO of Duke Energy one of the largest electric power companies in the US and Elizabeth Culver staff writer for the New Yorker who covers environmental issues Jim Rogers let me start with you we've just come to the end of a lengthy documentary that show environmentalists pitted against industry now fast-forward 40 years are the two still sitting across the table from the terms of the conversation changed I think they've changed dramatically what we've been able to do is to collaborate and work with Envy Mentalist to find the way forward where we can achieve our environmental goals for our country as well as our economic goals going forward are you living in a different time or almost the way we divide time earlier in history bed and AD before if day and after say does American industry find itself in a different world now that there's NEPA a Clean Water Act to Clean Air Act I think what we find herself is where a power company that provides affordable reliable clean electricity 24 by 7 is it we need a road because we will have to retired replace every one of our power plants by 2050 so we've been advocates for regulation of carbon to get clear Galatians with respect to Coal plants and the pollutants from cold plants because of the end of the day we need a clear roadmap will we can go to work and solve the problem did you succeed too well Dennis Hayes I mean are there a lot of Americans who think we'll look I don't see the air anymore I let my kids swim in the local parks body of water we've done the hard bad things that we needed to do and now I can enjoy myself we succeeded pretty well on a number of local state and National issues in fact with the wave of legislation that passed between 1970 and 73 has been updated occasionally since then who sent several trillion dollars and directions at the otherwise wouldn't have flowed and the American Health and well-being is his greatly benefited by that where we have not been so successful as dealing with environmental issues that are Global in nature National boundaries of proving to be an almost with with the exception of the ozone layer and almost insurmountable problem for us as National interest got in Global interest environment to be honest I think that the point that Dennis razes is really pertinent we are facing increasingly problems that can only be solved on a global level  and so that really leaves you know the environment on moving even the National Environmental movement here in the states. At a bit of an imp 5 Bank  hand searching for new dragons to slay searching for a new organizing principle well I think that was very moving to watch that film for me as someone who was it you know kid in the first during the first Earth Day to see all that energy out on the streets and I think it's been a long time since we've seen that much energy out on the street for the meanwhile we seen the challenges that were facing in terms of problems like global warming and ocean education just really take almost a quantum leaf in difficulty in terms of solving  Paul Hawken the you heard Jim Rogers earlier talk about yeah the way the terms of Engagement have changed do environmental active environmentally active people of think already at the sing of the debate that they understand the business has to make money pay wages invest and all those component parts of keeping a business solvent and going forward one thing does happen with the environmental movement is that it's not on the street so much it's in boardroom sits in is it's everywhere it's permeated every institution in the world and so the lack of activity in the streets shouldn't be seen as a softening are the weakening of the environmental movement it's just as been so successful that it goes everywhere and one place it certainly has gone is in major corporations I don't think those are possible major corporation in the world today that doesn't take climate change and all environment which is very seriously some more effectively than others of course and I'm have the kind of leadership you see in Duke Energy but there is no question that business is now on top of this issue so you're saying leave already Zoar of the values of the of the movement that Dennis Hayes was leading 40 years ago does a level of literacy in the business world that they're just simply wasn't there even ten years ago certainly not 34 years ago and that literacy is translating itself into Innovation into new policy instruments and even into situations where you have companies like Duke lobbying the government for proin turn the legislation is supposed to oppose you know to trying to prevent it Jim Rogers talk about how this has to go International I guess your company can't be green in one country either Kenneth  no I can't in fact this has to be at the core of your business going for we have been very active at working with environmentalist ngos not just the us but around the world I have the opportunity Leah Copenhagen and December and it was an important step on the way to achieving a worldwide Accord with respect to car the people were pretty disappointed what many people were pretty disappointed with the outcome of Copenhagen is this part of the Growing Pains of a of a 21st approach toward the environment  I think there's positives in Copenhagen the problem is is people went into it with very high expectations but think about this for the first time we had almost a hundred leaders from around the world there to talk about this leaders of the countries we have the Copenhagen Accord we had the bric countries breaking from the 77 company a countries I'm sayin we're prepared to put certain Targets in goals on the table going forward so I think we need to say the glasses full not half empty but we still have a long way to go to fill it up Dennis Hayes is it hard to scale up to a global climate change Sation in part because the effects are said to be so far in the future and so hard to feel and see right now I think you're considered make many effects right now in end although we've had a few emails that I wish hadn't been set the broad consensus Within to the scientific Community every National scientific body in the world is is on record as being serious that man is is changing this when can we have gun Global with the issues they will be in 191 countries this year also going to be back on the streets in the mall in Washington DC your sister we're going to have probably the largest climate rally that has ever been held in the world and they'll be a great many things for the entire previous week because Jim is right the glass can either be partly Fuller partly empty I think 30 years after the National Academy of Sciences said we know enough now to start moving on climate it really is time to start moving we've got to do some engine jar our Congress out of inertia or else our ability to the world and the ability of the rest of the world to take initiatives simply won't come together we have to be there as the largest emitter or one of the two largest emitters Elizabeth Colbert sense of movement of progress from Dennis Hayes but you sound like you are not as optimistic as he is about the state of state of play why does momentum going into Copenhagen but I really think I guess I have to disagree with with Jim and an inter certain extent was Dennis when you see what came out of Copenhagen it was really completely incommensurate with wood everybody knows to be the scale of the problem so I think it's pretty hard to come out of something like that and as I said there was a lot of energy and commitment and as was mentioned a lot of world leaders active did show up in Copenhagen but the documents that came out of it they weren't even adequate you know meet the relatively low Targets on that they had set for themselves so what came out of there was really you know rhetoric not match by any action Chipotle what's the next stack for the environmental movement when you look out at the coming Decades of cities in the world you're doing what the natural leaders could not agree upon in Copenhagen a really are rising up from the bottom when the grass roots in the regions and states of the world to really bigger ously and aggressively adopts standards on terms of carbon emissions and other Environmental shoes that nationally was cannot agree upon so I think what you're seeing is going to be a kind of a mash-up between business between NGO Civil Society turn local image on governance to really tackle these issues that seem to be paralyzed on a International level Elizabeth kolbert Dennis Hayes Jim Rogers thanks to you all you'll find lots of more about Earth Day the American experience and the PBS NewsHour at pbs.org I'm Ray Suarez thanks for watching

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