Occidental College
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UEP Faculty & UEPI Staff Scholarship
Urban and Environmental Policy
Winter 1995
Beyond NEPA and Earth Day: Reconstructing the
Past and Envisioning a Future for
Environmentalism: Presented as the Plenary
Address to the Bi-Ennial Meeting of the American
Society for Environmental History, Las Vegas,
Nevada March 8, 1995
Robert Gottlieb
Occidental College, [email protected]
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Recommended Citation
Gottlieb, R. (December 01, 1995). Beyond NEPA and Earth Day: Reconstructing the Past and Envisioning a Future for
Environmentalism: Presented as the Plenary Address to the Bi-Ennial Meeting of the American Society for Environmental History,
Las Vegas, Nevada March 8, 1995. Environmental History Review, 19, 4, 1-14.
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Beyond NEPA and Earth Day:
Reconstructing the Past and
Envisioning a Future for
Environmentalism
Presented as the Plenary Address to the Bi-ennial Meeting
of the American Society for EnvironmentalHistory,
Las Vegas, Nevada
March 8, 1995
By Robert Gottlieb
University of California, Los Angeles
It seems opportune, on this the 25thanniversaryyearfor both the first
EarthDay as well as the passage of the National EnvironmentalPolicy
Act, thata meeting of the AmericanSocietyfor EnvironmentalHistory
address the significance of those two threshold events. In doing so,
there is the obvious need to look at theirimmediatehistoricalcontext;
the events, the social movements, and the policy and politicaldebates
of the late 1960s that influenced their coming to pass.
For many, there will likely be interestin evaluating what has
takenplace in the twenty-fiveyearssinceNEPAwas signed into law by
a reluctantRichardNixon and hundreds of thousands of citizens took
to the streets in communitiesacrossthe countryto declaretheirvaried
commitments to the environment.One such kind of evaluation took
place on the occasion of EarthDay 1990,when the press became filled
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with stories containingcheck lists of environmentalperformance:had
the airbecome dirtieror cleaner;the oceansmore or less polluted;were
population growth rates climbing or slowing down, and so forth?
WhileNEPAnever gainedthe prominenceof EarthDay for the press or
the public, the continuous flow of evaluations about NEPA
implementationestablishedaminifieldof environmentalpolicyanalysis.
What this concept of "historicalchecklist"tends to suggest is
that the birth of the contemporaryenvironmentalmovement and the
parallel rise of an environmentalpolicy system should be traced to
those turbulentmonthsof 1970and the seriesof eventsboth proceeding
and immediatelyfollowing them.Thus stated,we arepresentedwith a
kind of environmental demarcation point, a before and after in
Environmental History. Through this divide we see a pre-1970
"conservationism"or "preservationism"concerned with protection
and/or managementof the naturalenvironmentand its resourcebase,
and a post-1970environmentalismconcernedwith both issues of the
naturalenvironment,species protectionor wetlands preservation,and
urban and industrialpollution, clean air, clean water, and hazardous
waste. Similarly,with the passage thatyearof NEPA,the CleanAirAct,
and the Resource Recovery Act as well as the establishment of the
EnvironmentalProtectionAgency,1970is seenby manyas thelaunching
date for a federallyconstructedenvironmentalpolicy system based on
legislation, rule making, enforcement,litigation, and administrative
agency activity.
I would suggest that such a view of the environmental
movement and of the centralityand significanceof the environmental
policy system of the past two-and-one-halfdecades can be misleading
about the present,offerstoo narrowa view in addressingthe past, and
establishes,atbest, only an incrementalistperspectiveaboutthe future,
a perspectivethat is today set in relief against Gingrichianonslaughts
and doomsday scenarios.We need, instead,to think aboutevents such
as EarthDay, orlegislationsuch as NEPA,as constitutingmorecomplex
moments in the evolution of environmentalism.This perspective on
NEPA and EarthDay as complex, evolving events also helps situate
environmentalismitself as a movement or set of movements with
distinctive roots and multiple forms of organizationand perspective,
both past and present. Eachof these, I would argue, are embedded in
the social, or the urban and industrial sphere, connecting natural
environments,human environments,and daily life.
This view introduces a new set of historical environmental
players and movements or reinterpretsthe actionsand perspectivesof
those long defined as the legitimate "pre-1970"environmentalists.It
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includes BobMarshall,the People'sForester,whose vision of protected
wilderness was directly associated with his vision of social justice.'It
recognizesthe contributionof EllenSwallowRichards,who introduced
into this country as early as the 1880s the concept of "ecology",by
placingit in its urbanand household dimensions,as food andnutrition,
airqualityandwaterquality,sewage and sanitation.Richards"science
of controllableenvironment"also provides directlineage to those selfdefined "municipal housekeeping" movements of the turn of the
century who focused on the myriad of urbaninfrastructureconcerns
that plagued the Industrialcity.2
Withinthisreconstructionof environmentalismmustbelocated
the indomitable Jane Addams, whose 19th ward in Chicagobecame
emblematicof the hazards of the urbanand industrialenvironment.It
was Addams who sought to empowerworkingpeople and community
residentssufferingin suchplacesasthe garmentmanufacturing
"sweats"
tucked away in tenements or the foul landscapesborderingareaslike
Packingtownin the industrialghettos of Chicago.Addams recognized,
in those communitiesand workplaces,a state of environmentalas well
as economic immiseration. It was Addams who urged Progressivesto
recognize the singular importanceof such environmentalhazards in
daily life, and to createprogramsto ensurewhat she called the "certain
minimal requirementsof well-being"in the IndustrialCity. I
Advocates addressingthe environmentalissues of urbanform
also need to be represented in this reconstructedview. They can be
found through such figures as Lewis Mumford, Benton MacKaye,
CatherineBauerand the regionalplanningmovement they founded in
the 1920s. Mumford and his colleagues spoke of needing to make the
earth more habitable for those who inhabit it. In the process, they
distinguished between what they called the "overcity",with its cycles
of ecological imbalance,reaching furtherand furtherfor water, fuel,
food, building materials,and areas for waste and sewage disposal, in
contrast with what MacKayecalled the "cosmopolitancity of scale",
where jobs and housing would be in greaterbalance,where roadless
highways would complement recreation trails consisting of wild
reservations, and where the potential for community living and
cooperativefood raisingwould also suggest a reintegrationof city and
countryside, or of urban and naturalenvironments.4
Advocates addressing the issues of workplace and class, of
gender, or of race and ethnicity, also have a centralplace within this
view of environmentalism. Most noteworthy perhaps is the figure of
Alice Hamilton,whom I describedin my book ForcingtheSpringas the
country's first great urban-industrialenvironmentalist.5
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Alice Hamiltonhas remained,until recently,a nearly invisible
figurein environmentalmovementhistories,despiteher anticipationof
so many contemporaryenvironmentalthemes. She was a physician
who sought to understandthe connectionsbetween environment and
disease. She was a researcherand scientist who defined her field of
study as the real conditions and real consequences stemming from
hazardousworkingconditionsand the use of hazardousproducts. She
was a woman who helped inventthe field of occupationalmedicine and
established the link between industrial activities and worker and
environmentalhealth at a time when such a field was seen by the
medical establishment as exhibiting feminine "sentimentality or
radicalism."In these arenasand others,Alice Hamiltonemerged at the
forefront of what today would be characterizedas struggles over
hazardousworkplaces,environmentalracism,gender discrimination,
access to informationor a worker's or community's right to know,
empowermentstrategiesbasedon thenecessityof organizingpowerless
constituencies,and a deep and abiding passion for both the issues of
health and environmentand the need to build a unified movement to
address those questions coherentlyand collectively.6
Hamilton, for example, pushed the concept of "no safe
threshold"when she did battle against DuPont and StandardOil and
the Ethyl Corporationin their unrelenting campaign in the 1920s to
introduceleaded gasolineonto the marketas a "warorderpriority,"as
one of the DuPonts put it.7For Hamilton,exposures in the workplace
could not be separatedfromthe problemof what was released into the
ambientenvironment,and vice versa, a crucialinsight that still eludes
many policymakersas well as movement advocates.
These unknown or lesser known figures of environmentalism
likeAliceHamilton,CatherineBauer,JaneAddams
oreven BobMarshall,
are represented quite differently (or often remain absent) in most
environmentalhistories, in contrastwith such well-known, historical
icons of environmentalism as John Muir or Gifford Pinchot. Yet
Hamilton and the othersrequirerecognitionfor their rightfulplace in
environmentalhistory,not only in terms of theirsignificantviews and
activities, but as a matter of definition: namely, that U.S.
environmentalism,in its more than 100-yearhistory, needs to be seen
as a response to and indeed an extension of the changes to landscape
and society wrought by urbanand industrialforces. Thus, even when
exploring the roots of environmentalismexclusively in terms of such
conflictsas managementor wise use versus protectionor preservation,
those same movements and ideas can also be seen as having been
powerfully influenced and ultimately framed by those same, often
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ignored,urbanandindustrialforces.Thisincludedthetimberindustry's
effective depletion of the forests,the technologyand marketchangesin
hard rockand metal mining, the managementof livestockon the range
as an extension of a regional,then national,and ultimatelyglobal food
system, the building of dams and ditches and power plants that
concentratedlandholdings and facilitatedrapidurbangrowth,and the
emergence of, and eventual industrializationand chemicalizationof
irrigated agriculture. All these activities and the movements they
engenderedwere respondingto many of the sameurbanand industrial
activities and disputes that gave rise to the environmentalismof the
Alice Hamiltons and the JaneAddams and the Lewis Mumfordsin the
early part of the century.8
This perspective on environmentalistroots also provides a
frameworkforrethinkingthe questionof whetherNEPAandEarthDay
constitutemovement and poLicypoints of demarcation.NEPA,forone,
was seen by some of its authorsand Congressionalsponsorsas a unique
pieceof legislation,drawingon a conceptionofenvironmentalprotection
as distinctfrom otherpolicy frameworks,such as cost-benefitanalysis,
orthe intricatepoliticaland distributionalmaneuversthatcharacterized
resourcepolicy. Sen. Henry Jackson'schief advisor on the draftingof
NEPA, the University of Indiana'sLyntonCaldwell, situatedNEPA's
origins in the context of what he called "apopulareffortto redirectthe
priorities of the federal agencies-to force them in pursuit of their
missions to take account of public concern for the quality of the
environment."9Caldwell, in turn,tracedthese effortsto the 1965White
House Conferenceon Natural Beauty. For Caldwell, as well as for a
numberof contemporaryenvironmentalanalystslikeSamHays,quality
of the environmentwas at once "aesthetic"and located in the domain
of "consumption."'0In this context, scenic resources could not and
should not be quantifiedin the mannerof cost-benefitanalysisutilized
by agenciessuch as the Bureauof Reclamationorthe Corpsof Engineers,
whose deliberations were seen as subject to political manipulation.
Environmental, that is, "natural environment" values and the
correspondingconservation/preservationor "recreation"movements
were identifiedas in the publicinterest,andthusneeded tobe evaluated
by "scientificanalysis,"as opposed to a process influencedby interest
group politics." As a consequence,in the various draftsof NEPA, the
need for a Council on EnvironmentalQuality was posed as distinct
from, though parallel to, at least in terms of bureaucraticstatus, the
existing Council of EconomicAdvisors.'2
NEPA didn't entirely separate issues of natural and human
environment, as the concept of "pollutioncontrol"figured directlyin
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the debates that took place prior to its enactmentand was ultimately
incorporatedintothelanguageof thelegislationitself.But,in establishing
a "nationalenvironmentalpolicy," "pollution"issues, that is, impacts
on urbanand industrialenvironments,were considered of secondary
importanceto such questions as the need to protectscenic resourcesor
the need for an appropriate,"scientific"evaluation of any resource
development.Thecrucialdebateover"environmentalimpactstatement"
requirementsthat preoccupied the 91st Congress was less over the
reachof such statementsinto the urbanand industrialdomain than the
authoritysuchstatementswould assumein decision-makingbyfederal
agencieswhose activitiesimpactedthenaturalenvironment.
Thus,NEPA
establisheda separatedomainfor "environmentalprotection,"defined
as protectionof scenicresources,thanthatforcontroland management
of the urban and industrial environment, situated subsequently in
separateand discreteadministrativeandregulatoryunitsforworkplace
consumer
(throughtheOccupationalSafetyandHealthAdministration),
products (through the ConsumerProducts Safety Commission), and
environment(throughthe EnvironmentalProtectionAgency).
Thisdivisionintoseparateunitsforregulation
andpolicymaking
paralleledthe kinds of distinctionsand divisions thatemergedbetween
groups and movements. In the congressionalhearings that took place
in the months before NEPA's passage, for example, nearly all those
testifying-whether scientists, agency officials, or conservationistsfocused on how to interJectinto the legislation the environmental
values of "protection,"or "when to say that there are limits not to be
transgressed"13aspart of the frameworkfor agency decision-making,
as David Brower put it at one CongressionalHearing. The bruising
battles over DinosaurNational Monument,passage of the Wilderness
Act, and the proposedhydrofacilityin the GrandCanyonthathad been
part of the Central Arizona Project package of facilities served as
backgroundto the NEPA debatesand for a conservationistmovement
that sought to craft a new identity amidst the activism and social
turbulenceof the era. These scenic resourceprotectionbattles, despite
rhetoricabout equivalentconcernsfor "theshape and characterof the
cities as [much as for] the state of wilderness,"as Secretaryof Interior
Stewart Udall said of NEPA's legislative intent, 14were driving the
legislative process and establishing, for advocacy groups as well, a
division of interest in defining what constituted a "national
environmentalpolicy."
One of the few voices to explore an urban and particularlyan
industrialfocus in the NEPAdebateswas Anthony Mazzochi,then the
legislative directorof the Oil, Chemical,and Atomic WorkersUnion
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ROBERT
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(OCAW). Mazzochi argued that one could not confront "the
environmentalproblemwithout dealingwith the place fromwhich the
contaminantsemanate."15 Referringto OCAW'sseries of conferences
held during 1969 which sought to provide a forum for workers to
identify the kinds of hazards they experienced on the job, Mazzochi
defined the frameworkfor a new environmentalpolicy in two crucial
ways: the centralityof the industrialexperiencein the development of
environmentalcontamination
problems,andthatanysuchpolicyrequired
a shift in the burden of proof in assessing the environmentalandhealth
impacts of any new substanceintroducedby industry.'6
Six months later,in November 1969,Mazzochitestified again
at congressionalhearings,this time regardingproposedlegislationthat
was subsequentlypassed the next year as the OccupationalSafetyand
HealthAct.At these Hearings,Mazzochisought to shiftthe debatefrom
the preoccupation with occupational hazard (primarily defined in
terms of "workersafety" and accidentprevention) to the question of
environmentalhazard,which, according to Mazzochi, representedthe
"moreprofound problem." In discussing the environment,Mazzochi
insisted, the workplacecould not be "separatedfromthe communityat
large," since the pollutants created inside the workplace, as Alice
Hamiltonhad noted more thanfortyyearspreviously,also found their
way into the environment at large.17
Mazzochi's arguments,in both the OSHAand particularlythe
NEPA deliberations, were never pursued, either by congressional
sponsors or by most of the advocates then engaged in efforts to pass
such legislation. At the OSHAhearings,in fact,not one representative
from any of the majorconservationistgroups,nor any from the newly
formed professional,staff-basedenvironmentalorganizationssuch as
the EnvironmentalDefense Fund and the Natural ResourcesDefense
Council, gave testimony nor demonstrated significant interest in
workplace environment issues. Environment remained a divided
concem in the policy realm and among environmentaladvocateswho
Such
continued to distinguish between protectionand contamination.
divisions became a bit more problematicwith the sudden explosion of
media interest,grassrootsactivity,and symbolicactionthatculminated
with the events of April 22, 1970.
Twenty-five years later, the first Earth Day remains a bit
opaque and somewhat contradictoryin terms of identifyingits role in
the evolution of environmentalism,despite its considerablestatus as a
presumed demarcationpoint in environmentalhistory. For example,
GaylordNelson's frameof reference,in initiallyproposing the concept
of a nationalenvironmentalteach-in,was moredirectlyassociatedwith
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conservationist/protectionistdiscourse.A Senatorandformergovernor
of Wisconsin, the state that produced Aldo Leopold and John Muir,
who had seen his place as champion of environmental protection
largely eclipsed by the intrigue and maneuvering over NEPA by
SenatorsMuskieandJackson,Nelson wished to channelthe activismof
the period towards what he characterizedas the "most criticalissue
facing Mankind,"one which Nelson saw as clearly dwarfing such
issues as Vietnam,racism,nuclearwar,decayingcities,orhunger."8The
Harvardlaw studenthe hired,Denis Hayes, was also preoccupiedwith
the activismof the period, and wished to promote an event thatwas at
once tamer and potentially more consensus-building than Vietnamstyle protests,but whichneverthelessevoked the rhetoricand concerns
of the 60s movements. "Ourgoal is not to clean the air while leaving
slums and ghettos, nor is it to provide a healthy world for oppression
and war.We wish to makethe probabilityof life greater,and the quality
of lifehigher,"Hayesproclaimedat a pressconferencepromotingEarth
Day events.19
The term "qualityof life" was key to the discourse associated
with the unfolding events leading up to and takingplace on EarthDay
itself.Fora numberof '60sactivists,"qualityof life"signified problems
of dailylife,whetherrelatedto thejob,to communitylife, to consumption,
to socialorraceand genderrelations,or to the environmentas abroader
category encompassing such arenas as work, home, community, or
extraurban"Nature." Late 1960s environmental activists could be
found,not in the SierraCluborthe NationalWildlifeFederationor even
theEnvironmentalDefenseFundwhichemployedsome of thehothouse
rhetoricof the period ("suethebastards"was an earlyEDFbattlecry)20,
but in local "EcologyAction"groups, or communal "affinitygroups,"
or,to use Newt Gingrich'sfavoriteexpression,in the "counterculture."
"Wherethere's pollution there's profit," the '60s activists insisted,2'
arguingthatchangesneeded to occurboth in termsof values as well as
institutions.As one example,hundreds of recyclingor ecology centers
were establishedliterallyovernightas culturalplaces, where ideas and
practice-elaborating the new life style-could be joined.22The
environment didn't need protection,the activists asserted, it needed
transforming.
Forthe conservationists,the media interestin environmentas
pollution or as quality of life, and particularlythe association of '60sstyle activism and concems with what was being called the new
environmentalorecologymovement,was disturbing,if not threatening.
These were groups whose members ("consumers of the natural
environment,"as the National Wildlife Federation'sThomas Kimball
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put it)23wanted to protecta life style based on appreciationof scenic
resourcesoruntouchedwilderness.Forthe conservationists,EarthDay
was at best an ambiguous event, welcomed because it appeared to
reinforce,in light of NEPA's passage, the concept of an environment
needing protection,but troublesomebecause it also drew attentionto
"approachesother than those the traditionalmovementhas pioneered
and knows best," as a SierraClub vice presidentput it.24
The conservationists,David Brower's letter writing and ad
campaignsnotwithstanding,were also not activists;that is, they were
not concerned with social action, nor did they see themselves as
constitutinga social movement.Thus,the formas well as the contentof
Earth Day activities suggested differences, differences which also
extended among participantsas well as interpretersof the events. For
those who sought a consensus-buildingaction, EarthDay was like a
parade, filled with color and pageantry, bringing together citizen,
public official,and corporateexecutive alike.Forthose who saw Earth
Day as heralding a new movement, or at least one associatedwith or
drawing inspiration from already existing movements, Earth Day
representeda form of directaction,such as the sit-ins at the University
of Oregonthatfused anti-warandenvironmentalprotestsandultimately
led to theuniversityadministration'scommitmentto seekenvironmental
innovation on as well as off campus. 25
In this intense period of activism and social movement birth
and/ orredefinition,the debateoverhow to interpretthe significanceof
EarthDay ultimatelycame to overshadowthe significanceof the event
itself in helping define the evolution of environmentalism.The fear of
environmentalismdefined as social movement, shared by the Sierra
andRichardNixon, amongothers,helpedpromote
Club,TimeMagazine,
an interpretationof Earth Day as "problemsolving" rather than as
transformative;
consensus-buildingratherthanaschallengingorchangeoriented; technically rather than socially focused. In Nixon's
environment-orientedJanuary1970Stateof the Union message and in
the administration'ssubsequent legislative initiatives, the president
embracedthenotion thatenvironmentalproblemswere interconnected
contaminationproblems,but then framed them as discreteor mediaspecific problems requiring management and control strategies,
particularlythrough what later came to be called an "end-of-pipe,"
technology-basedapproach.26 TimeMagazine,similarly,in its special
featureon the environmentpriorto EarthDay, defined environmental
problemsas "technicalandmechanicalproblemsthatinvolveprocesses,
flows, things." "And the Americangenius seems to run thatway," the
magazinehappily announced,while decryingeffortsthatsoughtto link
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those problems to such factors as race, class, or industry structure.27
Thus, by placing environmentalaction within this technical domain,
EarthDay became, through this interpretation,a call for attention to
technique,in arenas where scientists and engineers prevailed, and
where, as my colleagueMargaretFitzSimmonsonce put it, you needed
to be an expert to be an environmentallyconcemed citizen.28
It was when environment became technique and
environmentalismbecamean associationof expertsor professionals,as
it was increasinglydefined duringthe 1970sand 1980s,thatthe view of
EarthDay (and, parenthetically,of NEPA) as constituting a point of
demarcation in both movement and policy terms, also took hold.
Pollutionas well as protectionwere now a part of the accepted terrain
of environmental activity, but it was activity framed by expertise.
Withina decade,eachof themajorenvironmentalorganizations,whether
the traditionalistslike the SierraClubor the NationalAudubon Society
or BobMarshalland Aldo Leopold and BentonMacKaye'sWilderness
Society,orthenew lawyer/scientist/lobbying groupslike EDF,NRDC,
or the EnvironmentalPolicy Institute, or even such a movementoriented group (and original EarthDay sponsor) like Environmental
Action,were reconstitutedintoprofessional,staff-based,policy-system
orientedorganizations,all too often engrossed in the details of science
andtechniqueandtheformsof environmentalmanagementthattreated
contamination or protection issues as problems to be solved, not
institutionsor values to be changed.
Thisprofessional,or mainstreamenvironmentalism,as I call it
in ForcingtheSpring,did not, by any means, fully constitutewhat was
considered environmentalism. Local, issue-oriented, citizen-based
groupsstillproliferated,whetherfocusedon questionsof contamination
or protection.Effortswere also made to continuethe traditionsof 1960s
activismandthe developmentof socialmovements,whetherconcerned
with nuclearpower, toxics in the community, occupationalhealth, or
right-to-knowand democraticparticipationconcerns.
By the 1980s,the locals were becoming increasinglyalienated
from, and even hostile to the activities of the mainstream groups,
despiteearlieraffinitiesandapresumedcommonenvironmentalagenda.
This was particularlytrue in the area of anti-toxicsactivity where the
community-based groups, addressing directly issues of place, were
often hostile to the search for new techniques (for example, high
temperature incineration facilities) when such techniques became
themselves the source of environmentalprotest.29This division was
furtherintensifiedby issues of gender,race,andclass,wheremovements
of housewives, or of poor ruralresidents,or fromcommunitiesof color
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were finding less and less common ground with the big, national
organizationswho spoke the language of policy and expertise,while
also claiming to speak on behalf of the locals as well. Therewere also
those, like RalphNader and his associationsof publicintereststudents
and professionalsor the directactioncommandosof Greenpeace,who
sought to bridge the gulf between citizenengagementandprofessional,
expertise-orientedactivity. But the Naders and the Greenpeaceswere
the exception rather than the rule and never fully succeeded in
overcoming the growing mistrust. Environmentalismincreasingly
came to represent a divide between groups, issues, and levels of
participation.
This currentdivide in environmentalismhas, to be sure, some
historicalreference.Duringthe progressiveera,as SamuelP. Hays and
others have shown us, conservationism itself divided along lines
concerning the role of expertiseand the craftingof technicalsolutions
in managing environmentalproblems.30But within the discourse of
progressivism, there also resided a powerful democraticimpulse
associated with concepts like empowerment and social reform. The
expert is the citizen, proclaimed those like Jane Addams and Alice
Hamilton who saw solutions based on the capacity of citizens to
organize into social movements. Both Hamilton, a physician, and
Addams, the social reformer,were wedded to the uses of science to
identify and better understand the nature of environmentalhazards
present in everyday life. Likethe environmentaljusticeactiviststoday,
HamiltonandAddamsbelieved thatchangewas acommunityfunction,
and thatenvironmentalism,as they situatedit,was not abouttechnique,
but the intersectionof science, policy, and democraticaction.31
The importance of understanding such roots in sorting out
today'scomplexandincreasinglydivisiveenvironmentalismrepresents
morethanwhatis oftenderisivelyandunfortunatelycalledan"academic
exercise." As I've argued, there are today essentially two broad
categoriesof environmentalactivity, a mainstreamand an alternative
environmentalism.Mainstreamenvironmentalismremainsfocused on
policy and power, on accomplishing change by helping construct,
influence,and watchdogthe environmentalpolicy systemit hasbecome
so much a partof sincethe daysof NEPA.Mainstreamenvironmentalism
is national and global in its reach, and as a professionalmovement of
expertswho are advocates- lawyers,scientists,lobbyists,economists,
policy people-it has also tended to remainwhite and comfortablein
addressing the centers of power, whether in the executive branch,
Congress,the courts,or the press.Alternativeenvironmentalists,on the
otherhand, focus on people and on place. They accomplishchangeby
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being ornery,argumentative,mistrustful,andby mobilizing theirbase,
often against one or another dimension of that same environmental
policy system. As locals, they areoften neighborhood-orientedin their
reach,and have been episodic or single issue-oriented,at least in their
origins. Alternativeenvironmentalistsare often led by women. Many
have assumed the mantleof environmentaljustice,including,notably,
those who are environmentalistsof color. The greatestconcern of the
alternative environmentalistshas not been the shifting vagaries of
policy, as with the "unholy trinity" of unfunded mandates, risk
assessment, and takings that dominate the Washington scene today,
but with the very act of survival itself. This survival strategy,in turn,
stemsfromlimitedresourcesand the powerfultendenciesin the society
to marginalizegrass roots mobilization.32
This categorization into mainstream and alternative
environmentalismcanalsobe useful in helping describewhat is lacking
in both sets of movements and in locating the intersectionswhere a
broader and more compelling environmentalismcould conceivably
take root. Mainstream environmentalists need to connect with
experienceand community.Expertiseneeds to flow both ways and be
embeddedin the conditionsof daily life.Alternativeenvironmentalists,
on the otherhand, need to draw on and connect with the resourcesof
mainstreamenvironmentalismand understandthat the "local"cannot
standinisolationfrommovementsforchangeas a whole. Environmental
justicemust alsobe affirminga vision, andbroadenits agendato be able
to includesuchcrucialconcernsascommunityfood securityorindustrial
restructuring.Linkages are needed between issues of human and
naturalenvironments,between workplace and community, between
mainstream and alternative,between different parts of a complex
movement. Finally,environmentalismneeds to reclaima history that
provides continuity,thatdoesn'tcreatedemarcationpoints which only
reinforcedivision, and thatallows environmentalismto pursue its own
as GermanGreenfounder and
"longmarchthroughthe institutions"33
1960sactivistRudiDutschkeonce proclaimed.It needs to challenge,at
each stage of such a journey,the conditions and the structuresand the
environmentalmiseriesthatlaid the groundworkfor the emergenceof
environmentalismin the firstplace.Toparaphrasea slogan fromthe era
of EarthDay, "Thestruggle to remakethe movement has just begun."
I BobMarshall,ThePeople'sForests(New York:HarrisonSmithand RobertHaas, 1933);JamesM.
Original:TheLifeof BobMarshall(Seattle:The Mountaineers,1986); Robert
Glover,A Wilderness
Environmentalism:
ComplexMovements,Diverse Roots"Environmental
Gottlieb,"Reconstructing
HistoryReview,Vol. 17,No. 4, Winter1993,pp. 1-19.
1995
ROBERTGOTTLIEB
13
2 EllenH. Richards,TheScienceofControllable
Environment
(Boston:Whitcomb&Barrows,1904);Ellen
H. Richards,Sanitationin DailyLife (Boston:Whitcomb& Barrows,1907);EllenH. Richardsand
andFood:Froma SanitaryStandpoint(NewYork:JohnWiley&Sons,
AlpheusG.Woodman,Air,Water,
1901);MartinMelosi, ed., "'MunicipalHousekeeping':The Role of Womenin ImprovingUrban
SanitationPractices,
1880-1917,"inPollutionandReform
inAmerican
Cities,1870-1930(Austin:
University
of TexasPress,1980).
3 See, Allen F. Davis, Spearheadsfor
TheSocialSettlements
andtheProgressive
Reform:
Movement(New
Brunswick,N.J.:RutgersUniversityPress:1984);JaneAddams, TwentyYearsat Hull House:With
Notes (New York:New AmericanLibrary,1960);HullHouseMapsandPapers,(New
Autobiographical
York:ThomasY. Crowell,1895).
4 BentonMacKaye,TheNew Exploration:
A Philosophy
of RegionalPlanning (Urbana:Universityof
IllinoisPress, 1962);BentonMacKaye,"RegionalPlanning,"TheSociological
Review,Vol. 20, No. 1,
TheNeglectedVisionof the
January1928,pp. 18-33;CarlSussman,ed., PlanningtheFourthMigration:
RegionalPlanningAssociation
ofAmerica,(Cambridge:MITPress,1976).
5 ForcingtheSpring,47.
6 ExploringtheDangerousTrades:TheAutobiography
of AliceHamilton,M.D., (Boston:Little,Brown,
1943);BarbaraSicherman,AliceHamilton:A Lifein Letters(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,
1984).
7 Alice Hamilton,"WhatPriceSafety?Tetra-ethylLeadRevealsa Flawin our Defenses,"TheSurvey
Vol. 54,no. 6, June15,1925;Testimonyof AliceHamiltonin Proceedings
to
Midmonthly,
ofa Conference
or Nor Thereis a PublicHealthQuestionin theManufacture,
DetermineWhether
or Useof
Distribution,
LeadGasoline,
PublicHealthBulletinNo. 158(WashingtonDC:GovernmentPrintingOffice,
Tetraethyl
1925),98-99;GrahamD. Taylor&PatriciaE.Sudnick,DuPontandtheInternational
Chemical
Industry
(Boston:TwaynePublishers,1984),84.
8 ForcingtheSpring,19-26.
9 See LyntonCaldwell'sForwardin RichardN. L. Andrews,Environmental
PolicyandAdministrative
Change:Implementation
of theNationalEnvironmental
PolicyAct (Lexington,MA:LexingtonBooks,
1976),xi.
10 SeeSamuelP. Hays,Beauty,Health,andPermanence:
Environmental
Politicsin theUnitedStates,19551985(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1987).
11 See LyntonK.Caldwell,ScienceandtheNationalEnvironmental
PolicyAct:Redirecting
PolicyThrough
Procedural
Reform(University,Alabama:Universityof AlabamaPress,1982).
12 See RichardA. Liroff,A NationalPolicyfortheEnvironment:
NEPAanditsAftermath(Bloomington,
Indiana:IndianaUniversity Press, 1976);Also, Andrews, Environmental
Policyand Administrative
Change.
13SeetheTestimonyofDavidBroweratHearings
on"EnvironmentalQuality,"before
theSubcommittee
on Fisheriesand WildlifeConservationof the Committeeon MerchantMarineand Fisheries,House
of Representatives,Ninety-FirstCongress,FirstSessionon H.R.12143,May26, 1969,132.
14 See StewartUdall'stestimonyon H.R.12143,May 7, 1969,16.
15 See testimonyof AnthonyMazzochi,Hearingson H.R.12143,May26, 1969,123.
16 Mazzochitestimony on H.R. 12143,May 26, 1969,124-125;The issue of burden of proof was
subsequentlyelaboratedin some of thelanguageandprovisionsof the 1976ToxicSubstancesControl
Act.
17See the testimonyof AnthonyMazzochiat theHearingson theOccupationalSafetyandHealthAct
of 1969,beforethe SelectSubcommitteeon Laborof the Committeeon Educationand Labor,House
of Representatives,91st Congress,FirstSession,on H.R.843,H.R.3809,H.R.4294,and H.R.13373,
November18,1969, 1195.
18 Author'spersonalcommunicationwithGaylordNelson,1991.SeealsoEdwardE.C.Clebsch,"The
CampusTeach-inon the EnvironmentalCrisis,"TheLivingWilderness,
Spring1970,34 (109):10.
19 Hayes'press statementis reproducedin TheLivingWilderness,
Spring1970issue, 12-13.
20 See MarionLaneRogers,AcornDays:TheEnvironmental
DefenseFundandHowit Grew,(New York:
EnvironmentalDefenseFund,1990).
21 "WhereThere'sPollution,There'sProfit"was thenameof apublicationproducedfortheEarthDay
eventsby one of theenvironmental-oriented
affinitygroupsof theperiod.(LosAngeles:LosAngeles
Powerand LightCollective,1970).
22 SeeNeil Seldman,"TheUnitedStatesRecyclingMovement,1968to 1986:A Review,"(Washington
D.C.:Institutefor LocalSelf-Reliance,October1986).
23 Author'spersonalcommunicationwith ThomasKimball,1991.
24 EdgarWayburn,"Survivalis not Enough,"SierraClubBulletin,March1970,55 (3):2.
25 See "TheOregonExperimentAfterTwentyYears,"RAIN,Winter-Spring1991,14 (1):32-41
14
HISTORYREVIEW
ENVIRONMENTAL
WINTER
26 Nixon'sstateof the unionmessageis reprintedin Environmental
Quality:TheFirstAnnualReportof
1970),Appendix
Quality,(WashingtonD.C.:GovernmentPrintingOffice,
theCouncilonEnvironmental
B; See also "Summons to a New Cause," Time, February 2, 1970, 7-8.
27 "Summonsto a New Cause,"Time,7.
28 MargaretFitzSimmonsand RobertGottlieb,"EnvironmentalPlanning and Policy in the Los
Angeles Region:Openingsand Opportunities,"Paperpresentedby MargaretFitzSimmons,at the
Conferenceon Policy Optionsfor SouthernCalifornia,Lewis Centerfor RegionalPolicy Studies,
Universityof California,Los Angeles,November19, 1992.
29 See LouisBlumbergand RobertGottlieb,Waron Waste:CanAmericaWinits BattlewithGarbage?
(WashingtonD.C.:IslandPress,1989).
30 SamuelP. Hays, Conservation
andtheGospelof Efficiency,
31 See AliceHamilton,Exploring
Reform.
Allen Davis, Spearheadsfor
theDangerousTrades;
32 ForcingtheSpring,117-204.
33 Theterm"longmarchthroughtheinstitutions"was firstused by GermanactivistRudiDutschke
in 1967.Dutschkelaterbecameone of the foundersof Die Grunen,the GermanGreenParty.
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