40 years after the modern environmental movement began, it's a mixed report card with what seems like the toughest test still ahead.
Our economy is dragging, unemployment is still down and Americans have spent the past several months caught up in a contentious health care policy debate. It's no wonder the environment does not even rank among the top ten concerns for most Americans, according to recent polls. CBS released a pessimistic Earth Day poll finding that many believe the environment will actually get worse. 40 years after the first Earth Day one could argue our water is cleaner, the air is cleaner, in fact, we have made huge strides.
But as Bill McKibbon writes in his recent Washington Post comments, we still have a long way to go. "For 20 years now, global warming has been the most important environmental issue -- arguably the most important issue the planet has ever faced. And there we can boast an unblemished bipartisan record of accomplishing absolutely nothing," says McKibbon. I spoke with Carl Pope, Chairman of the Sierra Club, for this week's Quest radio story. Pope says the greatest successes he's seen, over his past 30 with the Sierra Club, have been in making environmental issues relevant to every day Americans. But, he says, Americans are still fighting many of the same environmental challenges they faced decades ago and climate change may prove toughest of all.
This week the U.S. Senate is expected to introduce their rewrite of the house's climate legislation. But there are concerns that the bill won't go far enough for the environment. There are likely to be a number of concessions in the bill, including subsidies for big coal and nuclear energy. Congress' climate change legislation could also spell trouble for California's efforts to reduce greenhouse gasses by pre-empting all state efforts. But back to McKibbon. Some of the problem lies with mainstream environmentalism, "which no longer does enough real organizing to build the pressure that could result in real change," says McKibbon. So 40 years after the modern environmental movement began, it's a mixed report card with what seems like the toughest test still ahead.
Listen to Notes from an Environmentalist radio report online.