Pub Date : 2021-10-21DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197568255.003.0016
M. Lytle
The political battles between anti-regulatory and libertarian conservatives and environmentalists have focused on two major and interrelated issues: sustainability and climate change. The opening of this chapter sets the stage by looking at the “Great Pacific vortex,” a vast whirlpool of plastic garbage the size of Texas, as a symptom of environmental distress. The battle over unrestrained growth took the form of “the Bet,” a wager between the Malthusian population doomsayer Paul Ehrlich and the libertarian economist Julian Simon. Whereas Ehrlich said growing world populations threatened life on earth, Simon argued that population growth was the solution, not the problem. Scarcity triggers a substitution effect (kerosene for whale oil) and as population increases so does human ingenuity. In the 1990s, the battle over climate change upstaged the argument over population. Enter Al Gore. As scientists battled to build a climate model that predicted the impact of greenhouse gases on temperatures, Gore heard a lecture in which his professor at Harvard, Roger Revelle, showed the class a graph of the “Keeling Curve” that demonstrated an unmistakable pattern of rising temperatures. It transformed the path of Gore’s life and the debate over climate change. The formation of the IPCC, along with the climate conferences at Rio in 1992 and Kyoto in 1997, provided an international platform on which scientists and government officials debated the nature of climate change and the need for governments to act. The Bush administration not only rejected Kyoto but also encouraged increased purchases of gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks.
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Pub Date : 2021-10-21DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197568255.003.0003
M. Lytle
This chapter surveys housing and suburbanization, autos, and television as three vital engines that drove economic expansion and mass consumerism. It opens with a discussion of Chester Bowles, wartime head of the OPA, and his emphasis on housing and homebuilding as a key to future prosperity. Technological innovation, the productivity of American industry, and the prosperity that followed brought all the former privileges of the wealthy classes within reach of the rapidly expanding American middle class. These factors help explain why so many Americans look back with nostalgia on the postwar decades as “Happy Days.”
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Pub Date : 2021-10-21DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197568255.003.0010
M. Lytle
The chapter opener follows the efforts of Senator Gaylord Nelson to advance an environmental agenda. Such events as the Santa Barbara oil spill and Cuyahoga River fire were symbols of manmade environmental disruptions. Nelson inspired Earth Day as a way to engage public opinion. Many on the New Left and the environmental movement now saw consumerism as the source of dirty air and water, toxic fumes, poisoned foods, and littered landscapes. That was a point of view Ralph Nader shared. No book on consumerism could ignore Nader’s role in the rise of the consumer rights movement in the 1960s. This section looks at Nader’s background and the controversy he triggered when he published Unsafe at Any Speed, as well as his commitment to wide-ranging consumer rights and environmental projects. The following section looks at “hip consumerism” to show how the counterculture influenced personal styles and gender identities. It features Stewart Brand, who with Ken Kesey launched the “Trips Festival” in San Francisco and then went on to produce the bible of alternative consumption, The Whole Earth Catalog.
{"title":"The Consumer Movement","authors":"M. Lytle","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197568255.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197568255.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"The chapter opener follows the efforts of Senator Gaylord Nelson to advance an environmental agenda. Such events as the Santa Barbara oil spill and Cuyahoga River fire were symbols of manmade environmental disruptions. Nelson inspired Earth Day as a way to engage public opinion. Many on the New Left and the environmental movement now saw consumerism as the source of dirty air and water, toxic fumes, poisoned foods, and littered landscapes. That was a point of view Ralph Nader shared. No book on consumerism could ignore Nader’s role in the rise of the consumer rights movement in the 1960s. This section looks at Nader’s background and the controversy he triggered when he published Unsafe at Any Speed, as well as his commitment to wide-ranging consumer rights and environmental projects. The following section looks at “hip consumerism” to show how the counterculture influenced personal styles and gender identities. It features Stewart Brand, who with Ken Kesey launched the “Trips Festival” in San Francisco and then went on to produce the bible of alternative consumption, The Whole Earth Catalog.","PeriodicalId":250283,"journal":{"name":"The All-Consuming Nation","volume":"57 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122555235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-21DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197568255.003.0018
M. Lytle
This chapter focuses on what the author calls the Obama dilemma (muddied and muddled by the advent of Donald Trump): how, or do we, sustain economic growth in the era of global warming? It argues that George W. Bush failed substantially to identify the vital issues facing the United States during his presidency. Rather than mire the United States in unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he needed to recognize the perils of climate change, US dependence on Middle East oil, and growing debt in the private and public sectors. Obama, by contrast, confronted all those issues, only to have the oppositional politics of Mitch McConnell and other Republicans. They sought to destroy his presidency even if they damaged the nation in the process. It concludes with a look at fracking as it shifted the geopolitics of energy while threatening to complicate the issue of greenhouse gas emissions.
这一章的重点是作者所说的奥巴马困境(被唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)的出现弄得一团糟):在全球变暖的时代，我们如何，或者我们是否能维持经济增长?它认为，乔治·w·布什(George W. Bush)在他的总统任期内，实质上未能认识到美国面临的关键问题。他需要认识到气候变化的危险、美国对中东石油的依赖以及私营和公共部门日益增长的债务，而不是让美国陷入无法获胜的伊拉克和阿富汗战争的泥潭。相比之下，奥巴马面对了所有这些问题，却遇到了米奇·麦康奈尔(Mitch McConnell)和其他共和党人的反对政治。他们试图摧毁他的总统职位，即使他们在这个过程中损害了国家。报告的最后介绍了水力压裂技术，因为它改变了能源地缘政治，同时有可能使温室气体排放问题复杂化。
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Pub Date : 2021-10-21DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197568255.003.0014
M. Lytle
This chapter opens by revisiting the Tellico Dam/snail darter controversy that pitted environmental activism against the rising tide of conservative anti-regulatory fervor. Union members joined anti-environmentalists in blaming regulation as the cause of the nation’s economic woes, especially rampant inflation. On one side, you had increasingly radical environmental groups such as Earth First!, and on the other, the Sage Brush/Wise Use rebellion that found a welcome in the Reagan administration. The Spotted Owl controversy epitomized the growing rift. Reagan appointed such arch Sage Brush rebels as James Watt as secretary of the interior and Anne Gorsuch (mother of the Supreme Court nominee) at EPA to dismantle the programs they were charged to enforce. While the Wise Use movement emerged in the Western states, it had strong followings in the East as well, as conservatives fought regulations in the Adirondacks Park, zoning in Vermont, and preservation of clean water in the Delaware River Gap. Nimbys represented a new source of activism. These were often women fighting against local pollution and other threats to their families, homes, and communities. Lois Gibbs from Love Canal and Penny Newman from California were two of the most effective leaders to emerge. Other groups such as the Clamshell and Abalone Alliances opposed new nuclear power plants.
{"title":"Environmental Battlegrounds","authors":"M. Lytle","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780197568255.003.0014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197568255.003.0014","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter opens by revisiting the Tellico Dam/snail darter controversy that pitted environmental activism against the rising tide of conservative anti-regulatory fervor. Union members joined anti-environmentalists in blaming regulation as the cause of the nation’s economic woes, especially rampant inflation. On one side, you had increasingly radical environmental groups such as Earth First!, and on the other, the Sage Brush/Wise Use rebellion that found a welcome in the Reagan administration. The Spotted Owl controversy epitomized the growing rift. Reagan appointed such arch Sage Brush rebels as James Watt as secretary of the interior and Anne Gorsuch (mother of the Supreme Court nominee) at EPA to dismantle the programs they were charged to enforce. While the Wise Use movement emerged in the Western states, it had strong followings in the East as well, as conservatives fought regulations in the Adirondacks Park, zoning in Vermont, and preservation of clean water in the Delaware River Gap. Nimbys represented a new source of activism. These were often women fighting against local pollution and other threats to their families, homes, and communities. Lois Gibbs from Love Canal and Penny Newman from California were two of the most effective leaders to emerge. Other groups such as the Clamshell and Abalone Alliances opposed new nuclear power plants.","PeriodicalId":250283,"journal":{"name":"The All-Consuming Nation","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131675342","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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