Page 49 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

868 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

wildlife, and outstanding natural places and the preven- United States, 5 million in Britain and Germany, and 1
tion of pollution in local areas, particularly in urban cen- million in the Netherlands.
ters. However, during the years after World War II, more The first major international conference devoted to
ominous and more widespread environmental problems environmental issues was held in 1972: the United
forced themselves on the notice of people around the Nations Conference on the Human Environment in
world to such an extent that the problems represented an Stockholm, Sweden. This conference included represen-
environmental crisis. These problems could rarely be tatives of 113 nations, 19 intergovernmental agencies,
solved by local efforts alone: the spread of fallout from and 134 nongovernmental organizations. It marked a
nuclear weapons testing and from accidents in nuclear new awareness among nations that many environmental
power facilities, air pollution that crossed national fron- problems are worldwide in scope. Representatives of
tiers and caused acid precipitation, persistent pesticides industrialized and developing countries attended and dis-
that lost their effectiveness even as they were applied ever cussed the issues that divided those two groups. Unlike
more widely (and were detected in the fat of Antarctic its successor conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the
penguins), supposedly inert chemicals that proved to conference in Stockholm in 1972 was not an “Earth sum-
attack the ozone layer, and greenhouse gases generated mit.” The only heads of state present were the host, Swe-
by countless human activities that apparently raise the den’s Prime Minister Olaf Palme, and Indira Gandhi of
temperature of the Earth. In the face of these problems, India, who served as an articulate spokesperson for
and the wider public awareness that they aroused, the views shared by developing countries. Some representa-
conservation movement was transformed into environ- tives of developing nations noted that environmentalist
mental movements.The constitution of the first environ- views were most vocal in the industrialized world—in
mental organization under United Nations auspices, the the very nations that had reached their economic pinna-
International Union for the Protection of Nature, in cles by using natural resources from around the Earth
1949 defined its purpose as the preservation of the and producing the major proportion of the planet’s pol-
entire world biotic community.This organization became lution. Would measures for conservation of resources
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and reduction of pollution limit the development of
and Natural Resources (IUCN) in 1956. poorer countries while leaving the richer countries in rel-
ative affluence? Gandhi maintained that poverty and
The Emergence of need are the greatest polluters and that the basic conflict
Environmentalism is not between conservation and development but rather
Environmentalism as a popular social movement between environment and the reckless exploitation of
emerged during the 1960s. It is often said to have begun humankind and nature in the name of economic expan-
in response to the American biologist Rachel Carson’s sion. She insisted that discussion of environmental prob-
1962 book Silent Spring, which warned of the dangers lems be linked to issues posed by human needs. The
of persistent pesticides such as DDT. That book dealt Stockholm conference authorized the creation of the
with only one environmental issue but found a wider United Nations Environment Programme, headquar-
international readership than any previous book on an tered in Nairobi, Kenya, which was given the responsi-
environmental subject. Environmentalism was expressed bility of coordinating United Nations efforts on the
in the first Earth Day (22 April 1970), an event prima- environment worldwide. For example, the United
rily in the United States, although it later received inter- Nations Environment Programme took a role in facili-
national observance. By 2000 the membership of tating negotiation of the 1987 Montreal Protocol for the
environmental organizations reached 14 million in the protection of the Earth’s ozone layer.