Happy birthday Earth Day, chronological environmental happenings 1970-1980 Part One

Chronically environmental happenings 1970-1980

Eco-lifestyle and sustainable fashion today could not have flourished if it was not for the early environmental activists in the 70’s. It was the most politically, important and exciting decade who young people dared to speak against the established. The new breeds of pioneers in modern environmentalism finally manage to get heard from the grey masses in the society. The important environmental organization Earth day (1970), WWF (1974), GreenPeace was founded in the 1970’s.

TV made the world look small

The world became smaller every day; globally the importance of TV became essential as they covered stories not only happening locally but internationally. The end of the Vietnam War in 1975, the terrorism in Europe escalated with the Baader Meinhof group later The Red Army Faction and IRA in Northern Ireland they expressed their political view with ultra-Violence. Books of importance regarding the environment and modern lifestyle were published. The outstanding book Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by E.F. Schumacher in 1973. The Norwegian philosopher, climber, boxer, Renaissance man Arne Næss published Ecology of Wisdom. The book is rooted in the view of the world as a whole and connected, as in the view of Gandhi and Buddhism. The Earth first! The organization works within a deep Ecology framework.

Fashion expressed opinions and became a political tool

In the 1950’s youth culture with Elvis, Brando & James Dean gave the voice to the new generation of youngsters, stars who they could identify their delusion and teenage angst. However, youth culture certainly the most important and exciting decade was the 70’s. Fashion was not only a way of expression belonging to a tribe; it became a political tool as well. Young people did not need to scream load to express their political opinions, hippies said no to the Vietnam wars, yes to drugs simply by their uniforms. The punk youth movement who started in 1975 was a voice against the established, bands as Sex Pistols manage to shake up the English royalties and turned prime minister Margaret Thatcher into a Valium express. Sex Pistols was regarded by the British government as state enemy number one when punk culture was at its highest in the UK.

 

What happened in 1970?

• National Environmental Policy Act signed creating the Council on
• Environmental Quality (CEQ)
• General Motors president promises pollution-free cars by 1980
• Earth Day celebration organized. Millions of Americans demonstrate – air & water cleanup preserve nature.
• Clean Air Act is passed. Natural Resources Defense Council
• Friends of the Everglades founded Federation founded.
• Environmental Protection Agency as President Nixon signs enabling legislation
• Welfare National Air Pollution Control Administration established
• Occupational Health and Safety Administration set standards exposure hazardous substances.

What happened in 1971?

• Clean Air Act 1970. Auto industry might collapse because of antipollution laws, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce that entire industries might collapse because of antipollution laws, citing, in particular, the effect on the auto industry of the 1970 Clean Air Act
• The organization Greenpeace is founded. Its initial mission is to oppose atomic-testing Alaska.
• Greenpeace sets out from Vancouver protest US nuclear testing Alaska. The action sets off global environmental protests.
  Environmental books of the year.
• Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle, argues that misuse of pesticides is eroding the foundation of natural systems. The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology
• Hunter, Robert The Storming Of The Mind. McClelland and Stewart The storming of the Mind

What happened in 1972?

• Buffalo Creek disaster floodwaters’ that broke killing 125 people and leaving 4,000 homeless need for ethics in engineering.
• Established Federal Water Pollution Control, Coastal Zone Management, Ocean Dumping, Marine Mammal Protection Act and Toxic Substances Control Act
  Environmental books of the year
• ONLY ONE EARTH: The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet We are not sleepwalkers or sheep. We may be learning just in time

What happened in 1973?

• Planet Drum Foundation founded
• 80 nation’s sigs convention on international trade in endangered species, a what can be considered Magna Carta for wildlife.
• Endangered Species Act becomes law in the U.S
• Arab oil embargo panics U.S. and European consumers; prices quadruple.
• Conservatives favor nuclear and coal sources; liberals explore alternatives.
• President Nixon believes that the US can be energy independent by 1980.
• US Congress approves Alaska Oil pipeline.
• Himalayan villagers stop loggers from cutting down fragile and eco-environment vulnerable horm beam trees,
• Endangered Species Act
  Environmental books of the year 1973:
• E.F. Schumacher Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered

What happened in 1974

• F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario J. Molina truth of (CFCs or chlorofluorocarbons) break up ozone/catalytic cycle in Nature. Rowland and Molina won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in later 1995 and German atmospheric scientist Paul J. Crutzen.
• Congress passes the Safe Drinking Water Act to be administered by EPA.
• Karen Silkwood dies in a suspicious accident, wrote a New York Times documents concerning safety problems at the Kerr-McGee nuclear weapons facility in Crescent, Oklahoma.
• World watch Institute founded.
• Environmental books of the year
• We Almost Lost Detroit by Ivan Illich About the 1956 controversy over building a fast breeder reactor in Laguna Beach
• Energy and Equity (Open Forum)

What happened in 1975?

• Atlantic salmon return – Connecticut River after a 100-year absence.
• Congress Hazardous Waste Transportation Act
• The Phyllis Cormack, today Greenpeace, heads out of Vancouver’s English Bay for The Great Whale Conspiracy. The Campaign catches the global media and Whaling Commission by surprise; this was the end of commercial whaling. Encyclopedia of the U.S. Government and the Environment [2 Volumes]: History, Policy, and Politics
• Environmental books of the year 1975
• The Monkey Wrench Gang (Penguin Modern Classics) by Edward Abbey, about eco-guerillas who plot to blow up the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona
• Edwin Way Teale NATURALIST BUYS OLD FARM
•  E. Wilson Sociobiology: The New Synthesis