The 1950s:
Environmental issues heat up

Earth, Wind, and Fire

Consumption and Waste

Air Pollution Crises

  Donora, Pennsylvania, Halloween 1948

­ 21 die

­ One-third of city ill

London’s “Killer Fog”

  December 1952

 

London’s “Killer Fog”

  December 1952

London’s “Killer Fog”

  December 1952

London’s “Killer Fog”

  December 1952

London’s “Killer Fog”

  December 1952

  4000 dead

New synthetic
chemicals

  Wartime expansion of production,  number of synthetics, 1941-1945

­ Search for peacetime uses

  Farm chemicals

­ DDT and other powerful pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers

­ Made from petroleum

  Plastics

­ Made from “cracked” petroleum

­ Number of new plastics rises

­ Plastic production skyrockets after 1950

Water pollution increases

  Chemicals & synthetics

­ Produce more durable wastes

­ Synthetic fibers

­ Aluminum & plastics

­ Inorganic fertilizer

­ Pesticides & herbicides

­ Detergents, not soap

 

 

 

Atomic weapons

  Building the bomb

­ Oak Ridge, TN; Hanford, WA; Los Alamos, NM

  Atomic Energy Commission

­ Atomic atmospheric testing, 1945–63

  Barry Commoner, Washington U. biologist

­ 1953 Troy, NY, incident vs. AEC secrecy

­ Committee for Nuclear Information; Science and Citizen

­ Baby Tooth Project: strontium-90 and milk

Atoms for peace

  Getting public support

  Promoting peaceful uses of the atom

­ Clean power, “too cheap to meter”

­ Late 1950s: First civilian nuclear power reactors

­ Trust science to solve problems

The Good News

  Coal smoke declines after 1950

­ Railroads switch to diesel

­ Power plants to natural gas

Now the bad news

  New synthetics put worse chemicals into air

  Automobile transforms American environment

­ Air pollution, roads, urban sprawl

­ High compression engines need leaded gasoline, 1920s

  Cars on leaded gas pass factories as polluters

­ Smog noticed, LA, 1943;  traced to autos, 1957

­ Surgeon General: air pollution & lung cancer, 1959

  Los Angeles County: alert system, 1955

Dams: The “Go-Go Years”

  Colorado River Compact, 1922

  Bureau of Reclamation’s
Colorado River Storage Project, 1950

­ 10 dams — $1,000,000,000

­ 2 dams in Dinosaur National Monument

­ Test case

­ Threatened logging of Olympic peninsula
­ Dams in Glacier, Grand Canyon, Kings Canyon, Adirondacks?

Development stopped

  Dinosaur: battle for congressional funding

­ 100% support of Western Congressmen

­ Control irrigation & reclamation subcommittees

­ Sierra Club, Wilderness Society lead resistance

­ David Brower, Howard Zahniser

­ Publicity blitz: Articles in major newspapers and magazines

­ New tactic: scientific argument: bad place for a dam

­ Dam deleted from 1956 bill; last proposed park dam

Dinosaur’s high price

  Glen Canyon dam

­ Brower:
The Place No One Knew (1963)