Conservation and Activism

"An Anti-Smoke Rally"...420
Radon Health Mines...421
Environmental Action Group...423
"Nation Set to Observe Earth Day"...425
"Wilderness as a Form of Land Use"...428
Environmental Damage in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe...432
"An African Success Story"...434
"Rent-Seeking Behind the Green Curtain"...436
The Water Sourcebooks: K-12...438
Sewage Protestors Hold a "Toilet Protest"...440
Globalization and Poverty: An Ecological Perspective...442
Antinuclear Activists Confront Police...445
"And Now, a New York Version of Star Wars"...448
Vision Statement for the World Summit on Sustainable Development...451
Warming Up to the Truth: The Real Story About Climate Change...454
Protesters at Site of New Terminal 5, Heathrow...458
Indian Schoolgirl Urges People to Drink Natural Beverages...460
Boiling Point...462
Wangari Maathai-Nobel Lecture...467
"15 arrested in Land Rover protest"...470
"Rescuing Environmentalism"...473
"Laws Don't Work if They're Only on Paper"...475
Chernobyl Disaster Spurs Ecological Movements in Eastern Europe...478
How to Conserve Water and Use It Effectively...480
Demonstrations against Transfer of French Warship to India for Asbestos Removal...484

Since the mid-1900s, the roots of environmental consciousness have flowered into calls for conservation. This has spurred broad activism in the environment and the use of environmental resources.

Conservation and activism often unite in rallies, Earth Day celebrations, protests, and position papers calling for sustainable development. However, environmental activists are not always united. They may differ on matters such as the benefits vs. costs of nuclear energy; which alternative energy sources provide the greatest potential relief from pollution caused by the use of fossil fuels (e.g., petroleum, coal, natural gas); how to best mitigate the environmental impacts of large hydroelectric dams; etc.

Nuclear power, for example, remains in a gray zone. In some ways, it is cleaner for the environment, yet has the potential to poison Earth for generations. It has been a significant part of electricity production in some countries for many years. France, for example, obtains 78 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. However, the use of nuclear power remains a lightening rod for fractious debate and passionate protest.

Especially since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the world has begun to grasp the full extent of environmental destruction and degradation that occurred behind the former Iron Curtain. Debate has emerged about the use of former Soviet republics and other developing nations as "dumping grounds" for the dirty work of environmental remediation (e.g., as sites for dumping toxins and wastes or removing asbestos).

Economic development of the world's remaining wild areas may also prove threatening to humans. As humans increasingly encroach on previously remote habitats, communicable diseases (especially zoonotic diseases) may not remain isolated. Some epidemiologists suggest that the AIDS and Ebola viruses might have entered the human population because of human encroachment on formerly remote environmental habitats.

This chapter provides a glimpse into the hundreds of causes and issues that stir debate worldwide. Among the most passionate and far-reaching is the debate over climate change. Few would disagree that climate data recorded during the last 100 years show Earth is warming at an extremely fast rate—a rate that some scientists claim is unprecedented. Observations gathered since the early 1900s indicate that the average land surface temperature has increased by 0.8 to 1.0 °F (0.45 to 0.6 °C). Scientific data also show that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and human-made chemicals called halocarbons are increasing as a result of emissions associated with human activities. In 2001, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) asserted that human activity was responsible for much of the recent climate change resulting in global warming.

The question for scientists, critical to the social and political debates, is which of the many climate models will best predict future global temperatures and to what extent are temperatures rising due to increased concentrations of atmospheric gases related to human activity. Activists will continue to debate how to best present studies and issues related to climate change and how to challenge and change current pollution policies.