Excerpts

"An early awareness of our violence against the natural environment probably came with James Lovelock's invention in 1957 of the Electron Capture Detector, a device used for measuring chemical compounds in atmosphere and matter. This enabled the discovery of residual pesticides in the food we eat, the evidence for which the Pennsylvanian Rachel Carson exposed to a general public in her book Silent Spring in 1963. In this she brought together the available research at that time on toxicology, ecology and epidemiology. She sought to put the world on alert as to the dangers ahead for humanity that she foresaw if we continued to use chemicals indiscriminately in our homes. She warned of the dangers of using such chemicals for agricultural and horticultural purposes, if we did not understand the possible long-term harm they may cause. She saw that the resultant build up of these substances in our food chain could be catastrophic to wild life environments and our own health.

Most importantly, the book shattered our assumptions until then that the environment had an infinite capacity to absorb pollutants and maintain its own stability.

While much of what Carson wrote is of course now out of date, it was a pivotal book in opening the debate on modern ecology. At the time of its first publication it provoked antagonism from the chemical manufacturers and press alike. This probably only served to increase its readership and the impact of its message! It was also said to have influenced the foundation of Friends of the Earth in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower. This non-profit advocacy organization operates independently of any political party or large corporation, to 'campaign on the most urgent environmental and social issues�challenge the current model of economic and corporate globalization, and promote solutions that will help to create environmentally sustainable and socially just societies.' (1)

From these beginnings and with Friends of the Earth to support the cause, there was little to hold back the advance of the environmental movement. The American biologist Paul Ehrlich's book The Population Bomb had recently been published on the connection between human population, resource exploitation and the environment. This fuelled the debate.

Then in 1971 Greenpeace started up in Canada and as part of a program of organized civil protests and non-violent interference they launched an aggressive agenda to stop environmental damage. A year later Barbara Ward wrote, with Rene Jules Dubos, Only One Earth: the Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet. This was an exploration of man's relationship with his environment, as an ecological study on a global level. It was written for The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held from 5-16 June 1972, in Stockholm, Sweden, the first major international gathering of nations to address the world's environmental problems.

The American government of that time, led by President Richard Nixon, also gave high priority to environmental preservation and took a leading role in developing the concept of international cooperation to address the issues involved. He created Project Independence, which set a national goal, to develop the potential to meet the country's own energy needs without relying on foreign energy. At that time, the United States imported less than a third of its oil from foreign countries, and that was regarded as an unacceptably high figure. Sadly the impetus of Richard Nixon's endeavors back in the 1970s was lost through subsequent administrations. Following the election of President Obama to the White House, Al Gore wrote, '�today, after all six of the presidents succeeding Nixon repeated some version of his goal, our dependence (on imported oil) has doubled from one-third to nearly two-thirds - and many feel that global oil production is at or near its peak.'

Humanity was certainly becoming more environmentally aware, but it was a slow process, in spite of many conferences and reports in the decades that followed.

Amazingly, when I first conceived the idea for this book and started my research in 2004 there was very little public knowledge or awareness of the urgency of the environmental problems we now face globally. This was in spite of the plethora of research and information that clearly has been available through several decades and the best endeavors of many authors to educate us of the need for change. The controversy over Silent Spring is a distant memory.

Al Gore described President Obama's election success as an 'inspiring and transformative choice by the American people,' which calls for 'an emergency rescue of human civilization from the imminent and rapidly growing threat posed by the climate crisis�in a world that desperately needs to protect its primary endowment: the integrity and livability of the planet.' He continued:

�to those who are still tempted to dismiss the increasingly urgent alarms from scientists around the world, ignore the melting of the north polar ice cap and all of the other apocalyptic warnings from the planet itself, and who roll their eyes at the very mention of this existential threat to the future of the human species, please wake up. Our children and grandchildren need you to hear and recognize the truth of our situation, before it is too late. (2)

Al Gore has probably done more than anyone to bring an awareness of our global warming crisis to Americans, through his film and supporting book, An Inconvenient Truth. Nevertheless his views continue to be met with cynicism and hostility by many.

What are we all doing individually?...