May 15, 1970
Page 15705
THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
Mr. EAGLETON. Mr. President, last month we observed Earth Week. We must not forget the concern for our environment now that that week is passed. The Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, spoke both at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania for Earth Week observances. Senator MUSKIE has focused the attention of the Senate and the Nation on problems of environmental pollution since 1963. Moreover, he has led the effort to establish effective programs of pollution control. Until only recently, his was a lonely effort.
During Earth Week, the Senator addressed himself to the concern that we not let environmental protection become just a fad – and that we not let it obscure our deep commitment to ending this ever-widening Indochina war and to securing racial justice and harmony at home. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that excerpts from his remarks be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the excerpts were ordered to be printed in the REC-ORD, as follows:
POWER OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIENCE
(Excerpts from the remarks of Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE, Democrat of Maine, at Harvard University teach-in, Cambridge, Mass., April 21, 1970)
I do not want to take up very much time this evening with formal remarks. I do not think you have come to hear me talk about my legislative program, about what I have done in the past, or about what the President has not done this year.
That is not the point of this program and it should not be. There are some much more fundamental issues that we should discuss.
First, I want to define for you what I think the environmental crisis means.
It means that we must outgrow our traditional way of solving problems one at a time – each in its own limited context – and unrelated to side effects.
It means that we must rethink what we mean by "cost", what is economical or not economical, or what we can afford or cannot afford to do.
It means, at bottom, that our old value systems – whatever may be said for or against them – no longer respond to our needs or fit goals relevant to our future.
Those who believe that the environmental crisis related to trees and not people are wrong.
Those who believe that we are talking about the Grand Canyon and the Catskills, but not Harlem and Watts are wrong.
And those who believe that we must. do something about the SST and the automobile, but not ABM's and the Vietnam War are wrong.
We pay twenty times more for the Vietnam War than we pay for water pollution control. We pay twice as much for the SST than we pay for air pollution control. And we pay seven times as much for arms research and development than we pay for housing.
These are some of the first changes we have to make. These changes are part of the fight to save
the environment.
But the entire challenge is not one of national priorities and federal spending. Other priorities are involved. They are personal priorities that all of us have shared in the past and that all of us must change. We must do nothing less than forge a wholesale change in our attitudes and our values. This will not be easy. It will not be for motherhood and apple pie. It will not be a summertime war.
We have become an industrialized and technologically sophisticated society. Yet we persist in our faith in the old frontier ethic – belief in infinite expansion and unlimited growth. Now all of us face an internal and personal frontier. It is a moral frontier, defined by our willingness to cut back our selfish exploitation in favor of selfless conservation.
We ought to rethink our concepts of growth and prosperity and progress in light of the kind of society we want to achieve.
Our goal has never been to create a society where human greatness took a back seat to economic growth and technological change. We have sought a society where men could live in harmony with their environment and in peace with each other. In many respects, our growing economy and our mushrooming technology have moved us toward that goal. But in too many other ways, the costs of unrestrained and uncontrolled growth have caught up with us.
If economic growth means rivers that are fire hazards, we had better redirect economic growth.
If prosperity means children dying of lead poisoning, we had better redistribute prosperity.
And if progress means technology that produces more kinds of things than we really want, more kinds of things than we really need and more kinds of things than we can live with, we had better redefine progress.
We are not powerless to effect these changes.
We must go to the ballot box with an environmental conscience and elect leaders who have made a commitment to a healthy total environment.
We must go to stockholders' meetings with the power of proxies, as Campaign GM seeks to do, and require industries to change their ways of doing business.
And we must go to the cash register with the power of our dollars and buy from industries that do not pollute.
If one phrase can characterize our traditional outlook as Americans, that phrase has been "there's more where that came from."
We have thought that there was always more of everything. But now the time is coming – or it is here – when there is no more
No more clear air or clean water;
No more room for our garbage and trash;
No more patience for poverty; and,
No more tolerance for energy-sapping wars, overseas or at home.
Whether or not we can find ways to achieve fundamental change in a free society is the acid test of a democratic experiment.
The environmental conscience may be the way to turn the nation around. All we need is hard-headed decisions to save our own skins.
A WHOLE SOCIETY
(Excerpts from the Remarks of U.S. SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE, Democrat of Maine, at the Philadelphia Earth Week Rally, Fairmount Park, April 22, 1970)
One hundred and eighty-three years ago, a small group of men gathered in this city in an effort to bring order out of chaos. They met in the shadow of failure. America had won her independence but was now in danger of breaking up into small and quarrelsome states. Their objective was to build "a more perfect union."
We have met in this city to help build a whole society – for we have seen the birthright of a free nation damaged by exploitation, spoiled by neglect, choked by its own success, and torn by hatred and suspicion.
The Founding Fathers did build "a more perfect union." They created a nation where there was none, and they built a framework for a democratic society which has been remarkable for its successes. We are now concerned with its failures.
We have learned that their creation was not infallible, and that our society is not indestructible.
We have learned that our natural resources are limited and that, unless those limitations are respected, life itself may be in danger.
We have also learned that, unless we respect each other, the very foundations of freedom may be in danger.
And yet we act as though a luxurious future and a fertile land will continue to forgive us all the bad habits which have led us to abuse our physical and our social environment.
If we are to build a whole society – and if we are to insure the achievement of a life worth living – we must realize that our shrinking margins of natural resources are near the bottom of the barrel.
There are no replacements, no spare stocks with which we can replenish our supplies. There is no space command center, ready to give us precise instructions and alternate solutions for survival on our spaceship earth. Our nation – and our world – hang together by tenuous bonds which are strained as they have never been strained before – and as they must never be strained again.
We cannot survive an undeclared war on our future.
We must lay down our weapons of self-destruction and pick up the tools of social and environmental reconstruction.
These are the dimensions of the crisis we face:
No major American river is clean anymore, and some are fire hazards.
No American lake is free of pollution, and some are dying.
No American city can boast of clean air, and New Yorkers inhale the equivalent of a pack and a half of cigarettes every day – without smoking.
No American community is free of debris and solid waste, and we are turning to the open spaces and the ocean depths to cast off the products of our effluent society.
We are horrified by the cumulative impact of our waste, but we are told to expect the use of more than 280 billion non-returnable bottles in the decade of the seventies.
Man has burst upon the environment like an invader – destroying rather than using, discarding rather than saving, and giving the environment little chance to adapt.
We have depleted our resources and cluttered our environment – and only recently have we been shocked by the enormity of our errors.
As long as Americans could escape the confines of the soot and clutter of our cities, the voices of those who were trapped and the warnings of those who understood were never really heard.
Pollution was isolated by the size and openness of America. A river here, a forest there, a few industrialized cities – these examples of environmental destruction seemed a small price to pay for prosperity.
This was the frontier ethic: America pushing ahead and getting ahead. We had an unlimited future under "manifest destiny."
Now we find that we have over-reached ourselves. The frontier ethic helped us build the strongest nation in the world. But it also led us to believe that our natural and human resources were endless, that our rivers could absorb as much sewage as we could pour into them, that there was automatic, equal opportunity for everyone, that our air would always be clean, and that hunger and poverty were always a temporary condition in America.
Early in the life of our country, we were absorbed in harnessing the energy of a people and the resources of the land and water.
But we are finding today – hopefully in time – that we have done much more than harness our resources; we have conquered them and we are on the verge of destroying them in the process.
We moved and changed and grew so fast that tomorrow came yesterday.
Man has always tended to use up his resources, but never have so many used up so much. We have behaved as if another Creation were just around the corner, as if we could somehow manufacture more land, more air, and more water when we have destroyed what we have.
We have reached the boundaries of the land, and the tide of our civilization has now washed back into our cities.
Today's frontier is internal and personal. We now face – collectively and individually – a moral frontier.
That frontier is the point at which we are willing to cut back selfish exploitation in favor of selfless conservation.
That frontier is marked by the extent of our concern for future generations. They deserve to inherit their natural share of this earth – but we could pass on to them a physical and moral wasteland.
We have reached a point where (1) man, (2) his environment, and (3) his industrial technology intersect. They intersect in America, in Russia and in every other industrial soicety in the world. They intersect in every country which is trying to achieve industrial development.
On this day, dedicated to the preservation of man's earth, we confront our deteriorated environment, our devouring technology, and our fellow man. Relative harmony has become the victim of a three-cornered war – a war where everyone loses.
Our technologyhas reached a point where it is producing more kinds of things than we really want, more kinds of things than we really need, and more kinds of things that we can really live with.
We have to choose, to say no, and to give up some luxuries. And these kinds of decisions will be the acid test to our commitment to a healthy environment.
It means choosing cleaner cars rather than faster cars, more parks instead of more highways, and more houses and more schools instead of more weapons and more wars. The whole society that we seek is one in which all men live in brotherhood with each other and with their environment. It is a society where each member of it knows that he has an opportunity to fulfill his greatest potential.
It is a society that will not tolerate slums for some and decent houses for others, rats for some and playgrounds for others, clean air for some and filth for others.
It is the only kind of society that has a chance. It is the only kind of society that has a future.
To achieve a whole society – a healthy total environment – we need change, planning more effective and just laws and more money better spent.
Achieving that whole society will cost heavily – in forgone luxuries, in restricted choices, in higher prices for certain goods and services, in taxes, and in hard decisions about our national priorities. It will require a new sense of balance in our national commitments.
Consider the national budget for 1971. That "balanced budget" represents unbalanced priorities.
That budget "balances" $275 million for the SST against $106 million for air pollution control.
That budget "balances", $3.4 billion for the space program against $1.4 billion for housing. And that budget balances $7.3 billion for arms research and development against $1.4 billion for higher education.
It does not make sense to say we cannot afford to protect our environment – just yet. It does not make sense to say that we cannot afford to win the fight against hunger and poverty – just yet.
It does not make sense to say we cannot afford to provide decent housing and needed medical care – just yet.
We can afford to do these things, if we admit that there are luxuries we can forgo, false security we can do without, and prices we are willing to pay.
I believe that those of you who have gathered here to save the earth are willing to pay the price to save our environment.
I hope, however, that your view of the environment will not be a narrow one. The environmental conscience which has been awakened in our nation holds great promise for reclaiming our air, our water and our land. But man's environment includes more than these natural resources. It includes the shape of the communities in which he lives; his home, his schools, his places of work, and those who share this planet and this land.
If the environmental conscience which has brought us together this day is to have any lasting meaning for America, it must be the instrument to turn the nation around. If we use our awareness that the total environment determines the quality of life, we can make those decisions which can save our nation from becoming a class-ridden and strife-torn wasteland.
The study of ecology – man's relationship with his environment – should teach us that our relationships with each other are just as intricate and just as delicate as those with our natural environment. We cannot afford to correct our history of abusing nature and neglect the continuing abuse of our fellow-man.
We should have learned by now that a whole nation must be a nation at peace with itself.
We should have learned by now that we can have that peace only by assuring that all Americans have equal access to a healthy total environment.
That can mean nothing less than equal access to good schools, to meaningful job opportunities, to adequate health services, and to decent and attractive housing.
For the past ten years we have been groping toward the realization that the total environment is at stake.
We have seen the destructiveness, of poverty, and declared a war on it.
We have seen the ravages of hunger, and declared a war on it.
We have seen the costs of crime, and declared a war on it.
And now we have awakened to the pollution of our environment, and we have declared another war.
We have fought too many losing battles in those wars to continue this piece-meal approach to creating a whole society.
The only strategy that makes sense is a total strategy to protect the total environment.
The only way to achieve that total strategy is through an Environmental Revolution – a commitment to a whole society.
The Environmental Revolution must be one of laws, not men; one of values, not ideology; and one of achievement, not unfulfilled promises.
We are not powerless to accomplish this change, but we are powerless as a people if we wait for someone else to do it for us,
We can use the power of the people to turn the nation around – to move toward a whole society.
The power of the people is in the ballot box – and we can elect men who commit themselves to a whole society and work to meet that commitment.
The power of the people is in the cash register – and we can resolve to purchase only from those companies that clean themselves up.
The power of the people is in the stock certificate – and we can use our proxies to make industries socially and environmentally responsible.
The power of the people is in the courts – and through them we can require polluters to obey the law.
The power of the people is in public hearings – where we can decide on the quality of the air and the water we want.
And the power of the people is in peaceful assembly – where we can demand redress of grievances – as we are doing here today and all across the land.
Martin Luther King once said that "Through our scientific and technological genius we have made of this world a neighborhood. Now through our moral and spiritual genius we must make of it a brotherhood."
For Martin Luther King, every day was an Earth Day – a day to work toward his commitment to a whole society. It is that commitment we must keep.