The 10 years around 1970 were a time of tremendous change--what caused that?

The 1960s were a cultural revolution

• standing up for what is right--civil rights movement
  
• less conformity
• rebellion against conformity and the old values
  
• Americans became very individualistic (this lasted, not so much the rebellion)
  
• felt they had the right to do whatever they pleased
• introduction of birth control pill contributed to change in values
  

One aspect of this revolution was questioning unbridled economic progress, particularly by young people

• our capitalist system is based on economic growth, for example Clemson saw quality of life as more important than the economic growth of a Walmart
  
• economic progress is partly caused by new technologies
  
• people began to question whether economic progress is the only important thing
• is having more things, more wealth, the most important thing in life?
  
• do you want economic growth even at the cost of changing the character of the town?
• a large minority were willing to choose quality of life over maximum economic growth
  
• a few radicals were against technology, some even chose a simpler life
  
• a lot of people wanted to protect quality of life even if it meant limiting growth at times
• efficiency was no longer the key goal--quality of life mattered too
  

Rachel Carson

• pesticides were a great success story
• Agricultural Aviation in 1955
  
• would it be a good thing to make mosquitoes extinct?
• DDT did harm not so much to human beings as to birds
• the bald eagle nearly went extinct because DDT made its egg shells fragile
• brief video biography
  
• Rachel Carson wrote a popular book about the danger of DDT to birds: Silent Spring, 1962
• galvanized public opinion
• the public didn't just care about harm to human beings
• many ordinary citizens came to believe we need to change course
  
• DDT manufacturers and users were outraged

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Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb

• Robert Malthus
  
• Malthusian argument--population increases until resources run out
• can technology prevent that from happening?  people in the 1950 thought it could
  
• improved medicine and sanitation lead to faster population growth
  
• Americans use more than our share of resources
• argument whether birth control was the answer--birth control pill came into use in 1960s
• the people most concerned about the population explosion wanted to spread the use of birth control and sterilization
  
• Green Revolution--science and technology, such as improved crops, will allow us to keep up?
• mostly a world issue, population was growing fastest in poorer countries
  
• by the 1980s population growth in rich countries was slowing down:  why?
  
• easier availability of birth control
• people no longer depended on their children to support them when they were old
• with increased need for education it was better to have fewer children and spend more on raising each one
• in some countries population growth rate fell below replacement (less than 2.1 children per woman)
• it was another place where people gave up the idea that growth is always good
  

Garrett Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons" (video)

• resources held in common, for example fish in the sea, are overused because it isn't in the interest of the individual users to conserve the resource (because someone else will just take more)
  
• there are classes of problems for which no technological solution exists
• we need more regulation (to give up some freedom) to live fairly in more crowded conditions
• people in the 1960s took the problem fairly seriously
  

Individualism

• consider the example of should we have cars which use less gas
• if this would serve the common good how do you achieve it?
  
• regulation?
• individual choice?
• back to nature

Environmentalism was something young people and older people could agree on

• some of the toughest questions were put aside
  
• billboards and highway beautification
  
• improving urban life--parks and gardens
• new concerns about pollution
• challenge to synthetic detergents

• accident at an offshore oil well blackened 30 miles of beach in 1969
  
• people didn't see their behavior (eg. automobiles) as contributing to the problem
• at first people assumed there would be technological solutions to these problems

Iron-eyes Cody ad and the myth of the ecological indian
progress must be tempered with a new ethic of responsibility

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