Power, Lost and Found: America At Century’s End 509
lution, it seemed, were no longer problems to be fixed by local and state
governments alone. Apparently, the federal government was taking a com-
manding role to appease the calls of environmental advocates. A new large
group of environmentalists exposed the reality that industrial capitalists had
thus far shaped federal policy regarding the earth, air, and water. Their inter-
ests in the environment focused on extracting natural resources, especially
coal and oil, to sell as commodities. Rather than trying to prevent pollution,
industrialists allowed toxic chemicals and fossil fuels to spew out from their
production sites with no regard for the effect on the ozone layer. A new
broad-based environmental movement—like the ones we see today on issues
like global warming, fracking, or the Tar Sands pipeline—seriously challenged
polluters and demanded federal solutions from the executive office. For the
moment, it appeared that Nixon would support the movement and become
America’s first truly “Green” president.
There are several issues that are vital to studying the environmental move-
ment that emerged out of the activism of the 1960s and really took hold in
the following decade: a rising consciousness about pollution and its impact,
often referred to as ecology; Nixon’s rather moderate, but still bigger than pre-
vious, response and then the backlash by his successors, whom, from Reagan
to Obama, gave priority to industry and big business over the environment;
and finally, the role of “Green” activists in challenging the priority given to
Capitalist growth over environmental protection.
Events during the 1950s and 1960s led to the environmentalism of the
1970s. Public Health Service studies from the early 1950s documented over
22,000 sources of water pollution across the U.S. About 50 percent of pollu-
tion sites were municipal, but the other half was alarmingly caused by indus-
try. As industrial production expanded during and after the war creating huge
economic growth, so too did water pollution. Air contamination came with
the surge of industry too. In 1948, dense smog settled over the town of
Donora, Pennsylvania for several days and made over 40 percent of the resi-
dents sick and killed 20 people. Air pollution in New York City caused the
deaths of at least 200 people in 1953. These and other severe episodes in
major U.S. cities triggered national outrage but prompted no federal protec-
tion efforts. Rather, the government reaffirmed that state and local govern-
ments were responsible for cleaning up their own cities. Perhaps even more
distressing was the mid-1950s discovery of radioactive fallout from nuclear