152 The Environmental Debate
want to live in [see Documents 123], they advocate
immediate and sometimes radical action.
Intensifying these arguments, which were exten-
sions of the Malthusian debate that had been ongo-
ing since the eighteenth century, was the new issue of
global warming. On one side were those, like Dixie
Lee Ray [see Document 138], who viewed recent
warming trends as a product of natural climate vari-
ability, and those, like James Hansen [see Document
137], who believed that the trend was the result of the
greenhouse gases produce by human activity.
The Complexity of Environmental
Issues
As the millennium approached, apocalyptic
voices predicting devastating global warming, uncon-
trollable global epidemics, the dwindling of adequate
and safe water supplies, and the disappearance of
fish [see Document 147] were heard with increas-
ing frequency. For half a century, U.S. environmental
regulations and internationally adopted conventions
had resulted in substantial improvements in the qual-
ity of life of large numbers of people. However, by
the end of the twentieth century, it had become obvi-
ous that many of the environmental problems facing
the United States and the world did not have simple
solutions, because the problems themselves were
very complex and because, especially on the national
and international levels, the solutions had to satisfy
widely diverse constituencies.
Environmental issues are intertwined with such
seemingly disparate issues as health, the economy,
social justice, and national security. Resolving such
complex problems entails finding acceptable balances
among individual rights, societal needs, economic
priorities, ethical values, and the constraints of the
natural environment.
One pressing problem is how to satisfy an expo-
nentially growing demand for energy. Because the
quantity of energy used correlates with how indus-
trially developed a country is, as more countries
advanced industrially, it became increasingly clear that
not only would energy use increase, but so would the
accompanying pollution and environmental degrada-
tion—unless the world as a whole grew less dependent
on fossil fuels. Compounding this is the disproportion-
ately high per capita use of energy in the United States
compared to other industrially advanced nations.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, nuclear energy was
widely viewed as a possible solution to increased
energy demand [see Document 94]. However, the par-
tial meltdown at Three Mile Island and the nuclear
plant disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine, increased
American anxiety about the risks posed by nuclear
energy use and provided a basis for strenuous opposi-
tion to the construction of new nuclear power plants
[see Document 131]. In 2003 no new nuclear power
plant had been built in this country for thirty years.3
Despite calls for the development of renewable energy
and clean fuels [see Document 142], high cost and
low efficiency were impediments to the widespread
adoption of alternative fuels.
California, whose severe air pollution problems
were exacerbated by a life-style dependent on cars,
passed some of the strictest auto emissions regula-
tions in the country in 1990. But in 1996 the state had
to roll back plans to attain the agreed on emission
reductions [see Document 141] because automobiles
that met those standards proved too expensive or did
not otherwise appeal to consumers and also because
the federal government refused to support such
stringent CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy)
standards. American automakers may have been will-
ing to put effort into the development of fuel-efficient
cars [see Document 140], but as long as sales of gas-
guzzling vehicles—such as sport utility vehicles and
pickup trucks—were more profitable, that was where
the companies focused their attention. While auto
fuel efficiency and emissions quality have steadily
improved, the number of vehicles on American roads
as well as the number of vehicle miles traveled have
continued to climb (between 1980 and 1995 the total
number of cars and trucks in use increased by 53.6
million vehicles), thereby reducing air quality gains.
Land use is another complex issue. As the nation’s
population increases, there is a constant demand
for land on which to build homes. But the building
of homes on former farmland pushes agricultural
regions farther and farther from population centers,
and the construction of homes in wilderness areas
endangers wildlife habitats and shrinks the nation’s
open space. Building homes in coastal regions and
wetlands areas not only endangers precarious eco-
systems, but also poses the issue of the insurability
of waterfront property due to shifting water courses
and changing land profiles [see Document 128].