Introduction - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 4

to a nearby river. A few cities enacted smoke ordinances. With the Great
Depression of the 1930s in America and in Europe, unemployed people
longed for the good old days when factories belched smoke into the air.
Then came World War II that was so horrible that environmental protec-
tion was not possible during the fighting.
After the devastation of the war, Europe spent the next two or three
decades rebuilding its industry, and inevitably this recovery increased air
and water pollution. On December 4-8, 1952, 4000 people died in London
from a “killer smog.” The smog was so thick that drivers of autos and buses
could not see, and the only transport was the Underground train system.
Victims succumbed to heart attacks, asphyxiation, and asthma. The inven-
tion of the atomic bomb unleashed the dangers of radiation. When the
first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, the scientists were
surprised that 70,000 died of radiation sickness, equally as many as died
from the blast itself. The development of civilian nuclear reactors to gener-
ate electricity brought its own risks. In 1957 the Windscale plant in England
exploded, sending clouds of radioactive gases into the atmosphere, thus
causing people downwind to suffer from cancer in the following years.
World War II also sparked the Chemical Revolution with scientists invent-
ing thousands of new compounds, many of them dangerous. All over the
world, particularly in the tropics, public health workers sprayed DDT to
kill the mosquitoes that transmitted malaria. Unfortunately, the insecti-
cide also killed birds, especially eagles. An ironic consequence of spraying
DDT to control malaria, and other improvements in human health, was a
population explosion. In turn this led to demand for agricultural land and
strain on water and air. In all countries, gasoline refineries added tetra-
ethyl lead to their product, unaware that it caused brain damage.
The picture was not entirely negative, however. Scientific understand-
ing of the dangers of pollution grew. With economic prosperity, people
had the money and leisure time to visit parks and enjoy nature. With
more education, they could better understand the science and geogra-
phy of the environment. Jacques Cousteau, the inventor of the aqualung,
sold more than ive million copies of his topic The Silent World , about life
undersea. He soon produced a film that won an Academy Award. From
July 1957 to December 1958 scientists from 67 nations cooperated in the
International Geophysical Year to study the polar regions, the oceans, and
the atmosphere.
Five Themes: From 1970 on virtually all democracies addressed environ-
mental problems by passing laws and establishing agencies to implement