Introduction - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 5

them. In doing so they displayed many similarities. Much of the similarity
was due to common challenges and government structures. For example,
virtually all found the number of automobiles increasing, hence more air
pollution, and virtually all had government bureaucracies with expertise in
engineering and chemistry. Other times, they self-consciously copied each
other. For example, in 1971 the Japanese prime minister visited Washington
where he was quite impressed with the popular approval President Nixon
was enjoying by establishing the Environmental Protection Agency, so he
established the Japanese Environmental Agency. In all countries the citi-
zens expected government to solve problems. If pollution was a problem,
the answer was governmental: pass a law regulating it, and create an agency
to enforce the law. It was still a command and control mentality, and the
idea that market techniques could be enlisted was not accepted in that era.
Participation: Widespread citizen participation has been a hallmark of
the environmental movement. In 1961 thousands of Scots demonstrated
against the presence of nuclear submarines in Holy Loch—one of the
first citizen protests. In turn, that inspired 30,000 Danes to march in
Copenhagen in 1962 to protest nuclear weapons and power plants. In
the United States, the very first Earth Day in 1970 brought out 20 million
citizens from coast to coast. Popular demonstrations have an even longer
genesis. The American civil rights movement used the technique of mass
marches, and in turn these were inspired by the movement for Indian
independence during the 1930s and 1940s. Still farther back, the Indian
leaders found inspiration in the nonviolent demonstration of Henry David
Thoreau, often credited as an early environmentalist.
Political scientists maintain that citizen protest groups operate according
to a set repertoire. Environmental groups use marches, rallies, street theater,
picketing, boycotts, petitions, and letters. They trace modern protests back
to the late 18th century when the expansion of newspapers coincided with
the emergence of associations outside the control of the government. By the
late 20th century, protest movements could exchange information quickly
and operate across national boundaries. An example was the collapse of
communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 where in the Baltic republics citi-
zens formed a human chain, and in Poland they organized “round tables,”
thereby copying tactics of the Western European peace movement a few
years earlier. Second, television, fax machines, and photocopiers sped up
communication. Now e-mail, the Internet, and Twitter speed contact.
And third, greater movement of people across boundaries has acceler-
ated information and techniques. Airplanes speeded up decolonization of