Challenging Times - The Renaissance of Renewable Energy - page 180

distinguish between rich and poor nations, demands a concerted act of creative cooperation
between all peoples of the world.
5.6 The Green Movement
Environmentalism, as we know it today, traces its origins back to the late nineteenth
century when a movement began in the industrial societies of Europe and North America
to protect natural landscapes from the ravages of industrialisation. However, it was not
until the 1970s that a distinct and politically discrete environmental movement emerged.
Spurred by several conspicuous incidents of environmental pollution and influential topics,
such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring , which exposed the dangers of pesticide use,
environmentalism became a major public concern (Carson 2002 ) . Earth Day in 1970,
organised by a group of Harvard students, was the first major event to bring together many
of the issues that form the modern Green manifesto: air and water pollution, industrial
waste, overpopulation. Following the example of the anti-Vietnam War movement,
'teach-ins' were held in different cities across the United States. As many as 20 million
Americans took part. In the aftermath of the event, U.S. Congress passed its first Clean Air
Act and established the Environmental Protection Agency. Throughout the 1970s political
parties with a primarily conservationist or environmental emphasis emerged throughout the
industrialised world (Yergin 2011 ) .
The catalyst for a global conversation about the future of human development came
from an unlikely source: a report commissioned by one of the world's first 'think tanks',
the Club of Rome. The authors, environmental scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, used a computer model to predict the collapse of human population and the
globaleconomicsystemifhumanbehaviourdidnotradicallychange. The Limits to Growth
struck a chord in Western societies, with 12 million copies sold since its publication in
1972, an unprecedented achievement for a scholarly publication (Meadows et al. 1974 ). 7
Its success reflected a growing conviction in the industrialized world that the economic
success and 'development' which had transformed standards of living in Europe and North
America since the Second World War were not sustainable.
5.7 Sustainable Development
At the turn of the twentieth century, many in the industrialised countries were expressing
concernaboutthesocialandenvironmentalcostsofeconomicgrowth.However,twoworld
wars and an economic depression drew attention to more immediate matters. The concept
of 'sustainable extraction' first emerged from the conservation movement and was applied