Protecting the Earth: Are Our Institutions Up to It? s the 1980s draw to a "Environmental Protection addressed in a piece by th at legislative body may A close, environmental Act" developed as a working James M. Lents, Executive need to take as it faces the problems are taking on new draft by the Foundation in Officer with the South Coast crowded agenda of dimensions. Stratospheric order to stimulate discussion Air Quality Management environmental problems. ozone depletion and the on ways to stream Ii ne, District in Los Angeles. And Thomas E. Lovejoy, Greenhouse Effect, for integrate, and simplify the Two long-time figures on Assistant Secretary fo r example, transcend national current mass of the environmental External Affairs at the boundaries and threaten the environmental laws. scene-former U.S. Senator Smithsonian Institution, long-term health of our Ideas for enhancing EPA 's Gaylord elson and fo rmer focuses on changes needed in planet. /\re existing role as a lead environmental Deputy EPA Administrator the thinking of well-off institutions up to the task of institution on the world john Quarles- speak out on nations toward the Third dealing with the scene are presented in a the question: Is it possible to Worl d if the global cha ll enge unprecedented chnll enges piece by James Gustave apply the crisis-oriented of a decent environment !s to that confront us? This issue Speth, President of the World approach of the past in be m et. of EPA journal explores this Resources Institute. dealing with the Michael Gruber, an EPA question. An industry view of some environmental problems of staffer detailed to An article surveying the necessary environmental today a nd tomorrow? the state of Washington's condition of environmental actions is discussed by john The need for consumers to Department of Natural clean-up efforts nationally W. Rowe, head of the New make some basic changes in Resources. writes about the and around the worlc.I sets England Electric System. lifestyles and m indsets is most fundamental the sta!-!P. for this issue. It is Steps the states can take are argued by jay 0. Hair. question- now that there is by Gladl'lin Hil l, former suggested in nn artic le by President of the ational growing agreement that major environmenta l correspondent Robert Bendick, Rhode Wildlife Federati on. Retired steps need to be taken if the for The New York Times. !\ Island's Director of Senator Robert T. Stafford, a planet is lo be saved, how do piece by William K. Reilly, Environment Management. long-time environmentalist in we get the r e ·~ EP/\'s Administrator, follows, And the question whether a key institution, the U.S. This issue of the m agazine suggesting changes to help pollution clenn-up agencies Congress, write about concludes with a regular the Agency perform more must be a Big Brother is changes in approach which featu re- J\ppointm nts. o effectively. A fenture by jessicn Tuchmnn Mathews, Vice President of the World Resources Institute, specifies Parnck Mamn. Topeka Capital Journal how some institutional, social, and political burriers ' . to global e nvironmental Vlf P\Sf; I MMHEI< NATVY(£ .. protection might be JU~T O~f MO~ Cl1M.lCf .. overcome. The piece is WE PROMISE, 10 TAk't &.1rtr< adapted from a recent Mathews a rticle in foreign tf:IR€ OF '<'Dt.1. .. P~£AS€ ... Affairs magazine. Environmentalist Barry Commoner spells out how pollution prevention- a widely acknowledged need- m ight really be accomplished. Arthur Kaines of EPA's Regulatory Integration Division depicts the di lemma of the average person trying to be a good citizen in the face of the increasing layers of environmental regulation at various government levels. Frnnces H. Irwin of The Conservation Foundation explains a model United States Office of Vol u me 15 Environmental Protec tio n Pub lic Affairs (A-107) Number 4 Agency W ashington DC 20460 July1August 1989 &EPA JOURNAL William K. Reilly, Administrator John Heritage, Editor Karen Flagstad, Assistant Editor Jack Lewis, Assistant Editor Ruth Barker, Assistant Editor Marilyn-Rogers, Circulation Manager EPA is charged by Congress to protect the nation's land, air. and A Management Job for Could There Be Changing from "Consumers" water systems. Under a mandate of the Human Race national environmental laws, the a Better Law? to Citizens agency strives to formulate and by Gladwin Hill 2 by Frances H. Irwin by Jay D. Hair implement actions which lead to a compatible balance between The Greening of EPA EPA and the World Lessons about human activities and the ability of natural systems to support and by William K. Reilly f1 Clean-up Puzzle Environmentalism nurture life. by James Gustave Speth in Congress EPA journal is published by the Tackling the by Robert T. Stafford U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Administrator of EPA Institutional Barriers From a "Polluter's" View has determined that the by Jessica Tuchman by John W. Rowe The Third World's publication of this periodical is Mathews 11 Environment: necessary in the transaction of the Next Steps the States public business required by law of A Global Dilemma this agency. Use of funds for Let's Get Serious Could Take by Thomas E. Lovejoy printing this periodical has been about Pollution Prevention by Robert Bendick approved by the Director of the by Barry Commoner 15 How Do We Get There? Office of Management and Budget. Views expressed by authors do not Making the Smog Cleanup by Michael Gruber necessarily reflect EPA policy. Under the Environmental Happen in L.A. Contributions and inquiries should Regulation Layer Cake by James M. Lents Appointments be addressed to thP. Editor (A-1 07) . Waterside Mall, 401 M St .. S.W., by Arthur Kaines 18 Washington, DC 20460. No Can We Win with the permission necessary to reproduce Crisis-Oriented Approach? contents except copyrighted photos Two Observers Speak and other materi als. Front Cover: Earth as seen f ram Design Credit s: The next EP1\ journal 11"il/ forns on the moon. Photo taken on the Ron Farrah: coostal issues. voyage of Apollo l 0. From th e fumes R. /ngrnm; photo files of th e Notionol Robert Flanagan. Aeronautics and Space Administration. 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The requests should be mailed to: Payment e nclosed (Make checks payable 10 Super1111 e nde n1 of Docurnenls) Superintendent of Documents. D GPO, Washington, DC 20402. 0 C harge to my Deposit Account No . A Management Job for the Human Race by Gladwin Hill fter a century, the message first Aenunciated by John Muir is sinking in: "When you dip your hand into nature, you find that everything is connected to everything else." But until recently, few comprehended the implications of the naturalist's words. Muir's message was graphically illustrated just 20 years ago, when the astronauts landed on the moon and pointed their television camera back at earth. There it was: a patheticall y small ball of rock, spinning solitarily i.n vast space, with 5 billion people clinging to its surface- 5 billion people completely dependent for survival on the planet's thin veneer of fragile, interdependent resources. It was three years more before the message first found instituti onal expression on a global scale in the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm. There 130 nations solemnly acknowledged a mutual obligation in mainta ining a li vable global environment. They promulgated a host of recommendations for steps that should be taken. But they created no comprehensive mechanism or procedure for realizing the measures recommended. Some important measures have been implemented. But meanwhile new environmental problems with global ramifications have surfaced fa ster than problems have been resolved. It has taken an ominously accelerating succession of calamities, accidents, and incipient crises- the diminishing stratospheric ozone layer and the Greenhouse Effect, Chernobyl and Bhopal, desertification and deforestation, famines and oil spill s- lo remind us forcefull y that the implications of Muir's words as reinforced by the astronauts' television camera and the good intentions of Stockholm have not been effectively heeded. 2 EPA JOURNAL M uir Woods National Monument 1s graced by 200-foot tall • Through the use of pesticides and year-$340 per capita-on pollution redwoods. antibiotics, we have engendered score controls, we are far short of our goals of of resistant species whose potential for clean air and water. Disposal of spreading disease and blight remains everyday solid waste has become a An outer-space observer with unassessed. nightmare. Raw sewage and worse wondrous vision, scrutinizing the earth despoil our shores. in environmental terms, might see • And .we have maintained a cavalier, Meanwhile new problems have something like the scattered p ieces of a there's-no-tomorrow outlook regarding continued to erupt-acid rain, the jigsaw puzzle: myriad clusters of people the depletion of minerals and other discovery of thousands of toxic dumps, of assorted races, creeds, and colors, natural resources.