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When do you want to transfer copyright? � Now _In 5 years _In 10years _After lifetime of author(s) Please provide a brief (1-5sentences) description of your thesis. ��� �orcJL \V\.e._ �� cd:­ If� �0JV £� d--eJaah: U\...- 1\A.L 1 ct 7o� cvo.-4, � �-� �·s �\.CU-1 l CV\.M c.ap.e . 1 of 2 Williams College Libraries Thesis Release Form Changes to the thesis release form require a new form to be completed, signed and returned to Special Collections in Sawyer Library. Theses can be viewed in Special Collections; print copies of Division Ill and Psychology theses are available at Schow Science Library. Direct questions about this form to the College Archivist ([email protected]). t�roro.L� Title of thesis: 1,\V\<S 0-.V\.ol u�-v.,._ '"1 'tvu_ \q70s. �L"-"A iCY\v·\ �� <:....vY\..�\.n..�e.V\ Author(s): S o.rcliA. CPOpe.ftY\.Dr\ Signatures: Student (Print): Student (Signat1 Signature Removed Faculty (Print):_ Faculty (Signatu Faculty (Print): Date: Faculty (Signature): Date: Faculty (Print): Date: Faculty (Signature): Date: Faculty (Print): Date: Faculty (Signature): Date: 2 of 2 Lines and Circles: Temporality in the 1970s American Environmental Imagination by Sarah Cooperman Nicolas Howe, Advisor A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Environmental Studies WILLIAMS COLLEGE Williamstown, Massachusetts May 10, 2017 Cooperman 2 Cooperman 3 Acknowledgements I would like to sincerely thank Professor Nicolas Howe for his advice, kindness, and guidance over the past year and a half. I shot him an email out of the blue last February asking if he would mind meeting with me about a potential thesis topic, and he quickly agreed to be my advisor despite never having had me in a course before at Williams. This project has been a challenging, interesting, exhausting, and exciting experience, and none of it would have been possible without Professor Howe. I feel supremely grateful for his pep talks and his warm support through every one of my “ah- hah!” and “oh no!” moments. Thank you, Professor Howe, for all you have done and continue to do for your students. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had you as a mentor. I also would like to thank Professor Les Beldo for being my second thesis reader. I think I scared Professor Beldo a bit when I walked into the first class he taught at Williams (ENVI 260 – The Whale) this fall and nearly started crying about how much I love whales. He welcomed my enthusiasm and encouraged me to think critically about my lifelong perceptions of whales. He luckily agreed to be my second thesis reader, and his advice was incredibly insightful, thoughtful, and beyond helpful. Thank you, Professor Beldo! I look forward to many future conversations about whales and other creatures. My parents, Mary and Jonathan Cooperman, probably have no idea what my thesis is about (and neither do I, really), but they encouraged me throughout this year to work hard and invest my time in what I am passionate about. Ultimately, they reminded me, as they always have, that trying my best is what matters above all. It isn’t a cliché if your parents say it, right? I could not have finished this project without Becky McClements’ friendship and support. Whether it was offering to read through trickier sections of my project or heading off campus with me to find new spots to write in (or adventure in), Becky was there for me every step of the way this year. I am beyond proud of her thesis project and am constantly inspired by her passion for those around her – and for the future of our food system! Thank you to the Williams College Center for Environmental Studies for providing me with the funding to spend last summer beginning this research project on campus. The CES has been a crucial aspect of my Williams experience. I would especially like to thank Environmental Studies faculty members Henry Art, Pia Kohler, and Sarah Gardner for their mentorship in and out of the classroom over the past four years. Lastly, I would like to thank the staff members at the Dunkin’ Donuts Williamstown store for powering me through this year with their kindness and deliciously-prepared, highly caffeinated drinks. Some days felt like the only people I interacted with were Barry Commoner and Paul Ehrlich, so thank you Ammie, Dave, Phil, Nadia, Rick, Linda and Sabrina for your enthusiasm! Cooperman 4 Cooperman 5 Table of Contents Introduction ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 Chapter 1: Ehrlich’s Bombs and Butterflies ---------------------------------------------------17 Chapter 2: Paul the Prophet --------------------------------------------------------------------- 38 Chapter 3: The Commoner Calm --------------------------------------------------------------- 58 Chapter 4: Closing the Circle ------------------------------------------------------------------- 79 Conclusion -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------102 Bibliography -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 116 Cooperman 6 Introduction In December of 1970, ecologist Barry Commoner organized a panel about population growth at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He invited fellow ecologist and famed population control advocate Dr. Paul Ehrlich to participate in the hopes of having a civil discussion about the realities of overpopulation, but Commoner doubted Ehrlich’s insistence on population as the true root of the growing ecological crisis. Instead, he believed flawed technology and social inequality to be the underlying causes of environmental degradation. The conversation became heated. At one point, Commoner shot across the table, “Saying that none of our pollution problems can be solved without getting at population first is a copout of the worst kind.”1 Their seemingly irreconcilable arguments reached a point in the next few years where demographer Ansley Coale remarked that the “ideological commitments on both sides” were “obscuring the scientific questions.”2 A 1972 piece for Science echoed this: “When you’re playing bridge and your opponent’s playing poker, it’s hard to agree on the rules.”3 Ehrlich vs. Commoner: The Basics Ehrlich and Commoner arrived at a time when Americans were becoming increasingly aware of the ecological crisis in their midst. Following the end of World 1 “Environment: A Clash of Gloomy Prophets,” TIME Magazine, January 11, 1971, web, accessed April 11, 2017. 2 Ibid. 3 Constance Holden, “Ehrlich versus Commoner: An Environmental Fallout,” Science 21 (1972), 247, doi: 10.1126/science.177.4045.245. Cooperman 7 War II, the United States ushered in a widespread period of economic prosperity, resource consumption, and technological optimism. But these did not come without a cost. In 1948, the small mill town of Donora, Pennsylvania woke up to a thick layer of yellow smog which would kill twenty Donorans and sicken half the town. The zinc plant in Donora refused to stop churning out their product.4 Rachel Carson then published Silent Spring in 1962, using data from the previous decade to describe the perilous impacts of insecticides like DDT on our planet’s birds, ecosystems, and potentially humans. In 1969, Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River in Ohio was so polluted from decades of industrial waste that it caught on fire. If there was something Americans could agree on, it was that we were in trouble – and we were causing the trouble. But how? Ehrlich and Commoner both claimed to know the reason for our crisis and the path to survival, but each offered very conflicting theories about what needed to be addressed. Perhaps the best summary of their conflict was one that Paul Ehrlich created himself, the I=PAT equation. Written with his physicist co-writer John Holdren as a part of a critique of Barry Commoner’s 1971 The Closing Circle, the equation was as follows: Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology5 Each thinker agreed that these three trends – population growth, affluence growth (the per capita consumption of goods and services), and an increase in faulty technology usage – contributed to environmental impact. However, Ehrlich and Holdren argued that 4 Ann Murray, “Smog Deaths in 1948 Led to Clean Air Laws,” NPR, April 22, 2009, web, accessed May 8, 2017. 5 Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren, “Critique: One Dimensional Ecology,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 5 (1972), 20. Cooperman 8 population was by far the biggest factor. Commoner, on the other hand, argued that “the largest contribution to the postwar increase in pollutant emissions” was made “by the technology factor” of the equation.6 It was a simple premise made even easier to understand through I=PAT. Were we supposed to blame people, money, or technology? As a population control advocate, Paul Ehrlich concerned himself primarily with the limits of our planet and our finite resources. A Neo-Malthusian who revived eighteenth-century philosopher Thomas Malthus’ arguments that humans were quickly outnumbering our resources, Ehrlich warned of famished, war-torn doomscapes to come if humans did not act immediately to curb population growth.