NEWS ANALYSIS : Environmental Challenges Gain Worldwide Attention

Two decades after the celebration of Earth Day, a resurgence in environmental activism has captured the attention of the highest levels of government around the world and launched unprecedented international cooperation on planetary pollution.

Heightened by anxiety about chemicals in food, particularly one called Alar, and the devastating Alaska oil spill, concerns over the environment in the United States in 1989 produced a flurry of legislation, prompted national and international conferences on global environmental problems and spurred an upsurge in membership in environmental organizations.

The year saw President Bush break a decade-long federal stalemate on clean air legislation, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher address the United Nations on global warming and other pressing environmental concerns, consumers around the world rally to the cause of the imperiled elephant by refusing to buy ivory and U.S. corporations volunteer to eliminate ozone-depleting chemicals from their products.

The news media reflected the heightened interest in the environment. Time magazine last January departed from its tradition of naming a “Man of the Year” and instead designated “Endangered Earth” as “Planet of the Year.” The loss of forests made news worldwide. Esoteric studies about the potential consequences of global warming, once confined to scientific journals, reached living rooms everywhere through television and newspapers.

But despite the widespread attention to ecology, 1989 demonstrated more than anything else that today’s environmental problems will not be easily solved. Although steps were taken to reduce the loss of the ozone layer and, locally, to curb air pollution, much of the year was spent setting agendas for future actions and preparing the world to make difficult life-style adjustments in the cause of environmental reform.

Bush, for example, responded to public alarm over chemicals in food by unveiling a proposal that will enable the federal government to withdraw unsafe pesticides from the market more quickly. But the proposal contains elements designed to assuage chemical and agricultural interests, and opposition by conservationists is certain to delay or even prevent its enactment next year.

World leaders called for negotiations on an agreement to combat global warming--movement that many conservationists hailed as progress--but an accord to actually limit the release of carbon dioxide and other warming gases emitted from the burning of fossil fuels may be a long way off.

If such environmental threats are to be reduced, the outburst of environmental activism that marked 1989 will have to be sustained, conservationists say.

Curtis Freese, a vice president of the World Wildlife Fund, is convinced that the commitment will continue. Freese called the growing public absorption with the environment merely “the tip of the iceberg” and foresees increasing anxiety as more people become aware of the dangers of global warming, which could cause continued droughts, and ozone depletion, which could trigger increased cases of skin cancer.

“I think we have only begun to feel the effects of the environment on our daily lives,” Freese said. “It is going to be high on the agenda at the beginning of the next century because people see it as a concern that is beginning to affect them.”

Environmental activism in the past has run in cycles. In the early 1970s, interest in the environment increased in response to the disastrous 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill and the publication of a widely read book by Rachel Carson detailing the devastation to wildlife by the pesticide DDT. After a period of complacency, highly publicized efforts to relax environmental protection in the early years of the Reagan Administration rekindled the interest. Then, again, it quickly ebbed.

But with events such as the deadly chemical leak in Bhopal in India, the Soviet Union’s nuclear accident at Chernobyl and the Exxon Valdez oil spill in the late 1980s, the public again focused on the Earth’s vulnerability and many are predicting that this time the interest will be long lasting. James Thornton, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, described the change as a “move from the consciousness that beaches in Santa Barbara are threatened to the consciousness that the envelope of the atmosphere itself is threatened.” Rather than being merely a trend issue, Thornton said, environmentalism has the power to become the ethical movement of the late 20th Century.

“We appear to be entering an era where, outside the Muslim world, people are uncomfortable with ideology,” said Carl Pope of the Sierra Club. “People don’t want to die for ideas, and one of the things that is appealing about environmentalism as a focus for expression of social discontent is that it is scientific.”

Here, by subject, is how various environmental issues fared in 1989:

OZONE LAYER--On July 1, the production of most chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in industrialized countries was frozen at 1986 levels. Industrialized nations had pledged to cut their use of the ozone-depleting chemicals by 50% by the end of the century, and this year the United States and Europe proposed a total phase-out. Additional agreements to limit CFCs further are expected to be reached at an international conference in London next June.

India and China, which have the potential to become major CFC producers, have yet to agree to phase-outs. Both countries in the past have asked for financial or technical assistance to switch to more expensive substitutes. Used extensively in refrigeration, air-conditioning and industrial processes, CFCs are considered vital to raising the standard of living in many developing countries.

Sierra Club leaders said they were surprised by the depth of public concern about ozone depletion and strong support for corrective action. It was the picture of a “a hole, a black hole” that people could visualize that Pope said “scared the hell out of them.”

Several American corporations responded to the fear by announcing voluntary and potentially costly phase-outs of the chemical. Automobile companies pledged to end their use of CFCs in vehicle air-conditioners in the mid-1990s.

To spur such actions, Congress this year passed a measure that will establish an excise tax on the production of CFCs. The tax, which takes effect Jan. 1, was designed to make the ozone-depleters as expensive as less-harmful substitutes.

FORESTS--The United States continued to subsidize the chopping down of its own forests even as it criticized Brazil for destroying its rain forests. Forests offer important habitat to many species of wildlife and reduce global warming by absorbing gases that otherwise trap heat in the atmosphere much as the panes of a greenhouse retain warmth.

But next year offers promise. A congressional hearing in 1989 focused official attention on below-cost timber sales by the U.S Forest Service--the government’s sale of timber to industry at prices lower than the government’s overhead--and the Senate is expected to consider a House-passed bill that would reduce logging in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska.

WILDLIFE--Nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil stained Alaska’s Prince William Sound, one of the most scenic waterways in the world, and killed at least 36,000 sea birds, 1,016 otters and 151 bald eagles.

It was a better year for the northern spotted owl. The rare animal received protection under an agreement that will limit logging in sensitive owl habitats in the northwestern United States.

AIR--Congress began considering major legislation to reduce smog, acid rain and toxic industrial emissions. The bill by the Bush Administration is expected to be rewritten and passed by Congress next year.

In Southern California, the South Coast Air Quality Management District also approved its visionary, 20-year plan to bring the region into compliance with federal clean-air standards by the year 2007. The state Air Resources Board also took the first steps to reducing smog-forming chemicals in underarm deodorants and antiperspirants.

ENERGY--The Administration raised by one mile, to 27.5 miles per gallon, the efficiency standard for 1990-model vehicles. That standard was initially established for all vehicles built in 1985 and later, but the Reagan Administration had refused to implement it. Under Reagan, the standard was actually lowered from 27 m.p.g. in 1984 to 26 in 1986 and 26.5 in 1989.

In another move praised by conservationists, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a rule requiring refrigerators and freezers sold in 1993 to use 25% to 30% less energy than those sold in 1990. That rule, established under a law passed by Congress, will cut electricity use and indirectly reduce gases that contribute to global warming.

In response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Congress approved and Bush signed a bill that placed a moratorium on oil drilling and drilling preparations off much of the nation’s coastlines.

PESTICIDES--A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council said Alar, a chemical used to keep apples crisp and improve their appearance, posed a special risk to children because they consume a disproportionately large amount of fruit in their diet. A public uproar eventually persuaded the manufacturer of the chemical to withdraw it from the market.

The Bush Administration unveiled a proposal that would cut by as much as one-half the time required to get hazardous pesticides off the market, tighten registration requirements for new pesticides and stiffen sanctions against violators.

The proposal, which is expected to be considered by Congress next year, has been opposed by environmental groups because it would prevent states from imposing more-stringent pesticide restrictions than those of the federal government. Some states, including California, have tougher standards than the federal government.

PARKS--Congress approved a 110,000-acre addition to Everglades National Park in Florida, protecting the land from agricultural conversion and development, and the Park Service decided to prohibit the transport of commercial logs through Yellowstone National Park.

Many conservationists were dismayed, however, by the reluctance of the Park Service to reintroduce the wolf to Yellowstone. Reagan’s former park director strongly favored returning the animal to the park where the wolf once flourished, but the Bush Administration wants more studies to determine how many privately owned livestock near the park might be lost to the wolves. In a concession to ranchers, the park earlier this year removed literature about the wolf from visitor centers.

WASTE--The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reviewed operation of the nation’s Superfund hazardous dump program and began to work toward more permanent treatment of toxic waste, a move that was hailed by environmentalists.

Under a new state law signed by Gov. George Deukmejian in September, local governments in California must reduce garbage 25% by 1995 and 50% by the year 2000, primarily through recycling, composting and reducing the sources of waste.

GREENHOUSE--The threat of global warming prompted talks among world leaders in 1989, but little action was taken to combat the peril. Industrialized countries agreed to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, but set no date on when stabilization would occur and failed to decide by how much the emissions would be reduced.

After first appearing reluctant to negotiate a treaty on global warming, President Bush reversed himself in December by proposing to reach an accord at a U.S. conference next year, and Congress decided to convene its own international meeting about the problem in the spring.

The Administration is expected to unveil a plan to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases late next year. These gases are emitted by the burning of oil, coal and other fossil fuels.