Contemporary Environmental and Occupational Health Issues: More Breadth and Depth

I believe that the values that gave birth to Earth Day have become mainstreamed in the United States, and what society considers “environmental protection” has broadened, and the tools used to devise policy have adapted to these contemporary challenges.

Abstract

Sunday, April 22, 2007, will mark the 37th anniversary of the first Earth Day, a grassroots event at which 20 million US residents declared war on water, air, and land pollution. Core support disproportionately came from young, liberal, and highly educated non-Hispanic Whites.1 They were excited about the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act and about a dozen other laws that promised to control emissions from factories, cars, power plants, and other sources and to better protect the health of workers. The results of these policies included the reduction of emissions into water bodies and the air from sewage treatment systems, factories, electricity-generating stations, and motor vehicles, and the cleanup and control of some of the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites. Thirty-seven years after the celebration of the first Earth Day, the federal government and the American public are focusing more on war, terrorism, and the economy than they are on environmental protection.2 Yet Earth Day is celebrated worldwide; in some locations, it has the feel of a major holiday. Core supporters of environmental protection include a greater diversity of age groups, political perspectives, ethnic/racial groups, and socioeconomic groups than 3 decades ago.3 I believe that the values that gave birth to Earth Day have become mainstreamed in the United States. What society considers “environmental protection” has broadened, and the tools we use to devise policy have adapted to these contemporary challenges. Ten papers in this and the May 2007 issue of the Journal illustrate the broadening of environmental issues and tools.