Excerpt
HERE is a “new environmentalism” emerging in America. We've spent the last few years with natural resource T and environmental issues shoved to the back of the table. The problems never really went away, but people's attention was directed elsewhere. Now, public attention is again beginning to focus on the land use, conservation, and environmental quality questions that the soil and water conservation movement has been paying attention to for more than half a century.
Early in 1988, former Presidents Carter and Ford teamed up to draft an “Agenda for America” to give guidance to whomever was elected in November. They left environmental issues off of the list, saying these issues were not of much concern to voters. ‘They were wrong. By fall, with farmers reeling from drought, Yellowstone Park aflame, and medical waste washing up on eastern beaches, Vice-president Bush could stand at Boston Harbor and make pollution and the environment an issue that Governor Dukakis found hard to answer.
Few people knew it, and if the Democrats knew it, they ignored it, but Mr. Bush had been studying environmental issues for two years, aided by an outside group …
Footnotes
R. Neil Sampson is executive vice-president of the American Forestry Association, 1.516 P Street, N.W, Washington, DC. 2W5. This “Viewpoint” is based on his kqnote speech at the recent 43rd annual convention of the National Association of Conservation Districts in Salt Lake City, Utah.
- Copyright 1989 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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