Excerpt
In the spring of 1990, the environmental movement will mark the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day, the coming out party it threw itself on April 22, 1970. It will be a time for environmentalists to reappraise what the movement accomplished in its ebullient youth. But next year will also provide an important test of what the movement can achieve in the final, environmentally crucial decade of this century. The test will be whether the 1990 farm bill will contain reforms that will permanently make natural resource conservation and environmental protection central features of American agriculture and agricultural policy.
It is entirely fitting that this particular test will be administered during Earth Day's platinum anniversary. After all, it is no exaggeration to say that the modern environmental movement began in a fight with agriculture. More than any other work of this century, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, published in 1962, shaped public awareness and created outright suspicion about the dark side of industrial progress. The impact of her work was all the more enduring because it dealt largely with the industrialization of a …
Footnotes
Kenneth A. Cook is vice president for policy at the Center for Resource Economics, Washington, D.C. 20005. The preparation of this article was made possible by support from The Joyce Foundation and The Ford Foundation.
- Copyright 1989 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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