Can something be done?

The concern about environmental pollution in public policy and public opinion in the USA originates, according to former Vice President Al Gore, with the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962). Its publication made everyone aware of the negative effect of pesticides (DDT) on agricultural production. The environmental movement in Europe got off the ground with The Limits to Growth (1972), the report of the Club of Rome. Concern with the natural environment is nothing new. It dates back to seventeenth-century air pollution in London and to Thomas Malthus's warnings in the eighteenth century about the negative effects of population growth. However, there is an important difference between early and modern concerns. In the early days the public had no influence on the decisions of the political elite in handling environmental affairs. Nowadays, what politicians and policymakers propose or decide is closely followed by public opinion.

The publication of Silent Spring created a shock effect in the USA. As a result DDT was banned and laws protecting clean air, land and water were introduced. The notion of limits to growth of the Club of Rome created a political climate that made environmental politics and policy both possible and necessary. Since 1972, many other studies have been published on the ozone layer, global warming and the greenhouse effect, and the irreversible decline of biodiversity. But no report has yet been able to match the impact of Silent Spring or The Limits to Growth.