Perhaps one of the most meaningful ways to sense the impact of the environmental crisis is to confront the question which is always asked about Lake Erie: how can we restore it? I believe the only valid answer is that no one knows. For it should be clear that even if overnight all of the pollutants now pouring into Lake Erie were stopped, there would still remain the problem of the accumulated mass of pollutants in the lake bottom.
The methods that EPA introduced after 1970 to reduce air-pollutant emissions worked for a while, but over time have become progressively less effective.
What is needed now is a transformation of the major systems of production more profound than even the sweeping post-World War II changes in production technology.
Seen that way, the wholesale transformation of production technologies that is mandated by pollution prevention creates a new surge of economic development.
The most meaningful engine of change, powerful enough to confront corporate power, may be not so much environmental quality, as the economic development and growth associated with the effort to improve it.
The modern technologist is less 'sorcerer' and more 'sorcerer's apprentice'.
By adopting the control strategy, the nation's environmental program has created a built-in antagonism between environmental quality and economic growth.
In certain ways, I'm not very different than I was when I was a teenager.
Earth Day 1970 was irrefutable evidence that the American people understood the environmental threat and wanted action to resolve it.
Science is triumphant with far-ranging success, but its triumph is somehow clouded by growing difficulties in providing for the simple necessities of human life on earth.
