Lessons and Legacies from the 1970s: From Local to Global on Climate, Plastics, and Pesticides

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel highlights three case studies from the 1970s to show how they laid the foundation for subsequent environmental activism, and changes in law and public policy. These developments often began as personal or local concerns and became global ones.

Elizabeth Blum’s paper addresses the federal lawsuit Juliana v. Trump filed by twenty-one young people, alleging that the federal government had failed to adequately address climate change and therefore violated their constitutional rights. Magazine submissions by kids in Highlights and Jack & Jill clearly show that nature held a steady, prominent place in young people’s lives from the 1960s through 1980 (the period when Juliana parents came of age). This paper seeks to connect the activism of the young people in the Juliana case with children in the decades surrounding the first Earth Day.

David Kinkela examines the formation of regulatory approaches to plastic ocean pollution and how scientists and regulators understood the causes of plastic ocean pollution during the 1970s. These early scientific reports propelled the international community to try to police the disposal of plastics waste in the ocean from fishing and cargo ships, leading to the revision of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (or MARPOL) in 1978.

Gregory Wilson’s paper addresses important legal and public policy developments related to the pesticide chlordecone. Under the brand name Kepone, the pesticide came into public view in the 1970s following the contamination of Virginia’s historic James River by the companies that manufactured it, and the poisoning of some two dozen workers who made it. Today, chlordecone is responsible for a major public health crisis in Guadeloupe and Martinique. Chlordecone’s toxic legacy landed it among the list of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) banned under the United Nations Stockholm Convention.

Sub Unit

• ASEH Annual Conference

Individual Presentations

• Juliana v. Trump: Historical Origins of Youth Activism Against Climate Change - Elizabeth (Scout) Dian Blum, Troy University

• Plastic Oceans: Understanding Ocean Waste during the Environmental Decade - David Kinkela, SUNY Fredonia

• The 1975 Kepone Contamination in Virginia - Gregory Wilson, University of Akron

Chair

• Nancy Langston, Michigan Technological University

Commentator

• Nancy Langston, Michigan Technological University