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From Gold to Garbage: A Bibliographical Essay on Politics and the Environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Charles O. Jones
Charles O. Jones*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
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Type
Review Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , June 1972 , pp. 588 - 595
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1972

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References

This review was written during my stay at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. I gratefully acknowledge the Center's generous support.

1 Editors of Ramparts, Eco-Catastrophe (San Francisco: Canfield Press, 1970), p. ix Google Scholar.

2 See Braybrooke, David and Lindblom, Charles, A Strategy of Decision: Policy Evaluation as a Social Process (New York: Free Press, 1963)Google Scholar.

3 Description and analysis of policy evaluation are also necessary but must follow experience in implementing recent policy and organizational breakthroughs.

4 Other recent conference-symposium format books include Cooley, Richard A. and Wandesforde-Smith, Geoffrey, eds., Congress and the Environment (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1970)Google Scholar and Wilson, C. L. and Matthews, W. H., eds., Man's Impact on the Global Environment: Assessment and Recommendations for Action (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970)Google Scholar. Resources for the Future publications should also be mentioned in this category. See, for example, the very useful collection Environmental Quality In a Growing Economy, ed. Jarrett, Henry (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966)Google Scholar.

5 The current list of “eco-scare” books is too long to reproduce here. Some examples: De Bell, Garrett, ed., The Environmental Handbook (New York: Ballantine Books, 1970)Google Scholar; Bregman, Jack and Lenormand, Sergei, The Pollution Paradox (New York: Spartan Books, 1966)Google Scholar; Editors of The Progressive, The Crisis of Survival (Glenview, N.J.: Scott, Foresman, 1970)Google Scholar; Fadiman, Clifton and White, Jean, eds., Ecocide … and Thoughts Toward Survival (Palo Alto, Calif.: Freel, 1971)Google Scholar, one of the more responsible collections —developed from conferences at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions; Herber, Lewis, Crisis in Our Cities (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1965)Google Scholar; and Linton, Ron M.. Terracide: America's Destruction of Her Living Environment (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970)Google Scholar. Of course, Carson's, Rachel Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962)Google Scholar remains a classic of the “eco-scare” volumes—and for good reason. See also, Graham, Frank Jr., Since Silent Spring (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett, 1970)Google Scholar. All of these are more balanced than Eco-Catastrophe—indeed, most include very useful material for understanding the scope of the issue.

6 Again the list is very long, with items varying greatly in usefulness for the layman. In addition to the Resources for the Future publications, the nonscientist will find the report by the American Chemical Society's Subcommittee on Environmental Improvement, entitled Cleaning Our Environment: The Chemical Basis for Action, 1969 Google Scholar, most helpful as an introduction to scientific aspects of environmental problems. A more popularly written item is that by biologist Commoner, Barry, The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology (New York: Knopf, 1971)Google Scholar. See also Whyte, William H., The Last Landscape (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968)Google Scholar.

7 Congressional documents—staff reports and hearings—are also excellent source materials. Of particular note are the hearings before the Subcommittee on Conservation and Natural Resources of the House Committee on Government Operations—The Environmental Decade, 91st Cong., 2d sess., 1970 Google Scholar. See also the hearings during the past ten years before the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, Senate Committee on Public Works. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Public Health and Welfare, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Air Pollution Control and Solid Wastes Recycling, 91st Cong., 1st and 2d sess. 1969, 1970 Google ScholarPubMed, thoroughly evaluate the Air Quality Act of 1967—thereby identifying many of the dimensions of administering environmental controls in a federal system. See also the extensive hearings on population growth conducted during the 1960s by the Senate Committee on Government Operations.

8 Other source materials of value are Edelman, Sidney, The Law of Air Pollution Control (Stamford, Conn.: Environmental Research & Applications, 1970)Google Scholar; Degler, Stanley E. and Bloom, Sandra C., Federal Pollution Control Programs: Water, Air, and Solid Wastes (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, 1969)Google Scholar; Degler, Stanley E., State Air Pollution Control Laws (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, 1969)Google Scholar; the many documents and reports produced by the Public Land Law Review Commission, Department of the Interior, the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, Senate Committee on Government Operations; and, of course, the continuing coverage and special reports in the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report and The National Journal. Finally, several of the reports by Ralph Nader's Center for Study of Responsive Law fit this category. See, for example, Esposito, John C., Vanishing Air (New York: Grossman, 1970)Google Scholar and Zwick, David and Benstock, Marcy, Water Wasteland (New York: Grossman. 1971)Google Scholar, which combine a great deal of information on the problems and critical analysis of government action.

9 One of the more practical “how to do it” books is Ecotactics (New York: Ballantine Books, 1970)Google Scholar.

10 Other recent economic treatments include the popular collection of readings edited by Goldman, Marshall I., ed., Controlling Pollution: The Economics of a Cleaner America (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1967)Google Scholar; the recent reprinting of Wolozin, Harold, ed., The Economics of Air Pollution (New York: Norton, 1966)Google Scholar, which contains an excellent case study of policy development at the local level; and two Resources for the Future publications— Herfindahl, Orris C. and Kneese, Allen V., Quality of the Environment: An Economic Approach to Some Problems in Using Land, Water, and Air (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Kneese, Allen V., Ayres, Robert U., and d'Arge, Ralph C., Economics and the Environment: A Materials Balance Approach (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1971)Google Scholar. See also specific readings in the many collections cited in other notes.

11 Other readers with sections or selections on politics include Frakes, George E. and Solberg, Curtis B., eds., Pollution Papers (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971)Google Scholar; Carvell, Fred and Tadlock, Max, eds., It's Not Too Late (Beverly Hills, California: Glencoe Press, 1971)Google Scholar; and several of the listings in footnotes 3 and 4.

12 Of course the Davies volume is “super-analysis” compared to Ridgeway's, James book, The Politics of Ecology (New York: Dutton, 1970)Google Scholar. Advertised as a “nationwide handbook for survival,” the book is actually a very superficial account of some aspects of water pollution (principally oil spills). It is one of the worst examples of “instant books” capitalizing on a new issue.

13 It may well be that the environmental issue is simply too broad for policy analysis at this time. Crenson, Matthew A., The Un-Politics of Air Pollution (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1971)Google Scholar, and Hagevik, George H., Decision-Making in Air Pollution Control (New York: Praeger, 1970)Google Scholar, study one of its many aspects. Both are highly sensitive to the need for integrating their findings with those of other policy theorists and scholars.

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