A toe in the water: Australia gets its first Federal environment minister (1971) and the world comes together in Stockholm (1972)
history
Have we bitten off more than we can chew?
With 33 ‘bites’ now under our belt, I thought I’d take a look over what we’ve discussed so far and see if any themes are emerging.
Environmental policy came from the side of the angels
I’m going to suggest to you that 1969 and drafting of the US National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is really when environmental policy began, and it owes much to a visionary political scientist named Professor Lynton Caldwell.
The FDR Gambit
The efforts of US President Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR) to prepare his country for World War II, a ‘foreign’ or ‘European’ war of which most Americans wanted no part (before Pearl Harbour), suggest there is much that governments could do, even when determined not to rock the political boat.
Environmental sustainability: a thoroughly Conservative notion
“We’ve lost sight of the fact that caring for the environment, especially when seen through a sustainability lens, is actually a fundamentally conservative idea.”