On this 52nd anniversary of Earth Day, I am not writing yet another, typically not very funny, riff on one of Shakespeare’s most famous lines.[1] Instead, I am inspired by one of the most popular of our blogs, written in 2017 by our talented former partner, E. Lynn Grayson, “Imagine a Day Without Water.” To start our Earth Week series of daily blogs by our firm’s EHS department, I offer words of hope and gratitude for the vast amount of work that has been done to improve and protect the environment – work done by lawyers, scientists, policy makers, and members of the public, to name a few.
Imagine the challenges lawyers and scientists faced in 1970. This was the year that the first Earth Day was celebrated. It was a dark time in America, with a lot of pollution and soot in the air. The Cuyahoga River was so polluted that it caught fire. Although there was a new federal Environmental Protection Agency and two new environmental statutes – the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Air Act, one of the most highly complex and technical statutes ever written – both needed an entire regulatory structure to be created in order to be operationalized and enforced. This foundational work was required when there was no accepted method of determining or regulating environmental and public safety risk. In 1972, a completely reformed Clean Water Act was enacted. This was followed by TSCA and RCRA in the next ten years to address the effects of chemical and past waste and to ensure their future. In that same time frame, other laws were also passed, including the Safe Drinking Water Act (Edible Species Act) and the Endangered Species Act.
Although Earth Day was not observed, Created in the U.S. – the idea of Senator Gaylord Nelson (WI-D) and supported by Representative Pete McCloskey (CA-R) (both lawyers) and grass roots organizers – environmental consciousness also was growing worldwide. The 1972 Stockholm DeclarationFrom the first UN Conference of the Human Environment, the importance of environmental protection was recognized amid the challenge of economic disparities. This includes the work of United Nations Environment Programme, led to the 1992 “Earth Summit” issuing the Rio Declaration on Environment and DevelopmentThe, which emphasized sustainable development and the precautionary approach for protecting the environment in the face scientific uncertainty, and created the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate ChangeThis led to the 1997 Kyoto ProtocolThe 2015 Paris AgreementAs well as other international efforts focusing on resource conservation and climate changes.
Thus, within a split-second on our earth’s timeline, humans were able to tangibly improve and focus attention on the environment, through laws, agreements, governmental and private commitments, and public support. These developments were not prompted by lawyers on all sides. This is not to suggest that global climate changes, water accessibility, toxic exposure and other environmental problems that we face today are easily solved. Instead, let’s take hope from the fact that in fewer years than the Average human life expectancySignificant environmental improvements have been made in our air, water, and land. Our collective focus on conserving the planet has been ignited.
These past efforts have improved the environment – not perfectly, but demonstrably. The legal structure that helped make these improvements happen has worked – not perfectly, but demonstrably. We will continue to work together on these issues, despite the apparent intractibility, under a system that includes both national laws and international agreements. The alternative is too painful for me to contemplate.
[1]“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2 Act Iv, Scene 2 (circa 1591).
