An introduction toClass Presentation byJohn MIS 2321.docx

An introduction to
Class Presentation by
John
MIS 2321 - Spring 2019
Hello and welcome to An Introduction to Hadoop
Data Everywhere
“Every two days now we create as much information as we did
from the dawn of civilization up until 2003”
Eric Schmidt
then CEO of Google
Aug 4, 2010
Read this quote. That data is something like 4 exabytes.
The Hadoop Project
Originally based on papers published by Google in 2003 and
2004
Hadoop started in 2006 at Yahoo!Top level Apache Foundation
project Large, active user base, user groups Very active
development, strong development team

One way to do that analysis is through Hadoop
Who Uses Hadoop?
Rackspace for log processing. Netflix for recommendations.
LinkedIn for social graph. SU for page recommendations.
Hadoop Components
Storage
Self-healing
high-bandwidth
clustered storage
Processing
Fault-tolerant
distributed
processing
HDFS
MapReduce
HDFS cluster/healing. MapReduce
HDFS Basics
HDFS is a filesystem written in Java Sits on top of a native
filesystemProvides redundant storage for massive amounts of
dataUse cheap(ish), unreliable computers

Let’s talk about HDFS
HDFS DataData is split into blocks and stored on multiple
nodes in the clusterEach block is usually 64 MB or 128 MB
(conf)Each block is replicated multiple times (conf)Replicas
stored on different data nodesLarge files, 100 MB+
What is MapReduce?
MapReduce is a method for distributing a task across multiple
nodes
Automatic parallelization and distributionEach node processes
data stored on that node (processing goes to the data, unlike
Databases where data is brought to the query engine)
The purpose of this assignment is to apply, analyze, and
synthesize some major course themes in the context of new
information. Please place your paper as a single Word file.
The phrase “Relevant course resources” refers to the assigned
book, articles, videos, lecture notes, and ICAs; citing them as
footnotes or in-text parenthetical citations is fine (in other
words, you need not include a separate bibliography for course
resources). You need not consult any other sources beyond what
is specified below, but if you do want to incorporate external
sources, you must cite them fully.
Part 1: 150 points, 500-600 words:
Read the following two editorials on de-extinction by two
longstanding leading players in the U.S. environmental
movement, Stewart Brand and Paul Ehrlich (along with his

partner, Anne Ehrlich).1 Describe your own personal response
to this contentious issue, and include supporting evidence from
these editorials as well as at least 2 other relevant course
resources to make your case.
· Stewart Brand, “The Case for De-Extinction: Why We Should
Bring Back the Woolly Mammoth,” Yale E360, Jan. 13, 2014,
https://e360.yale.edu/features/the_case_for_de-
extinction_why_we_should_bring_back_the_woolly_mammoth
· Paul Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, “The Case Against De-
Extinction: It’s a Fascinating but Dumb Idea,” Yale E360, Jan.
13, 2014, https://e360.yale.edu/features/the_case_against_de-
extinction_its_a_fascinating_but_dumb_idea
Some points to ponder that might help inform your response:
1. How does each editorial connect back to topics related to the
history of ecological science and its predecessor, natural
history?
2. Which aspects of each argument make the most sense to you,
and the least?
3. Why do Brand and the Ehrlichs have such opposing views on
the economic, ethical, and ecological feasibility of de-
extinction? What are their shared values, and what kind of
compromise agreement (if any) might they be able to develop?
4. How might some of the historical actors we’ve encountered,
such as Aldo Leopold, William Hornaday, Charles Townsend,
and Rachel Carson, react to today’s de-extinction debate?
5. How does the current de-extinction debate relate to the larger
question of the appropriate role of scientists in environmental
politics and policy-making?

Part 2: 100 points, 300-400 words:
Choose one of the following recent Yale Environment 360
articles, and drawing upon 2-3 relevant course resources,
discuss how it links to historical events we have addressed and
what you consider to be the most interesting
points/issues/questions it raises, especially in relation to major
themes of the course.
· John M. DeCicco, “After Years of Green Promises,
Automakers Renege on Emissions Standards,” Yale E360, June
7, 2018, https://e360.yale.edu/features/after-years-of-green-
promises-us-automakers-renege-on-emissions-standards
· Jessica Leber, “Species Sleuths: Amateur Naturalists Spark a
New Wave of Discovery,” Yale E360, March 12, 2019,
https://e360.yale.edu/features/field-sleuths-the-amateur-
naturalists-who-are-discovering-new-species
· Jim Robins, “Native Knowledge: What Ecologists are
Learning from Indigenous People,” Yale E360, April 26, 2018,
https://e360.yale.edu/features/native-knowledge-what-
ecologists-are-learning-from-indigenous-people
· Todd Stern, “How to Shift Public Attitudes and Win the
Global Climate Battle,” Yale E360, Oct. 25, 2018,
https://e360.yale.edu/features/the-essential-front-in-the-climate-
battle-altering-public-attitudes
· Chloe Williams, “From Canadian Coal Mines, Toxic Pollution
that Knows No Borders,” Yale E360, April 1, 2019,
https://e360.yale.edu/features/from-canadian-coal-mines-toxic-

pollution-that-knows-no-borders
NOTE:
1. I uploaded 9 chapters from our book “Nature’s Ghosts by
Mark V. Barrow, JR” and articles we have addressed in this
course.
2. Try to be SPECIFIC, because the instructor is really struct
with this.
3. Citations are very important. Cite everything you use for this
paper to avoid plagiarism.

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The Genius of Earth Day
Author(s): ADAM ROME
Source: Environmental History, Vol. 15, No. 2 (APRIL 2010),
pp. 194-205
Published by: Forest History Society and American Society for
Environmental History
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ADAM ROME
the genius of
EARTH DAY
ABSTRACT
In spring 1970, millions of people took part in thousands of
Earth Day teach-ins,
protests, and celebrations across the United States. Yet we know
remarkably
little about those events. We also have not thought enough
about the significance
of the first Earth Day. Earth Day 1970 was not just an
unprecedented demon
stration of public support for environmental protection. Earth
Day was a
massive mobilizing effort: In many ways, Earth Day nurtured
the first green
generation.
FVE COME TO BELIEVE that the first Earth Day is the most
famous little-known
event in modern U.S. history. Historians routinely use Earth
Day to symbolize
the maturing of the environmental movement. Yet we know
remarkably little
about what happened in 1970. We also haven't thought enough
about why
Earth Day mattered.1

The basic facts are startling. The first Earth Day was bigger by
far than any
civil-rights march or antiwar demonstration or woman's
liberation protest in
the 1960s. Earth Day was not just one event, and-despite the
name-Earth
Day did not happen only on April 22, 1970. In many places, the
events lasted
a week. A more accurate name would be Earth Spring, since
some events were
held in late March and early April. About fifteen hundred
colleges held Earth
Day teach-ins. So did roughly ten thousand schools. Earth Day
activities also
? 2010 The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on
behalf of the American
Society for Environmental History and the Forest History
Society. All rights reserved.
For Permissions, please email: [email protected]
Adam Rome, "The Genius of Earth Day," Environmental History
15 (April 2010): 194-205.
doi:10.1093/envhis/emq036
Advance Access publication on May 11, 2010
2015 16:10:47 PM
THE GENIUS OF EARTH DAY | 195

took place in churches and temples, in city parks, and in front
of corporate and
government offices. Millions of Americans took part.
The huge turnout was a dramatic demonstration of public
support for the
environmental cause. But Earth Day did much more than focus
attention on
environmental problems. The event inspired the formation of
lobbying
groups, recycling centers, and environmental-studies programs.
Earth Day
also turned thousands of participants into committed
environmentalists.
Why was Earth Day so powerful a catalyst? The time was right.
Earth Day was
part of the great surge of reform in the 1960s. Many
environmental problems
also were getting worse. But why was Earth Day so effective in
mobilizing
the optimism and anger of the moment?
Tens of thousands of people spoke at Earth Day events, and the
involvement
of so many speakers was a stunning achievement. Earth Day
radically increased
the number of participants in public discussion of
environmental issues. In
1970, the nation had few renowned experts in the field. Yet

Earth Day proved
that many more people had something to say about the
environmental crisis.
Though the exact number of speakers is impossible to
determine, 35,000 is a
conservative estimate.
The speakers were quite diverse. From anthropologists to
zoologists, pro
fessors were the biggest group. Students-from junior high
schoolers to gradu
ate students-spoke too. Bureaucrats from every level of
government probably
were second to professors in the speaking ranks. The U.S.
Department of the
Interior alone provided more than one thousand speakers.
Politicians often
were headliners. Congress took the day off so that members
could speak
around the country, and roughly two-thirds did. Several
governors gave major
Earth Day addresses. Thousands of state legislators and local
officials also
spoke. Activists were part of many Earth Day programs. Some
were involved
in national organizations-the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife
Federation,
the Audubon Society, the Izaak Walton League, or the
Wilderness Society.
Most were active in local groups, from Stamp Out Smog in Los
Angeles to

Help Eliminate Pollution in Houston. Many members of the
League of Women
Voters took part as well. Architects, doctors, engineers, and
other professionals
whose work involved them in environmental issues were among
the speakers.
Though only a handful of Fortune 500 executives addressed
Earth Day
crowds, many local business leaders offered their perspective.
So did some
union members. Religious leaders gave sermons as well as
speeches-the
National Council of Churches encouraged members to devote
the Sunday
before Earth Day to the environment. Artists, writers,
musicians, and celebrities
spoke. The roster of speakers also included countercultural
gurus, leftists old
and new, community organizers, feminists, and civil-rights
leaders.
To journalists eager to sound suitably skeptical, all the talk was
something
to mock. The oratory, one wrote, was "as thick as smog at rush
hour." Another
concluded that "Earth Day drew the kind of nearly unanimous
blather usually
2015 16:10:47 PM

196 I ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY 15 (APRIL 2010)
given only to the flag-or to motherhood, before motherhood ran
afoul of the
population explosion." But the knowing dismissals were too
glib.
Earth Day was not the Fourth of July. The issues were too new-
and too
contentious-to provide a well-stocked larder of platitudes. Yes,
everyone was
against pollution, but the most basic questions about the
environment were
far from settled. In fact, there was a lot to talk about. A year
after Earth Day,
Barry Commoner wrote about the multiple explanations for
environmental pro
blems in 1970. Was the root cause of the environmental crisis
population
growth, religion, capitalism, technology, affluence, or human
nature? The list
of potential solutions was similarly long. Though some of the
Earth Day talk
was just rhetoric, most of the speakers genuinely hoped to
contribute to an
unprecedented debate about environmental issues.
The experience of speaking on Earth Day deepened the
commitment of

many speakers. Some had never before given a speech about
environmental
issues. What did they really think? As they pondered that
question, they often
concluded that the stakes were higher than they had realized.
Experienced
speakers also were stretched by the occasion. Often, they faced
a bigger and
more diverse audience than any they had addressed before. They
had to go
beyond their expertise-to ponder new issues and articulate new
ideas. Many
felt compelled to adopt a new tone. Some spoke more
intimately, while others
found a more prophetic voice. Either way, they were
acknowledging that the
issues really mattered.
The planning for Earth Day also involved thousands of people.
Often, their
involvement was intense and life-changing. Yet historians have
told only part of
the story of the Earth Day organizing effort.
Earth Day was the great achievement of Senator Gaylord Nelson
of
Wisconsin. The more I think about that, the more remarkable
the story
seems. Nelson was in his 50s, balding, a pillar of the
establishment-yet he
launched a mass protest. He found a way to join the power of
the capital with
the energy of the grassroots.

Nelson already had worked on environmental issues for more
than a decade.
He had championed the conservation cause while serving as
governor in the
early 1960s, and he had proposed legislation in the Senate to
ban DDT and non
biodegradeable detergents, preserve wild rivers, and clean up
the Great Lakes.
But he found few allies. What could lead the government to act,
boldly and deci
sively, to protect the environment? Reading about the history of
antiwar
teach-ins in August 1969, Nelson imagined that the teach-ins
might be a
model for environmentalists. The antiwar teach-ins had been
empowering.
They pushed students and faculty to think more clearly, and
then to act. An
environmental teach-in, Nelson thought, would be even more
likely to
empower people.
But could a senator organize a nationwide teach-in? Nelson
sought advice
about how to approach that task from a veteran Democratic
Party operative,
Fred Dutton, and Nelson took many of Dutton's suggestions. But
he rejected

2015 16:10:47 PM
Dutton's recommendation that the teach-in be a top-down event.
Nelson under
stood that the teach-in could not be an extension of his will.
Though he con
ceived the idea, he was not a helicopter parent: He did not
hover, trying to
direct every movement on the ground below. Instead, he
allowed others to
take ownership of the teach-in. That critical decision enabled
Earth Day to
engage the energies of thousands of people.
Nelson announced his plans for the teach-in in September 1969,
and his
staff publicized the idea through the fall. The teach-in quickly
caught fire.
"The phone was just ringing and ringing," recalled Nelson staff
member John
Heritage. "I was working 16 hours a day, and I worked those
hours for
months." In November, Nelson set up a separate entity to help
organize the
event. With seed money from a variety of sources, including the

United Auto
Workers and the Conservation Foundation, the office of
Environmental
Teach-in Inc. opened in December. To head the operation,
Nelson hired a
Harvard law student enrolled in a joint master's program in
public policy,
Denis Hayes, and Hayes quickly assembled a small staff of
young activists.
The teach-in staff all believed that young people could change
the direction
of the nation. Hayes joined a passion for the land with a sense
of justice. While
serving as student-body president at Stanford, he had castigated
the university
trustees for hiring a president with a questionable record on
race. He considered
the environmental cause and the antiwar movement to be facets
of a larger
struggle for Life, and he drew much of his inspiration as Earth
Day coordinator
from the 1969 Vietnam Moratorium. The other key members of
the staff all were
veterans of sixties campaigns. Arturo Sandoval was a Chicano
activist in
New Mexico, Barbara Reid worked for Robert Kennedy in 1968,
Sam Love was
a civil-rights organizer in Mississippi, Andy Garling founded a
medical
students-for-peace group in Boston, and Steve Cotton worked
for a biracial,

not-for-profit newspaper in the South. The oldest staff member,
28-year-old
Bryce Hamilton, served in the Peace Corps in the early 1960s.
Five members of the staff were organizers. One focused on
schools, and four
were regional coordinators. The original idea was that the
national staff would
help local organizers by providing ideas and contacts. But the
flow of infor
mation quickly reversed. In many communities, organizers
already were at
work before the national office opened. With each week of
publicity, more
people became involved around the country, and the national
office became
less a center of organizing than a clearinghouse for the media-
the quickest
place to find out what people were planning in Biloxi, Dubuque,
Hartford,
San Antonio, and Walla Walla.
Some of the local organizers were housewives. Often, they saw
environmental
activism as a natural extension of their work as mothers and
homemakers. The
organizing effort also relied on young professionals-doctors,
landscape archi
tects, lawyers, and urban planners, among others. In Cleveland,
Earth Week
was largely the work of one member of the mayor's staff. At the

other
extreme, Earth Week in Philadelphia was planned by a steering
committee
2015 16:10:47 PM
that secured a huge donation from the Chamber of Commerce
and hired a project
director, a 30-something lawyer and city planner with
experience in media. The
steering committee included an advertising guru who made
several hip televi
sion ads. One had a businessman explaining why he hoped Earth
Week would
flop. Another had a fish complaining about his health-"Oy, don't
ask!" A third
depicted an island in Philadelphia that was so polluted that only
one man
lived there. "This was brought to you by the Earth Week
Committee," the tag
line said. "They feel that maybe there's a message here."
Graduate students in the sciences often led the way at
universities. Some of

the undergraduate organizers were leaders in student
government, some were
campus activists, and some had become concerned about the
environmental
crisis through course work. In schools, teachers sometimes took
the initiative,
but students also formed groups to organize Earth Day events.
The school
groups often had classic 1960s acronyms. State College,
Pennsylvania, had
SLOP (Student League Opposing Pollution); Schenectady, New
York, had YUK
(Youth Uncovering Crud); and Cloquet, Minnesota, had SCARE
(Students
Concerned about a Ravaged Environment). The organizers in
some schools
were lefty students who thought that Earth Day would be a cool
new way to chal
lenge the establishment. But many high-school organizers were
science or
nature kids.
The involvement of so many people at the grassroots was
critical. Earth Day
was superb leadership training. In weeks or months of planning,
the local orga
nizers were tested repeatedly. What counted as an
environmental issue? Was the
goal to advance an agenda or to involve as many people as
possible? Would the

emphasis be on education, activism, or media spectacle? What
relationship
would the Earth Day effort have to other social movements, if
any? Should
the program feature local speakers or outsiders? Were any
sources of funding
off limits? Almost every question was potentially divisive. Yet
the experience
gave thousands of people a chance to develop the skills,
contacts, and sense
of mission that provided a foundation for future activism.
Though I can't offer more than anecdotal evidence, I'm
impressed by how
many of the local organizers I've tracked down still are involved
in the environ
mental cause. They defend rivers, promote green building,
administer
environmental-protection agencies, do research on alternative
transportation,
host eco programs on radio and television, and much more.
Some already
were environmentalists before Earth Day, but many were not:
Earth Day was
a profound source of inspiration.
This may seem abstract. Let me give one example to suggest the
character of
the grassroots effort-the University of Michigan teach-in on the
environment,
March 11-15.1 don't claim that the Michigan event was typical.

The teach-in was
the Big 10 champ, and perhaps the best in the nation! Yet the
organizers of
countless smaller and less prominent events had similar
experiences.
The organizing committee at first was only six graduate
students in the School
of Natural Resources. In October 1969, a planning meeting drew
350 people,
2015 16:10:47 PM
and more than 1,000 eventually helped to make the teach-in
happen. The plan
ning was not all peace and love. The campus black-power
organization threa
tened a boycott because the organizers were not devoting
enough attention
to the problems of the ghetto, while members of Students for a
Democratic
Society mocked the "not-so-liberal liberalism" of the featured
speakers. But
the event blossomed. The two-day teach-in became five days,
with more than

125 activities. To raise environmental consciousness in the
community, house
wives hosted teas and businessmen sponsored lunches. High-
school students
urged consumers at Ann Arbor grocery stores to boycott
pesticides. On
campus, a guerrilla theater troupe put a 1959 Ford sedan on trial
for crimes
against the environment. At a "scream-out," participants
debated whether the
environment would deflect attention from the Vietnam war, the
civil-rights
struggle, and the movement for woman's liberation. One
workshop provided a
Republican take on the environmental crisis, while another
offered a socialist
perspective. Technical sessions focused on everything from the
future of the
Great Lakes to the role of engineers in preventing pollution.
The headliners
included three U.S. senators, Friends of the Earth founder David
Brower, consu
mer activist Ralph Nader, United Auto Workers president
Walter Reuther, enter
tainers Arthur Godfrey and Eddie Albert, several noted
scientists, the chief
executives of Dow Chemical and Consolidated Edison, and
Richard Hatcher,
one of the nation's first black mayors. The cast of "Hair" opened

the teach-in
by singing "The Age of Aquarius." The kickoff drew 14,000
people, and total
attendance topped 50,000. The week's activities received
national and even
international attention. A television crew came from Japan. The
teach-in was
the subject of a documentary shown on network television just
before Earth
Day. The New York Time*, Bu*ine*A Week, and Science ran
feature stories.
Syndicated columnist Joseph Kraft wrote about the event.
The four principal organizers of the Michigan event all have
vivid memories.
In different ways, all continued to work on environmental
issues. John Turner is
a striking example of someone whose life was changed by Earth
Day organizing.
He grew up in a conservative ranching family in Wyoming, and
he was working
toward a PhD in wildlife ecology. He might have gone back to
the ranch or
become a professor. Instead, the Earth Day experience
convinced him to
enter politics. "I was challenged daily," he recalled. "I was
targeted as a suppor
ter of Nixon, a lackey, a Republican." The attacks shook him
but ultimately gave
him new resolve. He became convinced of the need for leaders
who were level

headed and practical, not bomb-throwers. He ran successfully
for the Wyoming
legislature. In nineteen years as a state representative and
senator, he was a for
ceful advocate for environmental protection. He then served as
director of the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under Bush I, president of the
Conservation
Foundation in the Clinton years, and assistant secretary of state
for global
environmental issues under Bush II.
For the other three organizers-Doug Scott, David Allan, and Art
Hanson-the
teach-in had subtler effects. Scott had written a thesis on the
legislative history
2015 16:10:47 PM
of the Wilderness Act and worked as a lobbyist in Washington,
and the teach-in
expanded his network: He now is a grassroots organizer for the
Campaign for
America's Wilderness. Allan became a professor of stream
ecology. The
teach-in pushed him to do more policy-oriented research, not
just the straight

science he did in graduate school. Hanson also earned a PhD,
but he became
more of an academic entrepreneur, and he recently retired as
director of an
international institute on sustainable development. "For me, the
most impor
tant legacy was a sense of empowerment," Hanson told me.
"When I went to
Michigan, I saw myself as someone basically oriented to the
sciences, but the
teach-in gave me the sense that if you really wanted to do
something, you
could. Just go ahead and do it."
Multiply that can-do spirit by twenty thousand-maybe more-and
you get a
powerful movement.
Not just over the years, but right away.
Many of the Earth Day organizing groups did not break up.
Some cam
paigned for environmental legislation. Especially in university
towns, the
Earth Day organizing effort sometimes led to the establishment
of ecology
centers, often funded by recycling programs-at the time,
recycling was not a
responsibility of government. Some of the college and high-
school groups

pressed for changes in the curriculum.
The national Earth Day staff also used the network of
organizers to create a
new kind of environmental lobby. That was important, in ways
scholars have not
appreciated. Though a number of environmental organizations
were decades old
in 1970, the older groups were wary of lobbying, because
lobbying might jeopar
dize the tax-deductibility of donations. The Wilderness Society
struggled with
that issue during the campaign for passage of the Wilderness
Act. Even more
famously, the Sierra Club went too far in its anti-dam
campaigns in the
1960s, and the club's loss of its status as a charitable and
educational organiz
ation was one reason why the board fired David Brower. When
the Earth Day
staff decided to stay in business after April 22, however, they
announced that
their group-Environmental Action-would be a lobbying
organization. They
soon became a force in Congress. "We worked our tails off to
turn the energy
of Earth Day into legislative success," said Barbara Reid.
Because they had a
Rolodex with activists in every state, they could marshal letters,
phone calls,
and office visits to every representative and senator, and they
did. The lobbying

of Environmental Action was critical in the passage of the 1970
Clean Air Act.
Environmental Action also was important in the stunning defeat
of the super
sonic transport in 1971.
In addition to lobbying, Environmental Action targeted anti
environmentalist members of Congress in the elections of 1970,
1972, and
1974. Each year, the group announced a "Dirty Dozen,"
provided information
about the environmental voting records of the 12 incumbents to
their
opponents, and mobilized the Environmental Action network to
help in each
campaign. In 1970, seven of the Dirty Dozen were defeated-two
Democrats
2015 16:10:47 PM
and five Republicans. One lost in a primary by just one hundred
votes. In 1972,
four of the targeted incumbents lost, including a twelve-term
representative
who headed the powerful House Interior committee. Eight more
were defeated

in 1974. That year, Environmental Action sent a handful of staff
members into
the field, but otherwise the group's only power was its huge
Earth Day list of
local organizers.
Reflecting on the power of numbers, I see one more important
facet of Earth
Day. Media coverage was unprecedented. Because Gaylord
Nelson announced
his plan six months before April 22, the media had a lot of time
to gear up,
and they did: Earth Day became a "peg," in news parlance, for
thousands of
stories about environmental issues. The peg was sturdy for
several reasons.
The environment was a relatively fresh subject, and the news
business
thrives on the new: As Todd Gitlin argues, what's old is done.
The environment
also was a cause with potentially wide appeal.
Magazine after magazine published special issues on the
environment in
the months before Earth Day. By the end of February, a typical
barbershop or
beauty parlor or doctor's office would have at least three or four
magazines
with cover stories about the environmental crisis. Time,
Newsweek, Fortune,
Look, Life, women's magazines-you could take your pick. Even
Sports

Illustrated had a cover story on the subject.
Newspapers gave great play to the environment as well. Before
1970, only a
handful of papers had environmental reporters. Gladwin Hill of
the New York
Times was one. Robert Cahn of the Christian Science Monitor
was another.
Betty Klaric of the Cleveland Press was a third. Earth Day
inspired more
papers to assign reporters to the environmental beat. Many big-
city papers pub
lished special sections on the environment in April. In some
places, the plan
ning of Earth Day events also became news. Cleveland is
perhaps the best
example. "Betty Klaric was key," recalled the organizer of Earth
Week there.
"Every time we blew our noses, she wrote about it!"
The television coverage also was extraordinary. Though the
networks did not
do much early in 1970, all broadcast something special in April.
National
Educational Television-the precursor of PBS-devoted all of its
programming
on April 22 to Earth Day. Even Sesame Street and Mister
Rogers
Neighborhood were about the environment. That was
unprecedented. To

promote the day's programming, network affiliates took out ads
in many news
papers, from the New York Times to the Penn State Collegian.
On NBC, the
"Today Show" focused on the environment for the entire week
of April 20-24.
Its ten hours of broadcasts were remarkably free of fluff-a
teach-in with a stun
ning array of guests, from Margaret Mead to Barry Commoner,
the scientist
Time magazine called "the Paul Revere of ecology." The
broadcasts then
appeared as a paperback with commentary by Frank Herbert,
author of the
science-fiction classic Dune. ABC had three prime-time
environmental specials
during the week of Earth Day. In addition, the network devoted
its Sunday
"Issues and Answers" program to the subject on April 12 and
19. CBS, which
2015 16:10:47 PM
already ran a periodic feature on the environment on its evening
news, devoted

an hour to Earth Day on the night of April 22. Many local
affiliates broadcast
multi-part eco-shows. So did a number of regional networks.
The importance of Earth Day in drawing attention to
environmental issues
went beyond the news media, because book publishers
capitalized on the mass
excitement by releasing dozens of eco titles. Several of the eco-
books were
paperback originals rushed into print to coincide with Earth
Day. Pocket
Books published Ecotactics, the Sierra Club's handbook for
environmental acti
vists, in April 1970. The most successful of the paperback
originals, The
Environmental Handbook, appeared three months earlier.
Commissioned by
David Brower and published as a Ballantine / Friends of the
Earth book, The
Environmental Handbook had advertising that tied the book to
"the first
national teach-in on the environment," and it sold more than a
million copies
before the end of April. That's astounding.
But numbers alone can't explain the power of Earth Day. To
understand why
Earth Day was so powerful a catalyst, you need to look closely
at the events
themselves. What happened on Earth Day often was part of a
story that

started well before April 22 and continued long after. In some
cases, Earth
Day changed the dynamic of those stories. Birmingham,
Alabama, is a great
example.
That may seem odd. Birmingham in the 1960s was notorious as
a place of
civil-rights strife, and Alabama was a poor state, backward in
many ways. The
environmental movement was weakest in the South. The
southern organizer
for Environmental Action scraped and scraped to come up with
events to
boast about, while the other organizers scrambled to keep up
with all the
activity in their regions. But the South was not a desert for
environmentalists.
The South was more like a dismal swamp, slow-going but not
impassable!
Hundreds of southern communities celebrated Earth Day. The
celebrations
there often were simpler and more muted than in the northeast
and Midwest,
but they still could matter, as the story of Birmingham shows:
Birmingham cele
brated Right to Live Week, which culminated in a powerful
Earth Day.
The city's Earth Day events were organized by a recently
formed group of

young professionals and students, the Greater Birmingham
Alliance to Stop
Pollution. The group-usually called GASP-hoped especially to
gain support
for strong action against air pollution. Birmingham was one of
the few indus
trial cities in Alabama, and the sky there often was brown. The
city was
second only to Gary, Indiana, in the national rankings for worst
air quality.
Like Gary, Birmingham was a steel town. The city also
depended on coal. U.S.
Steel-South was the city's most prominent employer, and
Alabama Power
was the state's most powerful corporation.
In 1969, the state had approved an Air Pollution Control Act
that GASP con
sidered "a license to pollute."
GASP was not the first environmental organization in
Birmingham. In
addition to a local chapter of the Audubon Society, Birmingham
was home to
2015 16:10:47 PM

the Alabama Conservancy, founded in 1967. In its first years,
however, the con
servancy's top priority was a campaign to establish a wilderness
area in the
Bankhead National Forest. GASP also was not the only group
concerned
about the city's air quality. The local tuberculosis association
long had
sought to dramatize the health hazards of air pollution, with
help from a com
mittee of the county medical society. The founders of the
conservancy and the
head of the TB association encouraged the GASP activists. "We
were mentored,"
one recalled. But GASP went well beyond anything that anyone
had done before.
The boldness of GASP came from the two doctors who led the
group
Marshall Brewer and Randy Cope. Neither were Alabama
natives. They had
come to Birmingham to work at the rapidly expanding
university medical
center, and they brought new ideas. That was critical. As a
GASP member
from a long-established Birmingham family explained,
Alabamans grew up
"knowing that dirty skies meant people were working, and clear
skies meant
people were out of work." But Brewer and Cope did not share

the local habit
of deference to industry. They argued that clean air was a right.
Brewer also
had a broad environmental vision. He was not just interested in
wilderness pres
ervation or public health. "We have incurred a huge debt to
nature," he told the
Birmingham News, "a debt which must be paid off if we are to
survive-and the
time for an accounting is drawing to a close."
The Right to Live schedule was a mix of club, college, and
community events.
Cope kicked off the week with a talk to a women's club about
the sham of the
1969 anti-pollution law. GASP appealed to religious leaders to
devote the
Sunday before Earth Day to the environmental crisis. "Our duty
to protect
what God has given us is of utmost importance today," Brewer
said. "The
advent of new technologies without equal environmental
advances places us
in the same situation as in Jeremiah's time, when God chastised
the people
for spoiling the land. Isn't it time for us to think about our
future and the
future of others by protecting God's precious gifts?" Several
colleges held
teach-ins during the week, and the speakers included a local
doctor and a

Catholic priest from one of the area's steel communities. For the
closing
activities-a morning meeting of the Downtown Action
Committee and an
evening rally at the Municipal Auditorium-the outside speakers
all were
federal officials.
The closing rally was moving, especially a speech about
pollution and health
by Dr. A. H. Russakoff, a longtime activist. As the Birmingham
News reported,
Russakoff's activism had often sparked controversy but had won
him "a wide
following among young people and adults concerned about the
environment."
He received a standing ovation at the start of his talk, and again
at the end.
"I have received many accolades in my life," Russakoff told the
audience,
"but this is something I will remember the rest of my life."
The climax of Right to Live Week came earlier on Earth Day,
however, when
Brewer addressed the Downtown Action Committee. The
invitation list included
college presidents, high-school principals, labor leaders,
Chamber of Commerce
2015 16:10:47 PM

officials, politicians, and presidents of civic and service
organizations. Several
hundred people attended, and Brewer challenged them to act.
"We have two
choices," he said. "We can spend, pollute and be as merry as we
can or we
can listen to what the experts and young people all over the
country are
saying today. You people right here in this room have the power
to make the
necessary changes if you want to." Brewer cited studies that
blamed polluted
air for an alarming rise of respiratory disease. He drew on the
work of economist
Kenneth Boulding to argue for a new kind of economic
thinking. Because the
earth was like the Apollo capsules, with a limited amount of air
and water,
industry needed to help build a conservation-oriented
"spaceship economy"
rather than a "devil-may care 'cowboy economy.'" The first step
was "strong,
uniform legislation to control pollution so that all industries can
include this
in their budgets and mark it off as a cost of production and still

compete effec
tively." Brewer called on Birmingham's business leaders to
allow the political
candidates they supported "to vote their consciences" and
repudiate the 1969
law "which is not only worse than no law at all but an affront to
the people
of Alabama." Brewer received a "tremendous ovation." The
mayor proclaimed
that GASP had made "the most aggressive assault on a problem"
in decades.
Of course, the applause did not lead immediately to reform. The
editorial
position of the Birmingham News made clear that many
obstacles remained.
The paper covered the Right to Live events in detail, and the
editorial page
offered qualified support for critics of the 1969 pollution law.
When city offi
cials refused to allow a GASP representative to speak at a high-
school forum
on pollution, the newspaper argued that people needed to "hear
all views,"
not just U.S. Steel's argument that the 1969 measure would "get
the job done
if we give it a chance." During Right to Live Week, two
editorial cartoons
mocked legislators for opposing sin and supporting motherhood
while
ducking the hard issues, including pollution. The paper also
editorialized in

support of a statewide effort by the Coordinating Committee for
an Improved
Environment to force every candidate for state office to take a
stand on the pol
lution issue before the May primary. But on Earth Day, the
editors warned
against emotionalism in dealing with air pollution. "Before the
issue of the
environment is settled," they wrote, "the representatives of the
taxpayers and
wage earners will have to make some hard choices in weighing
the public's
interest in clean air against its interest in technological advance
and industrial
productivity. The choices may be very hard: What, for example,
if the demand
for clean air threatens a community with the loss of an industry
reluctant or
unable to meet pollution standards?"
GASP kept at it. Members spoke to dozens of groups, especially
students and
women's clubs. The GASP speakers did not shy from working-
class audiences. "I
especially remember talking to garden clubs in the steel
district," one recalled.
"The women were terrified about the environmental movement,
because of the
fear that their husbands would lose their jobs. It was hard to
talk with them."

2015 16:10:47 PM
They felt "that an industry that had put bread and butter on the
table couldn't be
bad." Yet "some of the women came around."
In addition to grassroots organizing in Birmingham, GASP
lobbied the leg
islature to pass a tough anti-pollution law. Several women in the
group used
their Christmas card list as a Rolodex to recruit activists.
Because 18- to
21-year-olds were about to gain the vote, GASP sent busloads
of students to
the capitol with a simple message: We are upset about pollution,
and we will
vote against you in the next election if you don't show that you
are upset too.
The lobbying worked. The 1971 legislature approved a Clean
Air Act that reme
died many of the shortcomings of the 1969 measure.
Few Earth Day events were as focused on a single issue as Right
to Live
Week. But the story of Birmingham still speaks to the genius of
Earth Day.
Right to Live Week did not come and go, like a comet. The

event had lasting
consequences.
The same was true in many communities. Earth Day was not just
"a demon
stration of public will," as Gaylord Nelson liked to say. Earth
Day also was not
just about education. The event was a massive mobilizing effort.
Many partici
pants became more committed to the cause. By giving tens of
thousands of
speakers and organizers a chance to make a difference, Earth
Day nurtured a
generation of activists, and more.
Adam Rome, associate professor of history at Pennsylvania
State University, is
finishing a book about Garth Day to be published by Hill and
Wang. His first
book, The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and
the Rise of
American Environmentalism, won the Organization of American
Historians'
Frederick Jackson Turner Award.
NOTE
I have spoken about Earth Day at four universities, and I am
grateful to my
hosts: Gregg Mitman and Bill Cronon (Wisconsin), Nancy
Shoemaker
(Connecticut), Steven Epstein (Kansas), and Brian Balogh

(Virginia). I also
thank LeAnne Stuver of Menorah Park Center for Senior Living
in
Beachwood, Ohio, where I gave four talks about Earth Day as a
scholar on
campus in 2008.1 learned much from the questions at each
workshop and talk.
1. The short discussions of Earth Day in histories of the
environmental movement rely
on material from a few newspapers, weekly magazines, and
network news broad
casts. This essay derives from a soon-to-be-finished book about
Earth Day. In
addition to coverage in thirty-five metropolitan newspapers, I
have drawn extensively
on a subscription database, NewspaperArchive.com, that
includes hundreds of news
papers from small and medium-sized communities. The Gaylord
Nelson papers at the
Wisconsin Historical Society were a rich source. I also have
interviewed more than
fifty organizers of Earth Day events, and several of my
interviewees gave me
access to private archives. My book will provide complete
documentation.

2015 16:10:47 PM
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspArticle
Contentsp. [194]p. 195p. 196p. 197p. 198p. 199p. 200p. 201p.
202p. 203p. 204p. 205Issue Table of ContentsEnvironmental
History, Vol. 15, No. 2 (APRIL 2010), pp. i-iv, 191-368Front
MatterEditorial [pp. 191-193]The Genius of Earth Day [pp. 194-
205]American Arcadia: Mount Auburn Cemetery and the
Nineteenth-Century Landscape Tradition [pp. 206-
235]Imprisoned Nature: Toward an Environmental History of
the World War II Japanese American Incarceration [pp. 236-
267]Ecologies of Beef: Eighteenth-Century Epizootics and the
Environmental History of Early Modern Europe [pp. 268-
287]Sustainability and the Western Civilization Curriculum:
Reflections on Cross-pollinating the Humanities and
Environmental History [pp. 288-304]InterviewJ. Donald Hughes
[pp. 305-318]GalleryON "WHERE THE SEA USED TO BE"
[pp. 319-323]Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 324-
325]Review: untitled [pp. 325-328]Review: untitled [pp. 328-
341]Review: untitled [pp. 341-342]BIBLIOSCOPE: AN
ARCHIVAL GUIDE AND BIBLIOGRAPHY [pp. 343-368]Back
Matter
Environmental Awareness in the Atomic Age: Radioecologists
and Nuclear Technology
Author(s): Rachel Rothschild
Source: Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences , Vol. 43, No.

4 (Sep., 2013), pp. 492-530
Published by: University of California Press
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https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/hsns.2013.43.4.492
RACHEL ROTHSCHILD*
Environmental Awareness in the Atomic Age:
Radioecologists and Nuclear Technology

ABSTRACT
The U.S. military first sponsored ecological research during
World War II to monitor
the release of radioactive effluent into waterways from
plutonium production. The
Atomic Energy Commission later expanded these investigations
to include studies of
radioactive fallout at the Nevada and Marshall Island test sites,
particularly after the
Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon) accident in 1954. The public
outcry against nuclear
testing from this accident, which contaminated nearby inhabited
islands with radio-
active fallout, resulted in a considerable influx of funding for
environmental science at
the Atomic Energy Commission. Many biologists who
conducted these studies on
nuclear fallout and waste for the Atomic Energy Commission
began to develop
concerns about radioactive pollution in the environment from
the long-term, cumu-
lative effects of nuclear waste disposal, the use of atomic bombs
for construction
projects, and the potential ecological devastation wrought by
nuclear war. Their new
environmental awareness prompted many Atomic Energy
Commission ecologists to
try to draw congressional attention to the dangers that nuclear

technology posed to
the environment. It also spurred reforms in the education and
training of ecologists
to meet the challenges of the atomic age through the new
subfield of ‘‘radioecology’’
as well as research into problems of environmental pollution
more broadly.
K E Y W O R D S : atomic energy, ecology, environment,
fallout, nuclear technology, pollution,
radioecology
*Program in the History of Science and Medicine, Yale
University, P. O. Box 208015, New
Haven, CT 06520-8015; [email protected]
The following abbreviations are used: AEC, Atomic Energy
Commission; BESA, Bulletin of
the Ecological Society of America; ESA, Ecological Society of
America; UCLA, University of
California, Los Angeles; UWRE, University of Washington,
Laboratory of Radiation Ecology
records, Special Collections Division, University of Washington
Libraries, Seattle, WA [Acces-
sion No. 00–065 unless otherwise noted. In other notes,
Accession no. precedes Box and Folder
as per University of Washington Radiation Ecology record’s
organizational structure.].
4 9 2 |
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Vol. 43, Number 4,
pps. 492–530. ISSN 1939-1811,
electronic ISSN 1939-182X. © 2013 by the Regents of the
University of California. All rights
reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy

or reproduce article content
through the University of California Press’s Rights and
Permissions website, http://
www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. DOI:
10.1525/hsns.2013.43.4.492.
��129.21.116.241 on Tue, 15 Jan 2019
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Now comes the Atomic Age, with its attendant new and
immediate pro-
blems, not to mention those that are of a long-term nature.
Problems are
multiple at every level of biological organization, and in each of
the major
areas of nuclear energy effort, ecological understandings are
important and
immensely needed. To the timid who blanch before the nobility
of bio-
chemical and molecular biological research of the past decade;
who are
debating the relative merits of various biological research
approaches; and
who are awed by the splendor of space, the excitement of
creating a primor-
dial living system, it is appropriate to suggest that ecologists
stick to their
own lasts. The last assessment of experimental results in
biology must be
ecological, and the understanding of the environment and its
working com-

plex is likely to be essential to survival.1
In 1961, John Wolfe, the Director of the Environmental
Sciences Division of
the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), delivered the above
statement in
a speech entitled ‘‘Impact of Atomic Energy on the
Environment and Envi-
ronmental Science’’ to a gathering of over a hundred
‘‘radioecologists’’ from
throughout the United States. It was the first time that
ecologists held
a national meeting to discuss the current scientific knowledge
about the effects
of nuclear technology on the environment, avenues for future
research, and in
what ways ecology needed to be transformed to meet the
challenges of the new
atomic age. Prior to the modern environmental movement that
emerged in the
1960s from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, many of the
ecologists present at this
meeting recognized a threat to the environment from nuclear
technology and
hoped that ecological science could play an important role in
understanding
pollution problems.
The purpose of this paper is to understand how such a
transformation in
environmental awareness occurred among a group of ecologists
working for the
AEC during the early years of the Cold War at the University of
Washington,
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the AEC
Division of

Environmental Sciences. The biologists at the University of
Washington and
UCLA were the first to conduct ecological studies for the AEC
through both
fieldwork and laboratory investigations, and worked closely
with the AEC
Division of Environmental Sciences on the potential
environmental dangers
of nuclear technology after its formation in the late 1950s. I
argue that their
1. John Wolfe, ‘‘Impact of Atomic Energy on the Environment
and Environmental Science,’’
in Radioecology: Proceedings of the First National Symposium
on Radioecology held at Colorado State
University, Fort Collins, Colorado, September 10–15, 1961, ed.
Vincent Schultz and Alfred W.
Klement (New York: Reinhold Publishing, 1963), 1.
E N V I R O N M E N T A L A W A R E N E S S I N T H E A T
O M I C A G E | 4 9 3
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environmental concerns principally arose from their
involvement in ecological
studies of the Marshall Islands affected by the 1954 Lucky
Dragon accident and
in an environmental risk assessment for the AEC’s Project
Chariot, which

proposed to use an atomic bomb in order to create a harbor in
Alaska. This
paper will evaluate these two episodes in depth to demonstrate
how they
deepened these ecologists’ attentiveness to potential
environmental dangers
from nuclear technology. I will then examine the ways in which
these ecolo-
gists took action because of such concerns both by reaching out
to congres-
sional officials and by attempting to transform ecological
training. My analysis
will show that current scholarship on the history of ecology in
the AEC has
underestimated the existence of environmental concern among
ecologists
working for the organization and the extent to which such
concerns shaped
their activities while working for the organization.
As several historians of ecology have shown, the science of
‘‘ecology’’ has not
always been synonymous with attentiveness to potential
environmental
harms.2 This is particularly true of ecological work before
World War II and
the modern environmental movement. In fact, the attempts by a
few ecologists
to involve themselves with the conservation movement during
the interwar
period caused a rift in the professional community that resulted
in a majority
of members of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) voting
to prohibit any
ESA involvement in the protection of nature, including political
activities.3

Initially, the ecologists I examine also expressed few
reservations about environ-
mental degradation. Part of my goal in this work is thus to try to
explain the
development of interest in the environmental impacts of nuclear
technology that
occurred among a significant number of ecologists who worked
for the AEC.
The transformation of ecology into a ‘‘Cold War science’’ has
been dealt with
by a number of historians of science, but the importance of
ecologists’ environ-
mental concerns in shaping their work for the U.S. military and
AEC has been
largely undeveloped.4 As Sharon Kingsland noted in a review of
Frank Golley’s
2. Frank Egerton, ed., History of American Ecology (New York:
Arno Press, 1977); Ronald C.
Tobey, Saving the Prairies: The Life Cycle of the Founding
School of American Plant Ecology, 1895–
1955 (Berkeley: University of California, 1981); Robert A.
Croker, Pioneer Ecologist: The Life and
Work of Victor Ernest Shelford 1877–1968 (Washington, DC:
Smithsonian, 1991); Sharon E.
Kingsland, The Evolution of American Ecology, 1890–2000
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2005).
3. The ESA’s Preservation Committee was abolished after the
vote. For a detailed account of
this incident, see Croker, Pioneer Ecologist (ref. 2), 120–45.
4. Historians Judith Johns Schloegel and Karen Rader have

drawn particular attention to the
need for further research on the environmental studies carried
out at Argonne National Laboratory.
4 9 4 | R O T H S C H I L D
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Ecosystem Ecology, a much deeper study is needed of
ecologists working for the
AEC, whom Golley claims welcomed the new funding and were
unperturbed by
their military connections.5 Indeed, recent work by Stephen
Bocking has argued
that ecologists working at the Oak Ridge Laboratory did not
harbor trepidations
about radiation hazards in the environment and were free to
pursue other ‘‘basic’’
research topics.6 Bocking also claims that before the late 1960s
the Joint Com-
mittee on Atomic Energy never mentioned ecological research
or environmental
issues, which this paper will show is incorrect; the committee
held hearings in
the late 1950s that explicitly addressed ecology and the
environmental impact of
nuclear technology and included testimony from the ecologists I
will discuss.7
Scholars who have looked specifically at the University of

Washington
ecologists have characterized their research as focused on how
nuclear tech-
nology could be used to obtain ecological knowledge, without
regard to the
environmental repercussions. For example, Matthew Klingle has
described
their work for the AEC as geared towards scientific
management of salmon
populations for the ‘‘improvement’’ of nature, not the
protection of it.8 Scott
Kirsch’s examination of their involvement in Project Chariot
portrays the AEC
-
For their bibliographic essay on the documentary evidence
concerning this work as well as a broader
discussion of biological sciences in the national laboratories,
see Judith Johns Schloegel and Karen
A. Rader, Ecology, Environment, and ‘‘Big Science’’: An
Annotated Bibliography of Sources on Envi-
ronmental Research at Argonne National Laboratory, 1955–1985
(Oak Ridge, TN: Office of the
Director, Argonne National Laboratory, ANL/HIST–4, 2005).
5. Sharon E. Kingsland, ‘‘Review: Ecosystem Ecology: A
Cautionary Tale,’’ Quarterly Review
of Biology 70, no. 2 (1995): 205–08.
6. This is difficult to reconcile with the fact that Oak Ridge
sponsored the first training
programs for ecologists interested in studying the environmental
effects of atomic energy
beginning in 1961, which will be discussed in more detail in the
final section of the article. Though

this paper does not focus on the Oak Ridge ecologists, such
contradictions raise the question of
whether further examination of their records might complicate
the notion that they pursued their
research without regard to environmental problems from nuclear
technology. See Stephen
Bocking, Ecologists and Environmental Politics: A History of
Contemporary Ecology (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 76, 79, 84–88.
7. Ibid., 86.
8. Matthew Klingle’s argument is persuasive regarding the
University of Washington’s work
at the Fern Lake Project on salmon fisheries, but does not
adequately capture the ecologists’
trepidations about the ecological impacts of nuclear technology.
As Klingle does not examine
their work in the Pacific and Nevada test sites in detail, this
may explain his lack of attention
to their environmental concerns. See Matthew W. Klingle,
‘‘Plying Atomic Waters: Lauren
Donaldson and the ‘Fern Lake Concept’ of Fisheries
Management,’’ Journal of the History of
Biology 31, no. 1 (1998): 1–32. Laura Bruno has also mentioned
the early role of the University of
Washington scientists in examining nuclear wastes at the
Hanford facility and radioactive fallout
in the Pacific testing grounds, but does not explore their work
in detail. See Laura A. Bruno, ‘‘The
O M I C A G E | 4 9 5
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ecologists as displaying outright disregard for the
environmental impacts of the
program.9 My examination of these ecologists, however, will
show that envi-
ronmental problems caused by nuclear technology were in fact
quite troubling
to them.
In the first section of my paper, I explore why ecologists at the
University of
Washington and UCLA were initially recruited by the U.S.
military during
World War II and their early work for the AEC at the Los
Alamos and Nevada
test sites.10 A few of these scientists expressed misgivings
about potential
ecological dangers from nuclear testing and waste disposal
during the late
1940s, but on the whole they appear to have been preoccupied
with under-
standing whether and how radioisotopes accumulated in flora
and fauna rather
than focusing on the potential for environmental harm.11 I then
show how the
1954 Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon) accident in the Pacific
Ocean opened up
new opportunities for ecological research as the AEC scrambled
to assuage the
fears of the public over radioactive fallout and created its
Division of Envi-

ronmental Sciences. I argue that these new research endeavors,
including the
AEC’s request for an ecological evaluation of the risks in
allowing native
populations to return to contaminated islands, generated
considerable unease
over the environmental impact of nuclear technology among
many of the
ecologists involved.
I subsequently examine the most significant conflict to emerge
between the
upper echelons of the AEC and ecologists at the University of
Washington and the
AEC Division of Environmental Science over a proposal to
‘‘peacefully’’ detonate
an atomic bomb in order to create a harbor in Alaska in
‘‘Project Chariot.’’ I argue
-
Bequest of the Nuclear Battlefield: Science, Nature, and the
Atom During the First Decade of the
Cold War,’’ HSPS 33, no. 2 (2003): 237–60.
9. Kirsch’s book is largely written from the perspective of
biologists outside the AEC. Much of
his argument about AEC ecologists is focused on John Wolfe,
whom he describes as unconcerned
about the environmental consequences from Project Chariot,
instead seeing it as a useful eco-
logical experiment. See Scott L. Kirsch, Proving Grounds:
Project Plowshare and the Unrealized
Dream of Nuclear Earthmoving (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 2005), 108, 206.

10. Their research on the movement of radioactive isotopes
through the environment
eventually led to the widespread adoption of the newly
introduced concept of an ‘‘ecosystem.’’
Angela Creager has recently drawn attention to the adoption of
the ecosystem concept by
ecologists at the University of Washington to track the effects
of effluents and radioactive wastes
from its nuclear plants. See Angela Creager, Life Atomic:
Radioisotopes in Biology and Medicine
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming), 491–522.
11. Creager notes that the research undertaken in the late 1940s
was concerned with identi-
fying levels of radioactivity in the Columbia River water and
the concentration of radioactivity in
the bodies of fish, especially in the liver and kidneys, following
exposure. Ibid., 511–15.
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that their involvement in this project, in combination with risk
assessments
in the Pacific and concerns about nuclear waste, convinced
these radioecol-
ogists of the substantial dangers that nuclear waste and war
posed to the
environment and prompted them to organize a national meeting

of radio-
ecologists to address such issues. As the Project Chariot
controversy deep-
ened between 1958 and 1961, several ecologists were asked to
testify in front
of the House of Representatives, many of whose members were
also growing
increasingly wary of the AEC’s policies on the biological
effects of radiation.
The ecologists’ attempts to draw national attention to the
environmental
repercussions of nuclear waste and war during these hearings
and subse-
quently build alliances with congressional leaders intent on
regulating atomic
energy is further indication of their deepening concern over
nuclear tech-
nology. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of how ecologists
working for
the AEC hoped to transform their discipline in order to meet the
challenges
nuclear technology posed to environmental protection.
ECOLOGY IN THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
Before the establishment of the Los Alamos Laboratory and the
creation of the
first atomic bomb, General Leslie R. Groves, who was in charge
of adminis-
tering the Manhattan Project for the U.S. military, began to
search for a site to
produce plutonium. Several characteristics were essential:
distance from heavily
populated areas, close proximity to power supplies, and
extremely cold water to
cool the reactors. Given these requirements, the Columbia

River’s opening into
the Pacific Ocean at Hanford, Washington, was selected as the
ideal location.
Winding over a thousand miles from Canada through the United
States, the
Columbia River was, and still is, one of the largest sources of
fresh water in
North America. Construction began on April 6, 1943, but
production of nuclear
material would have to wait more than a year, during which
time General
Groves and others began to consider the potential environmental
consequences
of the Hanford reactor. Groves had grown up in the Northwest
on an Army base
in Fort Lawton, Washington, and had attended the University of
Washington,
so the effect of the atomic program on a vital water resource of
the region seems
to have been personal for him.12 Most important, however, was
the need to keep
12. Officers in the Medical Section of the Manhattan District,
who were responsible for
evaluating the potential effects of radiation on human health,
also supported the formation of
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the work of the Manhattan Project a secret from the public.
Groves feared that if
controls on the levels of radioactivity in the water were not
adequate, the
surrounding community might become aware of the existence of
the secret
government plan to build an atomic bomb.13
At a high-level meeting of military personnel and scientists
involved in the
project, Groves concluded that biologists specializing in aquatic
environ-
ments needed to be recruited to monitor the conditions of the
Columbia
River. They could not be told the purpose of their work.
Stafford Warren,
the head of the Medical Section of the Manhattan project and a
faculty
member at the University of Rochester, suggested Lauren R.
Donaldson,
a forty-year-old professor of fisheries at the University of
Washington. In
August of 1943, he and a team of other biologists in his
department would
become the first group of scientists to study the environmental
impacts of
nuclear technology.14 Donaldson and three co-workers were the
only scien-
tists tasked with evaluating the effects of radioactive materials
on the envi-
ronment until 1946. Initially their work focused on irradiating
fish eggs and
adults in a laboratory, but Donaldson soon pressed Groves to
allow him to

conduct observations on the Columbia River itself.15 While it is
unclear
whether his appeals had much influence over Groves, the U.S.
military did
decide to install his assistant, Richard F. Foster, at a field
station when the
Hanford reactor began operating in 1944. The early years of
their work
focused on collecting data about the accumulation of
radioactive material
in the bodies of aquatic life forms exposed to radioactive
effluents of varying
levels along the river in conjunction with the ongoing
laboratory studies.16
While the military’s primary goal was to monitor adverse
reactions from long-
term low exposure, such as increased incidence of leukemia,
tumors, or other
genetic effects, the ecologists were also asked to screen for any
immediate effects
-
a scientific program for the Columbia reactor. Neal O. Hines,
Proving Ground: An Account of the
Radiobiological Studies in the Pacific, 1946–1961 (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1963), 7.
13. Peter Hales, Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan
Project (Chicago: University of Illinois
Press, 1999), 289.
14. Hines, Proving Ground (ref. 12), 7–10.
15. Most of their initial research concerned the potential impact
on the economically vital

salmon of the Columbia River. The U.S. military’s stated
objective for the Columbia study was
‘‘to identify potentially significant effects of reactor effluent on
humans and aquatic life down-
stream, and to estimate the magnitude of this effect.’’ See
‘‘Columbia River Program: Objectives
of the Research,’’ UWRE, Box 6, Folder 25, Columbia River
Program.
16. ‘‘Columbia River Program,’’ n.d., UWRE, Box 1, Folder 1,
Historical Information, 1959.
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on the health of aquatic organisms and increased mortality from
the radioactive
effluent.17
The AEC took over responsibility for the work of the University
of
Washington laboratory after its creation through the Atomic
Energy Act of
1946.18 In the following year, the Division of Biology and
Medicine was
subsequently formed to oversee the biological and medical
studies that were
begun during the war, including the continuation of the

laboratory studies and
monitoring of radioactive effluents by University of Washington
ecologists.19
As the AEC prepared to launch its postwar testing program in
the Marshall
Islands, it contracted with additional biologists working under
Stafford War-
ren, now Dean of UCLA’s Medical School, to monitor the
effects of radioac-
tive fallout. They were asked to cooperate with members of the
University of
Washington Laboratory on research at the Los Alamos, New
Mexico test site
where the first nuclear bomb, Trinity, had been detonated in
1945.20 Warren
and his colleagues in the biology department assembled a field
group that
included scientific specialists of mammals, reptiles, birds,
insects, vegetation,
and soil. The team conducted investigations into the
environmental effects of
fallout from the Trinity test in August and September each year
from 1947
through 1951.21 They sampled levels of radiation at varying
distance from the
blast to determine the accumulation of fission products in soils,
flora, and fauna,
ranging from Russian thistle to cattle.22 Much of the initial
results, however,
baffled these scientists. In one animal species, the packrat, they
discovered that
17. ‘‘An Evaluation of Long-term Effects of Acute and
Intermittent Exposures of Ionizing
Radiations,’’ 16 Jun 1949, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 19, Nuclear

Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft
(NEPA) Project, 1948–1949.
18. After World War II ended, the work of the ecologists was
temporarily overseen by the
Army Corps of Engineers. All of the Manhattan District’s
contracts, facilities, and management
responsibilities were then transferred to the AEC when it began
operations in the spring of 1947.
See Hines, Proving Ground (ref. 12), 19, 79.
19. The Division of Biology and Medicine was founded in the
fall of 1947 per the recom-
mendation of the AEC’s Medical Board of Review, which had
been asked by AEC Chairman
David Lilienthal to outline a potential biomedical research
program for the agency. It reported
directly to Chairman Lilienthal. See United States Advisory
Committee on Human Radiation,
Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments: Final
Report (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1995), 29–30.
20. Undated document entitled ‘‘Historical,’’ UWRE, Box 1,
Folder 1, Historical Informa-
tion, 1959.
21. Kermit Larson, ‘‘Continental Close–in Fallout: Its History,
Measurement and Char-
acteristics,’’ in Schultz and Klement, eds., Radioecology:
Proceedings (ref. 1), 19.
22. Ibid., 20.
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the bones and liver showed evidence of radioactivity years after
the test, while in
other species, such as the Kangaroo rat, no detectable levels of
absorption were
observed.23 Studies on vegetation were also somewhat
inconclusive, as the
scientists struggled to differentiate between artificial
radioactive elements and
naturally occurring background radiation.24 By 1951, the team
could only con-
clude that the complexity and variations they observed were a
result of a com-
pilation of factors that included climatology, topography, soil
properties, local
food chains, and the biology and life cycles of different animal
communities. Yet
their work caused some uneasiness within the administration of
the AEC, and
that year, informal discussions within the Division of Biology
and Medicine
resulted in the creation of a specific ‘‘Radio-ecology’’ field
group in order to deal
with the ‘‘environmental biological problem.’’25
Shortly thereafter, as the U.S. increased the frequency of
nuclear tests,
ecological investigations began at the Nevada test site with a

new emphasis
on documenting fallout patterns and differences in the
production of specific
radioisotopes based on weapons type and method of detonation.
Kermit Lar-
son, a health physicist who would later direct UCLA’s
Laboratory of Nuclear
Medicine and Radiation Biology, led biological field groups on
these expedi-
tions. They included scientists from the Atomic Energy Project
at UCLA as
well as several University of Washington ecologists, who served
as consultants
to the expeditions.26 Donaldson’s laboratory also assisted the
group by con-
ducting tests of soil samples sent from the Nevada test site.27
Through these
studies, Larson and his field groups identified a number of
factors that ap-
peared important in influencing the ‘‘biological fate and
persistence’’ of radio-
active fallout.28 For instance, distance from the blast site,
differences in the
23. Ibid., 21.
24. Ibid., 20.
25. Stafford Warren to the Administrative Committee, Office of
the Chancellor, UCLA, 22
Aug 1952, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 18, Monitoring Program, Civil
Defense.
26. Dozens of scientists at UCLA assisted with this work in
addition to the University of
Washington ecologists. For a list of those who were most
involved, see Kermit Larson, Factors

Influencing the Biological Fate and Persistence of Radioactive
Fall-Out (Los Angeles: University of
California, Department and Laboratories of Nuclear Medicine
and Radiation Biology, 1959), 7–8.
Regarding the University of Washington ecologists’ work at
Nevada, see Hines, Proving Ground
(ref. 12), 126, 133.
27. Donaldson and Larson would work closely together in the
resurveys at Bikini and En-
iwetok and continued to collaborate throughout their careers.
Colonel J. B. Jartgering, Office of
the Test Director, Nevada Proving Ground to Al Seymour,
Acting Director, University of
Washington Radiobiology Laboratory, 1 Jul 1952, UWRE, Box
7, Folder 20, Nevada Tests.
28. Larson, Factors (ref. 26).
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solubility of radioisotopes, variations in leaf-surface
characteristics, and animal
grazing patterns all appeared to play a role in the persistence of
radioactive
fallout in the environment.29
Yet precisely how and when accumulation of radioactive

particles occurred
was still a mystery, and many of the biologists expressed
frustration with
evaluating the biological impact of the tests. Frank Lowman,
one of Donald-
son’s colleagues at the University of Washington who
participated in the
expeditions, is representative of this sentiment among the
AEC’s field group.
He was overwhelmed not only by the extent of the scientific
unknowns, but
also problems with the monitoring equipment. ‘‘This last test
was really an eye
opener,’’ he wrote to the Deputy Director of the laboratory, Al
Seymour.
‘‘Dangerous amounts of radioactive material, as far as
inhalation is concerned,
can be present but undetectable on an MX-5 [a radioactivity
detector] . . .
We’ve all been forced to change some of our basic assumptions
concerning
radiation hazards.’’30 For instance, Lowman found that the
MX-5 was having
trouble picking up beta radiation, which he believed to have
important bio-
logical implications. He sought to secure additional detectors
and shot his own
rabbit samples to bring back to the lab in order to examine this
problem
further.31 Seymour replied sympathetically that it sounded as if
the Nevada
field work continued to be plagued by some of the same
difficulties that
prevailed in former tests, and encouraged him to ‘‘hang
tough.’’32 Ultimately,
Lowman and others at the field sites concluded that it would be

imperative to
overhaul their methods and approach.33
The problem was that only a few studies had ever been done on
the
interactive relationship between an organism and its abiotic
environment.34
Ecological research prior to World War II focused on
succession of different
plant communities, predator-prey relationships, and population
fluctuations
in the wild. Simply coordinating research between zoologists
and botanists
29. Ibid., 32–77.
30. The MX–5 was one of the earliest meters built to detect and
measure beta and gamma
radiation. Frank Lowman to Al Seymour, 2 Jun 1952, UWRE,
Box 7, Folder 18, Monitoring
Program, Civil Defense.
31. Ibid.
32. Al Seymour to Frank Lowman, 26 May 1952, UWRE, Box 7,
Folder 18, Monitoring
33. Frank Lowman to Al Seymour, 20 May 1952, UWRE, Box 7,
Program, Civil Defense, 4. See also Larson, Factors (ref. 26),
15–17.
34. Gregg Mitman, The State of Nature: Ecology, Community,
and American Social Thought,

1900–1950 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 45–
46, 65.
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appeared problematic, much less incorporating geological,
meteorological, and
chemical processes into ecological work.35 A textbook that
integrated animal
and plant ecology was not published until 1939.36 Thus, before
ecologists could
try to determine what the potential environmental effects of
radioactive mate-
rial would be, questions about the basic functioning of food
chains, life cycles,
seasonal variations, and climatology needed to be addressed.
Based in part on these realities, the ecosystem concept soon
became the
dominant organizing theoretical foundation for ecology within
the next
decade.37 Originally conceived by British ecologist Arthur
Tansley in 1935, the
‘‘ecosystem’’ was defined as a system ‘‘in the sense of
physics’’ and emphasized
the use of physical laws to describe what was happening in
nature.38 Yet little

research had been done to demonstrate precisely what a study
based on the
ecosystem concept would look like until 1950.39 That year,
already five years
after the Trinity test, the first seminal study of an ecosystem
was published by
G. Evelyn Hutchinson of Yale University.40 His influence
would come to be
felt throughout radioecology in the following decades from the
propagation of
his ideas through his students. One of particular importance is
Howard
Odum, who came to study at Yale with Hutchinson during this
period and
was strongly persuaded of the merits of his views. His brother,
Eugene Odum,
went on to revise his approach to ecology when Howard gave
him a copy of
Elements of Physical Biology in the late 1940s after studying it
with Hutchin-
son.41 The text, written in 1925 by physical chemist Alfred
Lotka, argued for
studying biological and physical environments as one single,
interactive
35. This was a major frustration of prominent ecologist Victor
Shelford. See Croker, Pioneer
Ecologist (ref. 2).
36. Frederick Clements and Victor Shelford, Bio-ecology (New
York: J. Wiley & Sons, 1939).
37. Kingsland, Evolution of American Ecology (ref. 2), 180–92.
38. This was in contrast to Frederic Clements’ organism
concept, which had guided ecological
research in the first three decades of the twentieth century. See

Arthur G. Tansley, ‘‘The Use and
Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms,’’ Ecology 16, no. 3
(1935): 284–307.
39. Hutchinson had begun calling for the use of mathematics
and a biogeochemical approach
in 1940. See Robert McIntosh, ‘‘Ecology since 1900’’ in
Egerton, ed., History of American Ecology
(ref. 2), 360.
40. G. Evelyn Hutchinson and Vaughan T. Bowen,
‘‘Limnological Studies in Connecticut—
IX. A Quantitative Radiochemical Study of the Phosphorus
Cycle in Linsley Pond,’’ Ecology 31,
no. 2 (1950): 194–203.
41. Eugene Odum had trained as an ecologist at the University
of Illinois with Victor
Shelford, who was a follower of Frederick Clements’
‘‘organism’’ model, and a collaborator with
him on early textbooks in the field. Betty Jean Craige, Eugene
Odum: Ecosystem Ecologist and
Environmentalist (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002),
35.
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system, and proved to be extremely influential on the Odum

brothers’ work.
Eugene was conveniently working at the University of Georgia
near the Savan-
nah River nuclear plant, one of only a handful in the country,
and almost
immediately applied for a grant to study the ecology
surrounding the reactor.42
The reaction of the AEC is suggestive of the importance the
agency then gave
to ecology. It turned down Odum’s request the first time, and
only approved it
in 1951 after he slashed his budget tenfold and used graduate
students for the
bulk of the research.43
In spite of the recruitment of ecologists to the agency through
both grants and
internal employment, several incidents reveal that from the
beginning of their
work with the AEC, many ecologists began questioning the lack
of attention to
environmental and health impacts from the release of
radioactive material.44
Frank Lowman’s experiences with Kermit Larson at the Nevada
test site are
exemplary in this regard. While initially told that the Division
of Biology and
Medicine would have the ultimate say in determining whether or
not a shot
would occur in relation to wind direction and velocity, Lowman
informed his
colleagues at the University of Washington that these
recommendations were
completely ignored by the ‘‘halfwits’’ at the command center.

According to
Lowman, if the detonation equipment hadn’t failed on one
occasion, almost
two thousand military men would have received ten to thirty
times the tolerance
limit for radiation exposure, in addition to Mercury and Las
Vegas, Nevada
receiving a ‘‘beautiful pasting’’ of radioactive ash. ‘‘I’m sick of
the entire mess at
CP [the command center],’’ he concluded by the end of his time
in Larson’s field
group.45 Though it’s not clear whether the servicemen and
residents in nearby
locations were as at risk as Lowman describes, his account is
evidence of how
marginalized the field group ecologists may have felt at the
AEC test sites.
42. Frank Golley, an ecologist who worked with Stanley
Auerbach at the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, has credited the research of the Odum brothers and
the community of ecologists
working for the AEC for the dominance of the ecosystem
concept, but he does not describe in
detail precisely how other ecologists, particularly the UCLA
and University of Washington
ecologists, became influenced by Hutchinson’s ideas. Frank B.
Golley, A History of the Ecosystem
Concept in Ecology (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1996), 62–108.
43. Ibid. 51–54.
44. This is not to suggest that this was the only source of
conflict between ecologists and the
AEC. Tensions between radioecologists and the AEC also

originated over low levels of funding,
certain military protocols, and the enormity of the workload.
See Bocking, Ecologists and Envi-
ronmental Politics (ref. 6).
45. Frank Lowman to Al Seymour, 26 May 1951, UWRE, Box 7,
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Back at the University of Washington, Lowman’s colleague
Richard F.
Foster was also becoming more and more bothered by the
potential environ-
mental risks of radiation from nuclear waste. Foster was a
graduate of Donald-
son’s program before World War II and his first hire to the
Hanford project. As
noted earlier, he took over a second cooperative laboratory at
the Hanford
facility.
In the years after Hanford began operations, Foster tried to alert
his super-
iors about environmental problems that might result from the
release of radio-

active waste into the river, but met with little success.46
Frustrated by the lack
of response, he began speaking publicly about the problem of
radioactive
‘‘pollution’’ in the Columbia River, though he was careful to
acknowledge
that he was not reflecting the views of his employers.47 Despite
these efforts,
in 1951 Foster received orders from the manager of Hanford,
Herbert M.
Parker, to implement ‘‘a policy deemphasizing waste disposal’’
which Parker
had apparently ‘‘wanted all along.’’48 Foster was none too
pleased with this,
writing to Donaldson: ‘‘Presumably we are to gradually switch
over to the
more fundamental (biochemistry) type biology . . . the only
legitimate reason I
can see for doing such a thing would be an impending change in
process,
eliminating the problem [of radioactive waste] altogether. Of
course, we peons
don’t know of the reasons behind these intelligent
decisions.’’49
Foster was not the only scientist beginning to express alarm
about nuclear
waste. Around this time the ecologist Orlando Park at
Northwestern Univer-
sity received a phone call from a young physicist, Edward
Struxness, who had
recently begun work with the AEC and had once taken an
ecology course with
Park while a graduate student. Though published documents do
not reveal the

46. Richard Foster to H. A. Kornberg, 12 Jun 1953, UWRE, Box
1, Folder 12, General Electric
Company, Nucleonics Division (Hanford, WA).
47. Lauren Donaldson’s copy of a talk given by Foster is
preserved at the University of
Washington Archives. See Richard Foster, ‘‘Effects of Pollution
on Fresh Water Organisms,’’ 28
Nov 1950, UWRE, Box 1, Folder 12, General Electric Company,
Nucleonics Division (Hanford,
WA).
48. Richard Foster to Lauren Donaldson, 4 Mar 1951, UWRE,
Box 1, Folder 12, General
Electric Company, Nucleonics Division (Hanford, WA);
emphasis in original.
49. Ibid. Foster notes that ‘‘this, of course, is what H. A. K.
[Harry A. Kornberg] has wanted
all along.’’ Kornberg was originally hired by Parker around
1947 to look into the possibility of
identifying biochemical changes in blood due to radiation and
eventually took over as manager of
biology operations, a position he held for twenty years. See
Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Annual
Report for 1971 to the USAEC Division of Biology and
Medicine, Volume 1 Life Sciences, Part 2
Ecological Sciences (Richland, WA: Battelle, 1972), 8.
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details of Struxness’s concerns, it is clear that radioactive
wastes released into
surrounding water and soil at several National Laboratories
were causing some
sort of problems with nearby vegetation.50 As a result, Park
was asked to serve
as a secret consultant to the AEC on the matter of nuclear
wastes during this
period.51
Notwithstanding the rumblings from these ecologists, however,
there were
no signs that the AEC had any intention of stopping the release
of nuclear
wastes or considering whether the environmental and health
risks of atmo-
spheric testing outweighed the needs of national security and
defense.52 These
problems were certainly not unique to ecologists; across the
national labora-
tories, life scientists had to overcome an initial ambivalence
within the AEC
concerning the need for biological and medical research
support.53 While
Donaldson’s and Larson’s staffs expected to continue
monitoring the move-
ment of radioactive material at the testing sites in the Marshall
Islands and
Nevada, these trips were more often than not pulled together
with limited
funding at the last minute.54 Only as a result of a terrible
accident in the spring
of 1954 would ecology gain a greater degree of attention and

legitimacy within
the organization.
THE UNLUCKY DRAGON AND THE ‘‘NASTY FLAP’’
In March of 1954, unexpected wind shifts caused radioactive
ash from Oper-
ation Castle Bravo on Bikini Island to fall on the Fukuryu Maru
(Lucky
50. Manfred Engelmann, ‘‘Orlando Park, 1901–1969,’’ BESA
51, no. 1 (1970): 16–20. Years
later, John Wolfe would describe the discomfort he felt at
seeing rows of dead trees around the
Oak Ridge reactor and hearing a laboratory representative
describe it as due to ‘‘drought’’ while
green pines topped the more distant ridges in the area. See John
Wolfe, ‘‘Radioecology: Retro-
spection and Future,’’ in Proceedings of the Second National
Symposium on Radioecology, ed. Daniel
J. Nelson and Francis C. Evans (Ann Arbor, MI: Clearinghouse
for Federal Scientific and
Technical Information, 1969), xi.
51. David E. Reichle and W. Franklin Harris, ‘‘Resolution of
Respect,’’ BESA 85, no. 3 (2004):
91–95.
52. As Peter Westwick has argued, during the period from
1947–54, defense needs predom-
inately influenced the work of scientists working for the AEC.
See Peter J. Westwick, The
National Labs: Science in an American System, 1947–1974
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2003), 138–59.

53. Ibid., 246–52.
54. Lauren Donaldson to colleagues at the University of
Washington laboratory, 21 Mar 1953,
UWRE, Box 6, Folder 25, Columbia River Program.
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Dragon), a Japanese fishing boat in the Pacific.55 The fallout
sickened crew
members and contaminated nearby tuna fish to such a high
degree that they
were deemed unfit for human consumption.56 Widespread fear
erupted
throughout the U.S. in the following weeks and months, and
ecologists were
sent to the Marshall Islands to look for any potential damage to
surrounding
vegetation and organisms.57 By 1956, the democratic
presidential candidate,
Adlai Stevenson, became the first public official to call for a
ban on above-
ground nuclear testing.58
Ecological research, rather than aiding in this outcry, was
instead a benefi-
ciary of it. In the wake of these events, the AEC recruited more

ecologists to
join National Laboratories and increased financial support for
their research.59
As one example, Park, now having served for several years as a
secret consultant
at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, asked his former student
Stanley
Auerbach to take over a new ‘‘ecology section’’ there in late
1954.60 Less than
a year later, the chief of the biology branch of the AEC
contacted the ecologist
John Wolfe at Ohio University to come to their headquarters in
Washington,
D.C., to join the Division of Biology and Medicine for two
years.61 At the end
of his contract, the AEC took the dramatic step of creating a
specific Envi-
ronmental Sciences Division of the AEC in 1958 and named
Wolfe the found-
ing director.62 Wolfe quickly developed a close relationship
with Lauren
Donaldson and the Laboratory at the University of Washington,
and shortly
55. Daniel J. Kevles, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific
Community in Modern America
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 382.
56. ‘‘Radioactive Fallout in the Marshall Islands,’’ Science 122,
no. 3181 (1955): 1178–79.
57. Though the Lucky Dragon accident prompted the first public
outcry against radioactive
fallout, concerns about the biological effects on radiation were
not new. Radioactive materials

were known dangers for decades before World War II because
of the growing use of x–rays and
the resulting skin burns from misuse. See Jacob Darwin
Hamblin, ‘‘‘A Dispassionate and
Objective Effort’: Negotiating the First Study on the Biological
Effects of Atomic Radiation,’’
Journal of the History of Biology 40, no. 1 (2007): 147–77.
58. Allan M. Winkler, Life Under a Cloud (Chicago: University
of Illinois Press, 1999), 102–04.
59. Lauren Donaldson to Al Seymour, 19 Jun 1958, UWRE, Box
2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic
Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine, 1.
Donaldson notes that the workload of
the laboratory at the University of Washington was greatly
increased during the last four years,
and that the work itself had changed from monitoring to a more
‘‘qualitative’’ evaluation.
Kingsland has noted that the AEC increased funding for
ecological work after 1954 out of concern
for radioactive contamination, but does not specifically point to
the Lucky Dragon accident as
motivating this shift in AEC policy. See Kingsland, Evolution
of American Ecology (ref. 2), 192.
60. Reichle and Harris, ‘‘Resolution of Respect’’ (ref. 51).
61. George Sprugel, ‘‘John N. Wolfe, 1910–1974,’’ BESA 56,
no. 3 (1975): 16–22, 20.
62. Ibid.
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thereafter, Al Seymour decided to accept Wolfe’s offer to work
with him in his
new office in Washington, D.C.63
In addition, after the Lucky Dragon incident, ecologists were
much more
frequently sought out by the AEC to document the
environmental effects of
fallout. The AEC told Donaldson that from then on, it would
include his
laboratory and a ‘‘full blown marine program’’ for all testing in
the Pacific as
a result of ‘‘the nasty flap that took place after March 1,
1954.’’64 The work of
Donaldson’s laboratory underwent a profound transformation as
a result of
these events, with increased funding and opportunities for
ecological research.
One assignment in particular, which was a direct result of the
accident, appears
to have considerably influenced the University of Washington
ecologists’ per-
ceptions about dangers from radiation in the environment. As a
result of the
nuclear explosion, large amounts of radioactive ash had
descended over the
inhabited island of Rongelap in the archipelago. Tasked with
determining
when it would be safe for the evacuated communities to return,
the laboratory
began repeated visits to study the ecology of the island and

establish whether
native foods were contaminated with radioactive materials.
Building from their work at the Hanford laboratory and the
earlier test sites
in Nevada, Donaldson, Seymour, Lowman, and other ecologists
from the
University of Washington began tracing radioactive isotopes
through food
chains and mineral cycles in the Pacific testing grounds. They
hoped to detect
whether harmful levels of certain isotopes accumulated in
various species of
plants and animals, and if so, how. This new approach provided
answers to
basic ecological questions for the first time, though the
ecologists struggled to
determine how much certain damages they observed in
vegetation could be
attributable to radiation or other factors such as diseases or
drought.65 In
retrospect, the scientists involved felt it was the first study they
were able to
conduct using a true ecosystem approach, as they were not
simply obtaining
63. Al Seymour to Lauren Donaldson, n.d., UWRE, Box 5,
Folder 10, General Correspon-
dence of Staff: Seymour, Alan H. Also see ‘‘Objectives and
Interests,’’ n.d., UWRE, Box 1, Folder
4, Program Review.
64. W.R. Boss, AEC Assistant Chief, Biology Branch to Lauren
Donaldson, 4 May 1956,
UWRE, Accession No. 90–060, Box 1, Folder 21,
Correspondence of Donaldson, Lauren R. The

University of Washington group, despite its small size, seems to
have been the most sought after
lab for work of this kind. In his letter, Boss interestingly
remarked that the Scripps Institute of
Oceanography was ‘‘not equipped to do the job you are, in
instrumentation, analyses or detection
of radioactivity in the water.’’
65. Edward Held to John Wolfe, 6 Mar 1961, UWRE, Box 2,
Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission Division of Biology and Medicine, 1–4.
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total concentration levels in organisms, but uncovering the
environmental
interrelationships in accumulation of radioactivity from the soil
through
potential health hazards to man.66
Although the University of Washington ecologists were excited
by the
scientific breakthroughs made possible from this new research,
the overall
purpose of their work seems to have alarmed them. They were
particularly
uneasy about the fact that they were being asked to provide

information
regarding human health impacts when they were not trained
medical profes-
sionals or experts in the genetic effects of radiation.67 This
issue, and the
findings of their studies, appears to have prompted the
University of Washing-
ton ecologists to more deeply consider the potential harmful
consequences of
fallout from nuclear detonations and accidental environmental
contamina-
tion.68 For instance, it was discovered that the radioisotopes
cesium-137 and
strontium-90 were easily absorbed by plants since they acted
chemically much
like potassium and calcium, respectively.69 These radioisotopes
were found to
accumulate in some organisms, and as a result of their
ecological studies,
Donaldson’s team recommended that crabs be removed from the
diet of the
Rongelapese as a precaution after high levels of cesium-137
were discovered.70
The ecologists also encouraged the AEC to release the complete
contents of
their research to the United Nations Trust Territory government
and repre-
sentatives of the Rongelapese, and Donaldson became one of the
first ecolo-
gists to speak out about radioactive contaminants in the
environment to the
larger scientific community based on this work at Rongelap.71
66. Al Seymour to John Wolfe, 4 Oct 1963, UWRE, Box 2,

Commission Division of Biology and Medicine, 1–3.
67. While the ecological field group offered to share their
research with the medical team at
the island, they emphasized that they wanted to restrict their
purview simply to studying the
ecology of the island. Edward Held and Lauren Donaldson to I.
E. Wallen, 29 Jun 1959, UWRE,
Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of
Biology and Medicine, 1–5.
68. ‘‘Rongelap Ecology Studies: Objectives of the Program,’’
n.d., UWRE, Box 7, Folder 22,
Rongelap.
69. John C. Bugher et al. of the Advisory Committee for
Biology and Medicine to John A.
McCone, Chairman of the U.S. AEC, 25 May 1960, UWRE, Box
2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic
Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine, 2–3.
70. Al Seymour to John Wolfe, 9 Feb 1959, UWRE, Box 2,
Commission Division of Biology and Medicine, 2.
71. John Wolfe, J. J. Davis, and other ecologists working at
UCLA and Hanford publicly
presented their findings of radioactive contamination of the
environment at this time as well. See
‘‘General Program Meeting of Biological Societies. American
Association for the Advancement of
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Eugene Odum was another ecologist who became attuned to
these pro-
blems through research in the Pacific completed after the Lucky
Dragon acci-
dent. The following summer, as a result of his work at the
Savannah plant,
Eugene was asked by the AEC to conduct the first ecological
study at the
Eniwetok Atoll.72 Knowing his brother’s expertise from
working with Hutch-
inson, Eugene asked Howard to join him for six weeks at the
AEC’s marine
station. The reef they examined had yet to be directly disturbed
by nuclear
testing, and provided them with their first opportunity to apply
an ecosystem
approach in a marine environment.73 The research left them
with a new
appreciation for the vulnerability of ecosystems to disruption
from human
actions.74 The intricate symbiosis and interconnectivity of coral
ecosystems
conveyed to them the potential destructive power of radioactive
materials on
the ‘‘whole’’ environment.75
Notwithstanding the AEC financial and institutional gestures
toward eco-
logical studies after the Lucky Dragon incident, the AEC did
not alter its

policies on nuclear waste and testing in its aftermath.76 The
AEC continued
to release radioactive effluents into the environment and
conducted further
aboveground nuclear tests in the belief that it was necessary for
national
security.77 Indeed, despite the creation of an environmental
sciences section,
-
Science (Pacific Division). Stanford University Palo Alto,
California. August 25–29, 1957,’’ AIBS
Bulletin 7, no. 4 (1957): 15–100, on 74–75.
72. Howard T. Odum and Eugene P. Odum, ‘‘Trophic Structure
and Productivity of
a Windward Coral Reef Community on Eniwetok Atoll,’’
Ecological Monographs 25, no. 3 (1955):
291–320.
73. Ibid., 318.
74. Craige, Eugene Odum (ref. 41).
75. While at Eniwetok, the brothers met and received assistance
from Lauren Donaldson,
further enlarging and connecting the community of scientists
who were investigating these issues.
Odum and Odum, ‘‘Trophic Structure and Productivity’’ (ref.
72), 292.
76. There is some indication that the AEC simply tolerated the
radioecologists’ open dis-
agreements with their policies during this period and did not
actively revoke research support or
otherwise seek retribution. See Al Seymour to Max Zelle,

Deputy Director of the Division of
Biology and Medicine, AEC, 2 Dec 1960, UWRE, Box 2, Folder
18, U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission Division of Biology and Medicine.
77. The belief that the release of radioactive wastes below
certain levels was generally safe
guided waste disposal practices throughout the early years of
the Cold War at Hanford and other
facilities. It was not until 1961 that the AEC began reducing
levels of radioactive wastes released
from Hanford facility based on new reports that the permissible
amounts of effluent might not be
so safe. For a review of AEC waste disposal policies at Hanford
and other facilities in this period,
including other scientists who were also concerned about such
practices, see J. Samuel Walker,
The Road to Yucca Mountain: The Development of Radioactive
Waste Policy in the United States
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Wolfe was apparently not welcomed at most of the AEC
laboratories he
visited.78 This likely did little to assuage the initial reticence
Wolfe apparently
felt towards working in the organization. When he was first

recruited by the
AEC after the fallout controversy, Wolfe was quite hesitant to
give up his
professorship with Ohio University to head the Division of
Environmental
Sciences. His university position offered far more professional
respectability, and
one of his new colleagues in the organization described him as
‘‘uncowed by
bureaucracy to the point of irreverence.’’79 Wolfe ultimately
chose to take on the
challenge, but an ensuing battle over a new attempt to use
nuclear weapons for
‘‘peaceful purposes’’ would test his resolve to work within the
AEC.
MOVING THE EARTH: PROJECT PLOWSHARE AND
‘‘ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS’’
In 1953, President Eisenhower delivered his famous ‘‘Atoms for
Peace’’ speech,
calling on scientists in the U.S. and abroad to advance research
in nuclear
technologies not simply for warfare, but for the betterment of
mankind. One
program subsequently developed by scientists at the Livermore
National Lab-
oratory of the University of California became known as
‘‘Project Plowshare.’’
They proposed to use atomic bombs in construction projects
since it was
cheaper than using conventional materials for explosions larger
than two kilo-
tons, and by a progressively larger factor as the scale of the
project increased.80

The Livermore laboratory was headed at the time by Edward
Teller, a phys-
icist who had played a key role in developing the hydrogen
bomb. Teller was
not a stranger to controversy. He had developed somewhat of a
negative
reputation among physicists because of his behavior while
working at the Los
Alamos laboratory, where he pushed ahead with his own
research plans rather
than participate in the race to produce the first atomic bomb
during World
-
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 6, 26, 30, 33.
On the continuance of AEC nuclear
testing policies despite potential biological risks, see Richard
G. Hewlett and Jack M. Holl, Atoms
for Peace and War, 1953–1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic
Energy Commission (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1989), 340–41, 455–56.
78. Al Seymour to Lauren Donaldson, n.d. (the letter was likely
sent between 1956 and 1958, as
Seymour was in Washington at the time it was written), UWRE,
Box 5, Folder 10, General
Correspondence of Staff: Seymour, Allyn H.
79. Sprugel, ‘‘John N. Wolfe’’ (ref. 61), 21.
80. Al Seymour, ‘‘Future Use of Atomic Energy, Project
Chariot,’’ 15 Nov 1960, UWRE,
Accession No. 90–060, Box 3, Folder 9, Future Use of Atomic
Energy, Project Chariot, Alaska, 2–3.

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War II. His decision to testify against physicist Robert
Oppenheimer, the
father of the atom bomb, during congressional hearings that
resulted in the
revocation of Oppenheimer’s security clearance in 1954 also did
not endear him
to many scientists.81 However, he remained an extremely
influential figure
within the AEC and government circles and was a staunch
advocate against
any ban on nuclear testing.82
Teller and his colleagues began discussing the possibility of
using a nuclear
bomb to excavate a portion of Point Hope, Alaska, in order to
create a harbor
for easier shipment of fossil fuels in 1957. Receiving approval
from the AEC in
1958 for ‘‘Project Chariot,’’ Teller informed only members of
Alaska’s relevant
state agencies and initiated the planning process with negligible
biological
studies.83 In fact, despite being the preeminent group in the
AEC regarding
environmental and biological issues, the Laboratory of

Radiobiology at the
University of Washington was completely uninvolved in the
planning for
Project Chariot and only made fully aware of Teller’s plans
when Al Seymour
received a frantic letter from Alaska’s Associate Regional
Director of the Inte-
rior Department, George Harry, after Teller and representatives
from the AEC
visited in 1958.84 Seymour and Lauren Donaldson were also
contacted by
biologists at the University of Alaska who were gravely worried
about the
potential effects of any nuclear detonation.85
Once informed of Teller’s plans, Donaldson and John Wolfe
decided to stage
an intervention at a meeting of the Livermore laboratory, where
they insisted to
Teller and the AEC that a full-scale ecological program was
needed.86 After
81. Oppenheimer had been accused of communist affiliations by
Senator Joseph McCarthy.
For more on Teller and Oppenheimer, see Kai Bird and Martin
J. Sherwin, American Prometheus:
The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 182–83,
532–34.
82. Ibid., 556.
83. Al Seymour to George Harry, Assistant Regional Director
for Research, United States
Department of the Interior, 2 Dec 1958, UWRE, Box 7, Folder
21, Plowshare. Seymour believed

that a biological program adequate to assess the biology cost of
the Chariot program was not
appreciated in the early planning phases.
84. Ibid. Seymour wrote that Harry was likely better informed
of the plans than anyone at the
University of Washington.
85. Al Seymour to T. Saunders English, 28 Jan 1959, UWRE,
Box 7, Folder 21, Plowshare.
Seymour seemed particularly concerned to have English clarify
what the AEC’s ‘‘conflicting and
crudely misleading statements about the possible biological
effects of this explosion and the entire
weapons testing program’’ had been.
86. Donaldson felt that those who were at the meeting did not
seem to have any concern for
the biological problems from the detonation. Lauren R.
Donaldson to Charles L. Dunham,
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multiple attempts to convince them of the biological problems
which might
result from the detonation, they were granted permission to
conduct a biological

survey with Kermit Larson from UCLA and several scientists
from the AEC and
Livermore laboratory in 1959.87 What could be deemed the first
environmental
impact assessment was thus undertaken by a committee of
ecologists, who were
instructed to determine the ‘‘biological cost’’ of Project Chariot
under the direc-
tion of Wolfe and Seymour.88 There were twenty-three specific
parts to the
program, and it represented ‘‘the greatest concentration of
effort at any place or
any time on an ecological problem.’’89 The completed study
was over a thousand
pages in length, and became the first report on the potential
environmental
damage of a nuclear explosion that the AEC released prior to a
weapon
detonation.90
Although seemingly well intentioned, the committee’s
ecologists soon ran
into problems with both native Alaskans, including biologists,
and the AEC.
The Eskimos who hunted caribou near where the blast was
planned were
anxious about the project and the release of radioactive material
into their
environment. At the commencement of the survey, Wolfe’s
group met with
tribal representatives but sensed they were too afraid to ask
questions.91 The
Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game also
complained to
Wolfe and Seymour that there had not been reasonable
cooperation from the

AEC and that the responsibilities of the State of Alaska in
Project Chariot had
-
Director of the Division of Biology and Medicine, 29 Apr 1958,
UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S.
Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine.
A draft proposal for a program in
biological studies was prepared over the next several months.
See ‘‘A Proposal for a Program in
Marine Biology and Oceanography for the Alaska Harbor
Project,’’ Al Seymour to John Wolfe, 6
Jan 1959, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission Division of Biology and
Medicine. For additional remarks on Wolfe and Donaldson’s
exhortations to the Livermore lab
on the subject, also see Gordon Dunning to Lauren Donaldson, 5
Mar 1959, UWRE, Box 2,
Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology
and Medicine.
87. Al Seymour to Clarence Anderson, Director Alaska Fish and
Game Commission, 2 Apr
1959, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21, Plowshare.
88. ‘‘Objectives and Interests,’’ n.d., UWRE, Box 1, Folder 4,
Program Review.
89. The twenty-three parts were as follows: human geography,
human ecology, archaeology,
radioecology, limnology, entomology, phycology, marine
biology, ichthyology, oceanography,
areal geology, coastal processes, site geology, geothermal
study, exploratory earth boring, aerial
photo research, pedology, botany, terrestrial mammalogy,

marine mammalogy, terrestrial avi-
fauna, sea–cliff avifauna, micrometerology. Environmental
Program Coordination Meeting, 9
Mar 1960, Anchorage Alaska, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21,
Plowshare.
90. John Wolfe, ‘‘Atomic Energy Commission,’’ BioScience 14,
no. 5 (1964): 22–25.
91. ‘‘Trip Report, Washington D.C. Meeting of the Committee
on Environmental Studies for
Project Chariot,’’ 10–15 Dec 1961, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21,
Plowshare.
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not been adequately recognized.92 Caught in the middle,
Seymour attempted
to convey that everyone associated with the ecology program
was more than
willing to cooperate with Alaskans and that they recognized
their interests in
Project Chariot.93 Several members of both the University of
Alaska and the
Department of Fish and Game subsequently joined the
University of Washing-
ton teams in the research that was to be carried out.

However, the group was under immense pressure from their
superiors at the
AEC San Francisco Operations Office and the Livermore
scientists, and lim-
ited in their ability to influence the final determination of
whether or not to go
through with a detonation.94 Seymour tried to mollify
concerned Alaskan
biologists by stressing that the AEC had only approved a
‘‘preliminary’’ project,
and that the decision to detonate a nuclear device would have to
receive
approval from not only the AEC, but also the Joint Committee
on Atomic
Energy of the U.S. Congress, the Bureau of the Budget, and the
president
himself. More importantly, he noted, if ecological studies
showed that unfa-
vorable biological consequences would result, it would be
highly likely that this
would be reason enough for one or all of the above to refuse to
approve the
detonation.95 Yet privately, the ecologists seem to have been
afraid that what-
ever their report said, the shot might still go through. The
members of the
environmental program decided to compile their preliminary
reports from 1959
and forward copies to Governor Egan of Alaska separately from
the AEC. The
importance of their studies, they told the governor, ‘‘could not
be overstressed’’
since they would form the basis for the AEC’s decision to
continue Project
92. Al Seymour to C. L. Anderson, 26 Jun 1959, UWRE, Box 7,

Folder 21, Plowshare.
93. Ibid.
94. The Environmental Committee reported directly to the
AEC’s San Francisco Operations
Office, which technically oversaw Project Plowshare. E. C.
Shute served as the Manager alongside
Russell H. Ball, Assistant Manager for Technical Operations;
Rod L. Southwick, Assistant to the
Manager; and Charles L. Weaver, Safety Coordinator for the
Project Manager. See U.S. Atomic
Energy Commission, San Francisco Operations Office, No.
Chariot 1–60, UWRE, Box 6, Folder
21, Chariot. It should be noted, however, that scientists at the
Lawrence Livermore laboratory
appear to have wielded considerable influence over the progress
and direction of the program,
including the involvement of the environmental committee. For
example, when the ecologists
complained to a representative from the AEC San Francisco
Operations office that they hadn’t
been invited to several planning meetings, he replied that
‘‘attendance at these meetings was not
determined by SAN [the San Francisco office], but by other
offices.’’ See Committee on Envi-
ronmental Studies, Project Chariot, ‘‘Minutes of Eleventh
Meeting,’’ 30 Nov 1961, UWRE, Box
6, Folder 21, Chariot, 4.
95. Al Seymour to John Charrett, Regional Director U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, 9 Apr
1959, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21, Plowshare.
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Chariot and the scope of further environmental investigations if
the project
went forward.96
Many of the ecologists also repeatedly battled their own doubts
about the
adequacy of the environmental program to objectively evaluate
the biological
cost of the Chariot detonation.97 Their meeting notes document
growing
frustration among the majority of the committee, who felt that
while much
had been learned about the ecological environs of the shot site,
they were ill-
equipped to predict with any scientific certainty what biological
effects might
result. After more than a decade of ecological research at
various testing sites,
ecologists had found much cause for worry, but no information
suggesting that
low-yield, aboveground nuclear explosions had permanent or
long-term dele-
terious effects on entire ecosystems or humans. The degree of
uncertainty was
also high, as the earliest ecological studies showed profound
variations in
assessing potential biological damage because of the
characteristics of different

radioactive particles, the particular species involved and their
life cycles, the
tissues affected, seasonal variations, and the food chain of the
ecosystem.98
They confirmed some instances of mammalian uptake of
radioactive isotopes,
but only a few documented cases of severe damage and death to
wildlife
outside the blast zone.99
In addition to facing these scientific uncertainties, ecologists
felt that they
had to be incredibly careful not to appear to be taking a position
on whether or
not a bomb should be detonated. They believed that their duty
was to simply
analyze scientific results and translate them into a description
of environmental
problems and possible effects. At one meeting that ran well into
the evening
hours, the environmental committee concluded that it should try
to avoid
being in a position of recommending for or against the shot,
since the ecolo-
gists did not feel that they could ‘‘determine the advisability of
engendering
environmental costs, whatever they may be, and balance them
against the gains
96. Ernest D. Campbell, Secretary for the Committee on
Environmental Studies for Project
Chariot to all Environmental Program Group Leaders, 18 Nov
1959, UWRE, Box 6, Folder 21,
Chariot.

97. Wolfe directed Seymour, Larson, and Davis to prepare a
report to explain this concern.
See ‘‘Trip Report, Washington D.C. Meeting of the Committee
on Environmental Studies for
Project Chariot,’’ 10–15 Dec 1961, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 21,
Plowshare.
98. J. J. Davis and R. F. Foster, ‘‘Bioaccumulation of
Radioisotopes through Aquatic Food
Chains,’’ Ecology 39, no. 3 (1958): 530–35, 535.
99. For an explanation as to why these ecological fallout studies
were difficult to correlate to
‘‘human hazards,’’ see Larson, Factors (ref. 26), 16–17.
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to be achieved by conducting the detonation.’’100 Later, a
compromise was
reached, and the committee members decided to create two
separate publica-
tions: one that would publish findings concerning only the
ecology of the
region, and another that would address the problem of
predictions and ‘‘bio-
logical costs’’ directly.101
Despite their serious misgivings about the adequacy of the

ecological survey
to provide the necessary information on risks to human health
and the envi-
ronment, the environmental committee issued a preliminary
statement on
January 7, 1960, that nuclear detonations could be conducted
under certain
limitations on the basis of their 1959 studies. But the committee
also stated that
the data currently available was incomplete, and continuing
study during 1960
would be required for firm recommendations.102 At the time, a
moratorium on
testing was in effect, so there was no immediate threat of a
nuclear detonation.
What might have compelled them to go ahead with these
recommenda-
tions? It appears that the environmental committee was alarmed
that they were
not included in several important meetings regarding the
detonation as they
were analyzing their findings.103 Given the fact that the
ecologists had reason
to believe that their report, whatever its conclusions, might not
be taken
seriously in the hands of men such as Teller, it’s possible that
they were
motivated to give scientific guidance on the best time of year to
detonate
a bomb in case the venture actually did get approved.104 The
preliminary
report was explicitly designed to time a detonation scenario that
would min-
imize the biological cost. The environmental committee
recommended that if

a shot went through, it should take place in the spring, as few
birds would be in
the area, most small animals and plants would be under snow
cover, local
100. Committee on Environmental Studies for Project Chariot,
‘‘Minutes of Eleventh
Committee Meeting,’’ 30 Nov 1961, UWRE, Box 6, Folder 21,
Chariot.
101. Ibid.
102. ‘‘U.S. Atomic Energy Commission San Francisco
Operations Office: Plowshare Pro-
gram. Project Chariot, 1960,’’ 4 Mar 1960, UWRE, Box 6,
Folder 21, Chariot.
103. Committee on Environmental Studies for Project Chariot,
‘‘Minutes of Eleventh
Committee Meeting’’ (ref. 100).
104. Scott Kirsch, who looks at this episode from the
perspective of biologists outside the
AEC, seems to interpret a few statements from Wolfe on the
potential usefulness of the deto-
nation as indication that he was unconcerned about the
environmental impacts. Given my
discussion here, I believe such remarks might be more
accurately seen as evidence that Wolfe
feared that such detonations could become commonplace,
necessitating ecological knowledge of
how to conduct them in a manner that was the least damaging
environmentally. Though he may
have thought the detonation might have useful biological
findings, it’s clear he was also concerned
about the environmental dangers. See Kirsch, Proving Grounds

(ref. 9), 206.
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hunting activity would be minimal, weather and daylight would
be optimal,
and spring runoff would likely flush any escaping radioactive
debris into the
sea.105
Many Alaskan biologists and citizens reacted with outrage.
University of
Alaska biologists came forward to argue against the detonation
on the basis of
the possibility that dangerous levels of strontium-90 could be
absorbed by
lichens, eaten by caribou, and then consumed by Eskimos.106
Their assertions
were amassed by biologist and activist Barry Commoner and
submitted to
Science, eventually resulting in a public relations catastrophe
for the AEC and
the cancellation of the test.107 Wolfe and the environmental
committee were
horrified both by the way their report was portrayed by the
AEC, which
downplayed their emphasis on the uncertainties and need for

more research
before firm conclusions could be reached, and the Alaskan
biologists, who they
felt exaggerated the evidence for the possibility of radiation
damage occurring
to Eskimos through their food supply.108 In a speech to other
radioecologists
the year after the controversy, Wolfe emphasized that very few
potentially
carcinogenic mutations had been seen at the Nevada and Pacific
testing sites
from the absorption of radioactive isotopes in fallout.109 He
hastened to add
that this was ‘‘not to say that there have been no effects—
simply that none has
been found and intensive inquiry has been a part of the total
research
effort.’’110
Once the controversy died down, Wolfe seems to have been left
with a great
deal of bitterness regarding the AEC’s environmental program,
feeling that the
committee’s role had simply been ‘‘token’’ and that they had no
influence over
the final decision. ‘‘Affairs are pretty much in the hands of
those not competent
to carry out such programs or unable to see their far-reaching
implications,’’ he
wrote to a colleague in 1962.111 Yet at the same time, Wolfe
was also incensed
105. John Wolfe, Max Britton, Kermit Larson, Robert Rausch,
Allyn Seymour, Norman
Wilimovsky, Arthur Lachenbrunch, and Ernest Champbell,
‘‘Statement of Committee on

Environmental Studies for Project Chariot,’’ 7 Jan 1960,
UWRE, Box 6, Folder 21, Chariot.
106. Kirsch, Proving Grounds (ref. 9), 103–08.
107. Barry M. Commoner, M. W. Friedlander, and Eric Reiss,
‘‘Project Chariot: Letter to the
Editor,’’ Science 134, no. 3477 (1961): 495–500.
108. Seymour described the AEC’s discussions of the report as
‘‘unpalatable.’’ Allyn Seymour,
‘‘Trip Report: Vancouver, B.C.,’’ 25–27 Jun 1962, UWRE, Box
7, Folder 21, Plowshare.
109. Wolfe, ‘‘Impact of Atomic Energy’’ (ref. 1), 1–2.
110. Ibid.
111. John Wolfe to Neal Hines, 14 Dec 1962, UWRE, Box 12,
Folder 46, Proving Ground, by
Neal Hines: General Correspondence.
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by accusations from scientists at the University of Alaska that
the commit-
tee’s ecological studies had been actively manipulated to
support a shot going
forward.112 Seymour felt that it had been a ‘‘miserable
assignment’’ and was

upset by charges that the group could not be impartial by virtue
of their
association with the AEC.113 Donaldson was outraged as well
by accusations
from Commoner and a colleague of his, Michael Friedlander,
that the envi-
ronmental implications of the test were worse than the
committee had
acknowledged.114 Implicit in these debates was the problem of
what levels
of risk were acceptable to whom, what role scientists should
play in these
decisions, and whether the ecological studies done to date could
provide
a conclusive answer to the possible environmental harm from
the nuclear
explosion. The committee was unmistakably conflicted about all
these issues
and felt deeply ambivalent about weighing the ecological
ramifications
against the possible benefits of a detonation. The one thing that
seems to
have been clear to them by the end of the study was that the
sensitivity with
which they approached evaluating the environmental costs was
not shared by
those in charge of the project at the AEC.
As conflicts with the AEC over the Chariot project intensified,
ongoing
studies into problems of radioactive waste began to produce
disconcerting
findings regarding the environmental risks of nuclear power. In
combination,
they appear to have amplified the initial trepidations these
ecologists had when

they started working with the AEC and awakened an
environmental ethos
within them. This is evident from their attempts to draw
congressional atten-
tion to the potential environmental dangers from nuclear waste
and war during
hearings in 1959, as well as the organization of the first
national meeting of
radioecologists in 1961 to debate how to address the
environmental problems of
nuclear technology.
112. Ibid.
113. Al Seymour to John Wolfe, 13 Mar 1961, UWRE, Box 2,
Commission Division of Biology and Medicine. Al Seymour to
John Wolfe, 19 Jan 1961, UWRE,
Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Division of
Biology and Medicine.
114. Michael W. Friedlander, ‘‘Predictions of Fallout from
Project Chariot,’’ Nuclear Infor-
mation 3, nos. 4–7 (1961): 5–8. In reaction to Friedlander’s
article, Donaldson wrote to Wolfe that
he was ‘‘alternating between the desire to sum up my most
vindictive vocabulary and write a blast
to the editors or throw the worthless mess into the round file
and forget about it. I am sure we will
always have such people as the three principle [sic] characters
in this tragedy, but I am sure you as
well as I hope that they find another stage to dance on.’’ Lauren
Donaldson to John Wolfe, 4 Aug
1961, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18, U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission Division of Biology and
Medicine, 1–2.

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THE ENVIRONMENTAL THREATS OF NUCLEAR POWER
AND WAR
The ecological research that seems to have most troubled many
radioecologists
emerged in the late ’50s and early ’60s, and concerned the
effects of nuclear
waste on the environment rather than the impact of fallout.
‘‘Low level’’ wastes
were first released into marine environments at Hanford in the
early ’40s, and
by the ’50s, three national laboratories were disposing of
radioactive material
into both freshwater and oceanic ecosystems.115 As part of the
Atomic Energy
Act of 1954, the U.S. government began steadily developing a
full-scale nuclear
power industry. Over the next several years, preparations began
for the con-
struction of four reactors in Pennsylvania, Detroit, Chicago, and
New York
City in addition to the reactors already releasing wastes from
weapons-grade
uranium and plutonium production at the National

Laboratories.116
Ecologists had ample reason to be more anxious about waste
than fallout
simply because of the volume of radioactive material being
released, which
increased the possibility of concentration in species at the top
of the food
chain. But crucially, as they began to develop food chain
models for marine
ecosystems around nuclear reactors, ecologists also discovered
a clear relation-
ship between the amounts of radioactive effluent released and
accumulation in
species at high trophic levels through their diet. The first person
to do so was
Richard Foster, who continued his work on the aforementioned
radioactive
pollution in the Columbia River at the Hanford Laboratory in
spite of dis-
couragement from the AEC. He found that fish collected
downstream from
the reactors were a hundred times more radioactive than
laboratory fish
‘‘exposed to equivalent mixtures of the effluent, but fed
uncontaminated
food.’’117 The highest documented levels of accumulation in
marine organisms
were several times greater than studies had found in terrestrial
ecosystems,
making the release of wastes into aquatic environments
especially problem-
atic.118 In the presence of such alarming data, Lauren
Donaldson, with the
assistance of Foster, undertook a large-scale study of the effects
of radiation

115. The locations of the first laboratories to release these ‘‘low
level’’ wastes were at Hanford,
Washington, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Savannah, Georgia. As
previously noted, there is evi-
dence that this played a significant role in establishing
ecological stations at these facilities in the
1950s. See Stanley I. Auerbach, ‘‘The Soil Ecosystem and
Radioactive Waste Disposal to the
Ground,’’ Ecology 39, no. 3 (1958): 522–29, and Engelmann,
‘‘Orlando Park’’ (ref. 50).
116. Auerbach, ‘‘Soil Ecosystem’’ (ref. 115), 522.
117. Davis and Foster, ‘‘Bioaccumulation of Radioisotopes’’
(ref. 98), 531.
118. Ibid., 534.
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on aquatic organisms. They concluded in 1957 that serious
damage to these
populations was possible even under the maximum permissible
concentrations
for drinking water, and that controls needed to be put into place
to limit the
hazards of these facilities.119
Eugene Odum was another ecologist who called attention to

these problems
after he returned from his study of the fallout effects on a coral
reef ecosystem
in the Pacific Ocean. The following year, he was selected as an
official delegate
to the 1955 international conference on peaceful uses of atomic
energy in
Geneva.120 Much of the excitement surrounding the gathering
was related
to the possibilities for large-scale nuclear power plants, yet
when Odum asked
about the disposal of wastes, he was rebuffed by many of the
engineers who
insisted that the issue would not pose any problems. Undeterred,
he and
Howard presented a paper at the conference entitled
‘‘Consideration of the
Total Environment in Power Reactor Waste Disposal,’’ which
emphasized the
necessity of protecting not just humans from long-term damage
to radioactive
waste, but the environment as well.121 Upon returning to the
U.S., Odum
moved quickly to further educate himself and the rest of the
ecological com-
munity on the importance of addressing these new dangers. He
received a leave
of absence from the University of Georgia to study with UCLA
scientists at the
Nevada Test Site and began a revised edition of his renowned
ecology text-
book, entitled Fundamentals of Ecology, originally published in
1953. He left
much of the old version intact, but added an additional chapter
on radioecol-
ogy for the 1959 edition that specifically emphasized its

importance to nuclear
waste disposal, warning that it would ‘‘pose a far greater
problem to human
society in the future than fallout, in the absence of atomic
war.’’122
As his fellow ecologists working on Project Chariot began to
feel at this time,
Eugene Odum came to believe that ecologists could play pivotal
roles in deciding
how, where, and when to discharge radioactive materials from
nuclear technol-
ogy. He saw no other discipline except ecology as capable of
providing infor-
mation about the potential environmental effects, and pleaded
with ecologists to
119. Lauren Donaldson and Richard Foster, ‘‘Effects of
Radiation on Aquatic Organisms,’’ in
National Academy of Sciences, The Effects of Atomic Radiation
on Oceanography and Fisheries,
Report (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1957),
101. Interestingly, Donaldson
and Foster’s study was the first to consider the potential effects
of other types of toxic pollutants
besides radiation from nuclear power plants, such as chemical
wastes and thermal pollution.
120. Craige, Eugene Odum (ref. 41), 66.
121. Ibid.
122. Ibid., 71–73.
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get involved with policy decisions regarding the release of
waste material into the
environment.123 Members of the ESA also took concrete steps
to mobilize
ecologists around this issue, and over time the ESA became a
key organizer and
sponsor of research on the dangers of nuclear waste. Orlando
Park, alongside
Eugene Odum, initially founded a special committee for
coordinating studies on
radioactive pollution, called ‘‘The Effects of Radioactivity on
Natural Popula-
tions,’’ a year after the Lucky Dragon incident.124 In 1960, the
ESA renamed it as
the ‘‘Radioecology’’ committee and decided to make it a
permanent standing
group in the organization with the responsibility for addressing
the environmen-
tal problems caused by nuclear technology.125 It proved to be
one of the most
influential and longstanding in the society’s history.126
At the time of the Radioecology committee’s inception, the
government
began soliciting advice from several committee members on the
environmental
dangers of nuclear waste and war.127 In recognition of the
magnitude of the
request, Auerbach asked for help from the entire community of

ecologists on
the ecological problems resulting from these two issues,
welcoming ‘‘sugges-
tions and expressions of interest from all ecologists.’’128 He
likely did not have
to look far for assistance. The editors of Ecology had begun to
receive such
a massive influx of papers on radioactive contamination and
‘‘environmental
poisoning’’ that they were forced to issue a warning to possible
contributors
that manuscripts must also illuminate ‘‘important ecological
problems.’’129
While ecologists may not have taken center stage publicly in
debates about
nuclear weapons testing, energy, and war or explicitly aligned
themselves with
the anti-nuclear movement, their attempts to draw
policymakers’ attention
to the environmental dangers did achieve some notable
successes. One partic-
ularly important convert to their cause was Congressman Chet
Holifield
(D-CA). He arrived in the House of Representatives three years
before the
Atomic Energy Act of 1946, and took an early and intense
interest in nuclear
technology after a chance appointment to the Military Affairs
Committee in
124. ‘‘Back Matter,’’ BESA 36, no. 1 (1955): 36–40, 39.
125. Robert L. Burgess, ‘‘The Ecological Society of America,’’
in Egerton, ed., History of

American Ecology (ref. 2), 12–14.
126. Ibid.
127. Paul G. Pearson et al., ‘‘Proceedings,’’ BESA 44, no. 1
(1963): 5–28.
128. Stanley I. Auerbach, ‘‘Report of the Committee on
Radioecology for 1962,’’ in Pearson
et al., ‘‘Proceedings’’ (ref. 127), 22–23.
129. John E. Cantlon et al., ‘‘Proceedings,’’ BESA 40, no. 1
(1959): 10–29.
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1944 because of the unexpected death of another
Representative. Impressed
with his passion for atomic issues, the House Speaker appointed
Holifield to
the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in 1946. He officially
began chairing
the committee in 1961, but had already assumed a leadership
role in the 1950s
and soon became known as ‘‘Mr. Atomic Energy.’’130
In response to the Lucky Dragon accident and the mounting
public appre-
hension about fallout, Holifield and the Joint Committee on
Atomic Energy
held hearings in 1957 on ‘‘The Nature of Radioactive Fallout

and Its Effects on
Man.’’131 The goal was to assess whether nuclear testing was
harmful to human
health with information from scientists both inside and outside
the AEC,
which was accused at the time of concealing the potential risks.
No ecologists
were asked to attend, but an oceanographer gave testimony who
had worked
extensively on these issues with ecologists such as Lauren
Donaldson and
Richard Foster.132 Roger Revelle, the head of the Scripps
Institute of Ocean-
ography, strayed from the chosen topic in his testimony in order
to draw
attention to the problem of releasing nuclear wastes into the
environment.133
Congressman Holifield seemed quite troubled by Revelle’s
presentation, and
noted in his concluding remarks that it raised serious questions
about the
disturbances nuclear technology could cause in nature if not
properly con-
trolled.134 On the last day of the hearings, Holifield openly
regretted that this
field had not been covered. He demanded additional hearings to
determine
how nuclear wastes were being disposed of and in what
quantities, as well as
the potential impacts on the environment and the international
components of
the issue.135
130. Richard Wayne Dyke, Mr. Atomic Energy: Congressman
Chet Holifield and Atomic Energy

Affairs, 1945–1974 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), 22–
40.
131. United States Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy, The Nature of Radioactive
Fallout and its Effects on Man: Hearings Before the United
States Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,
Special Subcommittee on Radiation, 85th Cong., 1st sess., 4–7
Jun 1957 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1957).
132. In his remarks, Revelle noted that findings by the National
Academy of Sciences
Committee on the Effects of Radiation on the Oceans were
disconcerting, as marine organisms
were found to have a unique ability to concentrate radioactive
materials. He worked extensively
with Donaldson and Foster in preparing the NAS report on the
effects of atomic radiation on
oceanography and fisheries and relied upon much of their work.
See National Academy of
Sciences, Effects of Atomic Radiation (ref. 119).
133. United States Congress, Nature of Radioactive Fallout (ref.
131), 523–50.
134. Ibid., 548.
135. Ibid., 1425.
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True to his word, in 1959 Congressman Holifield initiated a
round of
hearings specifically on the problem of radioactive waste
disposal from nuclear
facilities. Crediting the 1957 testimony for raising his
awareness of the issue, the
congressman warned that the problem of waste disposal was as
serious as
radioactive fallout. He expressed his hope that a disaster ‘‘such
as the contam-
ination of the fishing boat, The Lucky Dragon’’ would not be
needed to focus
public attention on the matter.136 This time, Richard Foster was
asked to
present his research from the study he performed with Lauren
Donaldson’s
radioecology group at the University of Washington, which
showed the dan-
gerous accumulation of radioactive materials by marine species
even under the
maximum permissible concentrations for drinking water.137 An
ecological
study on the high levels of cesium-137 in marine ecosystems
compared with
terrestrial environments was also presented by two other
members of the
biology division at Hanford Laboratories.138 In contrast to
some more reassur-
ing testimony by plant operators and engineers, several health
physicists from
the Oak Ridge National Laboratory affirmed the ecologists’
contentions, with
the Director of the Health Physics Division stating that the

‘‘immense volume’’
of low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste posed a
substantial environ-
mental problem: ‘‘What concerns us here is not the massive
effects that might
result from the accidental release of large quantities of fission
products, but the
rather subtle, cumulative effects that might be building up due
to the slow but
continuous increase in radioactive contamination of our
environment.’’139
The next steps by the committee speak to the unease the
ecologists’ testi-
monies engendered in them. The Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy decided
to hold a special hearing several months later to question top
AEC officials
specifically on the disposal of radioactive waste into the ocean,
and several used
the opportunity to introduce new legislation setting guidelines
for offshore
nuclear waste in order to prevent what one congressman called
the ‘‘unlimited
authority of the Atomic Energy Commission to license dumping
in 5 feet of
Energy, Industrial Radioactive
Waste Disposal: Hearings Before the Special Subcommittee on
Radiation of the Joint Committee on
Atomic Energy, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 28–30 Jan 1959, 23 Feb
1959 (Washington, DC: U.S. Gov-
ernment Printing Office, 1959), 1.
137. Ibid., 1018–47.

138. Ibid., 1093–102.
139. These health physicists believed that environmental
research programs needed to be
undertaken immediately and specifically geared towards ‘‘the
contamination problem.’’ Ibid.,
2375. For additional testimony on negative environmental
effects, see ibid., 344–53, 1048–73,
1103–14, 2373, 2374.
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surf if their whimsy so dictates.’’140 However, because of
disagreements related
to the regulation of radioactive materials by the states versus
the federal gov-
ernment, the bills were ultimately never reported by the
committee.141
In addition to problems of nuclear waste, the Joint Committee
on Atomic
Energy also decided to investigate the possible ecological
catastrophes caused by
nuclear war.142 After the 1957 hearings and Revelle’s
testimony, Holifield prepared
a highly detailed hypothetical attack scenario, including a
precise date so that
historical weather data could be used. The Joint Committee on

Atomic Energy
then convened a five-day hearing on the ‘‘Biological and
Environmental Effects
of Nuclear War’’ in June of 1959 to receive testimony regarding
the consequences
of such an attack.143 Out of twenty scientists including
meteorologists, health
Energy, Industrial Radioactive
Waste Disposal: Hearings before the Special Subcommittee on
Radiation of the Joint Committee on
Atomic Energy, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 29 Jul 1959 (Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 1959), 3060.
141. The committee had a lengthy discussion on the issue of
whether or not they could
preempt the states in regulating radioactive materials. Some of
the congressmen argued that the
1954 Atomic Energy Act gave them sufficient precedent for
such a move, but others were less
convinced. There was also disagreement over the timing of the
legislation and through what
agencies the federal government would oversee nuclear waste
policies. In the end, the chairman
decided that since it was so late in the session, it did not make
sense to introduce a potentially
controversial bill. The congressional record shows that the
states, particularly along the Gulf of
Mexico, instead attempted to intervene. See United States
Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy, To Consider Draft Committee Reports on Various
Legislation, and To Consider Nominations
of John A. McCone and Paul F. Foster To Be Delegate and
Alternate to General Conference of the

International Atomic Energy Agency, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 31
Aug 1959 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1959).
142. In a second round of hearings on the application of
radioisotopes in the life sciences in
1961, Congressmen Holifield and his committee again raised the
issue of nuclear wastes even
though it was not within the scope of the meetings. Al Seymour,
who had now returned to the
radiation biology lab at the University of Washington, presented
a summary of how radioactive
tracers can illuminate food chains within ecosystems. But at the
close of his talk, the panel
questioned Seymour about the accumulation of radioactive
isotopes from nuclear waste at the
Hanford laboratory. Seymour voiced his concerns about the
accumulation of radioactive sub-
stances in fish at the Hanford plant and dismay that it was not
receiving more public attention.
United States Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,
Applications of Radioisotopes and
Radiation in the Life Sciences: Hearings before the United
States Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,
Subcommittee on Research, Development, and Radiation, 87th
Cong., 1st sess., 27–30 Mar 1961
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), 3,
266–76.
Energy, Biological and Environ-
mental Effects of Nuclear War: Hearings before the Special
Subcommittee on Radiation of the Joint
Committee on Atomic Energy, 86th Cong., 1st sess., 22–26 Jun
1959 (Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1959), 1–5.

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physicists, and engineers, the ecologists John Wolfe and Kermit
Larson were
called as witnesses to discuss the impact of nuclear war on the
environment in
a panel on ‘‘Environmental Contamination.’’
Larson began his testimony by stating that the previous decade
of research
in radioecology was designed to answer one principal question:
‘‘How much
manmade radioactivity distributed in the environment can be
tolerated safely
by man and his economy?’’144 While no studies had been
carried out with
high-yield weapons likely to be detonated over metropolitan
areas, Larson
argued that radioecology’s fallout studies could be used as a
baseline to illu-
minate the environmental effects of nuclear war. His
presentation was largely
technical in nature, and described the ecological research
performed on bio-
availability of radioactive fallout based on food webs, climate,
and topograph-

ical factors.145 The congressmen became far more agitated by
the next speaker,
who turned Larson’s data into a frightening picture of the
environmental
consequences of a nuclear attack.
John Wolfe’s subsequent testimony focused on the long-term
ecological
effects of nuclear war.146 While hoping not to paint ‘‘a
spectacular picture’’
he described several horrific outcomes of a nuclear attack, such
as how an
elimination of algae from a nuclear bomb could lead to a
collapse of food
systems in Alaska and how postattack fires on the East Coast
could destroy the
entire forest cover, leading to severe erosion, flooding of
valleys, and the
complete un-inhabitability of these regions.147 As the
committee struggled
to understand the magnitude of his statements, he pointed to the
Dust Bowl
of the 1930s as just a small example of the kind of destruction
that nuclear war
could wreak on ecosystems. Wolfe called several congressmen’s
estimations
that postattack forest fires would be similar to those caused by
cigarette butts or
camp fires ‘‘almost ludicrous.’’148 One congressman expressed
disbelief as
Wolfe explained that no part of the U.S. would remain
completely uncon-
taminated as surviving radioactive animals in blast regions
moved to ‘‘clean’’
areas and were eaten. An Army colonel also present at the
hearing interjected to

affirm that ‘‘the picture that Dr. Wolfe has presented here is
very real’’ and by
the end of Wolfe’s remarks, many congressmen appear to have
been persuaded
144. Ibid., 796.
145. Ibid., 798–831.
146. Wolfe was the first self-identified ‘‘ecologist’’ to testify in
Congress, although he noted
that they had received much ‘‘ecological testimony’’ in their
previous hearings. Ibid., 831.
147. United States Congress, Biological and Environmental
Effects (ref. 143), 833–36.
148. Ibid., 837.
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of the potential environmental consequences.149 Coverage of
his testimony
was published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which
noted that Wolfe
‘‘painted a very grim picture of the impact of war upon a
nation’s ecology.’’150
Wolfe’s statements appear to have further incited Congressman
Holifield on
the issue of nuclear war; he had been a staunch advocate for

civil defense
planning for several years.151 After the hearing, he concluded
that the focus
on carcinogenic aspects of radiation had obscured the real
problem of nuclear
war and its potential destruction. Now, armed with
‘‘authoritative testimony,’’
he petitioned the Kennedy administration for additional funding
for civil
defense. Though his requests were initially turned down,
Holifield eventually
earned the president’s support, and Kennedy appropriated
significant funding
for civil defense projects.152 Whether they served a practical
purpose in pre-
serving the environment in the event of a nuclear war may be
questionable, as
most of the resources went to the construction of fallout
shelters. In the
meantime, ecologists decided to turn inward to examine
perceived problems
in their science with the hope that changes in the field might
allow them to
provide improved analyses of the possible environmental
impacts of nuclear
technology.
CREATING A ‘‘NEW GENERATION’’ IN ECOLOGY
To answer the environmental challenges of the atomic age,
radioecologists
realized they needed to reform their training. The first decade of
research had
shown that these problems could not be addressed without high
competency
in physics and chemistry.153 Prior to World War II,

professional ecologists
149. Ibid., 838.
150. Ralph Lapp, ‘‘What Is the Price of Nuclear War?’’ Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists 15, no. 8
(1959): 340–43, 341. For coverage of Wolfe’s testimony in the
popular press, see Herman Kahn
and Sidney Lens, ‘‘Are Shelters Necessary?’’ Rotarian 101, no.
1 (1962): 9–13, 58–59, 13.
151. Dyke, Mr. Atomic Energy (ref. 130), 204.
152. Historian Richard Dyke does not specify in his biography
of Holifield what this
‘‘authoritative’’ testimony was in the 1959 hearings, but it
seems clear from the congressional
record that it was Wolfe’s discussion of the environmental
devastation which served this purpose.
No other speakers addressed widespread damage to areas
throughout the United States. See ibid.,
207–08.
153. It should be noted that training in ecology itself was also
in limited supply at this time.
Almost half of leading U.S. universities offered no courses in
ecology, and within biology de-
partments, ecology was generally not a requirement to complete
a degree. Paul B. Sears, ‘‘The
Place of Ecology in Science,’’ American Naturalist 94, no. 876
(1960): 193–200, 193–97.
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generally came from one of two educational tracks: botany, the
dominant
background of practitioners, and zoology. This balance
remained until the
initiation of studies related to radioactive fallout.154 By 1961,
collaboration
among oceanographers, members of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, health
physicists, and traditional ecologists had led to a substantial
shift in what
counted as ecological research and who was considered a
member of their
scientific community.155
In the aftermath of the Project Chariot fiasco, Kermit Larson
began orga-
nizing the first national meeting of ‘‘Radioecologists’’ with the
help of the
ESA’s Radioecology committee. The conference organizers
hoped to review
all the research thus far in the field and discuss how to address
the environ-
mental problems of nuclear technology, particularly regarding
nuclear waste
and war. It took place over five days in September 1961, and
included ecologists
from the University of Washington, UCLA, and the AEC
Division of Envi-
ronmental Sciences.156 While much of the conference focused

on discussions
of scientific papers, a special panel on the last day of the
conference sparked
considerable preoccupation with how ecological training could
be revised to
confront the unique environmental problems posed by the
atomic age.
The panel was chaired by Eugene Odum, who had authored the
first
textbook on ecology and had advocated for reforms in the
education of future
ecologists in order to facilitate research on the ecological
impacts of nuclear
technology. Odum began writing the first ecology textbook back
in the late
1940s while working as a new professor at the University of
Georgia and for
the AEC at their Savannah plant. Pressed by his colleagues both
within the
biology department and at the nuclear facility to articulate the
major prin-
ciples of ecology, Odum decided to take up the difficult task
that ‘‘no one
seems to want to tackle’’ and composed a textbook for students
interested in
154. At the second National Symposium on Radioecology, John
Wolfe pointed out that much
of the first ‘‘ecological and environmental’’ work was
‘‘obscured’’ under unfamiliar names like
‘‘biophysics’’ and said that he hoped future historians would
incorporate these studies into the
history of ecology. Wolfe, ‘‘Radioecology: Retrospection and
Future,’’ in Nelson and Evans, eds.,
Proceedings (ref. 50), xi.

155. For an account of the emerging cooperation among
forestry, game, soil, fisheries and
zoological experts with oceanographers and meteorologists at
the University of Washington
laboratory, see Paul Wells, ‘‘Atomic Science Seeks Answers to
Impoverished Lakes, Forests,’’
Sunday News & Leader, 26 Jul 1959, UWRE, Box 2, Folder 18,
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
Division of Biology and Medicine. In further support of this
point, see Sigmund Olsen to Stanley
Auerbach, 6 Jul 1965, UWRE, Box 7, Folder 15, Fern Lake.
156. See Schultz and Klement, eds., Radioecology: Proceedings
(ref. 1).
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the field.157 As noted earlier, he revised this work to include
new information
on radioecology in the late 1950s, and continued to push for
both new
graduate training and the reeducating of current
professionals.158
The two-hour session was widely attended and spawned an open
discussion
from the audience where more than twenty people responded to

the panelists.
In his introductory remarks, Odum stated his belief that the
field had recently
experienced rapid growth because of its significance in
preserving ‘‘the welfare
of man.’’ Noting the cooperation among health physicists,
environmental
engineers and ecologists, Odum encouraged his colleagues to
dissolve the
distinction between pure and applied science for the ‘‘best
interest of man-
kind’’ and argued for establishing radiation ecology as an
interdisciplinary
field.159 The attendees reached a general agreement on the need
to retrain
current ecologists and overhaul doctoral programs to provide a
solid education
in the physical and chemical sciences for ecologists, as well as
push for greater
ecological training among biologists more generally.
Stanley Auerbach, also on the panel, responded to Odum’s
presentation
with a proposal to open a new course at the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory for
postdoctoral students interested in the environmental effects of
atomic energy,
with a specific focus on nuclear fallout and waste. Prospective
applicants would
need a solid foundation in mathematics and chemistry, and the
course would
be designed to create a ‘‘new generation’’ of ecologists under
the tutelage of the
program’s future graduates. Within a year, the first crop of
students completed
Auerbach’s course after he secured sponsorship from the

National Science
Foundation, the AEC, the ESA, the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, and the
Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies, and the program was
lauded as a major
success.160
As the modern environmental movement erupted across the
United States
after Rachel Carson’s publication of Silent Spring in 1962,
Auerbach’s program
158. Odum at times conveyed his ‘‘personal disappointment’’
that more ecologists were not
willing to retrain themselves in radioecology, forcing the field
to turn to the next generation. His
passion was unmistakably rooted in the ongoing damage to the
environment. As he put it in an
article on the ‘‘new’’ ecology: ‘‘If biologists do not rise to the
challenge, who will advise on the
management of man’s environment—the technicians who have
great skill but no understanding,
or the politicians who have neither?’’ See Eugene Odum, ‘‘The
New Ecology,’’ BioScience 14, no.
7 (1964): 14–16.
159. Eugene Odum, ‘‘Panel Discussion on Education and
Research Training,’’ in Schultz and
Klement, eds., Radioecology: Proceedings (ref. 1), 643.
160. Ibid., 644.
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helped launch the lab into a model for transforming the National
Laboratories
into environmental science centers.161 Oak Ridge received new
grants from
the AEC for an environmental research laboratory, and the
National Science
Foundation appointed Auerbach as director of a forest biome
program to study
ecosystems across the eastern United States.162 The project
formed the basis
for subsequent programs at Oak Ridge and other National
Laboratories to
investigate a number of environmental problems, notably acid
rain and climate
change.163 In this way, though the transformation in
environmental awareness
which occurred among AEC ecologists did not result in
substantive policy
changes, their research into the environmental consequences of
nuclear technol-
ogy and attempts to reform their educational training did
facilitate the transition
to examining a myriad of environmental problems in the
ensuing years.
At the second national symposium of radioecologists in 1967,
Wolfe seemed

optimistic about ecologists’ increasing role in environmental
problems, if chas-
tened by the challenges of the last decade.164 Reflecting on the
public uproar
over a growing number of issues beyond nuclear fallout and
waste, such as
toxic chemicals and air pollutants, Wolfe noted that these were
fundamentally
‘‘ecological’’ problems that required their unique expertise and
experience. He
seemed to lament that radioecologists could not have done more
in the past to
shape policies, conceding that mistakes were made, and he
urged ecologists to
reach out more to government administrators.165 Wolfe told his
audience not
to regret what they had lost in the last three generations from
changes to the
environment, but to fight to reconstruct what they had left.
The guest of honor was none other than Congressman Holifield,
who
echoed Wolfe’s sentiments.166 He argued that the techniques to
study the
161. Laboratory Director Alvin Weinberg dubbed 1969 the
‘‘year of the environment’’ in his
annual State of the Laboratory address, exclaiming: ‘‘On every
hand we are being told the fruits of
technology are endangering our living space . . . . The
ecologists have displaced the physicists as
high priests in this new era of environmental concern.’’ The
National Laboratories, but especially
Oak Ridge, helped the AEC prepare its first Environmental
Impact Assessment Reports under
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Carolyn

Krause, ed., ‘‘Oak Ridge National
Laboratory: The First Fifty Years,’’ ORNL Review 25, nos. 3
and 4 (1992): 1–288, on 173.
162. Ibid., 149, 173.
163. Ibid., 166.
164. Wolfe, ‘‘Radioecology: Retrospection and Future,’’ in
Nelson and Evans, eds., Pro-
ceedings (ref. 50), xi.
165. Ibid., xii.
166. Holifield, ‘‘The Scientist’s Responsibility in the Control of
Man’s Environment,’’ in
Nelson and Evans, eds., Proceedings (ref. 50), 1.
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effects of nuclear weapons and wastes were ‘‘directly
applicable to the analysis
of pollution problems’’ and hoped radioecologists would assist
in such
work.167 True to his word, a few months after the 1967
meeting, Holifield’s
Joint Committee on Atomic Energy introduced legislation to
enlist the AEC’s
National Laboratories in studies on environmental pollution. It
was passed and

enacted into law in December of that year. This research
experience proved
vital after the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act
in 1969, which
required the AEC to submit environmental impact assessment
reports on
nuclear power plants. Ecologists at the National Laboratories
were given
responsibility for completing the first such reports for the
government.168
Radioecologists also began to receive increasing recognition for
their envi-
ronmental expertise from fellow biologists. During the 1969
‘‘Year of the
Environment,’’ John Wolfe was invited to give the inaugural
address at the
annual meeting of the American Institute for Biological
Sciences. Entitled
‘‘Chickens,’’ Wolfe’s speech implored biologists to utilize their
knowledge to
solve the environmental problems facing humanity and decried
early failures of
ecologists to involve themselves in public affairs.169 It was the
only speech to
have ever received a standing ovation at the society’s
meeting.170
The attempts of Wolfe and other radioecologists to raise
awareness about
the potential dangers of nuclear technology should prompt
historians to reex-
amine to what extent AEC biologists pursued ‘‘basic’’ research
without regard
to its consequences for the natural environment. As this paper
has shown,

studies to ascertain the ecological damages from the Lucky
Dragon accident and
the controversy over using atomic weapons in construction
projects caused
Wolfe, Donaldson, Larson, Seymour, and others involved in this
work to
profoundly question how their scientific research could play a
role in evaluat-
ing the environmental implications of nuclear fallout, waste,
and war. These
men were certainly far from activists on such issues. But their
private expres-
sions of apprehension about the implications of their research
for the AEC,
attempts to alert the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy to these
problems,
and efforts to reform ecological science to better evaluate
environmental risks
from radioactive pollution provide clear evidence of the
intensifying concerns
of these ecologists over nuclear technology. Understanding
these developments
167. Ibid., 7.
168. Ibid.
169. Sprugel, ‘‘John N. Wolfe’’ (ref. 61), 22. Wolfe was still
employed by the AEC at the time.
He left the organization several years later and died of cancer in
1974.
170. Ibid.
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is essential to grasping how ecological science began to play a
greater role in the
environmental issues facing American society.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Daniel Kevles, Bruno Strasser, Angela Creager,
Alistair Sponsel,
Helen Curry, and Robin Scheffler, each of whom offered helpful
suggestions on
earlier drafts of this article. Comments from Thomas Wellock
and Judy Johns Schloe-
gel considerably improved the paper as well, and I am very
appreciative of Jacob
Darwin Hamblin’s guidance in making revisions. Portions of the
paper were presented
at Yale University’s Northeast Regional Environmental History
Conference in April
2011 and at the annual History of Science Society meeting in
Cleveland, Ohio, in
November 2011; thank you to everyone who attended and
provided thoughtful
feedback. This material was based on work supported by a
National Science Foun-
dation Graduate Research Fellowship.

5 3 0 | R O T H S C H I L D
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Agent Orange During the Vietnam
War: The Lingering Issue of Its Civilian
and Military Health Impact
See also Morabia, p. 714; Freudenberg, p. 724; Wodka,
p. 728; Laurell, p. 730; and Phillips, p. 731.
Between 1961 and 1971, US
and Republic of Vietnam forces
sprayed more than 20.2 million
gallons of military herbicides
to defoliate forests and mangroves
in what was then South Vietnamto
deny cover to enemy troops and
makebombingtargetsmorevisible.

Relatively small quantities (2%)
were usedfordefoliationofmilitary
base perimeters; 9% of the total was
used to destroy “unfriendly” crops
as a means of reducing enemy food
supplies. The herbicides were also
used in the United States, but at
application rates at least an order of
magnitude lower and with some-
what differing formulations.
The military herbicides were
nicknamed in accordance with
the colored stripes on their
55-gallon drums. Agent Orange
was a mixture of butoxyethanol
esters of 2,4-dichlorophenoxy-
acetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-
trichlorophenoxyacetic acid
(2,4,5-T). Agent Blue, which
consisted of dimethylarsinic acid
(cacodylic acid), was used pri-
marily for crop destruction.
Agent White was a mixture of
2,4-D and picloram. The herbi-
cides that contained 2,4,5-T
were contaminated with dioxin
(2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-
dioxin [TCDD]). The extent and
implications of the TCDD con-
tent were not widely known or
appreciated until well into the
1970s, when 2,4,5-T was banned
from most US domestic uses
owing to evidence of its
teratogenicity.1

“ECOCIDE”: THE FIRST
DEBATE
Public health debate originally
focused on “ecocide” from the
massivedefoliation.In1970,theUS
Congress commissioned a National
Academy of Sciences (NAS) study
with Department of Defense
(DOD) cooperation. The DOD
created the HERBS file, an elec-
tronic record of the flight path
coordinates of more than 9000
missions flown by C-123 aircraft
used in the Air Force’s Operation
Ranch Hand, the code name given
to Air Force military herbicide
operations carried out in the Re-
public of Vietnam between 1962
and 1971. NAS developed a prim-
itivegeographicinformationsystem
using computer programs and
line-printer graphics to document
sprayinganddefoliation.TheDOD
added spray records in 1985, pri-
marily records of Army helicopter
spraying of basecamp perimeters.2
We later developed a more
modernized geographic in-
formation system, also under an
NAS contract. Using primary
sources (in close collaboration with
DOD experts), we expanded the
original HERBS file in two ways.

First, we were able to correct about
10% of the records that had pre-
viously been discarded by NAS
because they were clearly errone-
ous; we corrected the records
through examination of primary
source materials. Second, we dis-
covered archival data on approxi-
mately 200 missions in which more
than two million liters of Agent
Purple had been sprayed prior to
1965. Agent Purple was an early
form of Agent Orange that was
almost certainly more heavily
TCDD contaminated. The
HERBSfileremainsacoreresource
for studying the herbicides used in
Vietnam. Figure 1 illustrates many
of the nearly 500 spray targets that
we digitized from military records.
MILLIONS OF
VIETNAMESE
DIRECTLY SPRAYED
We estimated that at least
366 kg of TCDD were sprayed
on South Vietnam. We used a
conservative estimate of three parts
per million of dioxin contamina-
tion and did not include poorly
documented herbicides sprayed by
Vietnamese, US Army, and US
Navy trucks, boats, hand sprayers,
and helicopters. Data on more than

100000 gallons of highly con-
taminated Agent Pink shown in
procurementrecordsbutnotfound
in any recorded missions are also
missing from our estimate. Agent
Pink consisted only of 2,4,5-T as
a 60:40 mixture of its n-butyl and
isobutyl esters. Forty-two missions
intended to spray 30000 gallons of
herbicideareknownto haveended
with emergency dumps in which
the herbicide was jettisoned in
about 30 seconds, as compared
with the usual four to five minutes.
At least five herbicide-loaded air-
craft crashed. Hundreds of thou-
sands of drums contaminated with
residual herbicides made their way
through the impoverished coun-
tryside for a variety of uses.1
Atleast3851ofthe5958known
fixed-wing missions had targeted
flight paths directly over South
Vietnamese hamlets. We calculated
thatatleast2.1millionbutperhapsas
many as 4.8 million people in 3181
hamlets were sprayed.1 Population
estimates for an additional 1430
sprayed hamlets are unavailable.
Few systematic data exist on pop-
ulation exposures through residual
contamination of soils or con-
sumption of herbicidal chemicals
takenupinthefoodchain,although

“hot spots” are known.3
MANY PROBLEMS,
LITTLE
CORROBORATION
Despite reports in the press of
possible health problems of ex-
posed US military personnel
emerging in the late 1970s, few
peer-reviewed studies involving
credible herbicide exposure
measures have been carried out.
Data on relationships between
herbicide exposures and diseases
for which veterans can receive
medical attention and benefits are
largely derived from environ-
mental and toxicological studies
not associated with Vietnam;
rather, this information is based
on systematic studies conducted
by the Institute of Medicine
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jeanne Mager Stellman is with the Department of Health Policy
and Management, Mailman
School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY.
Steven D. Stellman is with
the Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public
Health, Columbia University.
Correspondence should be sent to Steven D. Stellman, PhD,
MPH, Department of Epi-
demiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia
University, 722 W 168th St, New

York, NY 10032 (e-mail: [email protected]). Reprints can be
ordered at http://www.
ajph.org by clicking the “Reprints” link.
This editorial was accepted March 13, 2018.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304426
AJPH SPECIAL SECTION: THE SIXTIES
726 Editorial Stellman and Stellman AJPH June 2018, Vol 108,
No. 6
mailto:[email protected]
http://www.ajph.org
biennially since 1994 (see the box
on this page). Many studies of
veterans are compromised by se-
vere misclassification: some have
definedveterans’merepresencein
Vietnam as “exposure,” whereas
others have focused on service in
the four military combat tactical
zones despite the fact that spraying
varied dramatically within each
zone (e.g., one zone contained
unsprayed Saigon and the heavily
sprayed Iron Triangle).
A 20-year Air Force study of
Ranch Hand air and ground crews
gathered massive amounts of sur-
vey and medical data and reported
herbicide-related diabetes; how-

ever, because of its small size (the
study involved approximately
2800 men), it has low power with
respect to many of the health
endpoints of interest, and numer-
ous TCDD assays relied on blood
drawn decades after exposures
occurred. Army Chemical Corps
personnel are a source of many
health reports, but they handled
very small amounts of herbicides
and large quantities of other
chemicals. (Ranch Hand was an
Air Force as opposed to an Army
operation.)Theseandotherstudies
are often based on unreliable self-
reports of handling of herbicides.4
EXPOSURE
OPPORTUNITY
MEASURES REFINED
Beginning in the 1980s, we
refined the NAS HERBS-file
methodology to derive “exposure
opportunity” scores in cross-
sectional studies of a random
sample of 12000 American Le-
gionnaires. We demonstrated that
a sizeable number of troops served
in sprayed areas and were at ele-
vated risk of selected health out-
comes.5 In 1983, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention

(CDC) initiated a large Agent
Orange cohort study of combat
battalions whose daily locations
were meticulously assembled by
the DOD and the CDC employed
an exposure algorithm almost
identical to ours; the agency
abruptly abandoned the study
in 1987, however, declaring it
impossible to use troop location
data for estimating exposures be-
cause scores were inconsistent with
serumdioxin levels.The CDCalso
asserted that ground troops who
did not directly handle the herbi-
cides were not “heavily” exposed.
Two separate Institute of
Medicine panels rejected these
assertions. NAS issued a request
for application to further develop
a methodology based on military
records for estimating exposures
to military herbicides in Viet-
nam.4 We responded to that
request and were awarded a
contract under which we de-
veloped our updated geographic
information system.6 Our data
sets related to spraying, troop
locations, and exposure oppor-
tunity scores are available on
a Web site funded by the
National Library of Medicine
(http://www.workerveteranhealth.

org/milherbs/new/).
CONCLUSIONS
The Agent Orange story is one
of massive exposure of civilian and
military populations to toxic
chemicals once thought safe. Few
studies exist of the long-range
effects of the Vietnam War on the
Note. Spraying operations were directed at specific targets, 487
of which are
shown; we digitized some of the images from original hand-
drawn maps (colored
areas at upper left) in files rediscovered in the National
Archives. Some areas were
targeted in multiple projects at different times, resulting in
mission overlaps. Red
and green outlines are for 1965 and 1966; blue lines are
waterways.
FIGURE 1—Illustration of Vietnamese Spray Targets Digitized
From
Military Records
DISEASES FOR WHICH MILITARY SERVICE IN
VIETNAM MAY BE CONSIDERED PRESUMPTIVE OF
EXPOSURE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS
AFFAIRS FOR THE PURPOSE OF TREATMENT AND
COMPENSATION
Amyloid light-chain amyloidosis
Chronic B-cell leukemias

Chloracne
Diabetes mellitus type 2
Hodgkin’s disease
Ischemic heart disease
Multiple myeloma
Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
Parkinson’s disease
Peripheral neuropathy, early onset
Porphyria cutanea tarda
Prostate cancer
Respiratory cancers, including lung
Soft tissue sarcomas (other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma,
Kaposi’s
sarcoma, and mesothelioma)
Spina bifida in offspring
Note.
DatawerederivedfromtheUSDepartmentofVeteransAffairs(https:/
/
www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/conditions/ind
ex.
asp) and reflect compensable diseases and conditions as of April
15, 2018.

June 2018, Vol 108, No. 6 AJPH Stellman and Stellman
Editorial 727
http://www.workerveteranhealth.org/milherbs/new/
http://www.workerveteranhealth.org/milherbs/new/
https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/conditi
ons/index.asp
ons/index.asp
ons/index.asp
health of soldiers or civilians, or
on the general environment.
There is a strong suspicion that
elevated rates of birth defects
may be attributable to herbi-
cides, but scientific corrobora-
tion is limited. Studies of South
Korean troops who served in
Vietnam have revealed in-
creased risks of diabetes and
other disorders.7 Much of the
existing literature on US
veterans relies on exposure
methodologies with severe
misclassification limitations or
on populations too small to al-
low questions regarding cancer
and other chronic diseases to be
addressed.

Faced with this dilemma, the
Institute of Medicine oversaw
development of a peer-reviewed,
military records–based exposure
methodology, similar to early
NAS and CDC studies, for esti-
mating exposures; sufficient
funding to carry out epidemio-
logical studies has not been
forthcoming despite strong con-
gressional mandates. The at-risk
veteran population is now at an
age at which chronic diseases
become manifest, so the time is
optimal for conducting such
studies, crafting health programs
for veterans to better meet their
needs, and truly assessing,
addressing, and ameliorating
health conditions and continuing
exposures to lingering traces of
Agent Orange in Vietnam.
Jeanne Mager Stellman, PhD
Steven D. Stellman, PhD, MPH
CONTRIBUTORS
Both authors contributed equally to this
editorial.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by National
Academy of Sciences subcontract
NAS-VA-5124-98 and National
Library of Medicine grant

1G13LM009137.
REFERENCES
1. Stellman JM, Stellman SD, Christian
R, Weber T, Tomasallo C. The
extent and patterns of usage of Agent
Orange and other herbicides in
Vietnam. Nature. 2003;422(6933):
681–687.
2. National Research Council Com-
mittee on the Effects of Herbicides in
South Vietnam. The Effects of Herbicides
in South Vietnam: Part A. Washington,
DC: National Academy of Sciences;
1974.
3. Dwernychuk LW, Cau HD, Hatfield
CT, et al. Dioxin reservoirs in
southern Viet Nam—a legacy of
Agent Orange. Chemosphere. 2002;
47(2):117–137.
4. Institute of Medicine Committee on
the Assessment of Wartime Exposure
to Herbicides in Vietnam. Veterans
and Agent Orange: Health Effects of
Herbicides Used in Vietnam. Washington,
DC: National Academies Press;
1994–2014.
5. Stellman SD, Stellman JM, Sommer
JF Jr. Health and reproductive outcomes
among American Legionnaires in relation
to combat and herbicide exposure in

Vietnam. Environ Res. 1988;47(2):
150–174.
6. Stellman JM, Stellman SD, Weber T,
Tomasallo C, Stellman AB, Christian R
Jr. A geographic information system for
characterizing exposure to Agent Or-
ange and other herbicides in Vietnam.
Environ Health Perspect. 2003;111(3):
321–328.
7. Yi SW, Hong JS, Ohrr H, Yi JJ. Agent
Orange exposure and disease prevalence
in Korean Vietnam veterans: the Korean
veterans health study. Environ Res. 2014;
133:56–65.
OSHA 1971: Bringing Government to
Protect the Lives of Industrial and
Farm Workers
See also Morabia, p. 714; Freudenberg, p. 724; Stellman
and Stellman, p. 726; Laurell, p. 730; and Phillips, p. 731.
On May 28, 1971, one month
after the Occupational Safety and
Health Act (OSHA) went into
effect, OSHA issued its first
citation against an employer.
Citation No. 1 found that:
Visible pools and droplets of
mercury have been allowed to
accumulate and remain on the
cellroom floor, in the basement,

and in other working areas and
working surfaces contributing
to airborne concentrations of
mercurywhichsignificantlyexceed
levels generally accepted to be safe
levels of such concentration. . . .
Instances of excessive airborne
concentrations of mercury had
beenmade known tothe employer
onoccasionspriortothedateofthis
inspection. (see Appendix A,
available as a supplement to the
online version of this article at
http://www.ajph.org)
The cited employer was the
Allied Chemical Corporation, one
of America’s oldest chemical
companies, which had been
formed in 1920 from 4 chemical
companies with roots as far back as
1881. For more than one year prior
totheissuanceofthecitation,Allied
Chemical knew that its workers
were being overexposed to mer-
cury as a result of an investigation
conducted by the Bureau of Oc-
cupational Safety and Health
(BOSH), the predecessor to the
National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health (NIOSH).
BEFORE OSHA
That a major American cor-

poration, as late as 1971, could
knowingly expose its workers
to the classic health hazard of
mercury poisoning, described by
Ramazzini in 1713 as “the most
cruel bane of all that deals with
death and destruction,”1(p308) was
emblematic of working conditions
in the United States that led to the
passage of the Occupational Safety
and Health Act. Until OSHA, the
United States lacked any govern-
mental structure that provided
workers with the right to complain
and force employers to correct
hazardous conditions.
“Unfortunately, our legisla-
tors and others who are re-
sponsible for the safety of all
our citizens are lethargic about
this major problem of health
and safety,” wrote Anthony
Mazzocchi in the forward to the
March 29, 1969, edition of
Hazards in the Industrial Environ-
ment.2(foreward) Mazzocchi,
a leading labor advocate for the
passage of OSHA, was the
Citizenship-Legislative Director
of the Oil, Chemical, and
Atomic Workers International
Union (OCAW). His union was
at the receiving end of the
post–World War II explosive

growth in the US chemical in-
dustry, which had barreled ahead
with new products, with little
thought of the consequences to
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steven Wodka is an attorney-at-law in Little Silver, NJ.
Correspondence should be sent to Steven Wodka, 577 Little
Silver Point Rd, P.O. Box 66,
Little Silver, NJ 07739-0066 (e-mail: [email protected]).
Reprints can be ordered at http://
www.ajph.org by clicking the “Reprints” link.
This editorial was accepted March 11, 2018.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304417
728 Editorial Wodka AJPH June 2018, Vol 108, No. 6
Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further
reproduction
prohibited without permission.
225

n 1962, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published, triggering
public concern over chemical residues in food and the environ -
ment. Her work helped lead to the founding of the United States
Environmental Protection Agency and international agreements
to ban or restrict several key synthetic chemicals (Lear 1998).
Yet
while Carson drew international attention to the pollution prob-
lem, the decades that followed witnessed a dramatic increase,
rather than decrease, in chemical use. The modern chemical in -
dustry, now a two-trillion-dollar-a-year global enterprise, has
be-
come central to the global economy, generating millions of jobs
and consuming enormous quantities of energy and raw materi -
als. Since 1952, more than 140 000 synthetic chemical
compounds
have been made, while each year over 70 000 different industri-
al chemicals are synthesized and sold, which means that billions
of pounds of chemicals make their way annually into our bodies
and ecosystems (Langston 2010). More than 358 industrial
chem-
icals and pesticides have been detected in the cord blood of mi-
nority American infants (EWG 2009).
DDT, Gender, and Responses to Silent Spring
The publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring ignited a
contro -
versy over DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) residues,
which
illustrates several important elements of gender in Carson’s
lega-
cy. As a scientist, Carson had long worked with and been
accept-
ed by male colleagues (see figure, p. 226), but nonetheless the
con -

troversy about her book reveals assumptions about gender made
by Carson’s critics. Second, her approaches in Silent Spring
chal-
lenged traditional gender stereotypes. Finally, as an estrogenic
chemical, DDT itself had the potential to disrupt sexual differen
-
tiation in exposed animals.
Like many other chemicals developed during the war years,
DDT was originally envisioned as a miracle chemical that
would
improve the quality of human lives at relatively low risk to
people
(Russell 2001). Researchers in the United States (U.S.) found
that
low doses of DDT killed mosquitoes and lice, and the Allies be-
>
Contact: Prof. Dr. Nancy Langston | King Carl XVI Gustaf
Visiting Professor | Umeå University | Department of Historical,
Philosoph ical and Religious Studies | 90187 Umeå | Sweden |
Tel.: +46 90 7867040 | E-Mail: [email protected]
Rachel Carson’s Legacy: Endocrine Disrupting
Chemicals and Gender Concerns
GAIA 21/3 (2012): 225 – 229
Abstract
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring ignited a controversy over
synthetic
chemical residues, which illustrates several important elements
of gender in Carson’s legacy. First, Carson’s approaches in

Silent Spring challenged traditional gender stereotypes. Second,
the reception to Silent Spring reveals assumptions about gender
that influenced the ways in which Carson’s critics understood
human and environmental health. Finally, endocrine disrupting
chemicals had the potential to disrupt sexual differentiation in
exposed animals. Two of Carson’s core insights – the trans -
generational effects of synthetic chemicals and the ecological
context of human health – have continuing relevance for
understand ing the environmental and human health effects
of endocrine disrupting chemicals.
Keywords
endocrine disruptors, gender, Rachel Carson
GAIA 21/3 (2012): 225 – 229 | www.oekom.de/gaia
I
© 2012 N. Langston; licensee oekom verlag.
This is an article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attri bution
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which
permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduc tion in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.

In Silent Spring, Rachel Carson noted that DDT might alter
sexual development and reproduction. Yet DDT was only the
first of
many endocrine disrupt ing pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and
industrial
chemicals. Their impact upon nature in turn impacts upon
human health.
Nancy Langston
Rachel Carson’s Legacy:
Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals and
Gender Concerns
FOCUS: 50 YEARS OF »SILENT SPRING«
225_229_Langston 21.09.12 09:52 Seite 225
www.oekom.de/gaia | GAIA 21/3 (2012): 225 – 229
226 Nancy LangstonFORSCHUNG | RESEARCH
gan spraying DDT where soldiers were threatened by malaria
and
civilians by typhoid. After World War II, despite the objections
of American army scientists, civilian uses and marketing of
DDT
were permitted. The properties that made DDT so useful in the
war – persistence and a broad spectrum of activity – were the
same
traits that caused concern within the scientific community about

its wider use (Russell 2001).
Carson’s central argument against DDT in Silent Spring was
that humans could not separate themselves from nature, and that
science, while a powerful tool for understanding nature, could
on ly offer an illusion of control over it. She argued that
excessive
use of DDT was indicative of a growing ideology of technologi-
cal control over nature’s unruliness that found expression in the
wholehearted adoption of the chemical miracle: synthetic hor-
mones in food systems, synthetic pesticides in field crops, syn -
thet ic plastics in the home. Scholars such as Hazlett (2004) and
Smith (2001) argue that in stressing the ways pesti cides such as
DDT made their way into the home and body – spac es seen as
tra ditionally belonging to the private, domestic sphere of wom
-
en – Carson challenged contemporary gender boundaries.
Critics were quick to attack Silent Spring in explicitly gendered
terms (Lear 1998, Sideris and Moore 2008, Smith 2001, Mauch
2012, in this issue). A letter to The New Yorker stated: “We can
live without birds and animals, but, as the current market slump
shows, we cannot live without business. As for insects, isn’t it
just
like a woman to be scared to death of a few little bugs! As long
as we have the H-bomb everything will be O.K.” A review in
the
popular American magazine Time accused Carson of using “emo
-
tion-fanning words” and making an “unfair, one-sided, and hys-
terically overemphatic” case, based on her “mystical attachment
to the balance of nature” (Smith 2001, pp. 741 f.). The industry
representative Robert White Stevens said: “The crux, the
fulcrum
over which the argument chiefly rests, is that Miss Carson

main-
tains that the balance of nature is a major force in the survival
of man, whereas the modern chemist, the modern biologist and
scientist, believes that man is steadily controlling nature” (Gore
2007, pp. 65 f.). Hazlett (2004, pp. 715 f.) argues that “in
question -
ing the boundaries between humans and nature, Carson uninten -
tionally had questioned the lines between humans, such as those
defined by gender. (…) In response, Carson’s detractors –
includ-
ing some conservationists – tightened the entire cultural system
of oppositions. (…) Science and technology (…) kept humans
and
nature separate. Carson and her supporters were hyster ical and
over-emotional (read, feminine) for suggesting otherwise.”
Transgenerational Effects
Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) such as DDT,
polychlori -
nat ed biphenyls (PCBs), diethylstilbestrol (DES), and
polybromi-
nated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) have caused increasing concern
(Vandenberg et al. 2012). EDCs can interfere with the hormonal
signaling systems that control sexual and reproductive develop-
ment. Sources include pesticides, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and
increasingly flame retardants. Routes of human exposure
include
water, atmosphere, and food (McKinlay et al. 2008, Scheringer
2012, in this issue, Werner and Hitzfeld 2012, in this issue).
Carson gave voice to growing concerns about the reproductive
risks posed by synthetic chemicals with hormonal actions. In
par-
ticular, well before the development of epigenetics1 as a
thriving

research field, Carson noted that DDT might have transgener-
ational effects, writing that “the insecticidal poison affects a
gen -
er a tion once removed from initial contact with it” (Carson
1962,
p. 121). Concerns about DDT’s effects on sexual differentiation
emerged even before the publication of Silent Spring. In 1950,
the
American biologists Burlington and Lindeman found that DDT
effectively castrated male chicks: the testes of treated chicks
were
less than one-fifth the size of those of control chicks
(Burlington
and Lindeman 1950). Burlington and Lindeman urged further
in vestigations of these estrogenic effects of DDT, and other re-
searchers showed that DDT affected steroid hormones and re-
production (Conney et al. 1967, Welch et al. 1969). After the
publi -
cation of Silent Spring, journalists focused on DDT’s potential
to
affect sexual traits and the expression of gender. Common head-
lines, such as Scientist Warns of DDT Peril to Sex Life,
Scientist Fears
DDT Can Cause Sex Change, and DDT Termed Peril to the Sex
Or-
gans, foreshadowed media responses to EDC research 25 years
lat -
er (Dunlap 1981). Recent research in epigenetics has shown that
EDCs, particularly those that mimic the effects of estrogen, may
alter DNA methylation, promoting reproductive and sexual
prob-
lems across subsequent generations (Crews et al. 2007).
Rachel Carson and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service artist Bob
Hines con-
ducting marine biology research in Florida in 1952. When Hines

started his job
in 1948, he was chagrined to find that a female biologist was his
supervisor. But
soon Carson and Hines developed a congenial working
relationship that evolved
into a loyal friendship (Juriga 2010).
FIGURE:
©
U
.S
.F
is
h
&
W
ild
lif
e
S
er
vi
ce
1 “Epigenetics” is the study of how the environment affects the
genome of
the individual during its development (and in some cases the
development

of its descendants) without changing the DNA sequence (Crews
2008).
225_229_Langston 21.09.12 09:52 Seite 226
227RESEARCH
>
direct link to vaginal cancer in girls exposed in utero, its use to
stunt the height of tall girls was expanding. In 1946, a research
ab stract had suggested that by closing growth plates in bones,
DES could help limit the height of prepubescent girls who were
“becoming alarmed and unhappy about the extremes to which
their exuberant, albeit normal growth was carrying them”
(Craw-
ford 1978, cited in Lee and Howell 2006, p. 1036). The abstract
received little attention until 1956, when the endocrinologist
Goldzieher began promoting DES to treat “excessive growth in
the adolescent female” (Goldzieher 1956). By 1977, when DES
use
had long been shown to cause cancer in women, fully half of
sur-
veyed pediatricians reported that they had treated tall girls with
DES and related estrogens to prevent them from getting taller
than feminine women “ought” to be (Lee and Howell 2006). As
Lee and Howell (2006, p. 1039) point out, “idealized gender
rela -
tions may be as important as scientific studies in determining
what we will do as practicing clinicians,” a lesson that also

applied
to DES treatment for menopause and pregnancy. While DES is
no longer prescribed to pregnant women or girls who might be-
come tall, the fetal and transgenerational effects of current
fertili -
ty drugs remain understudied (Elizur and Tulandi 2008), suggest
-
ing that the lessons of DES have not yet been learned.
Sex Ratios
Carson used her examples of wildlife affected by synthetic
chem-
icals to make an important point: chemicals that affect wildlife
and laboratory animals can also affect people. However,
establish-
ing those relationships has proven difficult. Many researchers
are
concerned that EDCs might lead to problems with human repro -
ductive health (Fowler et al. 2002, Caserta et al. 2011,
Kortenkamp
et al. 2011). Yet studies of people exposed to estrogenic
chemicals
have led to conflicting results, as sex ratio research illustrates.
Concern about endocrine disruptors has long been entangled
with questions of gender boundaries because even low doses of
hormone disrupting chemicals can have significant effects on
sexual differentiation (Vandenberg et al. 2012). Sex ratio has
been
suggested as a potential environmental health indicator of expo
-
sure to estrogenic chemicals (Jarrell 2002). Some wildlife
popula -
tions exposed to EDCs have developed high rates of intersex
con-

ditions and increased numbers of female offspring. In Britain,
for
example, intersex fish have been found at 86 percent of river lo-
cations sampled (Jobling et al. 1996), and estrogenic chemicals
in sewage effluent have been linked to feminization of male fish
(Vajda et al. 2008). Whole-lake experiments on fathead
minnows
in northwestern Ontario, Canada, showed that chronic, ecologi -
cal ly relevant levels of estrogen exposure led to intersex
males, al-
tered oogenesis in females, and resulted in the collapse and
near-
extinction of the fish from the lake (Kidd et al. 2007). In the
Great
Lakes basin of North America, several wildlife populations ex-
posed to organochlorines, including herring gulls, Caspian
terns,
and bloaters, showed significant changes in sex ratio, producing
more females than expected (Fox 2001). Erikstad and colleagues
DES, Endocrine Disruption, and Gender Concerns
The case of DES, the first synthetic chemical to be marketed as
an estrogen and one of the first synthetic chemicals identified
as an endocrine disruptor, illustrates some complexities of
EDCs
and gender. Starting in the 1940s, millions of women were pre-
scribed DES by doctors, at first to treat the symptoms of meno -
pause. In 1947 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
approved
DES for pregnant women with diabetes, and drug companies ad
-
vertised it widely, promoting the use of DES even in healthy
preg-
nancies to reduce the risk of miscarriage. DES was also
approved

in 1947 in the U.S. as a steroid to promote growth in livestock
by
increasing fat deposition, first in poultry, then in cattle. At the
peak of its use in the 1960s, DES was given to nearly 95 percent
of feedlot cattle in the U.S., which meant that millions of
people
consumed meat contaminated with low-level residues, while the
estrogenic wastes from feedlots made their way into aquatic eco
-
systems. In 1971 researchers in Boston reported a cluster of for-
merly rare vaginal cancers in young women whose mothers had
taken DES while pregnant. These problems emerged only at pu -
ber ty or young adulthood, sometimes decades after fetal
exposure
(Langston 2010). Recent research has shown that in utero expo-
sure to DES induces persistent epigenetic changes in the devel-
oping uterus and also increases the risk of breast cancer in adult
women (Doherty et al. 2010).
Even before the FDA approved DES for human use in 1941,
researchers knew that it caused problems with sexual develop-
ment in laboratory animals, but these problems were not appar-
ent until adulthood (Langston 2010). These concerns led FDA
commissioner Walter Campbell to reject the drug in 1940, insist
-
ing regulators must follow the “conservative principle”,
essential -
ly adopting the precautionary principle 60 years before that
term
came into common usage. Yet a year later, the agency
abandoned
its position, and by 1947 the FDA was insisting that wom en
with
concerns about DES exposure had to prove that DES had caused
harm, rather than drug companies having to show that it was
safe.

When companies applied for approval to use DES in livestock
and
for pregnant women, the same pattern unfolded twice more,
with
the agency first refusing approval, citing the need for
precaution
given the known risks of the drug, but then changing its
position
under industry pressure, when short-term studies did not show
direct effects on exposed adults (Langston 2010).
While the reasons for the regulatory failure were complex, gen-
der assumptions were part of the picture. Many of the patterns
that Carson experienced in the DDT case were true for DES as
well: Regulators were far more skeptical of women’s claims of
harm from DES than they were of industry claims for its safety.
Many regulators shared with industry staff a modernist world-
view combining faith in scientific expertise with the belief that
technological progress could and should control nature. Cultural
assumptions about gender differences shaped the ways that sci -
en tists, regulators, medical practitioners and consumers under-
stood chemicals and their effects on the body. For example,
even
while DES use in cattle was being banned due to the chemical’s
225_229_Langston 21.09.12 09:52 Seite 227
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Nancy LangstonFORSCHUNG | RESEARCH228
(2009) found that female (but not male) gulls with the highest
loads of organochlorines produced significantly more daughters
than sons. More male than female fish embryos were found near

a pulp mill that discharged anti-estrogenic chemicals (Larsson
et
al. 2000).
In humans, the evidence is conflicting. While human sex ra-
tios at birth do appear to be partially influenced by parental
hor-
mone levels (James 2008), Terrell and colleagues (2011)
reviewed
over a hundred studies on sex ratio and human exposure to
EDCs
and concluded that the results were too variable and
inconsistent
to provide a clear warning system for broader reproductive
health
effects, as PCB exposures illustrate.
People who eat large sport fish, which accumulate PCBs, have
some of the highest body burdens of PCBs (Turyk et al. 2006).
Kar maus and colleagues (2002) found that women with PCB
expo -
sure via fish from the Great Lakes gave birth to more sons than
expected (sex ratio males/females: 2.29, 95 percent confidence
in -
terval: 1.11 to 4.74), but in similar studies exposed women gave
birth to fewer sons than unexposed women (Weisskopf et al.
2003).
Hertz-Picciotto et al. (2008) note that “maternal exposure to
PCBs
may be detrimental to the success of male sperm or to the surviv
-
al of male embryos. Findings could be due to contaminants,
metab -
olites or PCBs themselves.” When PCBs were divided into estro
-
gen ic and anti-estrogenic congeners, Taylor and colleagues

(2007)
found that the odds ratio (OR) of male births was slightly
elevat-
ed among women with intermediate (in the second tertile)(OR =
1.29) and high (third tertile) (OR = 1.48) concentrations of estro
-
gen ic PCBs; odds (OR = 0.70) were reduced among women in
the highest tertile of anti-estrogenic PCBs.
Because PCBs can travel from industrial countries up the food
chain into the blubber of large predatory fish and marine mam-
mals, Arctic indigenous people who eat traditional diets may
be-
come exposed to high levels of PCBs. The Arctic Monitoring
and
Assessment Programme (AMAP 2004) examined indigenous
wom -
en in several Arctic communities in eastern Russia and Green-
land. Researchers found that women with the highest levels of
PCBs in their blood (greater than four micrograms per liter)
gave birth to fewer boys (sex ratio males/females: 0.41).
Howev-
er, women with intermediate levels (two to four micrograms per
li ter) gave birth to more boys (sex ratio: 1.6). A recent review
found
no significant differences in expected sex ratios across a wide
range of Arctic communities (Bjerregaard et al. 2012). PCB
blood
levels were not measured, however, making it difficult to com-
pare these results with the AMAP results.
Conclusion
Because fetal development is so complex and because low-dose
ex posures to endocrine disrupting chemicals are so hard to
moni -

tor, it can be difficult to determine exactly what exposures are
like -
ly to cause significant harm. People are exposed not to one
chem-
ical but to many chemicals, which may have effects that
magnify
or counteract each other.
Carson argued that “we are subjecting whole populations to
exposure to chemicals which animal experiments have proved to
be extremely poisonous and in many cases cumulative in their ef
-
fects. These exposures now begin at or before birth and – unless
we change our methods – will continue through the lifetime of
those now living. No one knows what the results will be because
we have no previous experience to guide us” (Carson 1963, pp.
69f.).
Five decades later, we have more experience to guide us, yet
two
of her critical insights still have relevance for understanding the
effects of EDCs on human and environmental health.
First, Carson recognized transgenerational effects of chemical
residues. With recent attention to epigenetics, this has emerged
as a key focus of concern for EDCs. Age at exposure is likely to
be
a critical factor in understanding the outcomes. Just as DES
expo -
sure had its most profound effects in utero (Doherty et al.
2010),
in utero exposure to PCBs or other hormone disruptors such as
bisphenol A or the PBDEs can lead to adult changes in reproduc
-
tive and environmental health (Kortenkamp et al. 2011). With
PCBs, while adults often do not show measurable effects of
expo -

sure, women who were exposed in utero later developed repro -
duc tive health problems such as increased time to pregnancy
(Cohn et al. 2011). People exposed to PCBs in utero have not
yet
been examined to see if their offspring have altered sex ratios or
other impacts on reproductive health, but this would be an inter
-
esting avenue for future research.
Second, Carson recognized that scientists could not continue
to consider humans in isolation from their broader ecological
con-
text. Recently, Crews and Gore (2011) and Wingfield and
Mukai
(2009) have called for EDC research examining the effects of
pop-
ulations and life history variables in changing environments. Cli
-
mate change, habitat loss, and the complex effects of chemical
mix-
tures all suggest that while mechanisms will remain important,
understanding the effects of EDCs will require broader ecologi -
cal studies. During a lively discussion about whether low levels
of organochlorine contaminants continued to affect fish recover
-
ies in the Great Lakes, Carpenter and colleagues (1996) called
for
whole-ecosystem experiments, which have used direct manipu -
la tion of entire ecosystems to unambiguously demonstrate the
impacts of environmental factors such as acid rain (for ethical
con-
cerns of such experiments, see Farnsworth and Rosovsky 1993.)
When whole-ecosystem experiments were performed on estro-
gens and fish populations (Kidd et al. 2007) they showed that
low
dose, environmentally relevant estradiol levels over several

gener -
a tions could lead a population close to extinction. Similar
whole-
ecosystem experiments on the environmental and health effects
of emerging contaminants like PBDEs should be a high
priority.i
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225_229_Langston 21.09.12 09:52 Seite 229
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further
reproduction prohibited without permission.
Ecologists have long endeavored to improve ecologi-cal
literacy. This goal goes beyond informing stu-
dents about environmental issues: one must excite their
interest in ecological science, regardless of whether or
not they intend to pursue the more advanced technical
and mathematical education that modern ecology
requires (Golley 1998). The challenge is to motivate
people to tackle difficult ecological problems. Fifty
years ago, G Evelyn Hutchinson (1953) observed that,
while students did not hesitate to dive into complicated

activities concerned with “electronic amplifiers and
with the explosive combustion of hydrocarbons”, they
traditionally viewed the majority of complex activities
as boring duties. “What we have to do”, Hutchinson
wrote, “is to show by example that a very large number
of diversified, complicated, and often extremely diffi-
cult constructive activities are capable of giving enor-
mous pleasure”. The kind of pleasure that Hutchinson
was thinking of involved the formulation of theory,
discovery, and problem-solving. Repairing the bios-
phere and the human societies within it, he believed,
ought to be as much fun as repairing the family car.
While people today are better informed about environ-
mental problems , engaging students in ecological
research and conveying what ecology is about to the
public is still challenging because of the complexity of
the science.
I will draw on historical examples to illustrate ways of
thinking that are characteristic of an ecological
approach to the study of nature. My list is by no means
complete. I touch only lightly on the classics of the eco-
logical canon, which are discussed elsewhere (Real and
Brown 1991; Keller and Golley 2000). Instead, I include
some lesser known examples from medical science to
highlight different contexts in which thinking ecologi-
cally has been important. Students should appreciate
that this kind of thinking integrates methods derived
from many fields of science and has a particular perspec-
tive that has evolved over decades of careful observation
and thought. They may not realize, for instance, that
ecology has roots in Newtonian science, or that some
ecologists esteem Louis Pasteur because of his ability to
think ecologically. This article offers a sampling of differ-
ent forms of problem solving, starting with the prehistory

of ecology in the 19th century, to illustrate a few of the
key components of that perspective and some of the
important generalizations that have resulted from think-
ing ecologically. The components highlighted here are:
(1) the drive for a general theory or unifying worldview,
culminating in the concept of the ecosystem; (2) the dis-
covery of the role of history in explaining species diver-
sity and distribution; (3) the discovery of the complexity
of species relationships; (4) the application of logico-
mathematical arguments as heuristic devices (rules of
thumb or guidelines that do not guarantee optimal solu-
tions); and (5) the recognition that how organisms
behave is dependent on context.
367
© The Ecological Society of America
www.frontiersinecology.org
REVIEWS REVIEWS REVIEWS
Conveying the intellectual challenge of
ecology: an historical perspective
Sharon Kingsland
The roots of ecology are historically extremely diverse, with
contributions from many fields of science. A
sampling of ways of thinking ecologically, ranging from the
early 19th to the early 20th century, reveals
the richness of ecological science. By examining historical
examples from biogeography, natural history,
the science of energy, and biomedical sciences, we can
appreciate the many different contexts in which
ecological thinking has evolved, whether as part of larger
projects to systematize and unify knowledge of

the world, or in response to particular problems that were
solved by taking a fresh approach. It is impor-
tant, when educating students and the public, to convey this
diversity of ecological thought and the nature
of ecology as an integrative discipline.
Front Ecol Environ 2004; 2(7): 367–374
Department of History of Science and Technology, Johns
Hopkins
University, Baltimore MD ([email protected])
In a nutshell:
• Historical examples illustrate some of the key features that
con-
stitute ecological ways of thinking, which combine general the-
ory, logical argument, and an understanding of how environ-
mental and historical context affects the behavior of organisms
and the distribution of species
• Ecological thinking, with its roots in the quantitative ideals of
Newtonian science, has helped to elucidate the broad cycles of
matter and energy that govern systems
• Solving problems in evolutionary biology, epidemiology, and
biomedicine have depended on adopting an ecological perspec-
tive
• Awakening students to the intellectual challenge of ecological
research and teaching them to integrate knowledge from differ-
ent fields begins by exposing them to diverse forms of creative
ecological thinking across the spectrum of the life sciences

The intellectual challenge of ecology S Kingsland
� Scientific natural history
Ecology in the early 20th century was often described as
“scientific natural history” (Elton 1927). Although that
definition now seems old-fashioned, such a description
remains useful in that it reminds us of how innovative it
once was to combine natural history and science (or, as it
was then called, natural philosophy). Ecological thinking
emerged in the early 19th century, at the intersection of
natural history and natural philosophy. The expression
“natural history” meant the description of nature (pri-
marily taxonomy), while “natural philosophy” generally
referred to the elucidation of the laws of nature. Natural
history was transformed in the early 19th century by mak-
ing it also a “philosophical” inquiry – that is, a search for
the laws of the history and distribution of species and,
within the science of anatomy, a search for the laws of
structure (Rehbock 1983). The term “scientific natural
history” denotes this important intellectual transforma-
tion, which set the stage for the development of ecologi-
cal science later that century.
Behind this transformation was the authority of
Newtonian science. In the 18th and early 19th centuries,
under the impetus of scientists such as Antoine Lavoisier
(1743–1794) and Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827),
Newtonian ideals of exact science were extended into
chemistry, the life sciences, and even into social science
(Hankins 1985). Analytic reasoning and precise measure-
ment were the hallmarks of these advances. Here we can
locate one of the fathers of ecology, Alexander Humboldt
(1769–1859), a Prussian mining official, explorer, and
naturalist who, inspired by Lavoisier’s achievements in
chemistry, conceived of a new science, “terrestrial

physics”, which unified various branches of the earth sci-
ences and biogeography (Figure 1). Humboldt, although
sometimes thought of as a Romantic natural philosopher
because of his interest in poetry and aesthetics, drew
inspiration from Newtonian science, especially as devel-
oped in the Parisian school of Lavoisier and Laplace
(Dettelbach 1996). Stimulated by Lavoisier’s reform of
chemistry, Humboldt envisioned a new type of naturalist
as “physicist”. Merging natural philosophy with natural
history meant that within natural history the search for
unifying laws of nature and the use of quantitative meth-
ods and mathematical analysis became criteria of good
science. Humboldt was a stickler for collecting exact
numerical data, but the larger goal was to understand how
order, or a state of equilibrium, was obtained from the
interplay of conflicting forces. His ability to extend
Newtonian principles into new subjects demonstrated
the possibilities of developing “scientific natural history”
and stimulated the later generation of scientists who
became the first ecologists (Nicolson 1996). Humboldt
also incorporated aesthetic elements into his popular
works. Science was meant to awaken a sense of awe, for
contemplating nature was a deep source of pleasure,
much like the experience of seeing a great work of art
(Humboldt 1850).
Among Humboldt’s admirers was Charles Darwin
(1809–1882), who added a crucial dimension to ecologi-
cal thinking by arguing that knowing the relationships of
organisms with each other and to their environment
helps to explain how adaptations arise and how species
are created from other species. Darwin’s world travels as a
young man made him into an ecological thinker, in part
because his experiences contradicted his naive expecta-
tions, causing him to look at nature with fresh eyes.
Disarmingly simple observations often had far-reaching

significance. In The Origin of Species, Darwin used the dis-
tribution of species on the Galápagos archipelago as cru-
cial evidence against the idea that species were indepen-
dently created (Darwin 1964). The Galápagos Islands
exhibited an unexpected pattern that stimulated Darwin
to reflect on the causes underlying the distribution of
species (Darwin 1964). He expected that species would
be closely adapted to their physical environments, so that
similar environments would have similar species. But the
species on the Galápagos Islands showed affinities to
those located on the adjacent coast of South America,
between 500 and 600 miles distant. Not only the land
birds, but also other animals and plants bore the “unmis-
takeable stamp of the American continent”. Yet the
islands were quite different in their climate and condi-
tions of life from South America. In fact, these islands
physically resembled the Cape Verde archipelago off the
coast of Africa, which the Beagle had visited earlier
(Figure 2). Despite the geological similarity of the two
island groups, Darwin exclaimed, “what an entire and
absolute difference in their inhabitants!” (Darwin 1964).
368
www.frontiersinecology.org © The Ecological Society of
America
Figure 1. Humboldt’s concept of a new science of terrestrial
physics stimulated the later development of ecology.
C
o
u
rt
e

sy
o
f
S
m
ith
so
n
ia
n
I
n
st
itu
tio
n
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ib
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s
S Kingsland The intellectual challenge of ecology
The history of species migration and

colonization was key to understanding
why species inhabited certain regions.
Competition among the islands’ inhabi-
tants would also crucially determine
their success, he believed. Darwin con-
cluded that naturalists were wrong to
emphasize the physical conditions of a
country as the most important for its
inhabitants. They had not appreciated
either the significance of competitive
relations or the crucial role of history in
determining the distribution of species.
Ocean islands, Darwin realized, provided
excellent testing grounds for his evolu-
tionary hypothesis. For Darwin, the dis-
covery of the importance of history
helped him to understand that species
were not specially created, but evolved.
Modern ecology similarly seeks a balance
between explanations based on history,
that is, on particular sequences of contingent events and
regularly acting causes that occur more predictably. The
role of rare and possibly even unique events in shaping
the earth’s history has received more attention in the past
three or four decades, the most celebrated example being
the link made between a major asteroid impact and the
extinction of dinosaurs (Alvarez 1997). In teasing out the
relationship between pattern and process, ecology recog-
nizes two different ways of thinking about processes, the
challenge being to understand their relationship (Wilson
1992; Ricklefs and Schluter 1993). The importance of
understanding the role of history in the formation of eco-
logical systems lies in realizing that it might not be possi-
ble to reconstruct a system that has been seriously altered:
nature will not automatically “bounce back” and return
to its original state.

Darwin realized that nature’s patterns arose from the
activities of organisms connected to each other in myriad
ways, each dependent on many others for survival.
Tracing the chain of relationships could lead to surprising
conclusions. Why were there more bees in areas close to
villages? Because village cats killed the field mice that
otherwise destroyed the combs and nests of bumble bees.
In a more complicated chain of connections, Darwin
noted the interdependence of cattle, parasitic flies, insec-
tivorous birds, and vegetation in parts of South America
that he had visited, creating a chain of reactions “in ever-
increasing circles of complexity”. Darwin was also fasci-
nated to discover that the grazing habits of cattle on the
English heath completely prevented forests from being
established (Figure 3). Peering between the heath stems,
he found little trees kept down by browsing, one of which
he judged by its rings to be 26 years old. When the land
was enclosed to prevent common access for grazing, it was
quickly covered with vigorous young firs (Darwin 1964).
Ecological thinking involves an awareness of the chains
of connection between species. While these relationships
are both direct and indirect, the indirect effects may only
be discovered after painstaking research (Wootton 1996).
Darwin’s brief examples were meant to stimulate others to
make more exact inquiries, and from these measure-
ments, censuses, and experiments the science of ecology
took form. His descriptions of these chains also reveal an
important stimulus to ecological study: human transfor-
mation of lands. With the enclosure of common lands,
ending traditions of land use extending back into the
Middle Ages, an unintended but impressive ecological
experiment unfolded quickly as heath turned to forest.
Every act of colonization around the world introduced

new species into landscapes, while agricultural entrepre-
neurs exploited the variation of domesticated animals
and plants to create new forms for human benefit and
amusement. The world was rapidly changing in front of
Darwin’s eyes, changes which both provoked his curiosity
and shaped his ideas about evolution; they also prompted
interest in what would later be called ecology. The more
humans changed the world, the more necessary it became
to probe the operations of nature, understand exactly
what those human effects were, and learn how to better
control and predict their impacts. Ecology was the scien-
tific response to the transformations underway in the age
of empire and industry.
� The search for a unified worldview
Darwin described his theory of evolution using the
metaphorical term “natural selection”, which expressed
the idea that some individuals were better equipped to
survive the struggle for existence than others. John
Herschel reportedly dismissed Darwin’s theory as the “law
of higgledy-piggledy” (Ruse 1979, 248–49), expressing
the difficulty that many physicists had in understanding
369
Figure 2. Despite the physical resemblance of the Galápagos
Islands to the Cape
Verde Islands off the coast of Africa, the inhabitants of the two
island groups were
completely different. Noting the difference, Darwin realized the
importance of the
history of migration as an explanation of species distribution.

R
C
o
h
e
n
,
N
O
D
C
,
N
O
A
A
Darwin’s concept of selection. Some of the greatest scien-
tists of the time, including William Thomson (Lord
Kelvin) and James Clerk Maxwell, did not accept
Darwin’s mechanism of evolution, for both scientific and
religious reasons. They could not grasp how the historical
process of descent and modification that Darwin postu-
lated could produce what looked like directed change
over time.

These physicists did, however, contribute to ecological
thinking, albeit inadvertently, by formulating the first
and second laws of thermodynamics in the mid-19th cen-
tury: the law of conservation of energy and the principle
that energy is degraded through its transformations, being
converted eventually to heat and becoming unavailable
to do work. The science of energy, developed by William
Thomson and other physicists and engineers in Britain,
and by Hermann von Helmholtz in Germany, provided
unifying laws that brought together physics, chemistry,
and biology (Smith 1998). The unification of worldview
that Humboldt sought was completed in the new science
of energy, which taught that, like a great engine, the
world system was driven by transformations of energy
derived from the sun. In popularizations of these ideas,
the relevance of an energetic viewpoint for understand-
ing the nature of the world, its history, and the relation-
ship between organisms and environment was perceived
(Youmans 1873).
The ecological articulation of this kind of thinking
would wait for 20th-century thinkers such as Vladimir
Vernadsky, G Evelyn Hutchinson, Arthur Tansley,
Raymond Lindeman, Eugene Odum and others, who
developed our understanding of biogeo-
chemical cycles and the concept of the
ecosystem (Hagen 1992; Golley 1993).
The feedback loops created by the cycling
of matter and transformation of energy
were seen to underlie the ecological sys-
tems that sustain our world. The develop-
ment of the ecosystem concept was an out-
growth of decades of ecological study and
increased emphasis on the quantitative
measurement of these exchanges. Starting

especially with the work of Eugene Odum
(1913–2002) in the 1950s, these ideas
shaped and invigorated the discipline of
ecology after the Second World War. In
remembering how long it took to articu-
late the ecosystem concept, we should
appreciate what an important act of intel-
lectual creativity it was to conceive of the
ecosystem in abstract terms as the cycling
of matter and flow of energy. Apart from
one rather idiosyncratic analysis of the
“great world engine” in energetic terms
published in the 1920s by Alfred J Lotka
(1924), who was trained in physical chem-
istry, it was not obvious that ecological
relations should be analyzed in terms of energy flow. The
relationship of thermodynamics to ecology is now consid-
ered fundamental (Pielou 2001; Jørgensen 2002), but
such was not the case prior to the 1940s.
� Logical argument as a route to knowledge
Critics of Darwin’s theory also complained of its circular-
ity. If evolution occurs by survival of the fittest, and those
that survive are automatically deemed to have been the
fittest, then are we merely asserting that organisms that
can’t live, die? Darwin’s great insight into how evolution
occurs is not, in fact, captured in this simple tautology.
We must assume that in many instances survival occurs
because the organism possesses some advantage over its
competitors, and in looking for that advantage we are led
to a deeper understanding of the complexity of ecological
relationships. The point, as Darwin emphasized, is that
we do not know in advance exactly what favored one
organism over another: the observation of differential

survival and reproduction stimulates us to look more
deeply into nature for an answer. This was one of
Darwin’s most important general lessons: naturalists who
believed they understood a great deal about the world
were in truth highly ignorant and needed to return to the
study of nature with sharper questions and a finer level of
analysis. From these sharper questions the science of ecol-
ogy was created.
Scientific reasoning involves the creative use of logical
arguments. As Sir Harold Jeffreys (1937) argued in his
analysis of scientific inference, the trick is to use such
370
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Figure 3. The ability of large herbivores to suppress the growth
of forests intrigued
Darwin and remains an important subject of ecological research.
D
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, A
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si
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/S

ilv
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arguments to provide new knowledge and not be caught
in empty circularity. G Evelyn Hutchinson (1903–1991)
saw how Jeffreys’ ideas might apply to ecological prob-
lems. Hutchinson (1965) considered the study of the
influence of the environment on evolution to be one of
the central concerns of ecology. He was interested in the
Darwinian problem of how closely related species lived
together in the world, which led to his formalization of
the concept of the ecological niche. Towards the end of
his career, concerned about criticism that this type of
argument was not scientific, Hutchinson explained its
creative potential. Hutchinson (1978) pointed out that
arguments such as the principle of competitive exclusion
are logico-mathematical theories, derived from a set of
postulates about the external world. Such arguments can-
not be verified in an absolute sense, but they can be falsi-
fied. If similar species do live together, this observation,
apparently falsifying the competitive exclusion principle,

suggests that a closer investigation should be made of how
they manage to do so. A number of alternative hypothe-
ses might be proposed, such as niche separation, fre-
quency-dependent competition, or the effects of preda-
tion, and these can be investigated in particular cases.
Hutchinson explained that the use of logical arguments is
to uncover possibilities about what might occur in the
world; the next step is to uncover whether these possibil-
ities occur in nature.
Logico-mathematical arguments are also useful when
trying to explain a theory to an audience that is reluctant
to accept it. Sir Ronald Ross (1857–1932) discussed one
example of this educational function in the early 20th
century. Ross had worked out the biological basis of the
transmission of malaria by tracing the complicated life
cycle of the malarial plasmodium, which is transmitted to
humans by anopheline mosquitoes (Figure 4), discoveries
for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine in
1902. However, Ross found that many people rejected his
explanation because they could not see a causal connec-
tion between the incidence of malaria in humans and the
presence of mosquitoes. People did not believe that erad-
icating mosquitoes could lower the incidence of malaria.
Ross faced three obstacles: common prejudice against
his thesis, lack of quantitative information about mos-
quito populations and rates of infection, and poorly
designed field experiments that were unable to validate
his thesis. Not having time to collect data or conduct rig-
orous experiments, and knowing the importance of acting
on the malaria problem immediately, Ross developed his
argument logically and supported it by mathematical cal-
culations to persuade people that he was correct about
the relationship between mosquito populations and
malaria (Ross 1905, 1911, 1923). He dubbed his method

the “Theory of Happenings”, a label meant to suggest the
wide applicability of his method not just to epidemiology
but to other areas of public health, demography, evolu-
tion, and even commerce and politics. His problem state-
ment was the inverse of arguments later used in ecology
to investigate the design of nature reserves; whereas an
ecologist would now ask what size, shape, or configura-
tion of land would best protect a species from extinction
(Williams et al. 2004), Ross asked what size and configu-
ration of land would best ensure that a disease-carrying
insect would remain rare or absent from a region where
eradication measures were enforced.
� The importance of context
Hutchinson observed that the evolutionary play occurs in
an ecological theater, or to put it less poetically, organ-
isms behave in a way that is dependent on context. René
Jules Dubos (1901–1982), the noted microbiologist and
environmentalist, described how understanding the
importance of context led him to an important discovery
early in his career. Dubos is known for his work on micro-
bial diseases and the development of antibiotics, but also
wrote extensively on environmental issues from a
humanistic standpoint, and gave us the maxim “think
globally, act locally” (Dubos 1980). Despite spending
most of his career in a medical environment, Dubos was
trained as an agronomist and was influenced by the work
of Russian soil scientist Sergei Vinogradskii in the 1920s
(Ackert 2004). Dubos was impressed by Vinogradskii’s
insistence that microbiologists were making a serious mis-
take by studying microbes in artificial laboratory cultures
rather than in their natural environments, because they
did not behave “naturally” in artificial environments
(Piel and Segerberg 1990). While admitting the practical

difficulty of trying to investigate the complex natural
environment, Dubos appreciated the wisdom of this key
ecological idea. His doctoral research compared the abil-
ity of different organisms to decompose cellulose in soil
under different environmental conditions (Dubos 1928).
Dubos took a postdoctoral position with Oswald T.
Avery at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research,
now Rockefeller University. Avery’s group was working
on the chemistry and immunological properties of pneu-
371
Figure 4. Ronald Ross used mathematical arguments to
persuade a skeptical public of the connection between malaria
and the abundance of anopheline mosquitoes, making him one
of
the earliest contributors to theoretical population ecology.
C
o
u
rt
e
sy
o
f
J
G
a

th
a
n
y
monia-causing bacteria. The virulence of one type of
pneumococcus was known to be due to a protective sugar
coating, which prevented white blood cells from destroy-
ing the bacteria. Dubos’ project was to find an enzyme
that would destroy the sugar capsule surrounding the
pneumococcus. He reasoned that there must exist in
nature microorganisms that could attack the sugar. From
samples of soil and sewage, he found a bacterial culture in
which the polysaccharide was decomposed and then iso-
lated the bacterium that decomposed the sugar.
Separating the enzyme with which it accomplished the
task was the final step.
At this point, Dubos departed from standard laboratory
methods and instead took an ecological perspective on
the problem. When he cultured the bacterium in the
enrichment medium normally used by bacteriologists, it
grew abundantly but did not produce the enzyme needed.
Instead, the enzyme was only produced when the bac-
terium was struggling in a poor medium that contained
only the capsular polysaccharide. Dubos was able to iso-
late the enzyme because, contrary to the advice of his col-
leagues, he insisted on growing the bacterium only in a
weak solution of the polysaccharide. This discovery, he
wrote, brought him face to face with one of the most
interesting biological principles he had ever seen, namely

that cells have multiple potentialities and these operate
only when the cell is placed in an environment where it
is compelled to use them (Piel and Segerberg 1990). A
Finnish scientist, H Karström, simultaneously discovered
the same phenomenon and gave the name “adaptive
enzymes” to these proteins that were produced only when
the organism needed them for survival. That microorgan-
isms changed their enzymatic constitution in response to
the environment led Dubos to realize that such responses
were important in determining the nature of infectious
diseases.
Dubos’ scientific model was Louis Pasteur (1822–1895)
(Figure 5), originator of the germ theory of disease and of
fermentation, which related chemical processes and dis-
eases to specific types of microbes. Dubos argued that
Pasteur’s great achievements stemmed from an ecological
view of life and his intuitive understanding that microbes
had crucial roles to play in the economy of nature (Piel
and Segerberg 1990). Microbes were the great recyclers of
the chemical substances of the world; their role is still
recognized as an important and imperfectly understood
aspect of global processes (Post et al. 1990). Pasteur also
recognized that the environment had a determining
influence on the morphology and chemical activities of
microbial species. Dubos believed that Pasteur’s greatness
as a scientist, as illustrated especially in his studies of fer-
mentation and putrefaction, were consequences of his
sophisticated ecological understanding that the functions
of bacteria varied, depending on the environment. Dubos
emulated the ecological thinking of Pasteur and
Vinogradksii, which he believed was critically important
for relating the science of bacterial metabolism and phys-
iology to the understanding of infectious processes
(Dubos 1954). This form of reasoning is especially impor-

tant for understanding diseases such as cholera, for
instance, where the bacterium causing the disease inhab-
its both aquatic environments and the human intestine,
behaving differently in each environment (Cottingham
et al. 2003).
� Ecology as an integrative science
These problems and ways of thinking were consolidated
into the modern discipline of ecology as scientists came
to realize that ecology provided an approach to problems
that distinguished it from other disciplines. As Eugene
Odum (1977) argued a quarter of a century ago, the vari-
ous ways of thinking ecologically must be integrated in
order to solve society’s problems. Students also need to be
taught to integrate knowledge, following the models of
people like Humboldt, Darwin, and Pasteur, three of the
greatest scientists of the 19th century. The first step is to
convey what it means to think ecologically about a prob-
lem and what scientists have gained from this perspec-
tive. These examples show how ecology relates to, and
arises from, different realms of scientific thought across
the spectrum, from Newtonian science to natural history,
to biomedical science. Nor should we forget that ecology
also tells a story about the beauty of the world.
372
America
Figure 5. Louis Pasteur’s ecological approach to the study of
microbes was emulated by René Dubos, who found that
bacterial
metabolism depended on the environmental context.

S
m
ith
so
n
ia
n
I
n
st
itu
tio
n
L
ib
ra
ri
e
s
Ecological thinking, in its various guises, does not hap-
pen automatically or easily; it is the product of two cen-
turies of scientific thought and investigation on many
fronts. It requires considerable sophistication and breadth
of knowledge. One can scarcely imagine a better way to

develop students’ intellectual abilities to their highest
level than by mastering the different perspectives and
methods involved in ecology. Students may not easily
grasp the essential ingredients of ecological thinking from
modern textbooks, which plunge them quickly into com-
plex topics. By stepping back to gain a more general view,
one can convey some of the characteristics that underlie
ecological thinking and show how they can be applied in
fields outside ecology – they are just as important for stu-
dents aiming for careers in medicine, engineering, or the
social sciences, for instance.
Modern ecology encompasses intellectual approaches
across a spectrum ranging from analytic and reductionist
to synthetic and holistic (Pickett et al. 1994; Jørgensen
2002). This diversity makes ecology hard to define as a
science, but is not surprising in a science that seeks to
understand the entire biosphere. Ecologists have to con-
sider problems on very different scales, over short and
long terms, and to alter their perspectives depending on
the kinds of problems they are investigating. Hutchinson,
for example, recognized that population ecology and
ecosystem ecology required very different perspectives,
yet he considered them to be aspects of one science
(Hutchinson 1978). Ecologists also have to explore the
dynamism of our world under difficult circumstances,
when information is missing, when controlled experi-
ments are difficult to arrange, and when random events
introduce uncertainty into calculations even in the best
of times.
Given its difficulty, ecology could be considered a
quixotic undertaking that has prevailed, despite a culture
that favors molecular biology. It has done so because it
has unveiled a subtle understanding of how ecological
systems function and how we benefit from nature

(Wilson 1992; Daily 1997; Levin 1999; Beattie and
Ehrlich 2001). Ecological thinking has led to two of the
most important general conclusions of modern biology,
namely the understanding of how biological diversity
arises, and of how ecological systems are regulated by
cycles of matter and flows of energy. Ecological science
has imbued us with a sense of urgency in responding to
the global changes wrought by our own hands, but it also
shows us what kind of creative thinking is needed to
come up with solutions.
If one were to poll the members of the Ecological
Society of America and ask them to cite one or two
favorite examples of creative ecological thinking, no
doubt a great diversity of views would be offered and
there might well be disagreement as to the validity of
some choices. The danger in a very complicated subject
like this is that disagreements about how to do science
can become so sharp that whole areas of research are dis-
missed. Hutchinson feared that this was happening when
he defended the use of logico-mathematical arguments in
ecology. The challenge is to integrate diverse ways of
thinking, so that they can be seen as mutually reinforcing
and not mutually exclusive. By conveying this diversity
and range of thought in a positive light, ecologists can
open students’ minds to the challenges and rewards of
ecological study and also help the public to understand
the nature of the science and its accomplishments.
� Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Peter Taylor, who suggested some of
the themes discussed here and provided references to the
current literature.

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374

America
How to make a villain: Rachel Carson and the politics
of anti-environmentalism
David K. Hecht
Bowdoin College, History, 9900 College Station, Brunswick,
ME 04011, United States
Feature Endeavour Vol. 36 No. 4 Full text provided by
www.sciencedirect.com
This article explores the evolution of anti-Carson rheto-
ric. It argues that this rhetoric has evolved significantly
over the past fifty years. Early critics of Silent Spring
were primarily concerned with defending their vision of
science from what they perceived as the threat embod-
ied in Carson’s ecological perspective. By the early twen-
ty-first century, her main detractors were now neoliberal
advocates of unfettered markets, who perceived in Car-
son a major reason for what they saw as related evils:
environmentalism and an expanded state. These two
sets of adversaries used distinct rhetorical strategies,
corresponding to their different interests as well as to
changing historical context. Across both eras, however,
the perceived utility of Carson as an anti-heroine per-
sisted.
In fact, today millions of people around the world
suffer the painful and often deadly effects of malaria

because one person sounded a false alarm. That
person is Rachel Carson, author of the 1962 best
selling book Silent Spring.1
– RachelWasWrong.org, Competitive Enterprise In-
stitute
Critics of Rachel Carson are often difficult to take
seriously. This is not because Silent Spring is a perfect
book, but rather because so many of her adversaries have
insisted on making outlandish and disingenuous asser-
tions about it. Reviewing the book in October of 1962, for
example, William Darby – then the chair of the Biochem-
istry Department at Vanderbilt University – suggested
that the underlying philosophy of the book might help
augur ‘the end of all human progress’.2 Darby was not an
outlier among critical reviewers of Silent Spring. Upon its
publication, Carson’s book attracted swift and vociferous
denunciation from scientists connected with or sympa-
thetic to the pesticide industry; much of it was both
alarmist and ad hominem. Remarkably, in the early twen-
ty-first century, a new generation of Carson critics has
managed to equal their predecessors in the vitriol of their
commentary on Silent Spring. The Competitive Enter-
prise Institute (CEI), an organization with a history of
Corresponding author: Hecht, D.K. ([email protected])
1 ‘Dangerous Legacy’, http://rachelwaswrong.org/.
2 William Darby, ‘Silence, Miss Carson!’ Chemical and
Engineering News 40
(1 October 1962): 60–62. Quoted in Michael B. Smith,
‘‘‘Silence Miss Carson!’’ Science,
Gender, and the Reception of Silent Spring’, Feminist Studies
27, no. 3 (2001): 733–52,
on 738. The title of this review was later changed to ‘A
Scientist Looks at Silent

Spring’. See Linda Lear, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature
(New York: Henry Holt,
1997), 574.
Available online 21 November 2012
www.sciencedirect.com 0160-9327/$ – see front matter � 2012
Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserve
antipathy to environmentalism and government regula-
tion, argues that Carson is the ‘one person’ who ‘sounded a
false alarm’ enabling the suffering of millions. The CEI
enjoys as much company in the early twenty-first century
as Darby did in the early 1960s. Prominent conservative
voices such as the talk show host Rush Limbaugh, Okla-
homa Senator Tom Coburn, and the late novelist Michael
Crichton have all issued severe and inflammatory dia-
tribes against Carson and the environmental movement
she has come to represent.3
Excellent scholarly analysis exists concerning extremist
rhetoric about Rachel Carson. For the earlier period, Linda
Lear and Maril Hazlett – among many others – have
documented the breadth and influence of anti-Carson
rhetoric, its gendered nature, industrial apologetics and
Cold War overtones. Fewer scholars have tackled the later
period. However, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway
have shown how ‘the revisionist attack on Rachel Carson’
is but the latest chapter in a long history of Cold War
inspired anti-environmentalism, as well as an exemplar of
how free market fundamentalists deny science they find
inconvenient.4 I am in virtually complete agreement with
all of these scholars. However, I believe that there remains
untapped potential in looking at the ways that Rachel
Carson has been constructed as a villain. We have become
so accustomed to contrasting anti-Carson rhetoric with
pro-Carson constructions that we may have missed signifi-

cant differences among her detractors. Anti-Carson rheto-
ric is interesting for more than what it lacks – that is, for
more than its rejection of Silent Spring. In fact, opposition
to Silent Spring is a broad and multi-faceted phenomenon.
One difference – touched on only lightly in this essay – is
3 On Limbaugh and Crichton, see Naomi Oreskes and Erik M.
Conway. Merchants
of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on
Issues from Tobacco
Smoke to Global Warming (New York: Bloomsbury Press,
2010), 232–233. On Coburn,
see ‘Dr. Coburn Stands for Science – Rachel Carson and the
Death of Millions’, on
official website of Senator Coburn,
http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/
home.
4 Oreskes & Conway, Merchants of Doubt, chapter 7.
d. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2012.10.004
http://rachelwaswrong.org/
http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/home
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01609327
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2012.10.004
150 Feature Endeavour Vol. 36 No. 4
the distinction between moderate and radical critiques of
Carson. While pro-pesticide advocates such as I.L. Baldwin
(1962) and Tina Rosenberg (2004) were prominent critics of
the anti-DDT message in Silent Spring, their philosophies
have as many differences as similarities with their more
radical counterparts. A second difference – the focus of my

argument – is chronological. Carson’s detractors in the two
eras examined in this article had sometimes similar but
identifiably distinct aims. Her first critics were mostly
bothered by the implications of Silent Spring for science,
both its philosophical underpinnings and institutional
place. Their successors focused on the ramifications of
her work for free market advocacy. Both correctly identi-
fied the high stakes surrounding the questions Carson
raised. But since she left the most radical of those implica-
tions implicit rather than explicit, each group had to
radicalize Carson’s message in order to make their own
points. And they did so in surprisingly different ways.
The radical Rachel Carson?
In 1962, Rachel Carson – already a highly regarded nature
writer, primarily known for three bestselling books on the
sea – published what would become her most controversial
book.5 Silent Spring was a sensation: a bestseller, a Book-
of-the-Month club selection, a catalyst for high level policy
review, the subject of a widely watched CBS Reports
television program, and a text often seen as having
launched the modern environmental movement. In the
book, Carson aimed to demonstrate that chemical pesti-
cides – most prominently DDT – carried enormous and
uncertain risks for both the environment and for public
health.6 Her argument drew the ire of the pesticide indus-
try – along with that of many of the scientists who relied on
that industry for research funding. These groups sought to
discredit both Carson and her book, drawing significant
additional attention to both. Quite quickly, debates over
pesticides grew to encompass broad issues about expertise,
ecology and policy. Silent Spring challenged a number of
comfortable assumptions: that existing regulatory struc-
tures were sufficient to safeguard public health; that tech-
nical experts could be trusted to understand the
consequences of their research; that technological advance

always carried more benefit than harm; and that humans
were largely exempt from the consequences of ecological
change. These were high stakes, and were recognized as
such by both Carson and her critics. Reckoning with the
legacy of Silent Spring, therefore, is not confined to consid-
ering the fate of DDT and related chemical products. It is
also a matter of tracing the usage of the book – sometimes
sincere, sometimes disingenuous – amidst cultural nego-
tiations over the proper place of science in modern society.
Silent Spring has a radical edge. It can be read as a
fundamental challenge to the cultural and institutional
norms of Cold War science. But this is not a necessary
reading, and at least one scholar has made a compelling
5 Carson’s first three books were Under the Sea-Wind (1941),
The Sea Around Us
(1951), and The Edge of the Sea (1955). Her second and third
books were bestsellers
upon original publication; Under the Sea-Wind became one
upon reissue in 1952.
6 DDT is mentioned on 54 pages in Silent Spring, over three
times as frequently as
the next most commonly referenced pesticide. Steve Maguire,
‘Contested Icons: Rachel
Carson and DDT’, in Lisa H. Sideris and Kathleen Dean Moore,
eds. Rachel Carson:
Legacy and Challenge (Albany, NY: State University of New
York Press, 2008), 198.
argument that Carson de-emphasized the radical implica-
tions of her critique. Yaakov Garb compares Silent Spring
to Murray Bookchin’s Our Synthetic Environment, pub-
lished earlier in 1962. Bookchin identified many of the
same hazards that Carson did, but chose also to make a

strong critique of the inadequacy of contemporary capital-
ism. Carson, by contrast, hinted at this economic critique
but ultimately allowed her readers to avoid confronting it.
Garb explains:
Silent Spring opened a space that might have been
occupied by an attempt to answer the difficult and
messy political and economic questions of how pest
control might be guided by biological knowledge and
democratically determined priorities, rather than the
logic of capital accumulation. Instead, this space was
more palatably filled with the hopeful ideal of biolog-
ical control as Yankee ingenuity in service of a pas-
toral ideal.7
In Garb’s reading, the contemporary norms of pesticide
production and use were so intimately connected to the
political and economic realities of a capitalist society that
challenging one led inexorably to questioning the other.
Carson, however, framed Silent Spring in a way that
obscured this. By focusing on the idea of ‘biological control’
as a substitute for an approach based in chemistry, she
made it possible to deplore the immediate issue of pesti-
cides without demanding focus on the interwoven economic
and scientific structures that had enabled the ecological
damage to occur in the first place. This was a consequential
choice. It underlay the phenomenal success of Silent
Spring, but may also have prompted a public discourse
in which the broader implications of the book became
marginalized.
If Garb is correct, it suggests that there are two argu-
mentative threads within Silent Spring. One is centered on
DDT, and the other on an ecologically minded critique of
‘the logic of capital accumulation’ and the reductive science
used to support it. From the vantage point of intellectual

history, these two arguments are closely related – so
closely that any separation between them may be artificial.
But it is an artificiality that has its roots in Carson’s
strategic choices, and it shaped the discourse of her adver-
saries in two important ways. The first is that critics could
not assume that the radicalism of her book – that is, the
Bookchin-style political and economic implications – would
be widely understood. They therefore had to argue for her
radicalism – a task for which many reviewers showed
persistent zeal. The second is that they had to choose
which thematic thread of Silent Spring to focus on. Car-
son’s perhaps artificial separation between the ‘DDT’ and
‘ecology’ arguments facilitated the act of critics – indeed,
commentators or image-makers of any political leaning –
in appropriating the narrative most useful to them. Cer-
tainly, nothing in Silent Spring compels this narrative
separation. But the book presents the possibility that
readers might be able to emphasize one and de-emphasize
7 Yaakov Garb, ‘Change and Continuity in Environmental
World-View: The Politics
of Nature in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring’, in David
Macauley, ed., Minding Nature:
The Philosophers of Ecology (New York, NY: Guilford Press,
1996), 240–241.
Feature Endeavour Vol. 36 No. 4 151
another, if necessary to make particular arguments. Car-
son’s critics in different eras would do just that.
Beyond DDT
The legion of critics who first attacked Silent Spring quickly
rose to the meet the ecological challenge it offered. They
defended DDT by making it emblematic of technological
progress and rising standards of living, and suggested that

Carson’s condemnation of it was beholden to a philosophy
antithetical to the modern world. Robert White-Stevens was
perhaps the most visible critic of Silent Spring, as he and
Carson appeared as antagonists in a widely watched April
1963 episode of CBS Reports on pesticides.8 He was also one
of the most explicit defenders of the assumptions about
science that Carson attacked. On the closing page of Silent
Spring, Carson wrote that, ‘The ‘‘control of nature’’ is a
phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal
age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that
nature exists for the convenience of man’.9 Her words con-
tain a succinct statement of an important ecological princi-
ple: humans being are part of nature, and their attempts to
control or transcend it are futile. Her words are striking for
their direct contrast with a point of view advocated in print
by White-Stevens. He wrote that mankind ‘has crossed his
Rubicon and must advance into the future armed with the
reason and tools of his sciences, and in so doing will doubt-
less have to contest the very laws and powers of Nature
herself’.10 White-Stevens took issue with the ecological
implications of Carson’s argument; this was a direct and
unapologetic paean to scientific attempts at controlling
nature. To be sure, he also contested Carson’s claims about
DDT. But he did so without a great deal of specificity, relying
instead on strident references to the general benefits of
pesticides without spending significant time on a rebuttal
targeted to her precise points. In this particular article, the
absence of such specifics was perhaps attributable to his
audience; the piece appeared in a specialized journal and
was meant as a call-to-arms for the pro-pesticide forces. But
it was characteristic of anti-Carson rhetoric more generally,
professional or public, in the early 1960s.
Another critical review of Silent Spring appeared in the
Saturday Evening Post on 28 September 1963, a year after
the book’s publication. The reviewer, Edwin Diamond, may

have harbored personal as well as intellectual reasons for
disliking the book; he had briefly worked as a collaborator
with Carson, and had left on less than friendly terms.11 His
critique was harsh and personal. He termed her arguments
‘more emotional than accurate’, and contended that they
worked largely by stirring ‘the latent demons of paranoia
that many men and women must fight down all through
their lives’.12 Labeling Carson an emotional alarmist was
8 A good discussion of this program, and its ramifications for
debates about Carson,
can be found in Gary Kroll, ‘The ‘‘Silent Springs’’ of Rachel
Carson: Mass media and
the origins of modern environmentalism’, Public Understanding
of Science 10, no. 4
(2001): 403–420.
9 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1962), 297.
10 Robert H. White-Stevens, ‘Communications Create
Understanding’, Agricultural
Chemicals 17 (October 1962), in Thomas R. Dunlap, DDT,
Silent Spring, and the Rise
of Environmentalism: Classic Texts (Seattle, WA: University of
Washington Press,
2008), 114.
11 See Lear, Witness for Nature, 322–326.
12 Edwin Diamond, ‘The Myth of the ‘‘Pesticide Menace’’’,
Saturday Evening Post, 28
Sept 1963, 16.
nothing new by 1963, and Diamond was one of many to
place claims of her misplaced zeal alongside a challenge to
the book’s ecological message. He closed his review by

asserting that, ‘the pesticide ‘problem’ can be handled
without going back to a dark age of plague and epidemic’.13
Just as White-Stevens had done, Diamond located Car-
son’s critique of pesticide use as resting, not with recogni-
tion of interconnectedness in nature, but rather with
irrational and alarmist insistence on returning to a pre-
modern era of suffering and squalor. Similarly, Frederick
J. Stare, a prominent nutritionist at the Harvard School of
Public Health, advocated for pesticides by celebrating the
triumphs of modern science. ‘So far’, he wrote, ‘through the
broad application of a brilliant technology which includes
the wide use of agricultural chemicals, man has managed
to stave off starvation, disease and social and political
unrest in many parts of the world’.14 Stare went on to
explicitly compare these well-off parts of the world to
others that suffered those very ills because of their lack
of such technology. Although he did challenge Carson on
the facts of DDT – such as its toxicity to humans and the
matter of whether its residues persist in stored fat – the
emotional weight of his review was situated in an insis-
tence that technological advance was the guarantor of
health and safety in the modern world. Stare thus echoed
the rhetorical strategy of both White-Stevens and Dia-
mond, who situated their critiques of Carson in a challenge
to the ecological notion that human beings cannot over-
come nature.
As many scholars have noted, attacks on Carson were
highly gendered, often contending that Silent Spring was
emotional and irrational, not dispassionate and factual.15
One reviewer commented that the book reminded him ‘of
trying to win an argument with a woman. It can not be
done’.16 Another critic wondered why a ‘spinster’ would be
so concerned about the possible genetic ramifications of

pesticides.17 These claims were not trivial; they functioned
as ways of discrediting her science. ‘The voices in the
backlash’, Maril Hazlett notes, ‘argued that when Carson
questioned pesticides, she revealed herself as a bad, mis-
guided, unreliable woman – a powerful force of social
disorder. This exclusively feminine brush also tainted
anyone else who aligned with her ideas. Exploring Carson’s
ecological ideas meant inviting social chaos’.18 Hazlett’s
analysis lends support to the notion that contemporary
critics cast the pesticide issue in ecological terms – a
rhetorical move that later detractors would de-emphasize.
There is a more than a hint of paternalism in the later
critiques as well, as more recent critics have frequently
assumed her to be emotional or irrational. Anti-Carson
rhetoric focused on using her person as a means of de-
legitimizing her expertise, and gender has remained a
primary strategy for doing so. But the personhood invoked
13 Diamond, ‘Pesticide Menace’, 18.
14 Frederick J. Stare, ‘Some Comments on Silent Spring’,
Nutrition Reviews 21, no. 1,
(January 1963): 1–4, on 1.
15 See, for example, Smith, ‘Silence Miss Carson!’, 741–2.
16 Lear Witness for Nature, 462.
17 Frank Graham, Jr., Since Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin/Consumers
Union edition, 1970) 49–50.
18 Maril Hazlett, ‘‘‘Woman vs. Man vs. Bugs’’: Gender and
Popular Ecology in Early
Reactions to Silent Spring’ 708.

in the 1960s was not simply that of an investigator who got
her facts wrong. Instead, her critics assailed her as a
woman who stood opposed to the whole edifice of modern
science and the world it supported.
The ecological basis for early 1960s criticism can be
seen even at moments when critics did address the pesti-
cide issue directly. I.L. Baldwin’s review in Science is one
of the more widely cited attacks on Silent Spring. Though
his review was not devoid of the paternalism and chiding
to be found in similar documents, Baldwin used a rhetori-
cally milder approach. In fact, at points in his article he
issued statements that Carson may well have agreed with,
seeming sincere in his belief that ‘more careful and rigor-
ous control’ of pesticide use was necessary. He also con-
ceded that the initial successes of pesticides may have led
to ‘careless’ treatment of a technology with potentially
‘serious hazards’.19 Baldwin, however, framed his ac-
knowledgment of risk much differently than Carson
had. He emphasized the great benefits of the chemical
revolution ‘that has most intimately affected every aspect
of our daily life’, from health to consumer goods to food
production.20 Rather than attempting to dismiss Carson’s
case as groundless, he argued that her criticism of DDT
needed to be understood in the context of its benefits. In his
view, though Silent Spring raised valid points, nothing it
contained was sufficient to shake his faith in the power of
technological advance to resolve persistent social ills. His
critique of Carson, therefore, lay not in the facts she
offered about DDT, but rather in the ecological framing
she provided for those facts. Unlike White-Stevens, Dia-
mond, or Stare, Baldwin did not attempt to turn Carson
into a villain. But he shared with those more strident
critics a sense of why Carson was wrong, and perhaps a
little dangerous despite her good intentions. His worry –
or, at least, the rhetorical expression it – was about

ecology.
From science to economics
Arguments about ecology were attractive to Carson’s
detractors for the same reason that she tried to downplay
them within the text itself: they were less broadly appeal-
ing than her case against DDT. To the extent that her
adversaries could keep the conversation on the wonders of
modern science, therefore, they could obscure the harm
caused by a specific technological product. After a half-
century of rising ecological awareness, however, her early
twenty-first century critics enjoyed no such luxury. But
they possessed one rhetorical advantage: a global resur-
gence of malaria. The extent to which DDT can actually
help early twenty-first century efforts to contain malaria is
disputed.21 Rhetorically speaking, however, the argument
that its ban has caused the suffering and death of millions
of people is a powerful one. The writers at RachelWas-
Wrong.org placed a critique of her and of Silent Spring
alongside snapshots of African children ‘lost to malaria’.22
19 I.L. Baldwin, ‘Chemicals and Pests’, Science 137, no 3535
(September 1962): 1042–
1043, on 1042.
20 Baldwin, ‘Chemicals and Pests’, 1042.
21 David Kinkela, DDT and the American Century: Global
Health, Environmental
Politics, and the Pesticide that Changed the World (Chapel Hill,
NC: University of
North Carolina Press, 2011), 182–189.
22 http://rachelwaswrong.org/.
Theirs is a particularly unsubtle approach, but not unique-
ly so; others critics have likened Carson and her legacy to
Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.23 And the undeniably real and

tragic persistence of malaria in Africa (and elsewhere) has
prompted calls for the renewed use of DDT. Because it
seems such a reasonable proposition, it has proved quite
useful in political advocacy outside of the public health
arena as well as within it.
As with earlier criticism of Silent Spring, there is a clear
split between moderate and radical approaches. Tina
Rosenberg, for example, offered praise of Carson alongside
her criticism. And others have focused on the purported
utility of the pesticide without mentioning Carson at all.24
The fact that extreme approaches are not the only ones
available to DDT advocates should prompt us to ask ques-
tions about why the authors who did opt for severe rhetoric
made that choice. Several scholars have convincingly ar-
gued Carson has become a convenient rhetorical symbol for
neoliberal critics of state intervention. Naomi Oreskes and
Erik Conway, for example, have noted the political utility
of disparaging Carson:
In the demonizing of Rachel Carson, free marketers
realized that if you could convince people that an
example of successful government regulation wasn’t,
in fact, successful – that it was actually a mistake –
you could strengthen the argument against regula-
tion in general.25
Oreskes and Conway contend that the goals of those
who demonize Carson are broader than the promotion of
DDT. Such political actors are primarily interested in DDT
as a proxy through which to attack what they perceive as
twin evils: environmentalism and state regulation. DDT
scholar David Kinkela sounds a similar note, arguing that
despite the fact that the pesticide may have a role to play in
the contemporary world, ‘critics of environmentalists are

more concerned with fighting past battles, suggesting that
environmental regulation was the singular cause of so
much harm around the world’.26 Like Oreskes and Con-
way, Kinkela explains the motivation of anti-Carson critics
as being rooted in a desire to rewrite the past in the hopes
of composing a different – and less regulated – future.
As a target for such political activism, Carson makes
sense; she is associated both with the specific issue of
pesticides as well as with broader themes about ecology.
As a rhetorical symbol, therefore, she represents an effec-
tive bridge between the ostensible target of neoliberal
activism (DDT) and the actual one (environmentalism).
Nevertheless, it takes no small amount of rhetorical strain-
ing to use Carson for such purposes. Most obviously, those
who wish to link Carson to the ban on DDT must overcome
the fact that there were many other actors involved. In fact,
Carson died in 1964, eight years before the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) issued its decision. This is not a
small matter. Pro-DDT rhetoric frequently uses phrases
like ‘Carson and her legacy’ to collapse the time frame and
23 Oreskes & Conway, Merchants of Doubt, 216.
24 See, for example, Nicholas D. Kristof, ‘It’s Time To Spray
DDT’, New York Times 8
January 2005.
25 Oreskes and Conway, Merchants of Doubt, 217.
26 Kinkela, DDT and the American Century, 184.
thereby assign her responsibility for things that happened
after her death. This phrase, from a letter by Oklahoma
31 Tina Rosenberg, ‘What the World Needs Now Is DDT’’, New

York Times Magazine,
Senator Tom Coburn objecting to a plan to name a post
office after the famous author, elides meaningful distinc-
tion between ‘Carson’ and ‘her legacy’.27 For Coburn, it is as
if the former inexorably caused the latter – and also as if
her legacy were as easily dismissed as he contends the anti-
DDT arguments can be. Other Carson detractors have
created narratives that situate her as having caused the
human suffering that took place after her death. The
RachelWasWrong author(s), for example, wrote of Carson
that, ‘her extreme rhetoric generated a culture of fear,
resulting in policies [that] have deprived many people
access to life-saving chemicals’.28 In this rendition, a sim-
ple narrative was postulated. Carson’s ‘extreme rhetoric’
gave rise to ‘a culture of fear’, which then led directly to
policy decisions that made ‘life-saving chemicals’ inacces-
sible. Carson is the villain in this story; she appears largely
or even exclusively to blame for what the authors see as the
detrimental consequences of curbing DDT use. And they
are not alone. John Tierney, a New York Times science
columnist, sounded a similar note in a 2007 article. He
lamented that more dispassionate scientists like the pro-
pesticide University of Wisconsin professor I.L. Baldwin
did not get a fairer hearing in their criticism of Silent
Spring during and after 1962. ‘Scientists like him’, Tierney
wrote, ‘were no match for Ms. Carson’s rhetoric. DDT
became taboo even though there wasn’t evidence that it
was carcinogenic’.29 As with the CEI rhetoric, a complex
story – amply detailed by historians such as Thomas
Dunlap – is reduced to a short chain of causality with
Carson at one end and a disastrous policy at the other, with
little of note in between.30
This time frame collapse is a staple of pro-DDT arti-
cles, even among authors who do not go out of their way to
issue ad hominem attacks on Carson. In her 2004 New

York Times article, Tina Rosenberg praised Carson on
several points, but nevertheless assigned a great deal of
rhetorical weight to Silent Spring in making her case.
‘DDT killed bald eagles because of its persistence in the
environment’, she wrote. ‘‘‘Silent Spring’ is now killing
African children because of its persistence in the public
mind. Public opinion is so firm on DDT that even officials
27 Sen. Tom Coburn to Rep. Jason Altmire, 5 June 2007. On the
website of Senator
Coburn, http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/home.
28 ‘Dangerous Legacy’, ‘Dangerous Legacy’,
http://rachelwaswrong.org/.
29 John Tierney, ‘Fateful Voice of a Generation Still Drowns
Out Real Science’’, New
York Times, 5 June 2007.
30 Thomas R. Dunlap, DDT: Scientists, Citizens, and Public
Policy (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1981). See also Dunlap, ed., DDT,
Silent Spring, and the
Rise of Environmentalism.
who know it can be employed safely dare not recommend
its use’.31 In this formulation, Carson is responsible for
the ‘persistence in the public mind’ of an anti-DDT senti-
ment so intense that it kills African children despite the
best efforts of knowledgeable experts. This is a remark-
able contention. Certainly, looking to the posthumous
ramifications of the work of influential activists is not
illogical. After all, Silent Spring did have an enormous
impact. But pro-DDT authors tend to conflate ‘Carson’
with other nomenclature – ‘her supporters’, or ‘her lega-
cy’, or ‘the environmental movement’ – as if there were no
relevant distinctions among them. This tendency is so

powerful that even advocates who acknowledge the dan-
ger of doing so nevertheless fall prey to it. Roger Bate, a
fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and board
member of Africa Fighting Malaria, has been outspoken
in his criticism of Carson and in his advocacy of DDT. On
26 May 2007, he wrote a letter to the Washington Post
that sought to clarify his position about Carson. His letter
reads, in part:
Carson is not to blame for the environmental zeal that
emerged after she died in 1964, but she epitomizes the
movement itself: long on emotion, occasional kernels of
truth, but with wild and usually unscientific manipu-
lation of data. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is right to
block a resolution eulogizing Rachel Carson. She was a
progenitor of the environmental movement, and she
should share some of the blame, as well as the praise,
for the impact it has had.32
It is worth noting that the original article which
prompted this clarification – by David A. Farhrenthold
three days earlier – made him seem less bothered by
Carson’s legacy, not more.33 Bate’s letter was therefore
prompted, not by a desire to correct criticism he felt had
been unfairly imputed to him, but rather to ensure that his
censure was placed on record. In this letter, as he has done
elsewhere, Bate stated that Carson cannot be held account-
able for actions taken in her name after 1964.34 He then
disregarded his own qualification, arguing for Carson’s
intimate link to later environmentalism as both epitome
and progenitor.
In addition to collapsing the chronology of environmen-
talism, critics also misrepresent Silent Spring. For one
thing, Carson did not advocate a ban on DDT. She said
this explicitly in her book, writing that, ‘It is not my

contention that chemical insecticides must never be used’.
Instead, she clarified that it was overuse and lack of
prudence that most disturbed her: ‘I contend’, she writes,
‘that we have allowed these chemicals to be used with little
or no advance investigation of their effect on soil, water,
wildlife and man himself’.35 Furthermore, Carson had
11 April 2004.
32 Roger Bate, ‘Rachel Carson’s Mixed Legacy’, Washington
Post 26 May 2007.
33 David A. Fahrenthold, ‘Rachel Carson Bill From Cardin on
Hold; Okla. Senator
Says She Stigmatized DDT’, Washington Post, 23 May 2007.
Fahrenthold wrote that
Bate ‘said it is difficult to lay all the blame on Carson, since
she died so soon after her
book was published’.
34 Bate, ‘Rachel Carson’s Mixed Legacy’. He makes a similar
point in Roger Bate,
‘DDT Works’ Prospect, 24 May 2008.
35 Carson, Silent Spring, 12–13.
little to say about disease prevention. While Tina Rosen-
berg – one of the more moderate critics – took Silent Spring
to task for this omission, others detractors ignored the fact
that Carson was attempting to highlight ecological damage
done by overuse of pesticides in arenas other than disease
prevention (agriculture, for example). Whatever the merits
of DDT as an anti-malaria agent, the bulk of Carson’s case
remains unaffected by the debate over its potential use in

this regard. Even more striking is the manner in which
critics sidestepped Carson’s argument that insects readily
develop resistance to DDT and other pesticides. Coburn
hinted obliquely at this when noting that DDT was still
effective ‘despite some increase in resistance to the chemi-
cal developing among mosquitoes’.36 DDT use was in fact
on the wane before the EPA’s 1972 decision; Oreskes and
Conway write that, ‘In the United States, DDT use peaked
in 1959 – thirteen years before the ban – because it was
already starting to fail’.37 Criticism of Carson, therefore,
posits an easy technological fix that oversimplifies not only
the political history of banning DDT, but also the scientific
story behind its potential utility. A final challenge to the
Carson-as-villain reading of her life is the fact that the
EPA’s ban on DDT was never total. The ban did not apply
to its use in disease prevention, and so those wishing to
blame Carson must charge her with the collapse of a
market for DDT, not only with the formation of policy.38
All of these selective presentations of Silent Spring elevate
and oversimplify Carson’s role, and in so doing make her a
more useful rhetorical symbol for critics.
Perhaps the most significant act of selective reading of
Carson, however, is also the most subtle. Silent Spring, as
Frank Graham wrote in his 1970 assessment of its legacy,
‘is, essentially, an ecological book’.39 Though its focus was
on pesticides – as it was in Graham’s own book, Since Silent
Spring – it is easy to extrapolate from its lessons on that
subject to other issues of environment and health. Despite
the fact that she de-emphasized a broader political cri-
tique, Carson was certainly willing to recognize connec-
tions between pesticides and other environmental and
health hazards. During the months between the June
1962 serialization of Silent Spring in the New Yorker
and the September book publication, for example, the

thalidomide controversy reached newspapers. Asked to
comment, Carson said that ‘It is all of a piece, thalidomide
and pesticides – they represent our willingness to rush
ahead and use something new without knowing what the
results are going to be’.40 For Carson, pesticides were a
particularly compelling example of contemporary disre-
gard for nature and for ecological principles. It was also
one that she was particularly well suited to address. But
she understood the broader implications – as did her
audience. Linda Lear has written that her critics ‘recog-
nized Silent Spring for what it was: a fundamental social
critique of a gospel of technological progress’.41 Supporters
did this as well. ‘Popular ecological ideas’, Maril Hazlett
36 Coburn to Altmire, 5 June 2007.
38 Kinkela, DDT and the American Century, 159–160.
39 Graham, Jr. Since Silent Spring, 53. Emphasis in the
original.
40 Lear, Witness for Nature, 412.
41 Lear, Witness for Nature, 429.
notes, ‘provided the basis for a critique of power in postwar
America’. Indeed, this possibility had accounted for much
of the worry (and celebration) Carson’s book caused in
1962.42
But while both supporters and critics gravitated toward
the ecological underpinnings of the book in the wake of its
publication, this dimension is more restrained – explicitly,
at least – in early twenty-first century criticism. In his
novel State of Fear, Michael Crichton has one of his char-
acters say that, ‘banning DDT killed more people than
Hitler’.43 Crichton does not disguise his politics, quickly
assigning blame to the environmental movement for this
situation. But his emphasis on DDT stands in some con-

trast to earlier Carson critics, who tended to concentrate on
general issues of the benefits of science and technology
rather than moral arguments about specific products.
Later, he includes a footnote directly about Silent Spring.
The book, he writes, is ‘about one-third right and two-
thirds wrong’.44 Crichton was careful to leave the numeri-
cal balance tipped against Carson. But even this admission
reveals his rhetorical slight-of-hand: criticism of Carson
focuses on some aspects of her book, and not others.
Similarly, John Tierney writes that, ‘A new generation
is reading her book in school – and mostly learning the
wrong lesson from it’.45 In his rush to critique the anti-DDT
lobby, Tierney did not have time to follow up on what might
be the right, or at least a different, lesson Silent Spring has
to teach. Like other critics, Tierney alluded to the non-DDT
dimensions of Carson’s book, but does not dwell on them –
because doing so would not help his case. His demonization
of Carson depended on the assumption that Silent Spring
should be understood as a book centered on DDT, not a
larger narrative about ecology. The specter of malaria
suffering – with its undeniably tragic character – greatly
facilitated this. Even when focus on DDT served as a proxy
for a broader critique of environmentalism, attacks tended
to concentrate on this more specific level.
42 Hazlett, ‘Woman vs. Man vs. Bugs’, 705.
43 Michael Crichton, State of Fear (New York: HarperCollins,
2004), 487.
44 Crichton, State of Fear, 585.
45 Tierney, ‘Fateful Voice.’
A useful villain
Over the past fifty years, Carson’s critics have employed a
variety of tactics to combat her work. At a time when fear of

radioactive fallout conditioned audiences to be fearful of
chemical pesticides, critics frequently emphasized a more
general, ecological argument.46 Later, as ecological think-
ing became diffused to ever larger publics, use of this
counter-argument diminished in favor of a focus on the
DDT narrative. It is difficult to determine the extent to
which these differences are real, or rhetorical. It seems
likely that many of Carson’s detractors objected to her
work on both the specific and general levels – that is, they
would have been happy to employ either the DDT or
ecology narratives. (And some did invoke both.) But just
as Carson herself may have underplayed the structural
and economic aspects of her ecological critique to widen
the book’s appeal, her opponents gravitated toward the
rhetoric they judged most useful for the arguments they
wished to make. The early critics, faced with Silent
Spring’s ample documentation and Carson’s obvious com-
mand of her material, broadened the discussion to an
attack on the underlying ecological principles. Their suc-
cessors, looking for evidence to marshal against the chal-
lenge that environmental science poses to conservative
understandings of the free market, did the opposite. They
hammered home a pro-DDT argument that aimed to
criticize environmentalism by proxy. Across these evolv-
ing strategies, however, there remained at least one con-
stant. Both sets of commentators found it rhetorically
useful to demonize Carson herself. Her persistence as a
villain has been more durable in anti-environmentalist
rhetoric than have the specific errors for which she stands
accused.
Why? What is gained for anti-environmentalists – in the
1960s or subsequently – by constructing Rachel Carson as
an anti-heroine? And, most importantly, what can we learn
from studying them? I would suggest that criticism of
Rachel Carson addresses, at a minimum, three themes

of interest to historians, historians of science, and environ-
mental studies scholars. One, it highlights the role of
individual figures in mediating science for lay audiences.
Iconic figures are rhetorically convenient; they provide
easy ways to reduce complex stories to manageable pro-
portions. This is a feature of much media coverage, but an
especially prevalent one when the subject is technical.
Two, it reveals the persistence of gender in evaluating
science and scientists. It is no accident that Carson –
who was labeled a ‘spinster’ by at least one contemporary
and who was the subject of many magazine profiles that
noted her unmarried status – has been constructed as a
villain for preventing life-saving DDT from being delivered
to children.47 Carson, in this reckoning, has failed in the
46 Ralph Lutts, ‘Chemical Fallout: Rachel Carson’s Silent
Spring, Radioactive Fall-
out, and the Environmental Movement’, Environmental Review
9, no. 3 (Autumn
1985): 210–225.
47 Carson had adopted her grand-nephew, Roger Christie in
1957, and her presence
as head of a non-traditional household was a subject of much
journalistic interest.
maternal realm as well as in the scientific one. Third, it
signals that the challenge environmentalism poses to
established authority has changed substantially over the
past two generations. In the early 1960s, Silent Spring
constituted a threat to the Cold War scientific establish-
ment.48 By the early twenty-first century, many of her
notions about interconnectedness in nature were widely
accepted in professional circles and had become threaten-
ing chiefly to neoliberal thinkers and activists in the
political sphere.

Exploring the differences within criticism of Carson is a
counter-intuitive task. The contrasts between such critics –
considered as a group – and those disposed favorably to
Silent Spring are rich with historical and cultural mean-
ing. But this richness should not obscure what can be
learned by leaving behind a comparative framework and
exploring the fluctuations, agendas, and rhetoric of anti-
Carson criticism on its own terms. There is, I argue, a
critical space between opponents such as Baldwin and
Rosenberg, who do not demonize Carson, and those such
as Darby and Coburn, who do. The presence of a villain
does rhetorical work that other sorts of criticism do not, or
do not do as easily. Creating a villain is a way of de-
legitimizing the entirety of an argument, of attempting
to remove it from discourse altogether. In Merchants of
Doubt, Oreskes and Conway suggest the depth of the
problem that Carson poses for anti-environmentalists.
‘Accepting that by-products of industrial civilization were
irreparably damaging the global environment’, they write,
‘was to accept the reality of market failure. It was to
acknowledge the limits of free market capitalism’.49 The
key point here concerns rhetorical change: Carson’s logic
forces an acknowledgment of those limits. Free-market
capitalism – whatever its virtues – is a cherished fiction
in a nation in which virtually all political actors advocate
state economic intervention of some kind. Like many such
fictions, it tends to serve powerful interests, and tends to
serve them best when unexamined. Hence the utility of
creating a stock villain, as the Competitive Enterprise
Institute does by placing her name on a website alongside
pictures of African children who have succumbed to ma-
laria.50 When the technical questions become moral ones,
and the moral lines so clear, there is no need to bother with
even the moderate critiques of a Baldwin or a Rosenberg.
Constructing Carson as a villain, therefore, is not a tactic to

win debates, but to avoid them.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Frederick R. Davis, John Waller, and the
reviewers
of this paper for their extremely helpful suggestions and
feedback. I
would also like to thank the audience who heard an earlier
version of this
paper presented in the Bowdoin College Faculty Seminar Series.
48 See Kinkela, DDT & the American Century; Edmund
Russell, War and Nature:
Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I
to Silent Spring
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
50 http://rachelwaswrong.org/.
http://rachelwaswrong.org/How to make a villain: Rachel
Carson and the politics of anti-environmentalismThe radical
Rachel Carson?Beyond DDTFrom science to economicsA useful
villainAcknowledgments
39
CHAPTER 2
Organizing Environmental Protest
Swill Milk and Social Activism in Nineteenth-Century
New York City1
Michael Egan
This essay is a fraud. It offers an account of efforts to end the

distribution
of swill milk in New York City in the decades prior to the Civil
War. Swill
milk was milk drawn from cows living in cramped urban dairy
barns and fed
the cheap (and nutritiously dubious) slop from neighboring
distillery facto-
ries. Urban dairy workers milked these diseased and dying
cows, and sold
their milk to the urban poor at discount prices. The essay is a
fraud, because
it trades on the anachronistic notion that the urban reformers
who pushed
for quality control and public health were early
environmentalists. They cer-
tainly would never have called themselves environmentalists;
environmen-
talists and environmentalism are products of a more recent time.
Nor would
these urban health reformers have considered that their protests
contained
elements of ecological thought; the German Darwinist Ernst
Haeckl coined
the term oecology only in 1866 to refer to the interaction of
species within a
specific region. Nevertheless, in hindsight, we can identify
various practices
and trends that we now associate with environmentalism in
these early urban
reform movements, and as such, they warrant our attention if we
are to un-
derstand the origins and dynamics of American environmental
protest. Just
as social and environmental advocates today challenge industry
on issues of

Natural Protest : Essays on the History of American
Environmentalism, edited by Michael Egan, and Jeff Crane,
Routledge, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rit/detail.action?docID=42
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40 • Natural Protest
environmental risk and risk to human health, nineteenth-century
opponents
of swill milk engaged in methods of organization and practices
consistent
with twentieth-century environmentalists and—also similarly—
sought inte-
gration into the political debate to achieve control of polluting
or hazardous
or unsavory industrial practices.
More importantly, however, nineteenth-century reformers
shared in-
trinsic interests with modern environmentalists and this, too,
deserves our
attention, if only because it enriches our reading of the history
of environ-
mentalism. In contemporary urban spaces, a variety of planning
and health
issues have been cast as environmental problems. Sewage
treatment, waste
disposal, the use and reuse of space, and the planning of green
areas have all
attracted input—and sometimes ire—from environmental
groups. The prob-
lem, however, is that this urban activism has frequently been

regarded as a
post-World War II phenomenon, spurred by suburbanization,
urban blight,
and economic downturns that left many cities in decay. This
essay means to
stress the truism that even before a language of natural protest
united activ-
ists under an environmental umbrella, efforts to protect health
and establish
sustainable communities were a predominant feature of the
American urban
landscape. And in so doing, this essay suggests that as
historians we might
sensibly listen for echoes through the past as a means of
identifying potential
relationships that might enrich our reading of the past. To do so
permits us to
draw better lines over and across time that help us to appreciate
complexities
inherent in historical study.
Too often histories dismiss the origins of American natural
protest by
waving deftly at a conservation movement that grew out of the
Romantic
naturalism of the early nineteenth century. Pastoral love of
nature typically
interpreted industrial urban centers with their smokestacks,
railroads, noise,
and cramped living as the apotheosis of the evils it condemned.
As a result,
there was no room for specific action to address urban problems
within the
traditional lament for nature. Casting so narrow a net fails to
appreciate the
social dimensions of American environmentalism and restricts

the possible
parameters of its history, which in turn marginalizes the
potential of the
movement. Indeed, this limited definition dismisses from the
spectrum of
the environmental movement themes such as public health,
environmental
justice, and urban reform, many of which preceded the
conservation move-
ment, which enjoyed its entry into the mainstream during the
Progressive era.
Such a dismissal has serious contemporary political
implications. As Marcy
Darnovsky notes, “excluding urban reformers from the history
of environ-
mentalism can seem to imply that those who take up similar
issues today are
latecomers to, or even worse, interlopers in, environmental
politics.”2 Rather,
this essay seeks to identify roots of American environmentalism
in histories
of public health and social activism.
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Organizing Environmental Protest • 41
Social activism arises in response to the discovery of an
objective prob-

lem.3 In the instance of the development of swill milk dairies,
its origins were
innocent enough. As New York’s population grew after 1830,
the amount of
enclosed pasturage available for cows shrank noticeably. The
establishment
of dairy stables in urban enclosures was common and often a
necessity with-
out the means of refrigeration and rapid transportation. Many
rural dairies
were not equipped with the economic or technological means to
supply milk
to larger, distant urban populations. As a result, large dairy
herds were kept
on New York’s West Side near 16th Street; both dairying and
butchering took
place in the city.4
Facilities for healthy dairy production were available, but all
too often the
power of the market economy prevailed and dairymen opted for
less expen-
sive alternatives. It was cheaper to crowd the cows into
cramped, filthy quar-
ters, with little light or ventilation; the stalls were very rarely
cleaned as sani-
tation cost money. In a further effort to reduce costs and
maximize profits,
city stable owners discovered that after a period of enforced
semi-starvation,
cows could be persuaded to eat distillery slop. A marriage of
convenience
was arranged between brewers and dairymen, who located their
dairies next
to distillery manufactories and fed the cows the waste from the
distilleries’

fermentation process; this boiling hot swill was channeled
straight into the
stable troughs. Dairymen had a constant and ready food source
for their
cattle and distillers were turning a profit on their waste.5
Without sewers,
the disposal of waste in antebellum New York City was an
expensive and
time-consuming process; that cows would consume the distillery
waste was
a significant solution for distillery owners.6 Although swill had
a relatively
high nutritional value, it required supplementation with hay and
grain to
provide a healthy diet for the cows, which were already living
in deplor-
ably unhygienic conditions. Although they had reduced costs by
taking on
distillery waste, most dairy owners showed little inclination to
raise their
overheads in order to supply their livestock with a more
wholesome diet.
As a result, the milk from cows fed on alcoholic dregs smelled
strongly of
beer and displayed a tendency to coagulate into a hard lump.7
Not surpris-
ingly, diseases were also commonplace in these urban stables,
because of the
close quarters, the cows’ lack of access to proper ventilation,
and their limited
diet. Nevertheless, dairymen continued to milk their diseased
herds and sold
the milk daily to consumers. The diseased milk was a pale blue
color, so the
dairymen adulterated it with magnesia, chalk, and plaster of
paris to give it a

rich, creamy texture and appearance.8 Cows rarely survived for
more than a
year in these conditions, being milked until they died—the last
milking be-
ing performed “posthumously”—and their meat then being sold
to butchers
who then distributed the diseased meat to more consumers
(Figure 2.1). By
1835 there were an estimated 18,000 cows in New York and
Brooklyn being
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fed distillery slop and by the 1850s, more than two-thirds of
New York City’s
milk came from distillery herds.9
Public criticism of this practice emerged during the 1820s and
1830s, but
neither the city nor the state felt compelled to restrict the
growing swill milk
industry. Their reluctance was based on a series of related
factors. First, most
of the wealthy city-dwellers, who might have presented a
stringent chal-
lenge to the legislators’ political hegemony, were in the process
of insulating

themselves from the urban poor. As New York grew, members
of the upper
class started a migration from decidedly urban areas,
surrendering those
neighborhoods to immigrants and the city’s poor. Furthermore,
the wealthy
were predominantly unaffected by and therefore uninterested in
the debate
as they could afford good, rural milk from farms in
Westchester, Queens, and
Connecticut.10 For the urban poor, however, there was no
alternative to the
swill milk.
A second factor explaining lawmakers’ reluctance to control the
production
and distribution of swill milk was based on the premise that
governmental
regulations impinged upon the freedom of the market
economy.11 Moreover,
by the 1830s, New York’s integration into the world market
made it impossi-
ble—logistically and ideologically—for the city government to
maintain its
Figure 2.1 A cow too weak to stand is strung up to be milked in
a swill milk dairy stable.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 15 May 1858, 374.
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control over economic regulation. The city’s exceptional
population growth
in the following decades—New York’s population quadrupled
between 1830
and 1860—forcibly changed the context of city politics and
urban living. The
swill milk controversy emerged and was fought during a period
in which
civic politics was experiencing growing pains while trying to
reinvent itself.
Out of the eighteenth-century system that bred stiff controls
came a new
industrial system of machine politics pitting special interests
against reform-
ers. Furthermore, by the mid-1830s the locus of political power
shifted away
from the central City Hall and established itself within the
political interests
of the city’s separate wards. The conflict over swill milk was
prolonged, then,
by the efficiency with which the swill milk distributors
immersed themselves
into this new and still-developing system. Many of the swill
milk stable own-
ers were in fact respected members of the community, further
entrenching
official reluctance to act against them.12 The opponents of the
sale of un-
healthy milk were far less effective in learning the new ropes.13
Benevolent societies were the first to come to the defense of the
powerless

urban poor. A substantial increase in humanitarian reform
sentiment spread
across the United States—and, indeed, the western world—in
the century
after 1750. By the 1830s, the second Great Awakening
galvanized a resur-
gence in humanitarian activity.14 That a growing
humanitarianism should
develop simultaneously with an increase in industrialism was
hardly coin-
cidental. However, reformers’ motivations were not simply a
genuine desire
to help the marginalized. Rather, benevolent societies invariably
functioned
to advance their own interests.15 With an increase in
industrialization and its
subsequent urbanization, significant populations of oppressed
workers and
destitute immigrants were crowded into filthy, unventilated
tenements. Their
living conditions and opportunities for work—never mind their
prospects of
upward mobility—were meager at best. Many critics of
nineteenth-century
humanitarianism and benevolent societies saw benevolent
societies’ actions
toward the poor as an effort to maintain a social hegemony that
would dis-
courage the growing hordes of immigrants and downtrodden
citizens from
resisting oppression. By helping just enough to appease those
who could not
help themselves, the humanitarians were also protecting their
own desirable
lifestyle.16

More often than not humanitarianism in the early nineteenth
century was
infused with religious piety and therefore lacked the secular
pragmatism that
might have contributed to solving social crises. This was
certainly the case
with early resistance to swill milk by such benevolent societies
as the New York
Temperance Society (NYTS) and the Association for Improving
the Condi-
tion of the Poor. For example, in February 1838 the New York
Female Reform
Society—composed of evangelical women from the elite
classes—proposed
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distributing charity to those living in destitution that they
deemed virtuous
and receptive to religious doctrine. Most of the poor, they
concluded, were
not deserving of charity, as they were either intemperate or
(worse) Catholic
or both.17 Moreover, whatever help was provided by benevolent
societies was
predominantly spiritual rather than political; such activity was
not designed

to manufacture legislative change. Help was offered piecemeal
with strings
attached, but benevolent societies were generally unwilling to
embark on
significant social change for the poor and oppressed.
Some were, however, more deliberate in their efforts to help
New York’s
growing poor masses. The first concerted attack against swill
milk came from
Robert M. Hartley, the corresponding secretary for the NYTS
since 1833. In
his investigation of distilleries Hartley discovered that they sold
slop to dairy-
men. Having initially fought for temperance, he accidentally
fell into the milk
question and, in 1842, published An Essay on Milk, a
comprehensive history
and treatise on the social significance of milk as a nutritional
substance. In
the essay, Hartley turned his attention to the immoral practices
of the urban
milk trade and condemned the sale of swill milk. He
characterized the typical
stall as holding 2,000 cows in the winter, while noting the
unhealthy condi-
tions in which the cows were kept.
In raising an alarm against swill milk, Hartley sought to kill two
birds
with one stone. Ever the temperance advocate, Hartley alerted
his readers to
the connection between urban dairies and distilleries and noted
that many
distilleries were in financial straits. “In order that the expenses
may not ex-

ceed the profits, the slop must be turned to good account; hence
a milk dairy
. . . [is an] indispensable adjunct to every distillery.”18 Hoping
to break the
entire ring, Hartley proposed “let the customers withdraw their
patronage,
and the business of these milkmen will be broken up, and a
check given to
the business of distillation.”19 If the distilleries could be
closed, then the dairy
owners would be forced to look elsewhere for food for their
cows, hopefully
improving the condition of the dairies. In concluding, Hartley
insisted that
“we see no relief, but in the entire prevalence of temperance
principles.”20
After chastising the swill milk traders, Hartley did offer some
solutions.
He noted that supply of wholesome milk from the country did
not meet the
city’s demand and appealed to country dairymen to better
organize their
resources in order to profit from increased sales in New York
City. Hartley
addressed the persistent question of distance from New York
and insufficient
means with which to transport and refrigerate the milk by
pointing to the
extension of the railway that already crossed the Hudson River
to Orange,
Sullivan, and Rockland Counties. He also noted the imminent
construction
of the New York and Albany railroad, which would connect the
city with the
counties of Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess, as well as

adjoining portions
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of Connecticut.21 Indeed, the combination of train and canal
made possible
the delivery of milk to New York from Goshen—seventy miles
away—in five
or six hours.
Hartley emphasized that the purchase of swill milk was
unnatural, but
this lacked pragmatic value for the poor who were left with no
choice. He
could not escape the fact that swill milk was still produced less
expensively
than country milk. At the time Hartley was writing, the sale of
pure country
milk could no longer be a profitable endeavor at less than 6¢ a
quart, while
adulterated swill milk could be sold at profit for 3¢ a quart.22
Nevertheless,
he seemed oblivious to the widespread nature of poverty in New
York. The
reform-minded editor of the Tribune, Horace Greeley, estimated
that in 1845
at least two-thirds of New Yorkers subsisted on no more than $1

per week
per person. “On this pittance, and very much less in many
thousands of in-
stances, three hundred thousand persons within sight of Trinity
steeple must
pay City rents and City prices.” Estimates also suggested that
between 50,000
and 75,000 New Yorkers were forced to resort to charity.
Furthermore, dur-
ing the 1840s the economy froze with the weather during the
winter months
as the canals were closed and ocean commerce was reduced.23
The difference
between 3¢ and 6¢ was likely more significant than Hartley
realized.
Hartley’s campaign rang of divine righteousness and his attack
on two
insalubrious industries pointed to the woes of nineteenth-
century indus-
trialism and urbanization, but much of his efforts fell on deaf
ears, mainly
because the political actors to whom he appealed were strong
supporters of
the swill milk trade. After the publication of Hartley’s book,
resolutions were
presented to the city’s Board of Aldermen, calling for a special
committee to
investigate the swill milk question, but the Board took no action
on these rec-
ommendations and did not appoint a committee.24 This
inactivity was due in
no small measure to Hartley’s strong demands. After claiming
that swill milk
was responsible for the city’s high infant mortality, he insisted
that trade be-

tween distilleries and dairies be terminated.25 His request fell
on deaf ears in
large part because he offered no acceptable alternative to
supplying the city’s
destitute with more wholesome milk that was comparably
priced. Proposing
that rural dairies should form associations so that country milk
could be
available for all of New York’s inhabitants, he grossly
misjudged the amount
of milk required and the manner in which it might be
transported to the city
before it soured or went bad. Furthermore, Hartley did not
recognize the
complexity of the milk industry and the fact that many of the
rural dairies—
who produced wholesome milk—also had interests in the
distillery stables.
In 1858, the Daily Tribune noted that several rural dairies
rotated their cows
between urban and rural stables. Milk was produced and sold
less expen-
sively in this manner and a distinct division between pure and
swill milk was
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almost impossible.26 Caught in his righteous humanitarianism,
Hartley also
failed to appreciate the relative expense of country milk even
when it was
incorporated into combines. Although the Orange County Milk
Association
was distributing 7,000 quarts a day to the city, there was no
corresponding
decline in the sale of swill milk.27
Hartley’s other failing was his inability to escape his
evangelical back-
ground. Throughout his career, Hartley saw a distinct
relationship between
poverty and depravity and he deplored both; poverty was caused
not by the
economic failures of recent years—over which his class had
presided—but
by moral deficiencies in the poor themselves. He excused the
epidemics that
regularly afflicted the city as God’s retribution for sin. Among
the victims of
the 1832 cholera outbreak, for example, more than 40 percent of
the dead
had been Irish Catholic. Hartley, like many others of his class,
failed to make
the connection with the fact that Irish immigrants were also
among the most
numerous inhabitants of the city’s squalid tenements.28
John H. Griscom’s career in public health mirrors but also
represents a foil
for Hartley’s.29 Hartley’s contemporary, Griscom was a Quaker
who in 1842
was appointed City Inspector and conducted a thorough study of
city health

and concluded that the city’s unsanitary conditions represented
a distinct
social problem that needed to be addressed. Whereas his
predecessor’s an-
nual review had very briefly listed a series of health-related
statistics for the
year, Griscom labored over the city’s mortality statistics and
provided fifty-
five pages of commentary. His central argument was that
preventive action
should be the focal point of public health. Griscom was
particularly con-
cerned about the city’s crowded, unventilated housing and its
general filth.
His model for preventive action called for the regulation of the
construction
of housing and for a comprehensive drainage and sewage system
to alleviate
the buildup of toxic substances.30 Griscom also proposed
replacing politically
appointed health wardens with a team of impartial medical
experts.
Not surprisingly, his recommendation of controls and checks
and bal-
ances on both the market and the government did not sit well
with pro-
market economy authorities, who categorically dismissed
Griscom’s survey.
No doubt the Board of Aldermen who convened to consider
Griscom’s
recommendations were particularly unwilling to eliminate more
than thirty
political appointments—a form of machine politics patronage to
favorites—
in order to fill them with independent medical personnel.31

Furthermore,
Griscom was not re-appointed as City Inspector. With the help
of city re-
formers, however, Griscom published his study in 1845 under
the title The
Sanitary Conditions of the Laboring Class of New York.32 In
demonstrating the
unnatural quality of city life, Griscom also lauded the healthy—
natural—life
of the country. In so doing, he compared the life and physique
of the “sav-
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age” with that of the wan and slight New Yorker. In nature, the
“savage” was
living in a more healthful environment. In promoting the
healthy lifestyle
in the country, Griscom anticipated the “rigorous life” mantra
of the early
twentieth-century Progressive era.33
Griscom’s study is significant, because he broke from
conventional wis-
dom by refusing to blame the poor for the unsanitary living
spaces in which
they were confined. Like members of the modern environmental

justice
movement, he perceived deep-seated connections between social
and envi-
ronmental problems; “for Griscom, dirt was a symptom of
poverty, not its
cause.”34 Indeed, in light of the cholera outbreak in 1849 and
the Astor riot
the same year a degree of radicalism was entering New York;
excusing the
plight of the poor or the sick as simply the result of their own
immoral-
ity only fueled the fires. Within this broad spectrum of social
and public
health problems, swill milk provided a plausible and focused
platform upon
which to base the efforts of social and environmental reform.
Milk consump-
tion took place in almost any home with children and swill
milk’s ubiquity
contributed significantly to the city’s growing health problems.
But neither
Griscom’s nor Hartley’s manuscript was published widely or
made readily
available for more than a select group of readers. Although
Griscom and
Hartley continued to participate in the movement and their early
works were
certainly catalysts for later improvements, the initial lack of
reception to their
ideas is attributable to their inability to organize a sustained and
pragmatic
attack on city legislators who remained reluctant to regulate
markets. Their
solutions, too, failed to resolve the myriad and inchoate
difficulties involved
in the distribution of city funds for large projects while they

also antagonized
the interests of the aldermen who voted on them.
The worsening of the swill milk situation, however, helped
galvanize fur-
ther support. In 1847, distemper or “cow fever” broke out in the
swill stables
near the South Ferry.35 The disease spread rapidly through the
crowded
stables and was uniformly fatal, until it was discovered that
cows could be
inoculated by slitting their tails and inserting parts of a dead
cow’s lungs. The
tail generally swelled and rotted off, but only 20 percent of the
inoculated
cows died.36 Inoculated cows, cows suffering from distemper,
and dead cows
were all milked, however, and their milk continued to be
distributed among
the urban poor. Even at the height of the epidemic, the swill
milk remained
the only milk that many poor New Yorkers could afford. For
1843, before
the epidemic hit the swill stables, the City Inspector of New
York reported
that children under five years of age represented 4,588 of the
13,281 deaths
reported in the city. In 1856, 13,373 children under the age of
five died, but
the number of deaths of people over the age of five had hardly
changed at all.
Whereas in 1843 children under five had represented roughly
one-third of all
deaths, by 1856 they represented more than 60 percent of all
deaths.37

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Concerned about the widespread disease among cows and the
increase
in infant mortality, the New York Academy of Medicine set up a
commit-
tee to investigate the swill milk stables in 1848. The committee
found that
conditions under which the cows were kept were atrocious and
unacceptable.
The larger stables kept 2,000 to 4,000 cows confined in
unventilated stalls,
which—combined with their inadequate diet of distillery slop—
led to the
easy transmission of disease throughout the entire herd.
Running, ulcerated
sores all over their bodies, missing teeth, sore feet, hair loss,
and consumptive
lungs were just some of the common ailments listed by the
committee. After
a chemical analysis of the milk, the committee found that the
milk contained
only one-half to one-third the amount of butter fat found in
country milk
and concluded that the distillery milk was very likely the cause
of scrofula
and cholera infantum, which had claimed so many of the city’s

young. On
1 March 1848, the committee’s chair, Dr. Augustus Gardner,
presented two
resolutions to the Academy: that swill milk was “not only less
nutritious than
that of unconfined and well-fed animals, but is positively
deleterious, espe-
cially to young children,” and that city officials should take
action against
the swill milk dairymen “as in their wisdom they may think
fit.”38 The Acad-
emy accepted Gardner’s report, but the resolutions were tabled
until further
evidence could be obtained. The Gardner report was not
published by the
Academy until 1851, and even then its condemnation of swill
milk was not
spread publicly. Although Gardner and Griscom both persisted
in their fight,
they received little assistance from the powerful body of
respected health
authorities. Indeed, the Academy did not really act again upon
the swill milk
issue until it gained widespread publicity in the city’s
newspapers.
The swill milk campaign was one of the first journalism
crusades in his-
tory. The “power of the press” highlighted the dangers of the
swill milk trade
and galvanized support for the movement against the practice
among its
readership. The Daily Tribune published a long article and
editorial on 26
June 1847, attacking swill milk for containing “positively
noxious properties.”

The article was anonymously written “by a scientific gentleman
of the highest
character,” who pointed to swill milk as being responsible for
the excessive
infant mortality numbers in the city and concluded by chastising
city offi-
cials for not acting. “What other city,” the article asked, “would
allow 100,000
quarts of impure, demonstrably diseased milk, to be distributed
every week
among its inhabitants?”39
Among the more vociferous (and successful) antagonists of the
swill milk
dairy industry was the journalist Frank Leslie. In May 1858,
Leslie’s weekly
newspaper, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, devoted
extensive time and
energy to researching and exposing the social and moral ills of
the “nefarious
and revolting trade.”40 Leslie’s challenge to the industry was
comprehensive as
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he increased public awareness, articulated the health risks
associated with the

swill milk, publicized the trade routes taken by the distributors,
and attacked
the political machine that looked the other way. “Shall these
manufactories
of hell-broths be permitted longer to exist among us?” he boldly
queried.41
Previous attempts to counter and arrest the abuses of the milk
trade had
been unsuccessful, but Leslie’s attack—complete with vivid
illustrations—
demonstrated the power of pictorial journalism.42 Compared
with Hartley
and Griscom, Leslie combined the distribution of information
and advocacy
with a more confrontational position that made it very difficult
for authori-
ties to dismiss or ignore him.
Leslie joined the ranks of public health officials and benevolent
societies
that opposed the distribution of diseased milk. His prose—often
melodra-
matic and always full of panache—was designed to stimulate
reaction from
its readers, but it also rang of goodwill and concern for his
fellow citizen:
In presenting to our readers the sickening details connected with
the
distillery milk manufacture which prevails to an alarming extent
in both
New York and Brooklyn, we are animated solely by a desire to
benefit
our fellow-citizens, to expose the shameless frauds which are
every day
perpetrated under the eyes and with the full cognizance of the

public
authorities, and to break up a system which, by the wholesale
distribu-
tion of liquid poison, is decimating our population, bringing
death into
a thousand homes, and demoralizing the general health of the
city. . . .
Ours has been no pleasing task! we should not have selected it
for pas-
time or amusement! we would rather have shunned it as we
would avoid
a place infected by the plague; but a sense of public duty and
the powerful
lever of faithful and accurate illustrations taken on these leper
spots . . .
prompted us to pursue our present course, and the hope of
ameliorating
a great evil has encouraged us to persevere.43
But his participation in the attack of the swill milk industry
does not ex-
actly qualify as being wholly altruistic, as the popularity of his
exposé effec-
tively saved his business. In 1857, Leslie claimed to have
90,000 subscriptions,
but he was embroiled in a fierce battle with the newly
established Harper’s
Weekly. By the end of 1858, Leslie boasted a subscription total
of 140,000
with special issues selling considerably more copies. This rise
in subscrip-
tions was likely directly attributable to Leslie’s investigation of
the swill milk
controversy; during his exposé Leslie reduced and eventually
eliminated his
gossip columns in favor of presenting news and editorials.

While he still com-
peted with Harper’s for the illustrated newspaper market, Leslie
established
his newspaper as a first-rate publication of investigative
journalism.44
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Nevertheless, Leslie’s exposé was powerful and it attacked not
just the men
directly involved in the production and distribution of swill
milk; after his
initial flurry of articles exposing the trade, Leslie struck at the
political ma-
chine that condoned it. By 1858, some sixteen years after
Hartley published
his essay on the history of milk and fourteen years since
Griscom had derided
the sanitary conditions of the city, civic authorities still had not
imposed any
restrictions on the sale of swill milk. The resistance to reform
remained in-
tractable, owing largely to the dairy owners’ political sway.
Leslie noted that
the high profits realized from swill milk production had made
the dealers
a potent lobby against reforms. In 1856, for example, the

Brooklyn Com-
mon Council passed a law requiring ample room for dairy cows,
but within
a couple of months the Council buckled under the pressure of
the swill milk
dealers and passed an amendment exempting urban swill milk
distilleries. By
1858, one anonymous, prominent official told Leslie it was
unlikely that the
authorities would take action: “They dare not do it! Don’t you
know that every
one of those cows has a vote?”45
Leslie’s coverage of the diseased milk trade did, however,
provoke a series
of formal inquiries, the first by a committee of city officials
altogether too
friendly with the swill milk dealers to provide a balanced
report. Indeed, the
Daily Tribune mocked the investigation as an example of
political corrup-
tion.
After giving the swill-milk venders ample time to brush up and
‘make it
all right’ for the official visit, Alderman [Michael] Tuomey
yesterday led
his Committee up to Johnson’s distillery, looked about a little,
found all
in tolerably good condition, took a drink at the corner groggery,
got a
few samples of milk from cows, and rode back to City Hall.46
Tuomey issued reassuring reports, but Leslie challenged his
credibility
and his connections to the industry. His attacks against the

committee mem-
bers were particularly ruthless. Leslie called Tuomey “a
barefaced, shameless
rascal” and was even more disparaging of Tuomey’s second,
Alderman E.
Harrison Reed, who “in all that constitutes the scurrilous
blackguard and
mouthy poltroon is Tuomey’s superior.”47 He further escalated
his mockery
of the committee’s work and findings by printing a now-famous
cartoon of
three aldermen whitewashing a stump-tailed cow (Figure 2.2).48
After the
whitewashing cartoon, Leslie was indicted for criminal libel,
but after a hear-
ing marred by violence the action was dismissed by the grand
jury. It was
blatantly obvious that, as incriminating as Leslie’s cartoon had
been, it was
not libelous.
Responding to growing tensions, the Board of Health decided to
appoint a
new committee to conduct a more thorough study. Two reports
resulted from
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this second study. The majority report, signed by Tuomey and
Reed, found
the stables and the conditions of the cows to be adequate, but
recommended
that the stables receive better ventilation. Critics of the report—
who then
submitted the minority report—complained that the
investigation sought to
protect the dairymen and that the committee spent most of its
time putting
Leslie’s charges on trial.49 Charles H. Haswell submitted the
minority report
that presented a stark criticism of all facets of the swill milk
industry. Wit-
nesses had admitted that diseased cows were regularly milked
and that urine
was occasionally—through accident or negligence—added to the
milk.50
Haswell listed four objections to the swill dairies: crowded
stalls, widespread
disease, unsanitary milking process, and the slaughter of
diseased cows for
meat. On 14 July 1858, the Council discussed the majority and
minority re-
ports and opted in favor of the corrupt majority report. No
concessions were
made to appease the angry committee members; even a
resolution requiring
that distillery dairies post signs on their carts that read “Swill-
fed Milk” was
rejected.51
With no resolution in sight, Leslie dedicated himself to
persevering in
his crusade. Accompanying his vivid illustrations were

extensive lists of the
Figure 2.2 Three New York City aldermen charged with
investigating the swill milk
industry shown “whitewashing” a diseased, stump-tailed cow
and her owner. Frank Leslie’s
Illustrated Newspaper, 17 July 1858, 110.
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routes taken by the distillery milk carts, the numbers of the
houses to which
they delivered, the locations of the depots that advertised their
milk as “coun-
try pure,” the names of the owners of the cows, and the false
inscriptions
on the carts that carried the swill milk around the city (Figure
2.3). Leslie
did achieve some success as some milk distributors started to
buy country
milk and he was quick to publish these small victories along
with his weekly
stories. Mitchell and Blain, from Fulton Market, wrote Leslie to
“thank you
for your exposure of the Swill Milk trade. We have changed our
milkman,
and now use none but the best Country Milk.”52

Given the impotence or unwillingness of city officials to act,
Leslie likely
saw his crusade as an attempt not just to raise public awareness,
but also to
arouse public action. Like the later muckrakers of the
Progressive era and,
later, the scientists who participated in environmental protest
after World
War II, he understood that informing the public could lead to
meaningful
reform. In 1848, the inhabitants of a small town near Elberfeld,
Germany,
burned a swill milk distillery to the ground and drove out the
owners, after
officials had not acted. By drawing on this example early in his
exposé, it is
possible that Leslie was hoping to incite a similar reaction in
New York if
Figure 2.3 False advertising of swill milk with a “country
wagon” pulled up to a distillery
yard. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 8 May 1858, 368.
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reforms were not enacted.53 What Leslie did not know or

neglected to men-
tion was that the events in Elberfeld were part of a greater
uprising associated
with the Revolution of 1848. Leslie also left out the fact that
the Prussian state
eventually crushed such civil disobedience. Nevertheless, Leslie
promoted
his exposé as the catalyst for social change and stoked the fires
of public ac-
tivism. “During the past week,” he wrote the week after he first
broke the
story, “it has been the subject of serious and animated
discussion in almost
every house. . . . Each one asked himself, ‘How could I be so
supine as to sit
quiet and never make an effort to cleanse this foul nest for
humanity’s sake,
if not from personal motives?’ ”54 Again, in attempting to stir
public activism,
Leslie wrote, “every man who rests in the vain and selfish
security that he
is ‘safe’ is a traitor to the cause, and gives comfort and help to
the general
enemy.”55
Besides challenging the moral goodness of men involved in the
urban
dairy trade as well as those who did not act against it, Leslie
also attacked
the swill milk distributors’ gender identity. Gail Bederman
notes that the
popular conception of “manliness” in the mid-nineteenth
century was as-
sociated with a man’s strength of character and a duty to protect
and guide
those weaker than himself, namely his family or his

employees.56 By referring
to the New York and Brooklyn milkmen as scoundrels and
modern Herods,
Leslie was implying that their immorality made them less than
manly.57 And
he went even further, referring to swill milk dairy owners and
distributors
as “ ‘milkmaids,’ with large beards and excessive dirt.”58 In so
doing, Leslie
openly provoked gender stereotypes that hearkened back to pre-
industrial
Europe, where milking was seen as women’s work. Leslie
continued referring
Figure 2.4 “Attack of the milkmaids.” Frank Leslie’s artist is
accosted in Skillman Street,
Brooklyn, between two swill milk stables. Note the artist’s
noble stance in contrast with
the slovenly mob. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 15 May
1858, 384.
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to “milkmaids” in subsequent issues of his paper, even
illustrating an “at-
tack of the ‘milkmaids’ ” on one of his artists (Figure 2.4).59
The image clearly

showed an upright, strong, and noble artist defiantly preparing
to meet a
dirty and raucous horde of “milkmaids.” In persisting with
attacks on the
swill milk distributors’ gender, Leslie sought to further
demonstrate gender
differences that would antagonize his adversaries.
In contrast to the immoral, effeminate “dairymaid,” Leslie was
recognized
as a masculine savior for his moral crusade. In appreciation of
his efforts,
Leslie was presented with a gold watch and chain, the
inscription reading “in
behalf of the mothers and children of New-York, as a grateful
testimonial of
his Manly and Fearless Exposure of the Swill Milk Traffic.”60
Leslie even pro-
moted himself as more masculine during the controversy after a
meeting in
which Alderman Reed suggested that only dignity prevented
him from doing
Leslie bodily harm. In response, Leslie submitted that—in spite
of his great
patience—he was glad not to have been “within hearing of that
cowardly
and wretched maligner,” or else “[that] hawk’s bill which
ornaments [Reed’s]
Aldermanic face would certainly have been rubbed, thumb-and-
fingerwise,
to a very ‘fine point’ indeed.”61 Even as Leslie presented the
members of the
swill milk trade and their political allies as effeminate and less
than men,
he sought to exemplify and articulate an aggressive masculinity
of morality

whose central goal was the defense of the home against corrupt
polluters of
milk and bodies.
Conscious that increased numbers would maintain the
momentum of the
actions he had begun, Leslie also worked to persuade the strong
temperance
movement to join his crusade. Attacking both the distilleries
and the swill
milk at the same time, Leslie pointed up the irrevocable
relationship between
the two:
Wherever large masses of people congregate, thus creating a
great de-
mand for milk, a distillery springs up at once, and while this
furnishes
fiery alcohol which makes fathers and husbands drunkards,
loafers, and,
perhaps, murderers, the filthy cow stables, which hang around it
like
bloated parasites, dispense the poison that deals death to the
mothers and
children.62
In broadening the scope of the protest, Leslie was attracting
more people
to the movement. If the plight of urban women and children was
not enough
to attract middle- and upper-class women to the movement,
perhaps relating
the environmental problems with swill milk to their own
benevolent issues
such as temperance and family problems associated with alcohol
would. Fur-

thermore, Leslie was demonstrating how swill milk had an
impact on men as
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well as women and children. By expanding the issue to one of
public health
in general, Leslie found a broader base, though ultimately
insufficiently so.
Where Hartley’s prosaic attempts to galvanize public sentiment
into action
had failed, Leslie’s persistence and sensationalism was highly
effective. The il-
lustrations no doubt brought to life the conditions in the swill
stables, but his
message was also heard by far more people. Leslie also
managed a sustained
attack that appeared serially in his newspaper, whereas
Hartley’s book was
not followed by further writings that reached a wide audience.
Timing, however, may ultimately have been the critical factor.
By the late
1850s railroad expansion was making the transportation of
country milk to
the city an ever-increasing possibility. The supply of milk
continued to grow

and milk associations began forming, dropping the overall cost
of whole-
some milk. The feasibility of bringing country milk to the city
spurred a dif-
ferent legislative body into action against the distillery milk
traders. In 1861,
Otsego County Senator Francis M. Rotch proposed a bill to stop
the sale of
swill milk in New York City. Inspired perhaps by some of
Hartley’s sugges-
tions regarding the potential economic growth of rural dairies
almost twenty
years earlier, Rotch might have seen an economic opportunity
for his rural
constituents if the swill milk trade were abolished. As the travel
time between
New York City and outlying counties got continually and
dramatically shorter,
a cost-effective alternative to swill milk presented itself. The
senate passed
the bill, but the assembly rejected it. The following year,
however, the law was
enacted and it represented the first Milk Law to be passed in
New York State.
The law made the sale of “any impure, adulterated, or
unwholesome milk”
a misdemeanor and punishable by a fine of fifty dollars or a jail
sentence
in default of the fine. The law further outlawed the feeding of
cows on food
that would produce unwholesome milk—an attack on distillery
slop—and
imposed stricter laws of stable conditions.63 That the law was
passed at the
state rather than the municipal level suggests that the distillery
and urban

dairy owners still held considerable sway in city politics.
Although this legislation represented a monumental victory in
the fight
against swill milk, distributors quickly found loopholes, namely
in the law’s
vagueness regarding what constituted “adulterated” or
“unwholesome” milk
under the statute. An amendment in 1864 specifically defined
“the addition
of water or any substance other than a sufficient quantity of ice
to preserve
the whole milk while in transportation” to be an adulteration.64
Given that
the swill milk required adulteration to even look like milk, the
amendment
legally put an end to the production of swill milk in Manhattan.
But in Brook-
lyn the swill milk trade was still protected by the local
amendment passed in
1856 protecting swill milk businesses within the city limits. As
late as the
turn of the century, swill milk was still produced and sold in
Brooklyn. The
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Department of Health, formed in 1866, entered the fray in 1873,
banning—
and making specific reference to—swill milk as part of the
sanitary code.65
As the swill dairies decreased in number and were pushed
further from the
city, their owners found it increasingly difficult to manage both
production
and distribution, while lower prices for milk from the
countryside hurt them
through competition. The division of labor ultimately ruined the
political
power of the swill milk trade; as the milk industry grew, the
interests of milk
producers were often in conflict with those of the distributors
and what had
once been a formidable political lobby was in shambles.
But was this really a significant environmental victory? The
protest against
bad milk was ultimately successful, but it took almost twenty
years for pub-
lic health advocates to realize the changes they sought. The
growth of the
activism and the amount of pressure it could exert on the
political machine
depended largely on its support base, which grew slowly and
ineffectively,
allowing its opposition to build a powerful political lobby.
Opponents to
the swill milk trade enjoyed a relative victory, but it was not
entirely due to
their own efforts. That it took more than twenty years after the
initial, con-
certed alarm over swill milk to realize any kind of control over
the industry

is testament to the disorganized nature of the early protest
against it and the
lack of interest in this issue on the part of the community
leaders. Leslie’s
efforts must be recognized as the most effective public
condemnation of the
distillery milk trade, because his exposé directly and
aggressively attacked
the political machine in a manner that administrators could not
ignore. Les-
lie also struck a chord with a wider audience and galvanized
action from a
broader support base than did efforts from smaller groups. But
the protest
was ultimately hampered by not effectively outlining a distinct
problem or
organizing in a manner that would exact change. Swill milk was
accepted as
the problem, but activists could not agree amongst themselves
whether it was
the production or the distribution that should be challenged.
Furthermore,
reformers disagreed on whether the feeding of distillery slops to
the cows,
the stable conditions, the unethical business practices of the
dairymen, or the
lack of municipal licensing within the milk industry presented
itself as the
central target for civil objection. In spite of these internal
conflicts, however,
the lobby was likely never sufficiently strong to represent any
legitimate chal-
lenge to the status quo.
That such demands were not realized quickly—indeed as late as
1904 only

six American cities used dairy inspectors—speaks more to
difficulties in
organizing a politically potent protest than it does to a lack of
social and en-
vironmental concern.66 Whereas the heated battle over swill
milk dissipated
after state legislation was passed in the 1860s, the 1906 Food
and Drug Act
represented a more official closure of sorts, with more stringent,
enforceable,
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and enforced laws against the production and distribution of
contaminated
or dangerous food products. It finally took a dramatic expansion
of state and
federal regulatory powers at the beginning of the twentieth
century to bring
meaningful reform to the problem of contaminated and
adulterated foods.
As a rule, environmental protest must move from the public
sphere into
the political arena in order to exact change that might solve or
mitigate the
existing environmental problem.67 To receive political attention

the public
organization must be sufficiently broad and vocal enough that
legislators
feel pressure to act. Central to any success, then, is the process
of organiz-
ing responses to perceived environmental problems. Intrinsic to
organizing
responses is galvanizing the public into action through
impressing upon
them the potential hazards. In New York City’s battle over swill
milk, the
organizational process that resulted in a growing and concerted
attack on
the distributors of swill milk and their political allies slowly
found ways to
engage the public while pushing for political action. In different
capacities,
Hartley, Griscom, and Leslie sought to inform the public about
the nature
of the hazards inherent in the distribution and consumption of
swill milk.
Among the three, Leslie’s newspaper provided him with the
widest audience.
And when Leslie insisted that the sale of adulterated milk be
outlawed, he
also advocated creating clear standards: “Milkmen should be
licensed, and
the license should be granted only upon positive evidence of a
dairy of grass
or hay fed cows.”68 This argument might have galvanized a
concerned public
and readership, but it also focused on legislators who could act.
Nevertheless,
although the initial movement to ban swill milk was premised
on a strong
social and moral ethic, it lacked a focused foundation upon

which it could
build the bigger structure of an effective political movement.
Moreover, New
Yorkers with political sway were hard to engage; they had
access to fresh
country milk because they could afford it.
These factors are useful to keep in mind, because they are
present in
more recent environmental struggles. In many instances, the
dissemination
of information is a form of political activism. And the problem
of arousing
the urban elite is also a common problem in twentieth-century
American
environmentalism. Those with means are able to protect
themselves from
environmental harm; bottled water, organic fruits and
vegetables, and
healthier communities are contemporary expressions of this.69
And this is
an intriguing and problematic feature of the larger American
environmen-
tal consciousness: there is little collective or altruistic spirit in
much natural
protest. Since World War II, the major environmental
victories—halting
aboveground nuclear weapons testing, removing lead from
gasoline, and the
bans on some heavy metals and synthetic pesticides—have been
those that
affected all Americans. Nuclear fallout, for example, was not
discriminatory

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along race or class lines in where it fell; it threatened everyone.
The same is
true of the release of lead into the air. American
environmentalists have been
less successful when addressing health and environmental
problems that are
more local in their nature, because it becomes harder to gain
support from
people who are not affected by the harm.
Notes
1 A version of this essay was published as “Organizing Protest
in the Changing City:
Swill Milk and Social Activism in New York City, 1842–64,”
New York History 86
(Summer 2005), 205–25. I am grateful to the New York State
Historical Associa-
tion for their permission to reprint this essay here.
2 Marcy Darnovsky, “Stories Less Told: Histories of US
Environmentalism,” Socialist
Review 22(4) (1992), 11–54. Quotation is from p. 28. Modern
environmentalism
certainly owes much to figures such as Henry David Thoreau,
George Perkins
Marsh, Gifford Pinchot, and Theodore Roosevelt. From their

conservationist prin-
ciples came a parks system, forest silviculture and management,
and the champi-
oning of serene nature as a place for reflection and spiritual
renewal. Such systems,
management tools, and expanded notions of human ethics have
been critical in
shaping a “green” agenda, but critics note that they are inherited
from a predomi-
nantly white and male ancestry. Indeed, conservation and
wilderness preservation
have played a significant role in the growth of the
environmental movement and
their interests are notably central to the agendas of the “Group
of Ten,” the nation’s
ten largest environmental organizations. Given the cultural and
ethnic breadth
in contemporary American demographics and the ubiquity of
environmental
problems, historical perceptions of a strictly conservationist
agenda require revi-
sion. This singular root of modern environmentalism, I submit,
is as historically
problematic as Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis; both
are awkwardly
ethnocentric and suffer from a positionality that makes the
incorporation of non-
white and non-middle-class concerns exceedingly difficult.
3 Focusing on environmental lobbies and their organization
over time constitutes
an important avenue for historical study. Frank Uekoetter
proposes that analyzing
the process of the organizing of responses to environmental
problems represents
an intriguing new direction for environmental histories. By

locating social percep-
tions of divergences between objective natural conditions and
certain political,
economic, or cultural norms and values, an organizational
approach, he argues,
offers the historian an opportunity to gauge the degree to which
societies are able
to recognize, control, and regulate their environmental impact.
This organizational
approach, therefore, allows historians to contribute to
contemporary environ-
mental discussions in a more relevant manner. Frank Uekoetter,
“Confronting the
Pitfalls of Current Environmental History: An Argument for an
Organisational
Approach,” Environment and History 4 (1998), 31–52.
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4 John Duffy, A History of Public Health in New York City,
1625–1866 (New York:
Russell Sage Foundation, 1968), 427–39.
5 Interestingly, this kind of practice serves as a precursor for
modern ideas sur-
rounding industrial ecology, in which industries consume each
other’s waste,

thereby reducing the amount that requires disposal. Modern
industrial ecology
is currently regarded as a paradigm for more sustainable
industrial practices. For
a brief introduction to modern industrial ecology, see David
Salvesen, “Making
Industrial Parks Sustainable,” Urban Land (February 1996), 29–
32.
6 During the first half of the nineteenth century, the
institutional limitations of New
York’s political system hindered the ability to legislate for the
construction of the
infrastructure that was necessary to realize an adequate sewage
system. For a his-
tory of the construction of New York sewers, see Joanne Abel
Goldman, Building
New York’s Sewers: Developing Mechanisms of Urban
Management (West Lafayette,
IN: Purdue University Press, 1997). For the history of the
development of antebel-
lum New York politics, see Amy Bridges, A City in the
Republic: Antebellum New
York and the Origins of Machine Politics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press,
1984).
7 Norman Shaftel, “A History of the Purification of Milk in
New York, or, ‘How Now,
Brown Cow,’ ” in Judith Walzer Leavitt and Ronald L. Numbers
(eds.), Sickness and
Health in America: Readings in the History of Medicine and
Public Health (Madi-
son: University of Wisconsin, 1978), 277.
8 The adulteration or watering down of milk had previously

been a serious issue of
contention, especially since the water used was invariably
contaminated. Physi-
cians continued to fight against the adulteration of milk, but
this issue was largely
secondary to the protesters of swill milk.
9 Duffy, A History of Public Health, 427–39; Shaftel, “A
History of the Purification
of Milk in New York,” 277. For the “posthumous” milking of
cows, see Shaftel, “A
History of the Purification of Milk in New York,” 278. For
summaries of the ori-
gins of the “swill milk” controversy, see also Edwin G. Burrows
and Mike Wallace,
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press,
1999), 788; Budd Leslie Gambee Jr., Frank Leslie and his
Illustrated Newspaper,
1855–1860 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Department of
Library Science,
1964), 69–72; Frank Luther Mott, A History of American
Magazines, 1850–1865
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938), 456–58;
Kenneth T. Jackson
(ed.), The Encyclopedia of New York City (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press,
1995), 308–9.
10 The wealthier classes did eventually get behind the
movement to ban the distri-
bution of swill milk, but generally on the premise that the odor
of the distillery
stables permeated through the city. For them, it seems that their
motivations were
spurred less by the social crisis of unhealthy milk, and more by

their interest in
preserving their comfortable mode of living. By mid-century,
the wealthier classes
were also in the midst of a migration uptown, away from the
swill milk battle-
ground.
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11 For a description of the market economy in antebellum
America, see Charles
Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–
1846 (Oxford: Oxford
12 In Brooklyn, for example, Samuel Bouton was a dairyman
and also served as
alderman from the Seventh Ward in 1836, 1837, 1842, and
1843. Jacob Judd,
“Brooklyn’s Health and Sanitation, 1834–55,” Journal of Long
Island History 7(1)
(1967), 40–52.
13 For a variety of perspectives on political change and the
emergence of the indus-
trial metropolis during the middle of the nineteenth century, see
Bridges, A City

in the Republic; Goldman, Building New York’s Sewers;
Edward K. Spann, The New
Metropolis: New York City, 1840–1857 (New York: Columbia
University Press,
1981); Sam Bass Warner Jr., The Urban Wilderness: A History
of the American City
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Sean Wilentz,
Chants Democratic:
New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class,
1788–1850 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1984); Stuart M. Blumin, The
Emergence of the Middle
Class: Social Experience in the American City, 1760–1900
(Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989); and Carroll Smith Rosenberg, Religion
and the Rise of the
American City: The New York City Mission Movement, 1812–
1870 (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 1971).
14 See, as introduction, Sellers, The Market Revolution, 202–
36.
15 Thomas L. Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins of the
Humanitarian Sensibil-
ity, Part 1,” American Historical Review 90(2) (1985), 339–61.
See also Haskell,
“Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility,
Part 2,” American
Historical Review 90(3) (1985), 547–66; and Paul Boyer, Urban
Masses and Moral
Order in America, 1820–1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
16 Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian
Sensibility, Part 1.”

17 Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 620.
18 Robert M. Hartley, An Historical, Scientific and Practical
Essay on Milk as an Arti-
cle of Human Sustenance (New York: Jonathan Leavitt, 1842),
112.
19 Ibid., 113.
20 Ibid., 348.
21 Ibid., 335.
22 Ibid., 326–27. Hartley conceded that 6¢ a quart was the bare
minimum price for
country milk being delivered and that prices were generally
higher.
23 Daily Tribune, 9 July 1845. Cited in Spann, The New
Metropolis, 71–72. Spann
notes that by the 1860s, railroad construction and more
manufacturing signifi-
cantly improved the winter economy.
24 Duffy, A History of Public Health, 428–29.
25 Hartley, An Essay on Milk.
26 Daily Tribune, 28 May 1858, 5.
27 Shaftel, “ A History of the Purification of Milk in New
York,” 278–79.
28 Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 785. In The Cholera Years,
Charles E. Rosenberg
traces the evolution of American thinking about disease during
the mid-

ed
.
nineteenth century. Concentrating on New York’s numerous
cholera epidemics
during the period, Rosenberg notes that “cholera in 1866 was a
social problem; in
1832, it had still been, to many Americans, a primarily moral
dilemma.” Charles
E. Rosenberg, The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832,
1849, and 1866 (1962;
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 228.
29 For a comparison of Hartley and Griscom, see Charles E.
Rosenberg and Carroll
Smith-Rosenberg, “Pietism and the Origins of the American
Public Health
Movement: A Note on John H. Griscom and Robert M. Hartley,”
in Leavitt and
Numbers (eds.), Sickness and Health in America, 345–58.
30 Such demands mirror the demands made by postwar
suburban groups.
32 John H. Griscom, The Sanitary Conditions of the Laboring
Class of New York (New
York: Harper & Brothers, 1845). Martin V. Melosi notes the
influence of the Eng-
lish sanitarian Edwin Chadwick on Griscom and the title of his
work. Chadwick
had, in 1842, published his Report on the Sanitary Condition of

the Labouring Pop-
ulation of Great Britain and corresponded with Griscom during
the 1840s. Martin
V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America
from Colonial Times
to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2000), 43–72. For more
on Chadwick and the European influence on American notions
of public health,
see Christopher Hamlin, Public Health and Social Justice in the
Age of Chadwick:
Britain, 1800–1854 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998).
33 For a study of masculinity during the Progressive era, see
Gail Bederman, Manli-
ness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in
the United States,
1880–1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
34 Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 785.
35 S. Rotton Percy, “Report of the Committee on City Milk,”
Transactions of the New
York Academy of Medicine, 2 March 1859, 97–149. Reference
to “cow fever” is on
pp. 104–6.
36 Ibid., 104–6. Percy posited that the inoculation was “a
needless piece of folly,” and
that there was no evidence that the fever was contagious.
37 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 8 May 1858, 359.
38 Augustus K. Gardner, “Report of a Committee Appointed by
the Academy of

Medicine, upon the Comparative Value of Milk Formed from
the Slop of Distiller-
ies and Other Food,” Transactions of the New York Academy of
Medicine, 1 March
1848, 31–49. Quotations are from p. 49.
39 Daily Tribune, 26 June 1847, 2. John Duffy suggests that
the author of this article
was very likely Dr. Augustus Gardner, who wrote extensively
on the topic of swill
milk as chair of the New York Academy of Medicine. Duffy, A
History of Public
Health, 429.
40 Leslie’s, 15 May 1858, 369.
41 Leslie’s, 22 May 1858, 385.
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42 Gambee, Frank Leslie and His Illustrated Newspaper.
Gambee notes that issues
in early 1858 had very few pictures, likely because Leslie’s
illustrators were busy
researching and drawing for the swill milk exposé.
43 Leslie’s, 8 May 1858, 353.
44 Gambee, Frank Leslie and his Illustrated Newspaper, 68–72.

45 Leslie’s, 15 May 1858, 379.
46 Daily Tribune, 28 May 1858, 4.
47 Leslie’s, 10 July 1858, 90; 24 July 1858, 120.
48 Leslie’s, 17 July 1858, 110. Reed, one of the whitewashers,
was defeated for alder-
man that fall.
49 C. H. Haswell, Reminiscences of an Octogenarian of the
City of New York, 1816–
1860 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1896), 511–12.
50 Majority and Minority Reports of the Select Committee
Appointed to Investigate the
Character and Conditions of the Sources from which Cows’
Milk is Derived (New
York: Charles W. Baker, 1858), 24–28.
52 Leslie’s, 15 May 1858, 384.
53 Leslie’s, 8 May 1858, 353, 359.
54 Leslie’s, 15 May 1858, 378.
55 Leslie’s, 22 May 1858, 385.
56 Bederman, Manliness and Civilization, 11–12. The gender
mixing in which Leslie
engaged was a time-tested rhetorical strategy that dated back to
the ancient
Greeks. For a discussion of masculinity and Athenian politics,
see John J. Winkler,
“Laying Down the Law: The Oversight of Men’s Sexual
Behavior in Classical
Athens,” in David M. Halperin, John J. Winkler, and Froma I.
Zeitlin (eds.), Before
Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient
Greek World

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 171–209.
57 The reference to modern Herods comes from Leslie’s, 8 May
1858, 359.
58 Leslie’s, 8 May 1858, 353. There is a considerable amount
of scholarship on the
interpretation of gender in the dairy industry. In most western
countries, women
lost their predominant role in the dairying industry as
production became
centralized and mechanized. Interestingly, the introduction of
machines shifted
the balance of power in the industry from women to men. For
the masculiniza-
tion of the machine, see Carolyn Merchant, The Death of
Nature: Women, Ecology,
and the Scientific Revolution (San Francisco: Harper & Row,
1980). For a good
introduction to the literature on dairy history, see Lena
Sommestad, “Gender-
ing Work, Interpreting Gender: The Masculinization of Dairy
Work in Sweden,
1850–1950,” History Workshop Journal 37 (Spring 1994), 57–
75. For American
examples, see also Joan Jensen, Loosening the Bonds: Mid-
Atlantic Farm Women,
1750–1850 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986);
Jensen, “Butter Making
and Economic Development in Mid-Atlantic America from
1750–1850,” Signs 13
(Summer 1988), 813–29; Deborah Valenze, “The Art of Women
and the Business
of Men: Women’s Work and the Dairy Industry c. 1740–1840,”
Past and Present

se
rv
ed
.
130 (February 1991), 142–69; and Sally McMurry, “Women’s
Work in Agriculture:
Divergent Trends in England and America, 1800–1930,”
Comparative Studies in
Society and History 34(2) (1992), 248–70.
59 Leslie’s, 15 May 1858, 384. The accompanying story and
further references to
“milkmaids” are in Leslie’s, 15 May 1858, 380–81.
60 Leslie’s, 19 February 1859, 186.
61 Leslie’s, 24 July 1858, 120.
62 Leslie’s, 22 May 1858, 385.
63 New York State Laws, 85th session, chapter 467, 23 April
1862, 866–67.
64 New York State Laws, 87th session, chapter 544, 2 May
1864, 1195–96.
65 New York Department of Health Sanitary Code, 2 June
1873.
66 William T. Howard, Public Health Administration and the
Natural History of Dis-
eases in Baltimore, Maryland, 1797–1920 (Washington, DC:
1924), 120–21.
67 For a discussion of environmental concerns and the power

of the political ma-
chine, see Samuel P. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of
Efficiency: The Progres-
sive Conservation Movement, 1890–1920 (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University
Press, 1959). For an example of more recent environmental
politics, see Hays (with
Barbara D. Hays), Beauty, Health, and Permanence:
Environmental Politics in the
United States, 1955–1985 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1987).
68 Leslie’s, 15 May 1858, 379.
69 Andrew Szasz, Shopping Our Way to Safety: How We
Changed from Protecting the
Environment to Protecting Ourselves (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press,
2007).
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5302.

Survival Science: Crisis Disciplines and the Shock
of the Environment in the 1970s1
Michael Egan∗
Abstract. The 1970s mark a critical departure point in the
history of science. The rise of the environmental
crisis prompted not just new avenues of scientific inquiry but
also the integration of scientific expertise
into complex interactions with politics and society. This paper
investigates the history of the new ‘crisis
disciplines’ that emerged in response to explicit fears that the
world was on the verge of ecological collapse.
Crisis disciplines – a term coined by the conservation biologist
Michael Soulé – engage in the urgent and
reactionary pursuit of solutions to pressing environmental
problems and the evidence scientists bring to
bear on their work. Crisis disciplines involve acting ‘before
knowing all the facts’, and therefore constitute
‘a mixture of science and art, and their pursuit requires intuition
as well as information’. Combined, diverse
crisis disciplines constitute a new kind of ‘survival science’,
which emerged in the 1970s.
Keywords. 1970s, crisis disciplines, environmental crisis,
history of science, survival science
The 1970s mark a global shift toward a bleaker future. Eric
Hobsbawm (1994) refers to a
‘landslide’ into uncertainty and ambiguity after the golden age
of prosperity that followed
World War II. He points to a growing sense of instability and

crisis after 1973. Similarly,
Daniel T. Rodgers (2011) describes the final quarter of the 20th
century as an ‘age of
fracture’. But more than a transition from one historical era to
another, the 1970s constitute
a decade of crisis. Even if much of the attention and rhetoric
was prone to hyperbole, Niall
Ferguson (2010, p. 1) concedes that ‘the seventies are indeed
still popularly remembered
… as a time of crisis’: economic, political, social, and cultural.
In short, the 1970s mark
a decade in which imminent—immanent—catastrophe lurked
behind shock and crisis.
Optimism was replaced with pessimism; progress with decline.
Such broader historical changes had an unmistakable impact on
science, both as a model
of inquiry and as a tool for progress. Over the course of the
1970s, the relationship between
science and policy, between science and its publics, and
between science and the questions
it sought to answer underwent substantial transformation. Much
of this was influenced by
the decade that preceded the 1970s. In 1960, TIME magazine
hailed American scientists
as their ‘Men of the Year’. They were, according to the editors,
the ‘true 20th-century
∗ Department of History, McMaster University, Hamilton, 1280
Main Street West, Ontario L8S 4L9,
Canada.
E-mail: [email protected]
Centaurus 2017: Vol. 59: pp. 26–39; doi:10.1111/1600-
0498.12149
© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Pte Ltd

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9709-1206
Survival science 27
adventurers, the real intellectuals of the day’. They were,
moreover, ‘statesmen and savants,
builders and even priests’. Their work was the engine of
progress. They had touched the
‘life of every human on the planet’. However, a short decade
later, in 1970, scientists were
vilified in the popular press. Science was disparaged as an
integral part of ‘the war/space
machine’, according to The Nation, deemed guilty by a hostile
public of having contributed
to ‘war, pollution, and every manner of evil’ (Moore, 2009, p.
1). Across the Atlantic, a
similar mantra was evident in the UK. The conservationist Max
Nicholson (1970, p. 7),
for example, juxtaposed the ‘pride of having reached the moon’
and ‘the humiliation of
having gone so far to making a slum of our own native planet’.
The most significant fallout from this transformation came from
a countercultural
movement from within the scientific community that sought to
rehabilitate the popular
perception of science through engaging with pressing social
problems. It was bounded by
a diverse and inchoate series of actions that directed scientific
inquiry towards the most
pressing social problems of the period. And it produced a new
approach to politically
engaged science that I mean to call ‘survival science’. Survival
science constitutes an

umbrella concept for a series of ‘crisis disciplines’, a term
introduced by the conservationist
Michael Soulé, to describe the changing nature of scientific
praxis in the face of ecological
disaster (Soulé, 1985). It is further captured in the challenge to
contemporary science posed
by social needs. As Alvin Weinberg (1972) observed in the
1970s, scientific knowledge
was recruited to provide information for which its expertise
could not answer. Finally,
in its praxis, survival science is inspired by a new method of
communicating science
and interacting with institutions and publics that Silvio
Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz
(1992, p. 254) have termed ‘post-normal science’, where ‘facts
are uncertain, values in
dispute, stakes high, and decisions urgent’. This final concept
stresses the social function
of knowledge and the inextricable links between science and
society, where social need
undermines the more insular processes of a more traditional
scientific practice.
This paper is interested in the widespread rise to prominence of
this survival science,
and explores the manner in which new forms of scientific
inquiry—driven by environ-
mental crisis and social need—transformed the manner in which
science and society
interacted. More significantly, I situate these crisis disciplines
as part of a new branch
of scientific endeavour that came of age in the 1970s. Multiple
crisis disciplines—tasked
with solving a number of different but equally urgent elements
of the new environmen-
tal crisis—transformed scientific research at universities and

independent laboratories and
the nature of science within government agencies in much of the
developed world. From
conservation biology to branches of toxicology, cancer biology
and the science of the
total environment, we might also add much more direct
responses to such environmen-
tal problems such as multidisciplinary investigations into
mercury pollution, acid rain and
chlorine-based contamination. Taken together and viewed in
hindsight, these scientific
inquiries made up a new science of survival, which persists. At
the risk of reaching almost
too far, I argue that crisis disciplines and the social politics
with which they interacted con-
stitute the most profound change in scientific epistemology
since World War II. This is, in
28 M. Egan
essence, a speculative venture. It seeks to give shape to an
intangible process that worked
at the fringes of the ‘mainstream’ history of science.
Nevertheless, the abstraction does
provide useful resolution for viewing the shock and crisis that
typified so much of 1970s
society and culture, especially with respect to its relationship
with science.
Survival science is drawn from two distinct historical sources.
The first was part of the
evolution of science and scientists that occurred after World

War II, not least scientists’
perceived imprisonment within the military-industrial complex.
The second stemmed from
what Joachim Radkau (2014) has dubbed ‘the great chain
reaction’ or the ecological
revolution that occurred in and around 1970. By the late 1960s,
the environment had
become an intractable public issue. Much of the impetus behind
the welfare state politics
of the 1970s was derived from policy agendas designed to
preserve and protect a fragile
environmental integrity. Equally significant, however, is the
simple fact that scientists were
at the vanguard of the environmental movement that graduated
from the 1960s and into the
1970s. Whereas the typical leadership of countercultural
movements consisted of artists
and poets, the new environmentalism—one that tried to merge
the protection of nature
with growing concerns over human health—and its
establishment scientists marked a rather
different kind of demographic (Worster, 1994). It also indicated
a shift within the scientific
community.
At the end of 1985, in a short essay in the journal BioScience,
conservation biologist
Michael Soulé used the term ‘crisis discipline’ to describe his
area of specialization. In
‘What is Conservation Biology?’, Soulé argued that
conservation biology was to other
biological sciences as ‘surgery to physiology and war to
political science’ (Soulé, 1985,
p. 727). The analogy stressed the imperative of action in
conservation biology—or practice
over theory—but also the nature of the problems scientists

confronted. In his conclusion,
he observed:
The current frenzy of environmental degradation is
unprecedented, with deforestation, desertifica-
tion, and destruction of wetlands and coral reefs occurring at
rates rivalling the major catastrophes
in the fossil record and threatening to eliminate most tropical
forests and millions of species in
our lifetimes. The response must also be unprecedented. It is
fortunate, therefore that conservation
biology, and parallel approaches in the social sciences, provides
academics and other professionals
with constructive outlets for their concern. (Soulé, 1985, p.
733)
According to Soulé, crisis disciplines were synthetic,
multidisciplinary sciences in
which the boundaries between ‘basic’ and ‘applied’ research
were blurred or non-existent.
Crisis disciplines also implied an epistemological shift away
from traditional scientific
practice. ‘In crisis disciplines’, Soulé (1985, p. 733) wrote, ‘one
must act before knowing
all the facts; crisis disciplines are thus a mixture of science and
art, and their pursuit
requires intuition as well as information’. Such a statement
might undermine traditional
scientific authority, but to Soulé this was an unavoidable
reality. The nature of crisis rarely
permitted sufficient time to complete exhaustive research, never
mind definitively answer
scientific or policy questions posed of it. Scientists engaged in
crisis disciplines ‘may have

Survival science 29
to make decisions or recommendations about design and
management before he or she is
completely comfortable with the theoretical and empirical bases
of the analysis’ (1985,
p. 727).
By way of a rough, working definition for crisis disciplines as
they evolved through
the 1970s, let me offer some general requisite criteria. Inasmuch
as crisis disciplines were
a mixture of science and art, requiring intuition as well as
information, they were also
reactionary, invariably responding to a newly-discovered but
extant problem. Crisis disci-
plines were also mission-oriented, which is to say that they
were primarily problem-solving
ventures, designed to quickly make sense of a discrete problem.
Soulé stressed the multidis-
ciplinary qualities of crisis disciplines, I prefer the biologist
Barry Commoner’s assertion
that such endeavours were adisciplinary. In establishing his
Center for the Biology of
Natural Systems in 1966, Commoner argued that traditional
academic disciplines were
not independently equipped to tackle environmental problems.
Adisciplinarity required a
breaking down of traditional disciplinary jargon and
vocabulary, creating a more vernacu-
lar method of communicating amongst collaborators, but also
with the public and with
regulators. Finally, crisis disciplines were politically engaged.

Their findings, however
incomplete, were designed to help shape remedial policies in
the face of some environ-
mental emergency. Elsewhere, Soulé artfully used the metaphor
of a ‘shuttle bus going
back and forth, with a cargo of ideas, guidelines, and empirical
results in one direction,
and a cargo of issues, problems, criticism, constraints, and
changed conditions in the other’
(1986, p. 3). Ravetz offers a nice comparison along this line.
Whereas scientists in a less
crisis-driven period ‘chose their problems and investigated them
under the guidance of
the criteria of value and adequacy established by a communal
consensus of their peers
and mentors … , that haven is no more’ (1996, p. xi). These
criteria might crudely fit all
manner of sciences and scientific endeavours, not least such
grand schemes as the Man-
hattan Project. That should come as little surprise. While
approaches to survival science
were fractured—or, at the very least, uncoordinated—ventures,
they emerged as a direct
response to the kinds of heavily funded Big Science that drove
what Dwight Eisenhower
called the‘military-industrial complex’, and served as the source
of the crises that crisis dis-
ciplines navigated. Survival science was foremost an exercise in
small science or a science
for the people.
Soulé’s essay on conservation biology as a crisis discipline was
written in the mid-1980s,
but conservation biology gained prominence as a distinct field
in the previous decade. One
of the seminal texts, Conservation Biology (Soulé and Wilcox,

1980), was published in
1980; it was a collection of essays of practitioners from
numerous related areas. Soulé’s
(1985) essay was more a work of synthesis, acknowledging a
maturity in conservation
biology’s praxis, but also providing it with a mission. In so
doing, he was introducing
conservation biology into an older development in scientific
discourse. In 1972, the nuclear
physicist Alvin Weinberg lamented that responses to social
problems ‘hang on answers to
questions which can be asked of science and yet which cannot
be answered by science’
(1972, p. 209). For example, seeking an answer to what
constituted an acceptable exposure
30 M. Egan
to low-level nuclear radiation was impossible in terms of
receiving a specific, individual
accounting. There was no magic number after which exposure
should be taken more
seriously. The best scientists could do was extrapolate averages
at which they felt confident
that minimal hazard might occur. To some degree, this was
educated guesswork. But
evaluating risk (a topic to which I shall return) was steeped as
much in qualitative moral
values and fears as it was in quantifiable scientific empiricism.
To Weinberg, this was
a ‘trans-scientific’ question, because its answer transcended—or
demanded more than

just—science.
Weinberg was consciously responding to the transformation that
had occurred in
American science in the previous decade (in 1971, Weinberg
famously referred to nuclear
energy as a ‘Faustian bargain’). As a scientific counterpoint to
the 1960 Men of the Year
TIME cover, the magazine’s 2 February 1970 cover showed the
biologist Barry Commoner,
‘the Paul Revere of Ecology’, and championed the ‘emerging
science of survival’ against
the backdrop of the plundered planet wrought by science and
technology. For Weinberg,
some of this disenchantment with science stemmed from asking
trans-scientific questions,
which ‘science’ could not answer. While crisis disciplines
represented recognition that
the threat of environmental catastrophe required new
approaches, they were also situated
in time. By the beginning of the 1970s, distrust in traditional
science, which occurred in
technical language and was conducted behind closed doors,
demanded a new approach
to science communication, which became a central tenet of
politically engaged crisis
disciplines. Historian Jon Agar notes that this was at least in
part generational. The
baby-boom generation’s distrust of its parents’ systems and
institutions are widely noted
(Agar, 2008, pp. 584–586). They were ingrained in the 1960s
and coalesced in the science
of the 1970s, although it should be noted that many of the
survival scientists were part of
an older generation (Egan, 2007).

There are two ways to tell this story. The first involves charting
the rise of new scientific
organizations, subdisciplines and avenues of inquiry, and
situating them within their proper
historical context. The second consists of examining the overall
impact of these changes.
I hope that subsequent work will ultimately merge these
narratives and flesh out the
complexities inherent in this work. For the limited space
available to me here, I want
to concentrate on the former, which is the safer task: that the
long 1970s witnessed the
arrival of crisis disciplines and the survival science that united
them. I do not mean to
pretend specific connections between these fields exist. Nor do
I intend to appropriate or
fabricate origin stories for these disparate avenues of scientific
inquiry. Instead, I want
to pull back in order to highlight parallels of practice and
chronological commonalities
during the period we are putting under the microscope. Which
may make for a slightly
unsatisfactory analysis, but I hope it contributes more directly
to offering an important
lens for our larger project of interrogating the 1970s as an era
of change in the history of
science.
Survival science 31
First, some context. The traditional history of environmentalism
goes something like

this: before World War II, the antecedents of modern
environmentalism—ecology, con-
servation and preservation movements—sought to protect nature
from the onslaught of
civilization. After World War II, the environmental movement
engaged in the more dra-
matic task of trying to protect civilization from itself. As the
biologist Barry Commoner
remarked in the 1965 document that sought incipient funding
for the Center for the Biology
of Natural Systems, ‘The scale and intensity of the biological
and technological activities
of man which affect the environment has now begun to approach
the scale of the environ-
ment itself’ (CBNS, 1965, p. 4). Whereas the environment had
typically been regarded as
an infinite sink for the hazardous products of human activity,
the intensity of technological
activity after World War II put into question the total
environment’s capacity as a reservoir.
Nuclear weapons, the massive expansion of chlorinated
hydrocarbons, the widespread
adoption of synthetic biocides and fertilizers combined with
discoveries that the Earth’s
biological systems did not function as previously imagined.
New, synthetic materials
did not break down. Many accumulated, detrimentally, within
biological organisms: of
most immediate concern, in us. Commoner’s four laws of
ecology—that everything was
connected to everything else; that everything must go
somewhere; that nature knew best;
and that there was no such thing as a free lunch—introduced in
1971 highlighted these
facts.

Commoner’s laws of ecology were the product of research into a
much broader
examination of the physical environment than had previously
been undertaken. His
adisciplinary approach resisted the boundaries established by
singular disciplines such as
biology, ecology or plant physiology (in which he had
originally been trained). Much of
this work had been conducted at the Center for the Biology of
Natural Systems, which he
had founded at Washington University in 1966. In September
1965, Commoner submitted
a proposal to the U.S. Public Health Service for funding for the
creation of a scientific
research centre that would tackle the growing number of
environmental threats to human
health. Commoner was the principal investigator of a team of
St. Louis-based collaborators,
who included members of the departments of botany, zoology,
physics and chemistry, as
well as the Medical School at Washington University, the St.
Louis Zoo and the Missouri
Botanical Garden. As Commoner wrote in the grant proposal:
At the present time, the interactions between man and his
environment are undergoing quantitative
and qualitative changes of such a magnitude as to create wholly
new problems. The present problems
of environmental health have rapidly begun to outrun our
understanding of the complex processes
that mediate the interaction between organisms and the
environment. There is, therefore, an urgent
need to reorganize our scientific approach to environmental
health problems, so that we can find
new ways to bring the growing power of modern science to bear

on them. (CBNS, 1965, p. 3)
The application is a remarkable document. It was effective in
articulating the state of
the environmental crisis and how the new centre could serve as
intermediary between
knowledge production, policy-makers and the public.2 The
Center became a clearinghouse
32 M. Egan
for all manner of environmental investigations, local and
national. In the late 1960s
researchers did groundbreaking work on synthetic fertilizer use
and run-off on farms
surrounding Decatur, IL. Their findings raised strong questions
about the unquestioning
faith in new technologies. At the same time, the Center was one
of the early sources
of information on mercury pollution in the USA. Photochemical
smog in urban areas
also received research attention. In each instance, the Center for
the Biology of Natural
Systems’ efforts involved raising public awareness of
environmental problems, translating
technical information into an accessible, vernacular language
for the public and working
collaboratively across a number of diverse scientific disciplines
(Egan, 2007).
But if the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems (which
moved to Queens College,

NY, in 1980, and changed its name in 2014 to the Barry
Commoner Center for Health and
the Environment) provided an institutional home for survival
science, many practices were
already engaged in aspects of this work. To call toxicology a
new discipline is to run up
against all manner of anachronistic trouble, but its post-World
War II attempts to identify
reference doses for new pollutants in air, soil, water and food
warrants our attention, not
least because toxicology highlights the uncertainty prevalent
throughout so much of the
work conducted in crisis disciplines.
Measuring the safety factor of chemicals is a feature of post-
World War II environmental
praxis. Starting in the USA, efforts to identify safe levels for
new additives in foods in the
mid-1950s prompted interest in articulating safe levels of acute
and chronic exposure to
harmful chemicals. The first recommendations came from two
scientists at the US Food
and Drug Administration. In 1954, Arnold Lehman and O. Garth
Fitzhugh posited that
animal toxicity tests could be extrapolated qualitatively to
predict responses in humans,
but that quantitative predictions were more problematic
(Lehman and Fitzhugh, 1954). To
articulate safe levels of a given toxin, they proposed that the
reference dose be evaluated
by the following formula:
Reference Dose (RfD) = No Observable Adverse Effect
Level∕Uncertainty Factor
Lehman and Fitzhugh set their uncertainty factor at a 100-fold

margin. That is to say that
exposure levels to harmful chemicals should be set a hundred
times greater than the point
at which no adverse effects had been observed in the laboratory.
The justification for the
100-fold safety factor was traditionally interpreted as the
product of two separate values,
expressing default values to a magnitude of 10. The protocol
worked on the assumption,
first, that human beings were 10 times more sensitive than the
test animal, and, second,
that the variability of sensitivity within the human population
could be managed within a
10-fold frame. The fundamental premise of the reference dose,
as Lehman and Fitzhugh
conceived it, was that it was designed to address the untidiness
of extrapolating animal
data and applying them to human populations outside the lab. In
effect, the initial 100-fold
reference point was arbitrary, without any real quantitative
basis for or against it. It is a
principle that has stood up to more recent scientific scrutiny,
and variants of it remain in
practice 60 years later (Vermeire et al., 1999).
Survival science 33
Two impossibly brief mercury case studies help to illustrate the
fuzziness of knowledge
and uncertainty surrounding toxicology. In the later-1960s,
Sweden found itself beset by
mercury contamination throughout the country’s water systems.

The story is complex,
but after an initial recommendation proposed that an acceptable
exposure to mercury
through fish consumption rested around 0.5 parts per million,
that limit was subsequently
doubled in order to preserve the integrity of the fishing
industry. Lake Vänern fish already
carried concentrations of 0.7 mg/kg (Egan, 2013). In a more
macabre expression of the
speed required in ascertaining crisis discipline-specific
knowledge, a case of widespread
mercury poisoning occurred in Iraq in 1972, the result of
improperly used and distributed
mercury-treated grain. Amidst the chaos and calamity, the Iraqi
case provided a critical
opportunity to measure mercury exposures on human subjects.
Whereas the Swedes
measured mercury content in fish, the new evaluations could be
rendered more precise by
disregarding the first 10-fold protocol, effectively by
eliminating interspecies uncertainty
factors—getting rid of the middle-fish. Put another way, where
Lehman and Fitzhugh were
addressing uncertainty factors as part of a qualitative analysis
of potential risk, data derived
from Iraq could engage a more accurate approach, not fully
quantitative, but reducing
the precautionary guesswork. Here was living data that could
eliminate the obstacles
associated with uncertainty. As a result, numerous national and
international agencies -
the World Health Organization and the US Food and Drug
Administration foremost among
them - descended on the provinces surrounding Baghdad, and
collected data from mercury
victims. Crass opportunism, perhaps, but crisis disciplines

frequently required haste and
creativity in establishing data. These studies subsequently
served as the cornerstone for
numerous national and international recommendations for
acceptable mercury exposure
for the next 25 years (Bakir et al., 1973; Clarkson, 2002).
Thumbnail sketches of the Center for the Biology of Natural
Systems and reference dose
debates within toxicology circles offer insight into crisis
disciplines in practice. But, in
effect, there are two chapters to the history of crisis disciplines.
On the one hand, the organic
production of scientific communities committed to addressing
specific environmental
problems—on local or global scales—sprang up to meet the
social or political need
for scientific information. Their work required speed and
intellectual flexibility, working
across many areas of specialization at once.
The second chapter charts a self-reflexive awareness that the
establishment of these for-
mal and informal crisis disciplines constituted a recognizable
trend and that new methods
of interrogating the environmental crisis could help take
regulatory decision-making off
the back foot. Where toxicology, conservation biology and the
science of the total environ-
ment targeted discrete problems, frequently in a vacuum, new
crisis disciplines emerged
to engage the environmental crisis more holistically. Risk
analysis, futurology and sys-
tems modelling—each maybe sections of a larger anticipatory
science—embraced a much
wider series of problems and pushed social and scientific

discourse toward practices that
promised a more resilient future.
34 M. Egan
Philosopher Ian Hacking (2003) locates the birth of professional
risk analysis to 1969.
The very end of the 1960s christened the professional risk
analyst, which supposes an
important degree of self-awareness. At the same time, Chauncey
Starr - an engineer
typically credited for founding risk analysis as an academic
discipline - published an
important and popular paper on risk in Science. Indeed, Starr’s
essay belongs alongside
Soulé’s and Weinberg’s as a seminal work on crisis disciplines.
Starr offered a quantitative
method of measuring of cost-benefit analysis. The research was
still in its infancy. Starr
conceded that his risk analysis could not yet distinguish ‘what
is “best” for society from
what is “traditionally acceptable”’ (Starr, 1969, p. 1232). But
this became the project of the
1970s, as risk experts sought to quantify all manner of
technological threats as a means of
anticipating hazard and prioritizing danger. This became a boon
to the insurance industry
- and how its actuaries measured the costs of natural and
technological disasters - whose
influence increased markedly over the decade.
And if risk analysis and management became professionalized

streams of a new
crisis discipline, the public conversations they inspired
provided ample context for a
cultural re-visioning of risk throughout the developed world.
The professional interest in
quantification failed to translate to the public as accessibly as
many crisis disciplines (which
may have had as much to do with who was primarily interested
in quantifying costs and
benefits). By the 1980s, the sociologist Ulrich Beck chastised
management experts for the
contempt they showed toward public perceptions of risk (Beck,
1992). Risk perception -
the public response to potential hazards - rarely aligned itself
with the experts’ calculations.
Or, rather, here was an example of Weinberg’s trans-science in
action. The hard data needed
to be softened with psychological, sociological and cultural
contexts. Risk analysis could
interpret generic risks, but not whether individuals or groups of
individuals should accept
them or not. Because of a relative breakdown in communication,
public perceptions of new
environmental pollutants gravitated towards increased fear over
the course of the 1970s,
climaxing with a culture of toxic fear in the USA in the 1980s
(Egan, 2014).
Risk was inherently predictive. A concomitant interest in
futurology -at once grossly
distant from ‘science’ and intimately linked both in influence
and inquiry - is also a key
feature of science in the 1970s. In describing futurology in
1972, Herman Kahn observed
that ‘discussing the future is necessarily an art and not a science
in the usual sense, though

many disciplines are enlisted in a common, integrated effort of
analysis and speculation’
(Kahn and Biggs, 1972, p. 1). The synergy with Soulé’s
definition for crisis disciplines
is striking. Forecasts, projections and future scenarios were
everywhere present during the
decade. The first World Future Research Conference was held in
Oslo in 1967. By 1980, the
World Future Society consisted of more than 50,000 members.
Alvin Toffler’s bestselling
Future Shock, from 1970, warned of the pace at which historical
change was accelerating.
The inevitable ‘information overload’, as he called it,
anticipated society’s inability to
cope with the speed of change (Toffler, 1970). In many
respects, futurology might have
been the most influential of all crisis disciplines. True to
Soulé’s definition, futurology was
an inchoate collection of specialists merging around a singular
type of problem (Seefried,
Survival science 35
2014; Andersson and Rindzeviciute, 2015). And if astrology
enjoyed heightened popularity
and intelligence agencies contracted psychics, futurology also
acquired a more rigorous
methodology (Connelly, 2010).
I don’t know whether to include the international Club of
Rome’s work around The
Limits to Growth as a part of a larger trend in futurology, or

whether their work in systems
dynamics constitutes its own crisis discipline. The Limits to
Growth was the first -and
most widely read - work that integrated systems dynamics and
computer modelling in
its predictions of the environmental future. For its proponents,
systems dynamics provided
society with a clearer perspective of the origins, significance
and interrelationships between
the myriad components that made up the environmental crisis.
While it represented a gross
departure from the kind of on-the-ground scientific work
conducted by the Center for
the Biology of Natural Systems and those engaged in other
crisis disciplines, the Club
of Rome’s ‘invisible college’ of experts in policy, economics,
and the natural and social
sciences were also contributing to survival science. The central
message from Limits to
Growth was that the human ecological footprint was growing at
an unsustainable rate.
Population, food production and resource extraction were
straining the planet’s carrying
capacity to breaking point. There were limits to growth and
humankind was in danger of
exceeding them (Meadows, Randers and Meadows, 1972).
Such future shock wasn’t all doom and gloom, however.
Perhaps the most influential
futurologist was Herman Kahn, who became famous for his
descriptions of a ‘winnable’
nuclear war in the 1950s and 1960s. If the Club of Rome warned
about ecological limits
to technological growth, Kahn embraced the opportunities
presented by new and future
technologies to overcome the traditional boundaries set by the

ecosphere. He actively
challenged the apocalyptic warnings of environmental collapse
from neo-Malthusians such
as Paul Ehrlich and painted a more optimistic reading of the
environmental future and the
human capacity for ever-expanding wealth and affluence (Kahn,
Brown and Martel, 1976).
Kahn’s work engaged systems every bit as much as the Club of
Rome’s. He was an early
adopter of Monte Carlo sampling in the crafting of future
scenarios, and relied heavily on
electronic computers to do so. And while systems-thinking was
not new, its relationship
with computing - through linear programming and game theory -
grew markedly during
the 1970s. Nevertheless, modelling scenarios earned a place in
survival science as more
and more computer specialists turned their efforts to
environmental issues in the 1970s and
more environmental scientists acquired an appreciation for what
systems thinking could do
for their predictive analyses.
One recurrent point of focus for future studies and for survival
science in general
was the state of the environment and its potential for sustaining
civilization. If crisis
disciplines changed the nature of science and how it approached
the environmental crisis,
it is important to stress that the environmental crisis provoked
new ways of looking at
the physical environment. In 1964, Swedish scientists
discovered that seed grain laced
with mercury-based fungicides had poisoned birds and livestock
across the country. While
mercury pollution would become an especial intersection for

science, environment and
36 M. Egan
policy the world over in the 1970s, it was Swedish scientists
who hypothesized that mercury
in water systems could constitute a massive catastrophe. And,
most importantly, they
thought to look for it (Egan, 2008). The cultural awareness of
environmental hazard was
strong in Sweden. In the immediate aftermath of the Swedish
mercury scare, Sören Jensen
identified the ubiquity of PCBs in humans and in animals. And
in 1967 Svante Oden raised
widespread awareness about acid rain (Rothschild, 2014).
Another component of the new crisis disciplines was their
problem-solving nature.
Perhaps in light of the mounting information overload identified
by Toffler and others,
this was not such a surprise. Much of the new work was
reactionary in nature—trespasses
into nature had already occurred, and scientists scrambled to
resolve the environmental
problem while simultaneously trying to understand the nature of
the hazard. Such efforts
were also subsidized by special funding. In the USA, the Nixon
Administration pushed the
National Science Foundation to develop a new stream of support
for scientists engaged in
‘Research Applied to National Needs’. The short-lived
programme (it was closed in 1978)

fostered more applied research and triggered concentrated
efforts to resolve such socially
relevant problems in the 1970s as pollution, transportation,
energy and other urban and
social difficulties.3
This paper deliberately skirts the subject of expertise. In crisis
disciplines there was
a radical transformation of what expertise meant in modern
science and how expertise
was used to advance knowledge and justify policy decisions.
Practitioners of crisis
disciplines were still regarded as experts, and many acted as
public intellectuals, even
if they were disinclined to claim definitive knowledge.
Tellingly, Soulé pointed out, in
crisis disciplines, ‘tolerating uncertainty is often necessary’
(1985, p. 727). Uncertainty is
a critical component of crisis disciplines - and of survival
science more broadly. Further
work needs to illuminate the place of uncertainty in science,
especially as it pertains to ideas
about expertise and authority (Nowotny, 2016). And I suspect
that the most fruitful work in
this vein will concentrate on the 1970s. In the aftermath of the
turbulent 1960s, uncertainty
impressed itself on all manner of social and scientific
endeavour. Part of this might derive
from the unravelling of the unquestioned authority of the
military-industrial complex that
imposed itself during the incipient years of the Cold War. But
in itself, survival science
- or, rather, its practitioners - engaged in a concerted effort to
shift the audience for their
work from cloistered specialists to the public and policymakers
with varying degrees of

success. Making sense of how risk analysis, futurology and
systems modelling accepted
and accounted for uncertainty in the 1970s helps to explain
much of the cultural anxiety
of the 1980s.
On some level, crisis disciplines or survival science merely
constituted tacit acknowledg-
ment that science and society were inextricably linked. Asking
trans-scientific questions
demanded that science come into conversation with economics,
politics, values and forms
of local knowledge. While such a dynamic arguably weakened
the authority of scientific
expertise, it was hailed in some corners as a democratization of
science (Ravetz, 1996).
Survival science 37
But what of historical significance? I submit three lasting
outcomes of crisis disciplines
and their activities in the 1970s.
1. Gave voice to the environmental crisis as a crisis of
civilization.
2. Irrevocably altered scientific praxis.
3. Developed a new, vernacular science, which transformed the
public understanding
of science as well as the public participation in science and
politics.

Lest this sound too triumphal, this third point requires further
analysis and complication.
In spite of the explicit attempts to create a more vernacular
language for science informa-
tion and practice in order to better encourage public
participation, the irony of a growing
science illiteracy has been the dominant trend in North America
and in much of Europe
just as a more accessible science was made available. Science
(traditional and survival)
remains walled off from many aspects of public life,
sequestered from the overwhelming
majority of the population (Shapin and Schaffer, 1985, p. 343).
It is conceivable that our proximity to the 1970s - indeed, to the
entire timescape after
World War II - continues to obscure our interpretation of the
period. That ‘shock’ or ‘crisis’
should seem such defining characteristics could well be a
function of our contemporary
analysis of a history that continues to live with us: a past that
has not yet passed, our interest
fuelled by ‘the latest catastrophe’ (Rousso, 2016). But in
survival science, we might read
rumblings of not the latest, but the last catastrophe and its
epistemological origins in the
decade under question. From our vantage point in the early
decades of the 21st century,
the emerging Anthropocene - a new epoch driven by humanity’s
rapacious appetite for
environmental collapse- is informed not just by history, but also
by science. Rising waters,
marching deserts, diminishing resources and disappearing
species are wont to leave a more
lasting impression on the earth’s crust and on human history
than shifting borders and

fluctuating markets.
And, here, let me submit that climate science is a crisis
discipline with its myriad
cooperations between meteorologists, oceanographers,
geophysicists, biologists, physi-
cists, mathematicians, geologists and other specialists. ‘Until
the 1980s’, note J. R. McNeill
and Peter Engelke:
discussions of anthropogenic climate change had been confined
largely to the scientific community.
There had been some political awareness and media coverage
during the 1970s, but the issue
was too new and abstract to receive much of a hearing.
Moreover, the scientific consensus about
warming was relatively weak. But the 1980s were a watershed
decade, as scientific agreement about
anthropogenic warming strengthened and the issue became
political for the first time. (2014, p. 429)
So: it is possible that the survival science of the 1970s- if,
indeed, we might be able to pull
such a thing into clear, historical resolution -serves as an
important first chapter in a brief
epistemological history of the ecological crisis that is likely to
define the human condition
throughout the 21st century. Combined with the social
ramifications of an aging global
population and fracturing economies, we might find that human
societies are increasingly
looking over the precipice and into the abyss. New scarcities
and vulnerabilities - the

38 M. Egan
languages of sustainability, resilience and the Anthropocene -
are forefront in the scientific
discourse of the present. But their mainstream origins are
evident in the emerging survival
science of the 1970s: a science upon which our survival might
very well rest. A history
that should be heeded.
NOTES
1. Versions of this paper were presented in September 2015 at a
workshop titled ‘1970s: Turn of an Era
in the History of Science?’ in Aarhus, Denmark, and at a
symposium in Lugano, Switzerland, titled
‘Environmental Justice, “Collapse”’, and the Question of
Evidence’. I am grateful to convenors of
both conferences and to the participants for their questions and
feedback. I am especially grateful to
Matthias Heymann for his thoughtful insights on an earlier draft
of this piece. Some minor overlap - in
theme and content - exists between this essay and a previously
published piece, ‘Confronting Collapse:
Environmental Science at the End of the World’, Intervalla 3
(2015). I reuse a small section of that
work here with permission from the editors of Intervalla.
2. Commoner’s proposal was clearly outside the mainstream of
scientific inquiry for the time. The
Public Health Service had never attempted to develop a
comprehensive research programme on the
environment and, in the end, of the 10 centres it hoped to
support only the Center for the Biology of

Natural Systems would ever receive funding.
3. RANN receives passing mention in a few studies that treat
the history of science in the American 1970s,
but it deserves more thorough analysis and interpretation.
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his entire operation has become such an admixture of politics,
emotions
and scientific data that it is often difficult to determine where
one ends
and the other begins,’ wrote Brina Kessel to a fellow zoologist
in 1961.1 Kessel
was the director of a series of ecological studies conducted in
the early 1960s

by the biology faculty at the University of Alaska under
contract to the Atomic
Energy Commission (AEC). The AEC had come to Alaska in
1958 seeking con-
sent to blast a huge harbour with nuclear bombs at the edge of
the tundra near
Cape Thompson in north-west Alaska. As part of its much-
hyped Project
Plowshare, Edward Teller and his colleagues at Livermore
Radiation Laboratory
were hoping to demonstrate on American soil the efficacy of
what they called
‘geographical engineering’ before selling these techniques to
other nations.2
Ultimately, Project Chariot, as the harbour project was called,
was a spectacular
failure. No harbour was dug; and the AEC garnered enormous
bad publicity as
well as a good deal of ill-will in the scientific community.
Our purpose in this paper is not to detail the complex
machinations that led
to the rise and fall of Chariot. This has already been done with
great thor-
oughness, and considerable flair, by Dan O’Neill in his
compelling history,
Firecracker Boys. It is quite clear, however, that along with the
intense political
organizing among local Eskimos, and among scientists and
community activists
in places as far-flung as St Louis, New York and New
Hampshire, one of the
other key ingredients in Chariot’s failure was the scientific,
chiefly ecological,
work that AEC had hoped would pave the way for the blasts.

Our goal here is
to outline briefly the nature of this scientific work, explore how
the work itself
came about, and show how it changed over the course of the
project. Much of
the science was trailblazing and it still remains a signal event in
cold regions
environmental study. Our contention is that the scientific work
done as part of
Ecumene 1998 5 (3) 0967-4608(98)EU142OA © 1998 Arnold
‘T
SPECTACULAR FAILURE,
CONTESTED SUCCESS:
THE PROJECT CHARIOT
BIOENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMME
Susan W. S. Millar and Don Mitchell
Chariot was so good only because it was impossible to identify
the boundaries
between emotion, politics and scientific data that so worried
Brina Kessel. In
this paper we show how social and historical context are
essential ingredients in
the production of science. We contend that, far from
impoverishing science,
such contextual understanding strengthens its claims to
knowledge and indeed
to truth itself.

Social studies of science in recent years take at least the first
part of this claim
as given.3 By contrast, critics of social studies of science
complain that such stud-
ies serve only to undermine science, and at their worst simply
misunderstand
how science itself works.4 While these criticism of social
studies of science are
largely misguided, it is true that some studies have indeed
minimized the degree
to which science is a particular kind of knowledge, and to which
scientific knowl-
edge is cumulative, is a means for unfolding the mysteries of
nature and is a
way of knowing that makes valid claims about how the world
works. When we
begin to understand how science is not hindered but rather
enabled through
politics, emotional claims or other social processes, we will
hardly be witnessing
the destruction of science’s special claims to knowledge. The
science developed
as part of Chariot instead keenly exemplifies the ways in which
science is enabled
by society. But it also shows how that science itself acts back
on the politics that
produce it.
Here we briefly outline the controversies that made Chariot
science a con-
tested success, even as the harbour project itself was a
significant failure.5 We
begin by discussing the lasting outcome of the Chariot
bioenvironmental pro-
gramme, and how that programme came to be developed in the
first place: it

certainly was not part of the original plans of the Livermore
engineers and pro-
moters when they first came north with ideas of instant atomic
engineering. We
then briefly examine two of the many controversies that
constituted Chariot sci-
ence. Our purpose is to give examples of how nearly impossible
it is to separate
the ‘texts’ of science from the social, political, economic and
indeed emotional
‘contexts’ that make those texts.6 We start with the text.
The Project Chariot bioenvironmental programme
There are countless monuments to Project Chariot still abroad in
the world.
They can be found in the destruction of the tundra ecosystem
around the pro-
ject site at Ogotoruk Creek, in the radioactive debris left behind
from ‘tracer’
experiments for 30 years and in the lasting political activism of
Alaskan Eskimos
and scientists both directly and indirectly connected to
Chariot.7 Another is the
massive tome, The environment of the Cape Thompson region,
Alaska.8 Published in
1966, the book is indeed a monument. Weighing nearly six
pounds, and exceed-
ing 1200 pages, its chapters cover everything from climate and
geology to marine
zoology, plant distributions, food webs, caribou migration
patterns, regional
radiobiology, local human ecology and the meat consumption
patterns of area
residents. The black leatherbound tome garnered reviews at the
time of its pub-
lication which marvelled that though ‘the whole Chariot idea

was a touchy one
scientifically and politically’, the book was ‘an outstanding
product.’ As one
288 Susan W. S. Millar and Don Mitchell
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)
reviewer put it, ‘It seems unlikely that there ever before has
been such a sophis-
ticated description and interpretation of the environment of a
relatively small,
undeveloped, isolated area.’ Indeed, the same reviewer argued,
the Chariot
studies ‘could well become a model for coordinated
investigations of the envi-
ronment in other areas’.9
In his introduction to the collection, the director of Project
Plowshare for the
AEC, John Kelly, writes rather wistfully of how incomplete the
studies are, of
how they are ‘naturally lacking any postdetonation studies’. The
original intent
of the Chariot bioenvironmental programme, according to Kelly,
was (1) to esti-
mate the ‘biological cost of the excavation program’; (2) to
develop data that
‘could be used as base lines in studies to be conducted in
postexcavation time’;
(3) to determine the levels and distributions of ‘radioisotopes in
the biota and
physical environment in pre- and postdetonation time’; and (4)
to ‘conduct all

studies in such a manner that the results would constitute a
significant contri-
bution to scientific knowledge’.10 Of course, there never was a
postdetonation
time, in large part precisely because of what the scientists
working as part of the
programme found. Rather, that too was a product of the very
controversies that
made the science in the first place. The form of any scientific
object (like knowl-
edge), as Latour reminds us, is ever a function of the struggles
that go into its
making.11
When Livermore first vetted the idea of an instant harbour north
of the
Bering Strait in Alaska, there was no contemplation of a series
of studies to
gauge the ‘biological cost of the program’. Indeed, it seems as
though the
Livermore promoters assumed that Alaskans would jump at the
chance to be
on the frontiers of geographical engineering.12 Yet when
Edward Teller and his
Livermore entourage arrived in Alaska in the summer of 1958 to
announce their
plans, they were met with scepticism on a number of fronts.
Newspaper editors
and chamber of commerce types were certainly enthusiastic
about geographical
engineering, but they wondered why Livermore was proposing
such an imprac-
tical project. The Ogotoruk Creek area, after all, would be
icebound for most
of the year, and it was not at all clear that the area possessed
sufficient mineral

wealth to support a harbour (at least not minerals that could be
gathered eco-
nomically).13 They suggested that perhaps Livermore would
like to consider har-
bours in other, more practical areas. Or maybe what Alaska
needed was an
instant canal slicing through the Alaskan peninsula which would
cut by an
immense proportion travel time between Anchorage and south-
eastern parts of
the state (and the Lower 48).14 In the face of such concerns,
Livermore dropped
any pretence of using Chariot for economic development and
argued instead
that Chariot should be seen as an essential experimental first
step in geo-
graphical engineering.
But concern was also raised in another, more serious corner. A
group of biol-
ogists associated with the University of Alaska in Fairbanks
(UAF) opposed the
project for a number of reasons, chief among which was that it
was abundantly
clear that Livermore had no idea how its scheme would damage
the local ecosys-
tem and nearby native villages.15 If Livermore was proposing
an experiment in
nuclear cratering, these biologists reasoned, then it ought to be
a complete exper-
Spectacular failure, contested success 289
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)

iment, one capable of assessing not just the engineering factors
involved in
exploding several large nuclear bombs simultaneously but also
the biological
and human effects of such a project.16 The Fairbanks scientists
assumed that
when the ecological and human damage such projects would
cause were brought
to light, the costs associated with them would become
unacceptably high, doom-
ing Chariot to oblivion.17
Around this time Chariot was drawing fire from other quarters,
including from
other divisions of the AEC. There were persistent rumours in
Washington and
around the state that the AEC had pulled the plug on Chariot.18
Chariot was
far from dead, however. Indeed, by February 1959, the
University of Alaska pres-
ident had received word that a biological programme similar to
that proposed
by the UAF biologists had been concocted, and that Livermore’s
Gerald Johnson
would come to the university before the end of the month ‘ready
to proceed
on the spot with the awarding of contracts’.19 This
announcement threw the
biologists into furious action as they sought to hammer out a
proposal to the
AEC for several biological studies at Cape Thompson. By April
the biologists in
Fairbanks under the supervision of zoologist Brina Kessel, had
put together a
three-to-five-year programme of study that would examine the

regional ecology
of the blast site. Since both funds and university personnel were
‘apparently lim-
ited for this work’, Kessel and her colleagues proposed
‘research only in areas
in which we are most competent’. These included studies of
small and large
mammals, plant distribution and ecology, sea-cliff bird studies
and human eco-
logical studies in the town of Kivalina (about 40 miles from
Ground Zero). In
their proposal, they expressed hope
that studies in fields such as soils, micrometeorology, littoral
biology (including the
limnology of Ogotoruk Creek), marine mammals, land birds,
invertebrate zoology,
and entomology will be supported by the Atomic Energy
Commission through other
contracts. Without complete coverage of all these fields, the
total study will probably
fail to provide the desired understanding of the total ecology of
the field.20
Indeed, the AEC had begun soliciting proposals for work in
these (and several
other) areas, and in May a general meeting was called in Seattle
of all poten-
tial contract scientists to hammer out the total form of the
bioenvironmental
programme for Chariot. Given the rapid movement toward
ecological studies,
and the opposition to Chariot within and beyond the AEC, it is
quite possible
that the ecological programme was established precisely to
stave off Chariot’s

premature demise.21 That is, the ecological programme was
established not only
to provide the types of information the Fairbanks scientists
argued were essen-
tial to Chariot’s success as an experiment, but also to gather
consent from con-
cerned scientists in Alaska, as well as from sceptical members
of Congress and
the Eisenhower administration, for Chariot as a necessary
exercise in geo-
graphical engineering.22
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)
Two controversies
The rather rapid development of a bioenvironmental programme
for Chariot is
one indication of how the boundary between ‘politics, emotion,
and scientific
data’ is continually blurred in practice. Two related
controversies that developed
as the ecological work progressed further demonstrate this
point. The first con-
cerns the state of knowledge after the first season, a set of
rather premature
statements about the ‘biological costs’ of the blast, and
arguments over which
scientific work would be funded for the second season. The
second concerns
the way radioactivity moved through the Arctic ecosystem and
accumulated in
the bones and tissues of caribou and humans.

The first season’s work, beginning in mid-July 1959, was
rushed and very
incomplete. If there was any ‘evidence’ gathered at all, it was
that the ‘costs’ of
Chariot were apt to be much higher than the AEC had
anticipated. Even so, on
7 January 1960 the Project Chariot Environmental Studies
Committee (which
had been created to oversee the entire bioenvironmental
programme) released
to the public a set of conditions under which Chariot could be
carried out.
Claiming to be basing its statement on information ‘known to it
as of December
10, 1959’, the Committee suggested that the blast could be made
in March or
April, that ‘the preferred distribution of the debris, especially
that of a radioac-
tive nature, is to sea; placing debris to land is also considered
acceptable’; but
that ‘[i]n no case should radiation be delivered to humans in
excess of that
specified as acceptable for the general public; nor should the
detonation cause
significant damage to the food sources of the indigenous human
population’.
The Committee further recommended detonation in the spring
because:
1. Few birds are in the area.
2. Most small animals are under snow cover.
3. Most plants are under snow cover and their metabolism is
low.
4. Local hunting activity on the land is low.
5. The sea and inland waters are under ice; snow is on the

ground. It is expected
that the radioactive debris will be flushed from the frozen
landscape by the spring
run-off of rapidly melting snow.
6. Weather is generally good and daylight is increasing which
will facilitate project
studies.
It concluded with a caveat:
The Committee wishes to emphasize the following point: the
foregoing discussion and
recommendations are based on data presently available. These
data are incomplete.
Continuing environmental studies are required to satisfy those
deficiencies and pro-
vide the basis for firm recommendation. It is anticipated that the
currently planned
studies will provide, prior to March, 1961, the necessary
information on which the
Committee can base its final recommendation.23
On the one hand, then, the Committee was making a
recommendation for
how the explosions could be conducted. On the other, it was
arguing for fur-
ther biological studies to determine whether the attempt was
feasible. Such schiz-
ophrenic actions on the part of the Committee, its chair, John
Wolfe, or the
AEC as a whole were by no means rare. By the end of the
following summer,

Ecumene 1998 5 (3)
for example, even before any contract workers had submitted
September
‘progress letters’ giving early indication of their findings during
the summer sea-
son, a New York Times article announced: ‘Dr. John N. Wolfe,
an Atomic Energy
Commission scientist, said a fifteen-month field study costing
$2,000,000 had
produced no evidence that the detonation would damage the
Eskimos’ rela-
tionship to their environment and livelihood.’24 Chariot
‘science’, at least in
Wolfe’s version, seemed to have a rather dubious connection to
the truth, never
mind the contemporary state of knowledge.
Such claims by AEC functionaries incensed the scientist
working on the envi-
ronmental programme, and many contract scientists contested
the Committee’s
pronouncements – sometimes quite publicly.25 Even so, as they
made their com-
plaints, they were also engaged in writing grant proposals for
the following sum-
mer’s work. This proved to be an exceptionally frustrating
process. The
University of Alaska’s Kessel, for example, wrote to Wolfe in
February 1960 com-
plaining that researchers there ‘feel completely out-of-touch
with the progress
and future plans for Project Chariot’. They were not even sure

the project was
still in operation.26 In a typically defensive response, Wolfe
argued that ‘[t]o
keep everyone advised of the details is impossible. A letter or
report is some-
times obsolete before we find [a] franked envelope to put it
in.’27 Yet Wolfe did
have time to write to Doris Saario, a University of Alaska
research assistant study-
ing the people of Kivalina. Due to budget constraints (imposed
by Wolfe), Kessel
had decided to eliminate the studies at Kivalina and to hand
over responsibil-
ity for them to geographer Don Foote, an independent contractor
whose ‘funds
come from the San Francisco office [of the AEC] and so are
apparently not as
limited as ours’.28 Wolfe replied to Saario that he would like to
see her work
continue as ‘the value of cross-checks are not to be
underestimated’.29 Since
Wolfe did not feel such ‘cross-checks’ were important for the
other studies in
the area, it is clear he either did not trust or wanted to minimize
the impact of
Foote’s findings in Point Hope and Noatak, which were proving
to be quite
detrimental to Livermore’s plans for geographical
engineering.30
Kessel was furious at Wolfe’s interventions. On the one hand,
Wolfe had told
the University of Alaska to scale back their studies; on the
other, he was super-
seding Kessel’s authority – and her budget – by specifically
requesting Saario to

continue her work. More generally, Kessel complained that the
Division of
Biology and Medicine (DBM):
is making it extremely difficult for us to plan and execute the
comprehensive, coor-
dinated research program you desire. In the first place, because
of the delayed con-
tract reviews, we are forced to wait until far too late to begin
assembling research
crews (and then the Committee complains that the data is not
being obtained . . .),
or we have to commit ourselves to employees early and trust
that the DBM will stand
behind our commitments.31
Further, Kessel was concerned that the Committee found ‘the
parts of the
research program where we asked for only minimal funds last
year for intro-
ductory work’ to be lacking, but that it now ‘wish[es] to cut our
budget for next
year so that we will not be able to institute a research program
[in these areas]
comparable to those in the other projects’. In short, she feared
that the
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)
Committee and DBM were making it impossible to do the
research the
University was contracted to do. ‘All in all, we are becoming

more and more
dissatisfied with our relationship with the DBM and with the
AEC, and we have
the distinct impression that you lack confidence in our ability to
handle the
research program.’ She challenged Wolfe to declare whether he
was ‘satisfied
with our over-all program or with our new proposal’; if he was
not, she affirmed
that ‘we will be glad to withdraw our proposal entirely’.32
Clearly offended by Kessel’s letter, Wolfe fired off a defensive
response, not
to Kessel, but to university president Ernest Patty.
I do not wish to discuss my misconceptions, lack of
understanding, and general incom-
petence with members of your staff . . . . Nonetheless, I am the
only defender of the
program here at DBM . . . . If Prof. Kessel wishes to withdraw
her renewal proposal
or reject our support, she is perfectly free to do so . . . .33
As for his writing to Saario directly concerning the termination
of her studies,
Wolfe responded: ‘I regret that time, geography, and expedience
being what
they are, I cannot await Dr. Kessel’s permission to contact
various group lead-
ers relative to special program problems. I will keep her
informed when the sub-
ject matter seems inside her sphere of interest and
jurisdiction’;34 a curious
statement indeed, given that Kessel was Saario’s boss.
The shape of science – the contents of the massive black tome,

The environ -
ment of the Cape Thompson Region – was dependent on the
resolution of such dis-
putes as those between Kessel and Wolfe. What was funded,
what work was
completed, how the research was reported: all of these were a
function of the
strange alchemy of political pressure within and outwith the
AEC, personality
conflicts between researchers and oversight committees, and the
ability, under
short time horizons, to entice qualified researchers to Alaska to
conduct stud-
ies under less than stable conditions. As Kessel noted, Wolfe
and the AEC were
‘asking the University to commit themselves to prospective
scientists before we
ever submit a proposal [for funding] and then apparently they
will decide
whether to fund [them] or not’.35
Nowhere were these disputes more clear than in the discussions
over research
that sought to understand the connection between lichen,
caribou and humans
in the Arctic ecosystem, research that, as the AEC later
admitted,36 was perhaps
the most important of the whole endeavour. This research
constitutes our sec-
ond controversy.
Understanding the food webs of the Arctic, and how
radioactivity travelled
through them, seemed essential to the bioenvironmental
programme, especially
since numerous studies were beginning to show a link between

global radioac-
tive fallout and the bioaccumulation of radioactivity in Arctic
mammals.
Moreover, Don Foote’s preliminary research was showing just
how important
caribou were to local people as a source of protein. Hence,
understanding how
radioactivity travelled through the ecosystem was essential to
gauging the ‘bio-
logical cost’ of the proposed excavation. Despite all this, Wolfe
complained to
Kessel after seeing the UAF proposal for the 1961 field season
that ‘the mam-
mal proposals [including caribou studies] have ballooned
beyond credulity, and
some of this expansion is outside the scope or at the borders of
the total pro-
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)
ject objective, geographic and temporal’. He therefore informed
Kessel that a
‘revision of the scope of your research program compatible with
the Committee’s
guidelines, with such revisions reflected in the budget, appears
necessary’.37
Kessel reminded Wolfe that he himself had earlier placed the
caribou studies
under the category of ‘continuing and/or intensified studies’ for
the coming
season, but that given his new stance, ‘we will delete the

proposed range study
from our next year’s plans.’ 38 Wolfe shot back that his desire
for ‘intensification’
of some studies only extended to ‘those not fully underway (e.g.
entomology)
and those which had been started late in 1960 (e.g. soils
movement).’ Unlike
these programmes, ‘Caribou have had the benefit of several
sources of infor-
mation. . . . The range study is completely out of the question. .
. .’ He made
clear the reasoning behind his requested cuts: ‘There would not
have been any
program such as this at all if it were not for the idea of nuclear
excavation. We
still ride on the coat-tails of that idea, since actual detonation
has not received
approval. We are obligated, therefore, to support researches
useful to the idea
but at the same time we have insisted on studies contributory to
science.’39
Two months later, the AEC cut the university’s funds even
further, and Wolfe
told Kessel that the ‘caribou studies, with their costly airplane
requirements, will
have to be pretty much limited to what has been referred to as
“the Ogotoruk
herd” ’,40 in essence making impossible the sort of work UAF
scientists felt was
necessary to come to a complete understanding of the dynamics
of caribou ecol-
ogy. These cuts also forced Kessel to request the elimination of
a phytosocio-
logical study and the transference of its budget to meet the costs
of caribou

stomach-rumen analysis (a project necessary for understanding
the feeding
habits of caribou and thus how radioactivity was taken up by
them).41 Even with
this switch, stomach analysis remained perpetually underfunded
and incom-
plete, providing Wolfe with an opportunity for chastising Kessel
and Pruitt for
not doing a good enough job in this field.42
The caribou controversy came to a head in the fracas
surrounding UAF mam-
malogist Bill Pruitt’s 1962 ‘Final Report’ on the mammal
studies, a draft of which
he completed toward the end of 1961. Pruitt had become
interested in bioac-
cumulation of radioactivity in caribou for much the same
reasons as most other
scientists working on high-latitude mammals. In the late 1950s,
the Arctic was a
region of relatively low contamination by fallout. Yet a number
of studies had
shown that both caribou and human residents of the Arctic had
elevated con-
centrations of radioactive contamination.43 At the beginning of
his work for the
AEC, Pruitt had sent for reprints of papers on lichens, since
lichens were a pri-
mary food source for caribou. This research showed both that
lichens them-
selves had greater levels of radioactivity compared to other
plants and that
animals that grazed on lichens took up strontium-90 from the
plants and
deposited it in their bones. By February 1961, when the
controversy over the

funding of that year’s field season was brewing, Pruitt
requested funds to study
the relationship between vegetation and caribou. This was the
‘intensification’
of the caribou studies that Wolfe vetoed.44
Pruitt’s activities in publicizing the bioaccumulation of
radioactivity in Arctic
mammals and people in outlets such as the News Bulletin of the
Alaska
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)
Conservation Society and the journal Nuclear Information
during 1961 had
earned him the enmity both of the AEC and of new University
of Alaska presi-
dent (and Chariot enthusiast) William Wood, and Pruitt was
given a ‘phase-out’
contract that lasted through 22 January, 1962. In November, he
submitted a
required ‘progress report’ to Wolfe, a report that formed the
basis of his final
report due in December. Wolfe was not impressed by Pruitt’s
assessment. ‘Surely
there is more to report on caribou than Dr. Pruitt indicates in
the summar y
recently submitted,’ he suggested to Kessel.45 Kessel responded
by reminding
Wolfe that the caribou studies ‘were stopped because of the
budget limitation’
he himself had imposed on the university researches.46 In his

report Pruitt had
included a table that summarized existing research on plant and
lichen uptake
of radioactive elements and their relationship to mammals in
Arctic environ-
ments. He included this in part because he had been unable
himself to do the
work necessary to establish these relationships for Ogotoruk
Creek. This table
drew considerable ire from Wolfe.
The Table in your summary reporting radiological analysis of
biological material
seemed somewhat out of order. Only one of the 11 entries is for
Ogotoruk Creek,
i.e. lichens. Of the ten non-Ogotoruk Creek entries, one is for
lichens, but in units
not at all comparable to the units for the Ogotoruk Creek lichen
material. No com-
parison is possible because ‘counts’ cannot be converted to
micro-micro curies with-
out a considerable array of correctional factors. What was the
objective? I assume that
the remainder of the entries had some objective also, if only to
call attention to the
available data. We are aware of these and other published
analyses, and when they
are useful in various kinds of comparisons, we fully intend to
use them. In themselves
they are scarcely meaningful.47
Knowing his contract would not be renewed, Pruitt replied to
Wolfe with all the
sarcasm he could muster:
I infer from your comments that you (and the Committee?)

reject data from locali-
ties other than the Ogotoruk Creek region. In one respect I find
this heartening,
since I (and others) have been deeply concerned at the attempts
to fit data derived
from the domestic cattle at the Nevada Test Site into the Arctic
caribou eco-
system. . . . You undoubtedly remember that funds for our
proposed study of
vegetation–caribou–radioactivity relationships were specifically
deleted from our
present contract.
I am glad that you noted the variation in measurement units
used in reporting
Strontium-90 concentrations. This had long been a source of
irritation to me. Since
the problem has been brought to your attention so vividly I
suggest that you are in
a position there in Washington to correct it and respectfully
urge you to do so.
I must confess that I am completely puzzled by your questioning
the objective of
including the table on radioactivity in the Terrestrial Mammals
summary. The objec-
tive was clear – to bring to the attention of all concerned the
potential danger posed
by radiation from Chariot (and all sources) to a species of prime
importance to north-
ern regions, both ecologically and economically. It is quite true
that the table . . .
might be out of order in that it contains data derived not from
our own studies but
from those of others. However, ecology consists of a synthesis,
a drawing together of

ideas and information from scattered sources.48
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)
If Wolfe was still unclear as to why reporting other studies on
radioactivity con-
tamination was so important, Pruitt sought to make it manifestly
clear to him:
I did not think it necessary to point out that caribou bone
strontium concentrations
are already far above the present human ‘allowable’ limits. I did
not think it neces-
sary to point out that Foote has shown that the village of Point
Hope relies on the
annual caribou harvest to ensure its ecological stability. I did
not think it necessary
to point out the recent Finnish embargo on reindeer meat
because of radioactive con-
tamination, nor to pose the question of the possible economic
effects of a similar
embargo in Alaska (after Chariot???) by the Bureau of Indian
Affairs and commer-
cial utilizers of reindeer meat. I did not think it necessary to
point out that Lappish
students at the University of Oslo were recently found to have
whole-body radiation
counts on a fantastically higher level than non-Lappish students,
nor did I speculate
on the possible results if a similar study were made on the
Alaskan Eskimo people.
These are all ecologically pertinent. I am glad you were aware

of the data in my table.
Since, however, some of the reindeer studies were published as
early as 1958, I am at
a loss to explain the statements made by your organization and
the Committee in
1960 regarding ‘no evidence’ of potential biological harm.49
If relations between Wolfe and Pruitt were tense in December,
and if Kessel
felt she was caught in the middle, then the real meltdown of
personal relations
occurred in Januar y, when Pruitt prepared his final report on
the 1961 research
season, a report based on the ‘progress letter’ to which Wolfe
had already
objected. By this time, Brina Kessel had already refused to
allow Pruitt to write
the final reports either on ground squirrels (on which he had
done most of the
research) or on caribou (on which he had overseen the research
programme).
When Pruitt submitted his final report on the ecology of other
small mammals,
Kessel made a number of changes that its author felt effectively
‘censored’ his
conclusions. When Pruitt received Kessel’s changes, he restored
much of his
original text, particularly portions concerning routeways of
radioactive isotopes
in the Arctic ecosystem (and including references to caribou
ecology), and
submitted a new version directly to the university
stenographers. Kessel pulled
the manuscript from the steno pool and reorganized much of it,
cutting and
pasting sections into new locations and simply eliminating other

sections.50
Among other things, Kessel eliminated nearly all references
(and all citations
to existing literature) on the importance of caribou to Eskimos’
‘way of life’
and economic wellbeing. Pruitt complained that these ‘deletions
form a
disturbing pattern’, since they chiefly centred on ‘sections on
endangered
species, potential ecosystem disruption or recommendations for
further
research. These are just the aspects of Arctic ecology and
resource conservation
that are avoided by the powerful commercial and governmental
exploiters and
“developers” ’.51
Incensed as he was at Kessel’s changes, Pruitt’s hands were
tied: Kessel had
the only copy of his text. And when she returned the changed
report to him,
she did not also return his original. Kessel informed Pruitt that
the University
of Alaska was the party responsible for the reports to the AEC,
not the individ-
ual researchers, and thus that she was within her rights as
project leader to
change Pruitt’s work. Nonetheless, she gave Pruitt 20 days to
respond to the
changes she had made. Pruitt countered by ‘challeng[ing] your
statement that
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)

the University is the one ultimately responsible for the content
of all final
reports. The ultimate responsibility for any scientific writing,
whether intra-
agency report, contractual report or open publication lies with
the author. Your
statement that the document under consideration is a final
contractual report
and not a publication in the scientific literature imputes
different degrees of
accuracy or logical rigor.’52 Despite her promise of 20 days to
review her edito-
rial changes, Kessel submitted Pruitt’s report to the AEC after
only 10. The
report was submitted in Pruitt’s name, but with the statement
‘as modified by
Brina Kessel, General Supervisor, University of Alaska Project
Chariot
Investigations’ appended to the title-page.53
Conclusion: contested success
In the text of The environment of the Cape Thompson region,
these controversies
fade to invisibility. The tone is reasonable and reassuring: ‘It is
the living com-
munities of plants and animals, including man, and their
ecological ties with
each other and their environments’, a preface signed by the
Committee on
Environmental Studies for Project Chariot intones, ‘that are the
warp and weft
of geography. And it is with the relations of geography to
modern technology

that this volume is concerned.’54 But this statement was written
at the end of
1965, more than three years after Chariot had been cancelled.
The record shows
that, for their part, the engineers and promoters at Livermore
had little inter-
est in geography beyond its providing a place to explode huge
bombs. Even so,
the Committee found it necessary to remark in its preface:
the majesty of technology is not sufficient unto itself. It is also
encumbered with the
responsibility of asking before its accomplishments, what else
these monumental
achievements do to man’s environment – in terms of welfare,
safety, and total
ecology. As Professor Paul B. Sears has remarked, ‘Failure to
use Science as a
source of perspective in our present age of culture degrades its
function and may in
time be disastrous.’ One suspects the Professor’s reference was
strongly biological in
context.55
The context within which this text was made, of course, was at
least as much
‘political’ or ‘emotional’ as it was biological, as our few
examples have shown.
To the degree to which Chariot ‘used Science’, it was only
because that science
was forced upon it. As importantly, the very shape of that
science was in no
sense pre-given; rather, it too was a product of struggles over
who should have
the voice to represent what kind of nature and society, over who
should have

the standing to speak for or against the use of hydrogen bombs
to reshape the
surface of the earth. Emotion and politics are not incidental to
the making of
science: they are integral to it. If the research reported in the
book is as good
as its reviewers say it is, then it is because of, not despite, the
controversies that
went into its making. The black book is not, as Latour would
say, a black box –
at least not when one knows the controversies that went into its
making.
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Anne U. White fund of the
Association of
American Geographers and a Junior Faculty Development
Award from the
University of Colorado. We would like to thank Scott Kirsch
and Denis Cosgrove
for helpful comments on earlier drafts.
Department of Geography
Central Connecticut State University
Department of Geography
Syracuse University
Notes
1 Kessel to Boyd, 21 Apr. 1961, Project Chariot Collection, Box

1, File 4, Rasmussen
Library, University of Alaska.
2 For discussions of the Plowshare programme, see D. O’Neill,
Firecracker boys (New York,
St. Martin’s Press, 1994); T. Findlay, Nuclear dynamite: the
peaceful nuclear explosion fiasco
(Sydney, Brassey’s, 1990); E. Teller, ‘We are going to work
miracles’, Popular Mechanics
(Mar. 1960); S. Kirsch and D. Mitchell, ‘Earth-moving as the
“measure of man”:
Edward Teller, geographical engineering and the matter of
progress’, Social Text 54
(1998), pp. 98–132; for Project Chariot, in addition to O’Neill,
see P. Brooks and J.
Foote, ‘The disturbing story of Project Chariot’, Harper’s, 19
Apr. 1962, pp. 60–62; P.
Coates, ‘Project Chariot: Alaskan roots of environmentalism’,
Alaska Histor y 4 (1989),
pp. 1–31.
3 Classic works in social studies of science include B. Latour
and S. Woolgar, Laboratory
life: the construction of scientific facts (Los Angeles, CA, Sage,
1979); B. Latour, Science in
action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society
(Cambridge, MA, Harvard
University Press, 1987); S. Shapin and S. Schaffer, Leviathan
and the air pump: Hobbes,
Boyle and the experimental life (Princeton, NJ, Princeton
University Press, 1985); S.
Shapin, A social history of truth (Chicago, University of
Chicago, University of Chicago
Press, 1994); S. Traweek, Beemtimes and lifetimes (Cambridge,
MA, MIT Press, 1988); S.

Fuller, Philosophy, rhetoric and the end of knowledge: the
coming of science and technology stud -
ies (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1993); D.
Haraway, Primate visions: gender,
race, and nature in the world of modern science (New York,
Routledge, 1989); S. Harding,
Whose science? whose knowledge? thinking from women’s lives
(Ithaca, NY, Cornell University
Press, 1991); B. Barnes, Scientific knowledge and sociological
theory (London, Routledge,
1974); D. Bloor, Knowledge and social imagery (London,
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976);
A. Pickering, ed., Science as practice and culture (Chicago,
University of Chicago Press,
1992).
4 Paul Gross and Norman Levitt’s attack on social studies of
science, Higher superstition:
the academic left and its quarrels with science (Baltimore, MD,
Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1994), is the leader in this field. Gross and Levitt argue
that social studies of
science are nothing less than an attack on rationality, and that
they simply deny that
there is any such thing as reality, fact or truth. Such studies – at
least the good ones
– of course argue no such thing. Instead, they seek to
understand the ways in which
reality, fact and truth are socially derived, even if ‘nature’ (or
any other object of sci-
ence) is not completely reducible to social struggle, politics or
language.
5 Chariot never took place: the project was cancelled in 1962,
and with it went the last
best hope for big earth-moving explosions outside the Atomic

Energy Commission’s
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)
Nevada test site. See Findlay, Nuclear dynamite; Kirsch and
Mitchell, ‘Earth-moving’,
and Kirsch’s paper in this issue.
6 See esp. D. Livingstone, ‘The history of science and the
history of geography: inter-
actions and implications’, History of Science 22 (1984), pp.
271–302; see also D.
Livingstone, The geographical tradition: episodes in the history
of a contested enterprise
(Oxford, Blackwell, 1992), pp. 29–30.
7 The eventual defeat of Chariot is a complex and exciting
story. Involved in Chariot’s
demise were contract scientists like Don Foote and William
Pruitt, whom we will meet
in the course of this paper; their confederates in the
bioenvironmental programme
like botanists Les Viereck and Albert Johnson; early Alaska
environmental activists like
Ginny Wood and Celia Hunter; missionaries working in Eskimo
communities such as
Keith Lawton; dozens of Eskimo activists including Point Hope
residents Dan
Lisbourne, Joe Frankson and Rose Omnik; Eskimo reporter
Howard Rock and his
compatriot Tom Snapp (who founded the influential native
newspaper the Tundra

Times in large part to keep track of Chariot doings); St Louis
biologist Barry
Commoner (who traces his start as an activist in part to Chariot)
and others affiliated
with the Committee for Nuclear Information; native rights
proponent LaVerne
Madigan and her Association of American Indian Affairs; a
small clique of activists
centred around the New Hampshire home of Jim Haddock, who
was drawn into the
fray when he happened to meet Revd Lawton; and the Secretary
of the Interior Stuart
Udall’s executive secretary, Sharon Francis. These activists,
working with the Chariot
scientists and the information they were producing, were
enormously effective in
bringing the dangers of the project to national attention.
O’Neill’s Firecracker boys,
though meticulously documented and scholarly in its own way,
has the character of
a good suspense novel.
Concerns about destruction of the Ogotoruk Creek ecosystem
were voiced as early
as 1959, when botanists working on the project complained they
could not keep con-
struction workers and heavy equipment out of their study sites;
L. Viereck to A.
Johnson, 12 July 1959, Project Chariot Collection, Box 4, File
28.
8 Norman J. Wilimovsky and John Wolfe, eds, The environment
of the Cape Thompson region,
Alaska (Springfield, VA, US Atomic Energy Commission,
Division of Technical
Information, PNE-481, 1966).

9 J. C. Reed, ‘Ecological investigations in the Arctic’, Science
154 (2 Oct. 1966), p. 372.
10 John Kelly, ‘Foreword’, in Wilimovsky and Wolfe, The Cape
Thompson region, p. iv.
11 This is the point of Latour’s Science in action.
12 O’Neill, Firecracker boys, ch. 3; Kirsch and Mitchell,
‘Earth-moving’. Of particular inter-
est is geographer Don Foote’s contemporaneous sleuth-work
into the mindset at
Livermore as its staff sought to convince Alaskans to buy into
Chariot; see esp. Don
Foote Collection, Box 11, Files 18 and 19, Rasmussen Library,
University of Alaska
Fairbanks. These two files contain many of Foote’s notes for a
history of Chariot he
wrote as an AEC contract worker in Point Hope.
13 Livermore had contracted with the E. J. Longyear Company
– a mining firm fre-
quently contracted to do drilling at the Nevada test site – to
make an economic sur-
vey of the Cape Thompson region. Its report (Report to the
University of California
Radiation Laboratory on the mineral potential and the proposed
harbor locations in northwest
Alaska) was not publicly released when it was completed.
Instead, Teller withheld the
report until the Chariot site had won approval from the AEC,
public land had been
withdrawn through the Department of the Interior and Alaskan
government had been
secured. When it was later released, one Alaskan resource
economist claimed that the
report was almost laughably bad: it exaggerated mineral

deposits, minimized trans-
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)
portation costs and did no market analysis at all: Rogers to
Foote, 15 Feb. 1961, Foote
Collection, Box 11, File 21. See also O’Neill, Firecracker boys,
pp. 38–39. O’Neill pro-
vides a good overview of the response of the Alaskan press to
Livermore’s plans for
instant harbours in the far north.
14 Teller was not one to dampen such ideas: he knew they only
worked in favour of
allowing him to blow his first big hole in the tundra. Teller, a
master of the sound-
bite avant la lettre, liked to promise all manner of miracles,
quipping at one point in
Alaska: ‘If your mountain is not in the right place, just drop us
a card’ (Anchorage
Times, 26 June 1959), and another time claiming that
Livermore’s ‘geographical engi-
neering’ techniques were accurate enough to dig a harbour ‘in
the shape of a polar
bear if desired’ (Fairbanks Daily News–Miner, 17 July 1958).
15 Among other documents, see the statement by UAF
biologists read to Livermore sci-
entists Har r y Keller and Vay Shelton, 9 Jan. 1959, Project
Chariot Collection, Box 3,
File 20; T. S. English to G. Johnson, 21 Jan. 1959, in ibid.;
Johnson to Viereck, 21 Feb.

1961, Foote Collection, Fox 10, File 10.
16 ‘As biologists we can view the proposed explosions
(Chariot) as an experiment in
engineering with biological side-effects. We are told that the
results will be used in
planning further explosions. It therefore seems especially
necessary to gain as much
biological information as possible, and we feel embarrassed that
it seems necessary
to reiterate that useful conclusions are most likely to follow
from a carefully consid-
ered experimental design.’ Statement of UAF biologists, 9 Jan.
1959.
17 A. Johnson to L. Viereck, 21 Feb. 1961; Albert Johnson,
Oral History Interview, in D.
O’Neill (comp.), Project Chariot: a collection of oral histories
(Fairbanks, Alaska
Humanities Forum, 1989).
18 See A. Johnson to E. L. Bartlett, 21 Feb. 1959; Bartlett to
Johnson, 24 Feb. 1959, both
in Project Chariot Collection, Box 4, File 20; see also O’Neill,
Firecracker boys, pp.
73–74.
19 Memo by UAF President E. Patty, 18 Feb. 1959, Project
Chariot Collection, Box 3,
File 20.
20 B. Kessel, A. Johnson, L. Swartz and W. Pruitt, ‘An
ecological study of the flora and
fauna of the Cape Thompson–Ogotoruk region, Alaska’, Project
Chariot Collection,
Box 9, File 74.

21 This is the conclusion of O’Neill, Firecracker boys, pp. 76–
77. For a sense of how rushed
the environmental programme was to be, see Johnson to
English, 27 Jan. 1959, Project
Chariot Collection, Box 3, File 20, in which Johnson says all
the work needed to be
‘presented in the coming summer’. It seems that the meeting in
Washington made
it clear that at least two summer seasons would be needed.
22 On the importance of winning consent, see Kirsch and
Mitchell, ‘Earth-moving’.
23 AEC press release, ‘Statement of the Committee on
Environmental Studies for Project
Chariot’, 7 Jan. 1960, copy in Foote Collection, Box 11, File
23.
24 L. E. Davies, ‘Proposed atomic blast in Arctic is called
safe’. New York Times, 17 Aug.
1960.
25 The beginnings of public opposition to Chariot by contract
scientists is detailed in
O’Neill, Firecracker boys , ch. 11–13; see also Kirsch and
Mitchell, ‘Earth-moving’.
26 Kessel to Wolfe, 15 Feb. 1960, Project Chariot Collection,
Box 1 File 2.
27 Wolfe to Kessel, 18 Feb. 1960, in ibid.
28 Kessel to Saario, 14 Mar. 1960, Foote Collection, Box 21.
29 Wolfe to Saario, 13 Apr. 1960, Project Chariot Collection,
Box 1, File 2.
30 The chapters in Wilimovsky and Wolfe, The Cape Thompson
region speak to this point

– if read between the lines. Foote had found evidence of rather
astounding amounts
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)
of meat consumption by Point Hope villagers. Theirs was a diet
still ruled in large
part by bingeing during flush times, and so it was not unusual
for an individual to
eat more than five pounds of meat in a day. Such levels of
consumption, if true, would
prove devastating to AEC’s arguments that (1) the Cape
Thompson region was not
an important hunting site, and (2) fallout would not prove a
considerable risk to
local residents. While the AEC published Foote’s findings in his
chapter (D. Foote
and A. Williamson, ‘A human geographical study’, pp. 1041–
1107), it followed it with
another chapter, from studies that were not part of the Chariot
bioenvironmental pro-
gramme, specifically on meat consumption among Eskimos (C.
Heller, ‘Meat con-
sumption at three northern Eskimo villages’, pp. 1109–11). The
chapter served to
undermine Foote’s findings. Foote himself had deep
reservations about Heller’s
methodology, arguing that the rather informal sampling missed
feast-days and was not
comparable to his method of keeping complete diaries of
consumption over extended
periods of time.

There may have been more to the Saario episode than is
apparent in Wolfe’s calls
for ‘cross-checks’. Saario was notoriously bad at writing up the
results of her research,
and there is extensive correspondence between her and a
number of the other
researchers encouraging her to clean up and finish reports.
Inconclusive findings, as
in Saario’s incomplete reports, might have helped keep the
project alive. Indeed, in
their summary reports of the Chariot studies, the committee
frequently minimized
Foote’s findings by saying ‘one researcher comments’ – the
implication being that
Saario’s (unreported) findings were different. See US Atomic
Energy Commission,
Bioenvironmental features of the Ogotoruk Creek area, Cape
Thompson, Alaska: a second sum -
mary by the committee on environmental studies for Project
Chariot (Springfield, VA, Office
of Technical Information, TID-17226, 1962). For researchers’
responses to the ways
Foote’s findings were undermined, see Kessel to Wolfe, 7 Apr.
1961; memorandum
by W. Pruitt, 15 Mar. 1961; memorandum by L. Viereck, n.d.;
all in Project Chariot
Collection, Box 1, File 6.
31 Kessel to Wolfe, 19 Apr. 1960, Project Chariot Collection,
Box 1, File 2.
32 Ibid.
33 Wolfe to Patty, 5 May 1960, in ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Kessel to Wolfe, 19 Apr. 1960, in ibid.
36 See US Atomic Energy Commission, Project Chariot Phases

I–V: Project Manager’s sum -
mary report (Las Vegas, Nevada Operations Office and Holmes
and Naver, Inc. NVO-
7, Aug. 1964), pp. 2–7; cited in O’Neill, Firecracker boys, p.
212.
37 Wolfe to Kessel, 7 Mar. 1961, Project Chariot Collection,
Box 1, File 1.
38 Kessel to Wolfe, 14 Mar. 1961, in ibid.
39 Wolfe to Kessel, 20 Mar. 1961, in ibid.
40 Wolfe to Kessel, 16 May 1961, in ibid.
41 Kessel to Wolfe, 12 June 1961, in ibid.
42 See e.g. Wolfe to Kessel, 17 Nov. 1961, and Kessel to
Wolfe, 1 Dec. 1961, in ibid.; Wolfe
to Pruitt, 19 Dec. 1961, William O. Pruitt Collection,
Rasmussen Library, University
of Alaska, Fairbanks, Box 1, File 5.
43 O’Neill, Firecracker boys, pp. 209–13, provides an excellent,
accessible discussion of
these issues.
44 See the letters cited in n.42 above, Firecracker boys , p. 211.
45 Wolfe to Kessel, 17 Nov. 1961, Project Chariot Collection
Box 1, File 1.
46 Kessel to Wolfe, 1 Dec. 1961, in ibid.
47 Wolfe to Pruitt, 19 Dec. 1961, Pruitt Collection, Box 1, File
5.
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)

48 Pruitt to Wolfe, 8 Jan. 1962, in ibid.
49 Ibid.
50 O’Neill discusses this incident in Firecracker boys, pp. 195–
205. The pertinent docu-
ments are Pruitt to Wolfe, 8 Jan. 1962, Pruitt Collection, Box 1,
File 5; Kessel to Wolfe,
28 Feb. 1962, Kessel to Wolfe, 11 Apr. 1962, Wolfe to Kessel,
8 May 1962, all in Project
Chariot Collection, Box 1, File 1; Pruitt to Wood, 2 Mar. 1962,
Pruitt to Wolfe, 22
Mar. 1962, Wolfe to Pruitt, 27 Mar. 1962, Pruitt to Kessel, 30
Mar. 1962, Pruitt to
Francis, 10 May 1962, Pruitt to Francis, 25 May 1962,
‘Statement to Project Chariot
Environmental Committee and all concerned’, 24 Apr. 1962, all
in Pruitt Collection,
Box 2, File 10.
51 ‘Statement to Project Chariot Environmental Committee and
all concerned’.
52 Pruitt to Kessel, 30 Mar. 1962, Pruitt Collection, Box 2, File
10.
53 For his troubles, William Pruitt found himself released from
the University of Alaska
(which did not have a tenure system) and blacklisted by UAF
president William Wood
and functionaries in the AEC. Likewise, botanist Les Viereck,
who had resigned in
protest from the Chariot bioenvironmental programme, found
himself released from
the university. There is some evidence that his attempts to
return to university teach-
ing were also resisted. Don Foote, after eventually completing

his PhD in geography,
was hired by an institute affiliated with UAF in 1968, but soon
after died in an auto
accident. O’Neill tells these stories in Firecracker boys , ch. 17.
54 The Committee on Environmental Studies for Project
Chariot, ‘Preface’, in
Wilimovsky and Wolfe, The Cape Thompson region, p. vi.
55 Ibid., p. vii.
Ecumene 1998 5 (3)
The Land Ethic
by Aldo Leopold
1949
[ This essay is excerpted from Aldo Leopold's book A Sand
County Almanac. ]
When god-like Odysseus returned from the wars in Troy, he
hanged all on one rope a
dozen slave-girls of his household whom he suspected of
misbehavior during his
absence.
This hanging involved no question of propriety. The girls were
property. The disposal of

property was then, as now, a matter of expediency, not of right
and wrong.
Concepts of right and wrong were not lacking from Odysseus'
Greece: witness the
fidelity of his wife through the long years before at last his
black-prowed galleys clove
the wine-dark seas for home. The ethical structure of that day
covered wives, but had
not yet been extended to human chattels. During the three
thousand years which have
since elapsed, ethical criteria have been extended to many fields
of conduct, with
corresponding shrinkages in those judged by expediency only.
THE ETHICAL SEQUENCE
This extension of ethics, so far studied only by philosophers, is
actually a process in
ecological evolution. Its sequences may be described in
ecological as well as well as in
philosophical terms. An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on
freedom of action in the
struggle for existence. An ethic, philosophically, is a
differentiation of social from anti-
social conduct. These are two definitions of one thing. The
thing has its origin in the
tendency of interdependent individuals or groups to evolve
modes of co-operation. The
ecologist calls these symbioses. Politics and economics are
advanced symbioses in
which the original free-for-all competition has been replaced, in
part, by co-operative
mechanisms with an ethical content.
The complexity of co-operative mechanisms has increased with

population density, and
with the efficiency of tools. It was simpler, for example, to
define the anti-social uses of
sticks and stones in the days of the mastodons than of bullets
and billboards in the age
of motors.
The first ethics dealt with the relation between individuals; the
Mosaic Decalogue is an
example. Later accretions dealt with the relation between the
individual and society. The
Golden Rule tries to integrate the individual to society;
democracy to integrate social
organization to the individual.
There is as yet no ethic dealing with man's relation to land and
to the animals and plants
which grow upon it. Land, like Odysseus' slave-girls, is still
property. The land-relation is
still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations.
The extension of ethics to this third element in human
environment is, if I read the
evidence correctly, an evolutionary possibility and an
ecological necessity. It is the third
step in a sequence. The first two have already been taken.
Individual thinkers since the
days of Ezekiel and Isaiah have asserted that the despoliation of
land is not only
inexpedient but wrong. Society, however, has not yet affirmed
their belief. I regard the
present conservation movement as the embryo of such an
affirmation.

An ethic may be regarded as a mode of guidance for meeting
ecological situations so
new or intricate, or involving such deferred reactions, that the
path of social expediency
is not discernible to the average individual. Animal instincts are
modes of guidance for
the individual in meeting such situations. Ethics are possibly a
kind of community
instinct in-the-making.
THE COMMUNITY CONCEPT
All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise that the
individual is a member of a
community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to
compete for his place in
that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate
(perhaps in order that
there may be a place to compete for).
The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community
to include soils, waters,
plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.
This sounds simple: do we not already sing our love for and
obligation to the land of the
free and the home of the brave? Yes, but just what and whom do
we love? Certainly not
the soil, which we are sending helter-skelter down river.
Certainly not the waters, which
we assume have no function except to turn turbines, float
barges, and carry off sewage.
Certainly not the plants, of which we exterminate whole
communities without batting an
eye. Certainly not the animals, of which we have already
extirpated many of the largest

and most beautiful species. A land ethic of course cannot
prevent the alteration,
management, and use of these 'resources,' but it does affirm
their right to continued
existence, and, at least in spots, their continued existence in a
natural state
In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from
conqueror of the land-
community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect
for his fellow-members,
and also respect for the community as such.
In human history, we have learned (I hope) that the conqueror
role is eventually self-
defeating. Why? Because it is implicit in such a role that the
conqueror knows, ex
cathedra, just what makes the community clock tick, and just
what and who is valuable,
and what and who is worthless, in community life. It always
turns out that he knows
neither, and this is why his conquests eventually defeat
themselves.
In the biotic community, a parallel situation exists. Abraham
knew exactly what the land
was for: it was to drip milk and honey into Abraham's mouth. At
the present moment, the
assurance with which we regard this assumption is inverse to
the degree of our
education.
The ordinary citizen today assumes that science knows what
makes the community

clock tick; the scientist is equally sure that he does not. He
knows that the biotic
mechanism is so complex that its workings may never be fully
understood.
That man is, in fact, only a member of a biotic team is shown by
an ecological
interpretation of history. Many historical events, hitherto
explained solely in terms of
human enterprise, were actually biotic, interactions between
people and land. The
characteristics of the land determined the facts quite as potently
as the characteristics
of the men who lived on it.
Consider, for example, the settlement of the Mississippi valley.
In the years following the
Revolution, three groups were contending for its control: the
native Indian, the French
and English traders, and the American settlers. Historians
wonder what would have
happened if the English at Detroit had thrown a little more
weight into the Indian side of
those tipsy scales which decided the outcome of the colonial
migration into the cane-
lands of Kentucky. It is time now to ponder the fact that the
cane-lands, when subjected
to the particular mixture of forces represented by the cow, plow,
fire, and axe of the
pioneer, became bluegrass. What if the plant succession
inherent in this dark and
bloody ground had, under the impact of these forces, given us
some worthless sedge,
shrub, or weed? Would Boone and Kenton have held out? Would
there have been any
overflow into Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri? Any

Louisiana Purchase? Any
transcontinental union of new states? Any Civil War?
Kentucky was one sentence in the drama of history. We are
commonly told what the
human actors in this drama tried to do, but we are seldom told
that their success, or the
lack of it, hung in large degree on the reaction of particular
soils to the impact of the
particular forces exerted by their occupancy. In the case of
Kentucky, we do not even
know where the bluegrass came from -- whether it is a native
species, or a stowaway
from Europe.
Contrast the cane-lands with what hindsight tells us about the
Southwest, where the
pioneers were equally brave, resourceful, and persevering. The
impact of occupancy
here brought no bluegrass, or other plant fitted to withstand the
bumps and buffetings of
hard use. This region, when grazed by livestock, reverted
through a series of more and
more worthless grasses, shrubs, and weeds to a condition of
unstable equilibrium. Each
recession of plant types bred erosion; each increment to erosion
bred a further
recession of plants. The result today is a progressive and mutual
deterioration, not only
of plants and soils, but of the animal community subsisting
thereon. The early settlers
did not expect this: on the ciénegas of New Mexico some even
cut ditches to hasten it.
So subtle has been its progress that few residents of the region
are aware of it. It is

quite invisible to the tourist who finds this wrecked landscape
colorful and charming (as
indeed it is, but it bears scant resemblance to what it was in
1848).
This same landscape was 'developed' once before, but with quite
different results. The
Pueblo Indians settled the Southwest in pre-Columbian times,
but they happened not to
be equipped with range livestock. Their civilization expired, but
not because their land
expired.
In India, regions devoid of any sod-forming grass have been
settled, apparently without
wrecking the land, by the simple expedient of carrying the grass
to the cow, rather than
vice versa. (Was this the result of some deep wisdom, or was it
just good luck? I do not
know.)
In short, the plant succession steered the course of history; the
pioneer simply
demonstrated, for good or ill, what successions inhered in the
land. Is history taught in
this spirit? It will be, once the concept of land as a community
really penetrates our
intellectual life.
THE ECOLOGICAL CONSCIENCE
Conservation is a state of harmony between man and land.
Despite nearly a century of
propaganda, conservation still proceeds at a snail's pace;

progress still consists largely
of letterhead pieties and convention oratory. On the back forty
we still slip two steps
backward for each forward stride.
The usual answer to this dilemma is 'more conservation
education.' No one will debate
this, but is it certain that only the volume of education needs
stepping up? Is something
lacking in the content as well?
It is difficult to give a fair summary of its content in brief form,
but, as I understand it, the
content is substantially this: obey the law, vote right, join some
organizations, and
practice what conservation is profitable on your own land; the
government will do the
rest.
Is not this formula too easy to accomplish anything worth-
while? It defines no right or
wrong, assigns no obligation, calls for no sacrifice, implies no
change in the current
philosophy of values. In respect of land use, it urges only
enlightened self-interest. Just
how far will such education take us? An example will perhaps
yield a partial answer.
By 1930 it had become clear to all except the ecologically blind
that southwestern
Wisconsin's topsoil was slipping seaward. In 1933 the farmers
were told that if they
would adopt certain remedial practices for five years, the public
would donate CCC
labor to install them, plus the necessary machinery and
materials. The offer was widely

accepted, but the practices were widely forgotten when the five-
year contract period
was up. The farmers continued only those practices that yielded
an immediate and
visible economic gain for themselves.
This led to the idea that maybe farmers would learn more
quickly if they themselves
wrote the rules. Accordingly the Wisconsin Legislature in 1937
passed the Soil
Conservation District Law. This said to farmers, in effect: We,
the public, will furnish you
free technical service and loan you specialized machines, if you
will write your own rules
for land-use. Each county may write its own rules, and these
will have the force of law.
Nearly all the counties promptly organized to accept the
proffered help, but after a
decade of operation, no county has yet written a single rule.
There has been visible
progress in such practices as strip-cropping, pasture renovation,
and soil liming, but
none in fencing woodlots against grazing, and none in excluding
plow and cow from
steep slopes. The farmers, in short, have selected those remedial
practices which were
profitable anyhow, and ignored those which were profitable to
the community, but not
clearly profitable to themselves.
When one asks why no rules have been written, one is told that
the community is not
yet ready to support them; education must precede rules. But the
education actually in

progress makes no mention of obligations to land over and
above those dictated by self-
interest. The net result is that we have more education but less
soil, fewer healthy
woods, and as many floods as in 1937.
The puzzling aspect of such situations is that the existence of
obligations over and
above self-interest is taken for granted in such rural community
enterprises as the
betterment of roads, schools, churches, and baseball teams.
Their existence is not
taken for granted, nor as yet seriously discussed, in bettering
the behavior of the water
that falls on the land, or in the preserving of the beauty or
diversity of the farm
landscape. Land use ethics are still governed wholly by
economic self-interest, just as
social ethics were a century ago.
To sum up: we asked the farmer to do what he conveniently
could to save his soil, and
he has done just that, and only that. The farmer who clears the
woods off a 75 per cent
slope, turns his cows into the clearing, and dumps its rainfall,
rocks, and soil into the
community creek, is still (if otherwise decent) a respected
member of society. If he puts
lime on his fields and plants his crops on contour, he is still
entitled to all the privileges
and emoluments of his Soil Conservation District. The District
is a beautiful piece of
social machinery, but it is coughing along on two cylinders
because we have been too
timid, and too anxious for quick success, to tell the farmer the
true magnitude of his

obligations. Obligations have no meaning without conscience,
and the problem we face
is the extension of the social conscience from people to land.
No important change in ethics was ever accomplished without
an internal change in our
intellectual emphasis, loyalties, affections, and convictions. The
proof that conservation
has not yet touched these foundations of conduct lies in the fact
that philosophy and
religion have not yet heard of it. In our attempt to make
conservation easy, we have
made it trivial.
SUBSTITUTES FOR A LAND ETHIC
When the logic of history hungers for bread and we hand out a
stone, we are at pains to
explain how much the stone resembles bread. I now describe
some of the stones which
serve in lieu of a land ethic.
One basic weakness in a conservation system based wholly on
economic motives is
that most members of the land community have no economic
value. Wildflowers and
songbirds are examples. Of the 22,000 higher plants and
animals native to Wisconsin, it
is doubtful whether more than 5 per cent can be sold, fed, eaten,
or otherwise put to
economic use. Yet these creatures are members of the biotic
community, and if (as I
believe) its stability depends on its integrity, they are entitled to
continuance.

When one of these non-economic categories is threatened, and if
we happen to love it,
we invent subterfuges to give it economic importance. At the
beginning of the century
songbirds were supposed to be disappearing. Ornithologists
jumped to the rescue with
some distinctly shaky evidence to the effect that insects would
eat us up if birds failed to
control them. The evidence had to be economic in order to be
valid.
It is painful to read these circumlocutions today. We have no
land ethic yet, but we have
at least drawn nearer the point of admitting that birds should
continue as a matter of
biotic right, regardless of the presence or absence of economic
advantage to us.
A parallel situation exists in respect of predatory mammals,
raptoral birds, and fish-
eating birds. Time was when biologists somewhat overworked
the evidence that these
creatures preserve the health of game by killing weaklings, or
that they control rodents
for the farmer, or that they prey only on 'worthless' species.
Here again, the evidence
had to be economic in order to be valid. It is only in recent
years that we hear the more
honest argument that predators are members of the community,
and that no special
interest has the right to exterminate them for the sake of a
benefit, real or fancied, to
itself. Unfortunately this enlightened view is still in the talk
stage. In the field the
extermination of predators goes merrily on: witness the

impending erasure of the timber
wolf by fiat of Congress, the Conservation Bureaus, and many
state legislatures.
Some species of trees have been 'read out of the party' by
economics-minded foresters
because they grow too slowly, or have too low a sale value to
pay as timber crops:
white cedar, tamarack, cypress, beech, and hemlock are
examples. In Europe, where
forestry is ecologically more advanced, the non-commercial tree
species are recognized
as members of the native forest community, to be preserved as
such, within reason.
Moreover some (like beech) have been found to have a valuable
function in building up
soil fertility. The interdependence of the forest and its
constituent tree species, ground
flora, and fauna is taken for granted.
Lack of economic value is sometimes a character not only of
species or groups, but of
entire biotic communities: marshes, bogs, dunes, and 'deserts'
are examples. Our
formula in such cases is to relegate their conservation to
government as refuges,
monuments, or parks. The difficulty is that these communities
are usually interspersed
with more valuable private lands; the government cannot
possibly own or control such
scattered parcels. The net effect is that we have relegated some
of them to ultimate
extinction over large areas. If the private owner were

ecologically minded, he would be
proud to be the custodian of a reasonable proportion of such
areas, which add diversity
and beauty to his farm and to his community.
In some instances, the assumed lack of profit in these 'waste'
areas has proved to be
wrong, but only after most of them had been done away with.
The present scramble to
reflood muskrat marshes is a case in point.
There is a clear tendency in American conservation to relegate
to government all
necessary jobs that private landowners fail to perform.
Government ownership,
operation, subsidy, or regulation is now widely prevalent in
forestry, range management,
soil and watershed management, park and wilderness
conservation, fisheries
management, and migratory bird management, with more to
come. Most of this growth
in governmental conservation is proper and logical, some of it is
inevitable. That I imply
no disapproval of it is implicit in the fact that I have spent most
of my life working for it.
Nevertheless the question arises: What is the ultimate
magnitude of the enterprise? Will
the tax base carry its eventual ramifications? At what point will
governmental
conservation, like the mastodon, become handicapped by its
own dimensions? The
answer, if there is any, seems to be in a land ethic, or some
other force which assigns
more obligation to the private landowner.
Industrial landowners and users, especially lumbermen and

stockmen, are inclined to
wail long and loudly about the extension of government
ownership and regulation to
land, but (with notable exceptions) they show little disposition
to develop the only visible
alternative: the voluntary practice of conservation on their own
lands.
When the private landowner is asked to perform some
unprofitable act for the good of
the community, he today assents only with outstretched palm. If
the act costs him cash
this is fair and proper, but when it costs only forethought, open-
mindedness, or time, the
issue is at least debatable. The overwhelming growth of land-
use subsidies in recent
years must be ascribed, in large part, to the government's own
agencies for
conservation education: the land bureaus, the agricultural
colleges, and the extension
services. As far as I can detect, no ethical obligation toward
land is taught in these
institutions.
To sum up: a system of conservation based solely on economic
self-interest is
hopelessly lopsided. It tends to ignore, and thus eventually to
eliminate, many elements
in the land community that lack commercial value, but that are
(as far as we know)
essential to its healthy functioning. It assumes, falsely, I think,
that the economic parts
of the biotic clock will function without the uneconomic parts.
It tends to relegate to
government many functions eventually too large, too complex,
or too widely dispersed

to be performed by government.
An ethical obligation on the part of the private owner is the
only visible remedy for these
situations.
THE LAND PYRAMID
An ethic to supplement and guide the economic relation to land
presupposes the
existence of some mental image of land as a biotic mechanism.
We can be ethical only
in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or
otherwise have faith in.
The image commonly employed in conservation education is
'the balance of nature.' For
reasons too lengthy to detail here, this figure of speech fails to
describe accurately what
little we know about the land mechanism. A much truer image is
the one employed in
ecology: the biotic pyramid. I shall first sketch the pyramid as a
symbol of land, and later
develop some of its implications in terms of land-use.
Plants absorb energy from the sun. This energy flows through a
circuit called the biota,
which may be represented by a pyramid consisting of layers.
The bottom layer is the
soil. A plant layer rests on the soil, an insect layer on the
plants, a bird and rodent layer
on the insects, and so on up through various animal groups to
the apex layer, which
consists of the large carnivores.

The species of a layer are alike not in where they came from, or
in what they look like,
but rather in what they eat. Each successive layer depends on
those below it for food
and often for other services, and each in turn furnishes food and
services to those
above. Proceeding upward, each successive layer decreases in
numerical abundance.
Thus, for every carnivore there are hundreds of his prey,
thousands of their prey,
millions of insects, uncountable plants. The pyramidal form of
the system reflects this
numerical progression from apex to base. Man shares an
intermediate layer with the
bears, raccoons, and squirrels which eat both meat and
vegetables.
The lines of dependency for food and other services are called
food chains. Thus soil-
oak-deer- Indian is a chain that has now been largely converted
to 'soil-corn-cow-
farmer.' Each species, including ourselves, is a link in many
chains. The deer eats a
hundred plants other than oak, and the cow a hundred plants
other than corn. Both,
then, are links in a hundred chains. The pyramid is a tangle of
chains so complex as to
seem disorderly, yet the stability of the system proves it to be a
highly organized
structure. Its functioning depends on the co-operation and
competition of its diverse
parts.
In the beginning, the pyramid of life was low and squat; the
food chains short and

simple. Evolution has added layer after layer, link after link.
Man is one of thousands of
accretions to the height and complexity of the pyramid. Science
has given us many
doubts, but it has given us at least one certainty: the trend of
evolution is to elaborate
and diversify the biota.
Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing
through a circuit of soils,
plants, and animals. Food chains are the living channels which
conduct energy upward;
death and decay return it to the soil. The circuit is not closed;
some energy is dissipated
in decay, some is added by absorption from the air, some is
stored in soils, peats, and
long-lived forests; but it is a sustained circuit, like a slowly
augmented revolving fund of
life. There is always a net loss by downhill wash, but this is
normally small and offset by
the decay of rocks. It is deposited in the ocean and, in the
course of geological time,
raised to form new lands and new pyramids.
The velocity and character of the upward flow of energy depend
on the complex
structure of the plant and animal community, much as the
upward flow of sap in a tree
depends on its complex cellular organization. Without this
complexity, normal circulation
would presumably not occur. Structure means the characteristic
numbers, as well as the
characteristic kinds and functions, of the component species.

This interdependence
between the complex structure of the land and its smooth
functioning as an energy unit
is one of its basic attributes.
When a change occurs in one part of the circuit, many other
parts must adjust
themselves to it. Change does not necessarily obstruct or divert
the flow of energy;
evolution is a long series of self-induced changes, the net result
of which has been to
elaborate the flow mechanism and to lengthen the circuit.
Evolutionary changes,
however, are usually slow and local. Man' s invention of tools
has enabled him to make
changes of unprecedented violence, rapidity, and scope.
One change is in the composition of floras and faunas. The
larger predators are lopped
off the apex of the pyramid; food chains, for the first time in
history, become shorter
rather than longer. Domesticated species from other lands are
substituted for wild ones,
and wild ones are moved to new habitats. In this world-wide
pooling of faunas and
floras, some species get out of bounds as pests and diseases,
others are extinguished.
Such effects are seldom intended or foreseen; they represent
unpredicted and often
untraceable readjustments in the structure. Agricultural science
is largely a race
between the emergence of new pests and the emergence of new
techniques for their
control.
Another change touches the flow of energy through plants and

animals and its return to
the soil. Fertility is the ability of soil to receive, store, and
release energy. Agriculture, by
overdrafts on the soil, or by too radical a substitution of
domestic for native species in
the superstructure, may derange the channels of flow or deplete
storage. Soils depleted
of their storage, or of the organic matter which anchors it, wash
away faster than they
form. This is erosion.
Waters, like soil, are part of the energy circuit. Industry, by
polluting waters or
obstructing them with dams, may exclude the plants and animals
necessary to keep
energy in circulation.
Transportation brings about another basic change: the plants or
animals grown in one
region are now consumed and returned to the soil in another.
Transportation taps the
energy stored in rocks, and in the air, and uses it elsewhere;
thus we fertilize the garden
with nitrogen gleaned by the guano birds from the fishes of seas
on the other side of the
Equator. Thus the formerly localized and self-contained circuits
are pooled on a world-
wide scale.
The process of altering the pyramid for human occupation
releases stored energy, and
this often gives rise, during the pioneering period, to a
deceptive exuberance of plant

and animal life, both wild and tame. These releases of biotic
capital tend to becloud or
postpone the penalties of violence.
* * * * *
This thumbnail sketch of land as an energy circuit conveys three
basic ideas:
(1) That land is not merely soil.
(2) That the native plants and animals kept the energy circuit
open; others may or may
not.
(3) That man-made changes are of a different order than
evolutionary changes, and
have effects more comprehensive than is intended or foreseen.
These ideas, collectively, raise two basic issues: Can the land
adjust itself to the new
order? Can the desired alterations be accomplished with less
violence?
Biotas seem to differ in their capacity to sustain violent
conversion. Western Europe, for
example, carries a far different pyramid than Caesar found
there. Some large animals
are lost; swampy forests have become meadows or plowland;
many new plants and
animals are introduced, some of which escape as pests; the
remaining natives are
greatly changed in distribution and abundance. Yet the soil is
still there and, with the
help of imported nutrients, still fertile; the waters flow
normally; the new structure seems

to function and to persist. There is no visible stoppage or
derangement of the circuit.
Western Europe, then, has a resistant biota. Its inner processes
are tough, elastic,
resistant to strain. No matter how violent the alterations, the
pyramid, so far, has
developed some new modus vivendi which preserves its
habitability for man, and for
most of the other natives.
Japan seems to present another instance of radical conversion
without disorganization.
Most other civilized regions, and some as yet barely touched by
civilization, display
various stages of disorganization, varying from initial
symptoms to advanced wastage.
In Asia Minor and North Africa diagnosis is confused by
climatic changes, which may
have been either the cause or the effect of advanced wastage. In
the United States the
degree of disorganization varies locally; it is worst in the
Southwest, the Ozarks, and
parts of the South, and least in New England and the Northwest.
Better land-uses may
still arrest it in the less advanced regions. In parts of Mexico,
South America, South
Africa, and Australia a violent and accelerating wastage is in
progress, but I cannot
assess the prospects.
This almost world-wide display of disorganization in the land
seems to be similar to
disease in an animal, except that it never culminates in complete

disorganization or
death. The land recovers, but at some reduced level of
complexity, and with a reduced
carrying capacity for people, plants, and animals. Many biotas
currently regarded as
'lands of opportunity' are in fact already subsisting on
exploitative agriculture, i.e., they
have already exceeded their sustained carrying capacity. Most
of South America is
overpopulated in this sense.
In and regions we attempt to offset the process of wastage by
reclamation, but it is only
too evident that the prospective longevity of reclamation
projects is often short. In our
own West, the best of them may not last a century.
The combined evidence of history and ecology seems to support
one general
deduction: the less violent the man-made changes, the greater
the probability of
successful readjustment in the pyramid. Violence, in turn, varies
with human population
density; a dense population requires a more violent conversion.
In this respect, North
America has a better chance for permanence than Europe, if she
can contrive to limit
her density.
This deduction runs counter to our current philosophy, which
assumes that because a
small increase in density enriched human life, that an indefinite
increase will enrich it
indefinitely. Ecology knows of no density relationship that
holds for indefinitely wide
limits. All gains from density are subject to a law of

diminishing returns.
Whatever may be the equation for men and land, it is
improbable that we as yet know
all its terms. Recent discoveries in mineral and vitamin
nutrition reveal unsuspected
dependencies in the up-circuit: incredibly minute quantities of
certain substances
determine the value of soils to plants, of plants to animals.
What of the down-circuit?
What of the vanishing species, the preservation of which we
now regard as an esthetic
luxury? They helped build the soil; in what unsuspected ways
may they be essential to
its maintenance? Professor Weaver proposes that we use prairie
flowers to reflocculate
the wasting soils of the dust bowl; who knows for what purpose
cranes and condors,
otters and grizzlies may some day be used?
LAND HEALTH AND THE A-B CLEAVAGE
A land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an ecological
conscience, and this in turn
reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health
of the land. Health is the
capacity of the land for self-renewal. Conservation is our effort
to understand and
preserve this capacity.
Conservationists are notorious for their dissensions.
Superficially these seem to add up
to mere confusion, but a more careful scrutiny reveals a single
plane of cleavage
common to many specialized fields. In each field one group (A)
regards the land as soil,

and its function as commodity-production; another group (B)
regards the land as a biota,
and its function as something broader. How much broader is
admittedly in a state of
doubt and confusion.
In my own field, forestry, group A is quite content to grow trees
like cabbages, with
cellulose as the basic forest commodity. It feels no inhibition
against violence; its
ideology is agronomic. Group B. on the other hand, sees
forestry as fundamentally
different from agronomy because it employs natural species,
and manages a natural
environment rather than creating an artificial one. Group B
prefers natural reproduction
on principle. It worries on biotic as well as economic grounds
about the loss of species
like chestnut, and the threatened loss of the white pines. It
worries about whole series of
secondary forest functions: wildlife, recreation, watersheds,
wilderness areas. To my
mind, Group B feels the stirrings of an ecological conscience.
In the wildlife field, a parallel cleavage exists. For Group A the
basic commodities are
sport and meat; the yardstick of production are ciphers of take
in pheasants and trout.
Artificial propagation is acceptable as a permanent as well as a
temporary recourse -- if
its unit costs permit. Group B on the other hand, worries about a
whole series of biotic
side-issues. What is the cost in predators of producing a game

crop? Should we have
further recourse to exotics? How can management restore the
shrinking species, like
prairie grouse, already hopeless as shootable game? How can
management restore the
threatened rarities, like trumpeter swan and whooping crane?
Can management
principles be extended to wildflowers? Here again it is clear to
me that we have the
same A-B cleavage as in forestry.
In the larger field of agriculture I am less competent to speak,
but there seem to be
somewhat parallel cleavages. Scientific agriculture was actively
developing before
ecology was born, hence a slower penetration of ecological
concepts might be
expected. Moreover the farmer, by the very nature of his
techniques, must modify the
biota more radically than the forester or the wildlife manager.
Nevertheless, there are
many discontents in agriculture which seem to add up to a new
vision of 'biotic farming.'
Perhaps the most important of these is the new evidence that
poundage or tonnage is
no measure of the food-value of farm crops; the products of
fertile soil may be
qualitatively as well as quantitatively superior. We can bolster
poundage from depleted
soils by pouring on imported fertility, but we are not
necessarily bolstering food-value.
The possible ultimate ramifications of this idea are so immense
that I must leave their
exposition to abler pens.

The discontent that labels itself 'organic farming,' while bearing
some of the earmarks of
a cult, is nevertheless biotic in its direction, particularly in its
insistence on the
importance of soil flora and fauna.
The ecological fundamentals of agriculture are just as poorly
known to the public as in
other fields of land-use. For example, few educated people
realize that the marvelous
advances in technique made during recent decades are
improvements in the pump,
rather than the well. Acre for acre, they have barely sufficed to
offset the sinking level of
fertility.
In all of these cleavages, we see repeated the same basic
paradoxes: man the
conqueror versus man the biotic citizen; science the sharpener
of his sword versus
science the search-light on his universe; land the slave and
servant versus land the
collective organism. Robinson's injunction to Tristram may well
be applied, at this
juncture, to Homo sapiens as species in geological time:
Whether you will or not
You are a King, Tristram, for you are one
Of the time-tested few that leave the world,
When they are gone, not the same place it was.
Mark what you leave.
THE OUTLOOK

It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to land can
exist without love, respect,
and admiration for land, and a high regard for its value. By
value, of course, I mean
something far broader than mere economic value; I mean value
in the philosophical
sense.
Perhaps the most serious obstacle impeding the evolution of a
land ethic is the fact that
our educational and economic system is headed away from,
rather than toward, an
intense consciousness of land. Your true modern is separated
from the land by many
middlemen, and by innumerable physical gadgets. He has no
vital relation to it; to him it
is the space between cities on which crops grow. Turn him loose
for a day on the land,
and if the spot does not happen to be a golf links or a 'scenic'
area, he is bored stiff. If
crops could be raised by hydroponics instead of farming, it
would suit him very well.
Synthetic substitutes for wood, leather, wool, and other natural
land products suit him
better than the originals. In short, land is something he has
'outgrown.'
Almost equally serious as an obstacle to a land ethic is the
attitude of the farmer for
whom the land is still an adversary, or a taskmaster that keeps
him in slavery.
Theoretically, the mechanization of farming ought to cut the
farmer' s chains, but
whether it really does is debatable. One of the requisites for an
ecological

comprehension of land is an understanding of ecology, and this
is by no means co-
extensive with 'education'; in fact, much higher education seems
deliberately to avoid
ecological concepts. An understanding of ecology does not
necessarily originate in
courses bearing ecological labels; it is quite as likely to be
labeled geography, botany,
agronomy, history, or economics. This is as it should be, but
whatever the label,
ecological training is scarce.
The case for a land ethic would appear hopeless but for the
minority which is in obvious
revolt against these 'modern' trends.
The 'key-log' which must be moved to release the evolutionary
process for an ethic is
simply this: quit thinking about decent land-use as solely an
economic problem.
Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and
esthetically right, as well as
what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends
to preserve the integrity,
stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when
it tends otherwise.
It of course goes without saying that economic feasibility limits
the tether of what can or
cannot be done for land. It always has and it always will. The
fallacy the economic
determinists have tied around our collective neck, and which we
now need to cast off, is
the belief that economics determines all land use. This is simply

not true. An
innumerable host of actions and attitudes, comprising perhaps
the bulk of all land
relations, is determined by the land-users' tastes and
predilections, rather than by his
purse. The bulk of all land relations hinges on investments of
time, forethought, skill,
and faith rather than on investments of cash. As a land-user
thinketh, so is he.
I have purposely presented the land ethic as a product of social
evolution because
nothing so important as an ethic is ever 'written.' Only the most
superficial student of
history supposes that Moses 'wrote' the Decalogue; it evolved in
the minds of a thinking
community, and Moses wrote a tentative summary of it for a
'seminar.' I say tentative
because evolution never stops.
The evolution of a land ethic is an intellectual as well as
emotional process.
Conservation is paved with good intentions which prove to be
futile, or even dangerous,
because they are devoid of critical understanding either of the
land, or of economic
land-use. I think it is a truism that as the ethical frontier
advances from the individual to
the community, its intellectual content increases.
The mechanism of operation is the same for any ethic: social
approbation for right
actions: social disapproval for wrong actions.
By and large, our present problem is one of attitudes and
implements. We are

remodeling the Alhambra with a steam-shovel, and we are proud
of our yardage. We
shall hardly relinquish the shovel, which after all has many
good points, but we are in
need of gentler and more objective criteria for its successful
use.

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