This paper will discuss the rise in concern for the environmental issues especially in the West during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Firstly, It will look at the rise in affluent middle class in the 1960’s after the Second World War as one of the several factor in the rise in environmentalism. It will then look at how the visible negative effects of industrialization and growth in technology and science forced people to acknowledge that there was a need to address environmental problems. The paper will further look at the oil crisis in the late 1970’s and how the the fear of limited natural resources and overpopulation gradually gave impetus to the environmental movement. We will then examine the role of the counterculture and other social movements …show more content…
(pg 47, anthony downs) Concerns about pollution were gradually raised from the 1940’s when LA was deemed the smog metropolis of the world, as well as the the 1950s when the great smog severely affected London (PG 273, Nature and Power: A Global History of the EnvironmentBy Joachim Radkau0) In the 1970’s, acid rain, one of major environmental issue due to industrial exhausts came to the world’s attention. It became an international issue because the effects were transnational and people could visibly see the impact of chemicals.( pg 387, a history of the world). The Canadian lakes were undergoing acidification due to emissions from power plants in the United States, The Scandinavians found that their waterways were being damaged from coal combustion emissions in Britain and Germany while Poland and its neighbors realized that their use of sulfur-rich coal was causing acid rain in the region. …show more content…
Technologies also allowed detection of different invisible environmental changes as in the case of the Ozone later depletion. In the 1970’s many scientists hypothesised that the ozone layer was depleting due to the CFC’s emitted into the atmosphere and they were able to prove this in the 1980s. (dates)(shock of global) This caused global environmental concerns as people became aware that ozone layer depletion could cuase cancer among other things.(shock of global) And In the 1970’s the news that automobile exhaust causes cancer hit the public(pg 267, nature and power) causing a renewed fear of cancer by environemental damage. (dates)The development of organic chemicals such as DDT and PCBs using cheap petroleum were declared major technological advancements after 1920’s especially after the 1945 when the Green Revolution occured.(264, shock of