The Protracted Conflict

A couple of years ago, when the Antipollution Movement was first raising its wobbly little head and most people thought Ecology was somewhere in Southeast Asia, I felt maybe the whole business was going to be a quick fad like miniature golf or Nehru jackets. But it looks as if the Environment is here to stay a while, and I’m beginning to wonder whether this Antipollution Movement (Campaign, Crusade) may not turn out to be the Peace Movement of the Seventies.

I am not talking about peace or antipollution, but about movements (campaigns, crusades); that is to say, about politics. Naturally everybody is for antipollution, just as everybody is for peace. That’s what makes both of them such perfect campaign subjects. But the politics of peace and pollution are something else again.

A couple of years ago, when the Antipollution Movement was first raising its wobbly little head and most people thought Ecology was somewhere in Southeast Asia, I felt maybe the whole business was going to be a quick fad like miniature golf or Nehru jackets. But it looks as if the Environment is here to stay a while, and I’m beginning to wonder whether this Antipollution Movement (Campaign, Crusade) may not turn out to be the Peace Movement of the Seventies.

I am not talking about peace or antipollution, but about movements (campaigns, crusades); that is to say, about politics. Naturally everybody is for antipollution, just as everybody is for peace. That’s what makes both of them such perfect campaign subjects. But the politics of peace and pollution are something else again.