The AEC had at its command an army of highly skilled scientists.

The most meaningful engine of change, powerful enough to confront corporate power, may be not so much environmental quality, as the economic development and growth associated with the effort to improve it.

We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.

Recycling is a good thing to do. It makes people feel good to do it. The thing I want to emphasize is the vast difference between recycling for the purpose of feeling good and recycling for the purpose of solving the trash problem.

Perhaps the simplest example is a synthetic plastic, which unlike natural materials, is not degraded by biological decay. It therefore persists as rubbish or is burned-in both cases causing pollution. In the same way, a substance such as DDT or lead, which plays no role in the chemistry of life and interferes with the actions of substances that do, is bound to cause ecological damage if sufficiently concentrated.

Earth Day 1970 was irrefutable evidence that the American people understood the environmental threat and wanted action to resolve it.

The environmental crisis is a global problem, and only global action will resolve it.