Thursday, August 17, 2006

"'Founding Father' of Ecological Policy Dies"

As seen in the Bloomington, IN Herald Times (subscription). Story also available here.

Lynton Keith Caldwell, whose study of humankind’s relationship with the environment informed this nation’s laws and who helped create the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, died Tuesday at his Bloomington residence. He was 92.

The professor emeritus at IU played a key role in groundbreaking environmental legislation passed in Congress in the 1960s, helping to write the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969....

“It was Keith’s idea as part of NEPA to require the federal government to consider the environmental implications of its actions. At the time, that was a novel idea."

It was in the early 1960s... that Caldwell, who would later speak of having a “revelation,” began to consider how humans relate to their environment, and how the study of that relationship would be his life’s work....

“He was a conscience.”

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That is the kind of conscience-ness that we need more of. And what terrific contribution to our country he made. His daughter, Emmi, and many others that he taught carry on his legacy.

The people who seek to undermine his philosophy deserve scorn - industrialists and "religious"-right people alike. Eventually - there will be no escape for anybody from environmental negligence and abuse. And obliviousness.

This essay at Grist discussed how "Christian-right views are swaying politicians and threatening the environment".

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