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SCIENTISTS
~CTNOW
on Pollution...
Will this be
man'
s last decade? Frightened scientists frankly
warn of the possible death of the planet Earth through
pollution. Action must be token by
an
INFORMED and
CONCERNED public NOW!
P
LANET
Earth is sick. Very sick.
The symptoms of this planc–
tary disease are all arow1d us –
in our air, our water and our food.
Sorne scicntists say the disease may
have alreacly progressed too far.
Others wa rn that eíther mankind
cffects an immediate total about-facc in
this ncw decade of the Seventies or thc
end of life is a certainty.
Global Concern
So massive is the problem of environ·
mental contamination, that thc Unitcd
Nations General Assembly has moved
to organizc a worldwide assault on poi·
lution. A U.N.-sponsored international
confcrcncc on thc mushrooming global
pollutíon crisis is scheduled to com·cnc
in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 1972.
In thc Un1ted $tates, Prcsidc:nt Rich–
ard Níxon signed a bill on January
1
creating
<l
Council on Enviroomcntal
Quality.
"Jt is literally now or never" in com·
bating pollution, said thc Presidcnt at
Ambossodor
Colle9o
Photo
the signing, bis tirst official act of 1970.
"I have becomc convinced that the
1970's absolutely must
be
the years
when America pays its debt to the past
by reclaiming the purity of its air, its
waters aod living environmcnt."
Later, in his $tate of thc Union
message, President Nixon promised
"the most compn.:hensivc and costly"
pollution-control program
10
U. S.
history.
Urgent UNESCO Meeting
One of the most important meetings
to date on the pollution crisis was held
in San Francisco in l.ttc November,
'1969.
But how many hcard of it?
Entitled "Man and His Environmcnt:
A View Toward Survival," it was
sponsored by thc Unitcd St.\tes
1
ational
Commission for UNESCO (Cnited
Nations Educational, Scicntitic lnd Cul–
tural Organization).
The San Francisco confercnce was ar–
ranged as a preludc to the importaot
U.N.-sponsored
1972
Stockholm as–
sembly.
More than 60 outstanding
authoritie~
on evcry phasc of pollution - air and
water pollution, industrial wastes, oil
spillagc, solid wastc disposal, food con–
tamination - provided the nudeus of
the conference. The sessions were at–
tendcd by over tive hundred concerned
delegates.
What wcrc these meo concerned
about? Hcar the words of UNESCO
Chairman Alvin
C.
Eurirh. He de–
scribed the meeting as "thc bc:ginning
of a concertcd attack on thc awesome
problems of simply keeping alive on
this pl.mct."
Rippling through the corridors was
the themc:
Act~
Do something now
don't just
f,tlk
about pollution. Th•s
themc was cxpressed over and over
again at San Francisco. Too much talk
with no action only rcsults in anothcr
fonn of pollution - word pollution.
As Chairman Eurich said in his opening
remarks at th{: first session: "There has
hecn mort· verbage about garbage in
the last fcw ycars than in all history."
But meanwhile, garbage and pollu–
tion in gcm:ral continues to mount.
Human Survival at Stake
A large postcr on display in the lobby
of thc St. Francis Hotel, site of thc con–
ference, statc:d in no unccrtain terms