World Environmental Awareness

The Historical Context Within Which Environmental Awareness Has Developed

With respect to a concern for the environment, it is probably fair to state that most people think that environmental awareness is a relatively recent phenomenon, dating at most back to the first Earth Day in 1970 (DiSilvestro, 1990, p. 5). Among Americans, it is also probably fair to state that most of them think that a concern for the environment is an American phenomenon (Vig and Kraft, 1990, pp. 911). While it is true that environmental protection actions have become more numerous and more effective in recent decades, it is not true that concerns for the protection of the environment did not exist far earlier. It is also true that effective environmental cleanup and protection actions were effected in countries such the United Kingdom well before most of the body of environmental law now existing in the United States was enacted. Environmental degradation in the United States, however, does have a long history. It is said, for example, that "many Europeans in the

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e bankruptcy. In Brazil, economic stabilization plans have been developed by governments, with one eye on the foreign lenders, and one eye on the domestic political situation. Brazil began a brinksmanship game with international lenders, by refusing in 1987 to continue to pay on the principal of its external debt, although keeping up interest payments. Brazil did not really feel that they had much to fear, because, as they pointed out, they were receiving hardly any new money anyway ("Living with the Strains," 1987, pp. 2627). Brazil, in contrast to most developing countries, has relatively little need for imports, and exports account for less than 10 percent of the country's GDP (International Monetary Fund, 1992, pp. 101104). Brazil, therefore, is often tempted to rebel against the external imposition of economic restraints, because most Brazilians, including politicians at the national level, think that the country can get away with it. Rampant urbanization is a problem in Brazil. Sao Paulo, the country's largest city, with a population in excess of 15 million persons, is expected by 2000 to have a population which will exceed 25 million persons, which, will represent 14 percent of Brazil's projected total
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Approximate Word count = 4499
Approximate Pages = 18 (250 words per page)

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