Walter J. Hickel, U.S. secretary 1xbet online games login of Interior
Landon Lecture
April 6, 1970
Be part of the solution, not part of the problem
I never would have dreamed, as the son of a western Kansas tenant farmer, that these wonderful clear skies and sparkling waters and streams of Kansas would be in danger in 1xbet online games login whole lifetime.
Even on the hottest summer day 1xbet online games login could look up at those skies, breathe deeply and just be refreshed in the beauty and the cleanliness of the country.
. . . Or 1xbet online games login could go down by a little creek by our place called Cow Creek and 1xbet online games login could just scoop up a safe, clean, pure drink of water.
But 1xbet online games login know in a few years 1xbet online games login may not be able to enjoy these same carefree resources.
An 1xbet online games login Emergency
Talk of permanent destruction of the 1xbet online games login — that really isn't an idle threat of some alarmist.
1xbet online games login is a fact. And somehow 1xbet online games login is frightening.
Smog is no longer a phenomenon peculiar to California.
Polluted water is no longer 1xbet online games login a hazard of the Potomac or Lake Erie or the Hudson or any other place.
In 1xbet online games login opinion, all of mankind is just plunging headlong into an environmental emergency.
And yet many people still refuse to face 1xbet online games login .
1xbet online games login is not always an easy sign to find out and recognize the warning signals.
They are pretty subtle. They are something like the symptoms of cancer — 1xbet online games login don't find them right away but believe me they are just as deadly.
1xbet online games login 's a terrible paradox — air and water and land — the very elements which attracted those early settlers out to our country — are being threatened by our efforts to build a good and vigorous society.
We are beginning to realize that the best things in life are not free. If we don't pay the cost to protect them, believe 1xbet online games login we shall lose them.
1xbet online games login know, there is toxic air floating around the world and those dangerous elements in that air are really invisible and yet they've been found by scientists, around the South Pole and in the snow layers of Antarctica.
Our rivers, the life system of our land, are becoming the death system for the oceans.
Millions of tons of pollutants and pesticides are being poured 1xbet online games login the sea, threatening to destroy man's greatest source for future food and oxygen.
Well, now, 1xbet online games login can say that Manhattan, Kansas, is a long way from the ocean.
. . . But even here, we must become aware and become more concerned 1xbet online games login the quality of this essential element of our total life system.
1xbet online games login know, when I was a kid my mother would say "Walter, Kansans are realists. They are like our neighbors in Missouri, the 'show me' state."
Pollution Is A Reality
I hope that if 1xbet online games login remember nothing else from my remarks today, 1xbet online games login will remember my warning that pollution is just not something politically popular to talk about.
1xbet online games login is a worldwide threat of the greatest magnitude.
The question before us is this: "Can we remold our mental attitudes and retool our industry fast enough to do something about 1xbet online games login ?"
I believe we 1xbet online games login .
My belief — and 1xbet online games login is mainly a statement of faith, not of fact — is based on faith in the heart of the future — the great university campuses such as this.
The young 1xbet online games login of this country have risen to the moment.
1xbet online games login have challenged the very foundations of our value system.
They ask, "1xbet online games login we afford to consume everything that we 1xbet online games login afford to buy?"
I have met with hundreds of students in recent months, and these young 1xbet online games login want to know:
"What right have we — in the time-span of a few generations — to use up a majority of the irreplaceable natural resources which 1xbet online games login took millions of years to produce?"
1xbet online games login ask, "What will be left for our children? And their children in turn?"
They talk about the "1xbet online games login ethics" — the rights of plants and animals to continue to exist in an ecological balance.
These are serious questions. And I am serious 1xbet online games login trying to answer them.
Government Impact
What concerns me as an official responsible to 1xbet online games login and all Americans, is how the input from the concerned young people can have a meaningful impact on the centers of governmental activity.
Life is changing so fast nowadays and especially in the seventies that we 1xbet online games login no longer tolerate the old pace of a good idea fighting its way through established bureaucracy.
A good idea today 1xbet online games login be out of date in a year, or even in a matter of months.
To fight this "bureaucratic breakdown" in the Department of the Interior, we have taken several steps.
Last month I set up in 1xbet online games login office a "Task Force on Environmental Education and Youth Activities." This coordinating body will serve as a clearinghouse and a creative center for a number of functions.
Scope
1xbet online games login will give us immediate access to a new program called "SCOPE" — Student Councils on Pollution and Environment.
SCOPE is a unique experiment in government — student relationships.
1xbet online games login are being invited to participate directly with the government on emerging national issues of immense proportions.
The Federal Water Pollution Control Administration in the Department of Interior has established SCOPE committees in each of the nine regions across the 1xbet online games login .
These committees will serve as a channel through which students 1xbet online games login contact federal authorities, and secure technical information developed by various federal agencies.
Through SCOPE we are showing government that 1xbet online games login really pays to listen — as well as talk!
We are developing methods to insure that student suggestions, and their views on environmental problems — and program priorities — 1xbet online games login reach us directly — and by us I mean the Secretary of the Interior.
Since meeting with representatives from each of the nine regions, I have decided to expand this program from FWPCA, 1xbet online games login a wider framework.
We are exploring the possibilities of expanding 1xbet online games login to an interdepartmental organization. In this way 1xbet online games login could have an impact on all the federal agencies working on pollution problems.
"Early Warning System"
Already the SCOPE representatives are serving as part of a 1xbet online games login motivated, public "early warning system".
When pollution is spotted — or major projects are launched without regard for the 1xbet online games login , SCOPE is notifying the authorities.
And now, as I travel around the country, I will be meeting with the regional SCOPE groups to discuss regional concerns.
Today will see the first of 1xbet online games login meetings, with the SCOPE group here at Kansas State.
Pollution will only be eradicated when the government and the public work together on 1xbet online games login as a team.
I am encouraged that the student 1xbet online games login is responding.
We look forward to combining the enthusiasm and the fresh ideas of youth with the technical competence and the enforcement capacity of the federal government.
We also have many young 1xbet online games login who want to take a full time role in the environment battle.
Because the crisis we face is much deeper than just pollution. 1xbet online games login has to do with the entire way men and women live.
For this reason, I have called for creation of a National 1xbet online games login Service Force, patterned somewhat after the Peace Corps.
"1xbet online games login Peace Corps"
... In fact, a few editors around the nation have already called this proposed organization the "1xbet online games login Peace Corps."
We have received hundreds of letters from 1xbet online games login doctors, undergraduates, engineers, high school students, biologists, and architects.
These are young 1xbet online games login who are eager and have a desire to participate.
We are going to suggest that this group take the formal name of 1xbet online games login control organization, or "ECO" (E-CO).
The idea is to place young talent in 1xbet online games login areas of the nation needing study and help the most.
Spontaneous groups on the grass roots level have already sprung up across the country.
And I believe that ECO members can provide leadership for those willing to really bring forth the effort and give 1xbet online games login the direction that is needed.
An example — at the secondary education level, ECO could help fill the gap in schools which do not have the trained personnel to meet the mushrooming demands of the 1xbet online games login education.
The scientists, the lawyers, and the social scientists — those 1xbet online games login participate could lend their skills to the community leaders in any given region to evaluate, plan and coordinate, and above all, execute new approaches to ecological problems.
Educated, and educating others in 1xbet online games login problems, these Americans are determined to find solutions — and believe me, with or without governmental help.
An 1xbet online games login And An Obligation
This makes the situation both an opportunity — and an obligation — for this 1xbet online games login .
The opportunity: At a time when we are beginning to realize the deteriorating condition of our environment, the Administration 1xbet online games login acquire invaluable aid — in terms of a commitment, knowledge, and sheer manpower — to bring about a reversal in ecological trends. Some are highly skilled and others are only beginning. But the task at hand has a broad range of needs.
The obligation: Most of these individuals are generally "apolitical," or even "anti-political."
The 1xbet online games login crisis may well present our last chance to bring significant numbers of potential future leaders back into the political process.
Government Must Respond
Government can and must prove that 1xbet online games login can respond, and encourage youth involvement.
We are finding that a highly developed society such as ours demands a whole new breed of professionals — people who 1xbet online games login study both ecology and economics — and biology and philosophy.
We need 1xbet online games login who are broad enough in their exposure to have a good balanced judgment.
These must be 1xbet online games login who are ready to do exhaustive research and wide field work — men and women who are fascinated by nature and the needs of man and how we live totally.
There has been a lot of talk — 1xbet online games login hear it today and throughout the nation — about students and the environmental movement. ... In fact, 1xbet online games login can get into an argument from some who call it the "Environment Bag" ... as some of my young staff people sometimes refer to it — 1xbet online games login know, is a "sellout."
... A 1xbet online games login of the issues of the day.
For example, 1xbet online games login may have heard that a group of students demonstrated against me when I spoke at a great university a few weeks ago at Princeton — Although more than a thousand students signed a petition that following week to apologize for their action.
During 1xbet online games login speech, I would like to mention that I was interrupted with shouts like,
"What 1xbet online games login racism and black liberation?"
1xbet online games login attitude about these protests, and others, is this:
A Clean 1xbet online games login For All Americans
As Secretary of the Interior, a clean environment for all Americans — that is 1xbet online games login responsibility — and that is 1xbet online games login commitment.
For example, I want to make sure that when we get our black Americans out of the ghettos . . . that 1xbet online games login have somewhere worth getting into.
By no measure does the 1xbet online games login crusade conflict with man's struggle for equal treatment and justice.
I think it is complementary to any attempt to improve the quality of an individual's life. It is forcing us to realize that there really is just one race and 1xbet online games login know that is the human race.
America for many, many years since its birth has been a crusading 1xbet online games login .
Recently I addressed the American Petroleum Institute and this is what I told them:
"The oil 1xbet online games login — like much of today's 1xbet online games login — stands in danger of becoming the monster of American society."
"This is a crusading 1xbet online games login . . . and the crusaders are up in arms."
The enemy is becoming very clear to the people ... 1xbet online games login is those who foul the nation's air and water . . . and those who stand in a position of authority to do something about the destruction four resources — but who do nothing.
The Challenge
I challenge 1xbet online games login — as 1xbet online games login are challenging government — to respond to national and world needs.
Industry does not produce just for its own good. They don't make cars just because they enjoy making cars . . . nor does any manufacturer produce a product without knowing that he has a market for it. They produce because 1xbet online games login , we, we all want — and often need — the things they produce.
1xbet online games login are challenging government to regulate broadly and prosecute those who pollute — and I am moving to meet that challenge, as 1xbet online games login can see in our recent request for a Grand Jury investigation into oil pollution in the Gulf of Mexico.
My challenge to 1xbet online games login is to crusade not only against the sins of the past, which 1xbet online games login can blame on the older generation, but to also crusade to safeguard the future by changing our priorities and even our life-styles.
I say this — Please do not fall for the temptation to write-off government or industry. There are elements in both groups 1xbet online games login are determined to find new ways of doing things and to solve these problems.
Many of us — I 1xbet online games login many of our Cabinetmen — are searching for how to streamline clumsy bureaucracy. We are fighting daily to create a country in which man's surroundings are not sacrificed by his technological advance.
Air — Water — Land
At stake are the most precious ingredients for sustaining life.
— Air that 1xbet online games login can not only breathe without seeing or choking but which really refreshes 1xbet online games login and invigorates 1xbet online games login .
— Clean water to drink and swim in. Well 1xbet online games login know that many of these things we still have — but it is time to beware.
— We 1xbet online games login to look at land that is not only the producer of our food and energy, but which restores the soul of man through its beauty and through its very basic contact with nature.
1xbet online games login No Mistake
But make no mistake about this — if the people leave the job just to government — and if they do nothing but protest — 1xbet online games login will not be done.
1xbet online games login will take positive achievement and a commitment on the part of every American.
My deepest wish is that my native State of Kansas — 1xbet online games login people right here — lead the way in producing a new generation with a new set of values —
A generation that really wants to be part of the solution and not of the problem.
A generation dedicated to caring for the Earth and all the people that live on 1xbet online games login .
And I know just by looking in your faces the kind of people 1xbet online games login are, that 1xbet online games login will respond to this challenge and 1xbet online games login will win!
Thank 1xbet online games login .